The Collegian Outing

Today was the St. Elmo Presbyterian Church Collegian Outing at Leahaven.  Some of the students keep Herb company while he grills sausages in the rain for 25 people.

Somebody's got a lot of energy after that big meal!  I hope the sausages settled first!

The rain let up in time for the hay ride.  The girls opted for the comfy, straw-bale ride . . .

. . . while a bunch of the guys piled onto the loader.

Kayaking . . .

. . . sometimes with "barnacles" hanging on!

Canoeing . . .

. . . can be dangerous if you've previously tipped over someone's kayak!  Hmm, I thought vengeance was the Lord's!

A lost "sole" is found!  Somebody pulled this up from the mud near the dock, and Phyllis exclaimed, "That's my shoe!"  Sure enough, it was a wading shoe she had lost two years ago, and the fish apparently liked it.  Not much was left but the sole!

Sing a Song of September

We spent Thursday evening and Friday at Leahaven last week, trying to get some work done before our next groups of guests arrive.  We needed some supplies, so we drove into Henagar to shop and eat an early dinner.  We had a very mediocre Mexican meal, but the country karaoke afterwards made it worthwhile.  There were some really talented people singing!  If you're ever at Leahaven on Thursday night, it's worth eating there to enjoy the local color!

After we put away the shopping, we drove the truck down to the stock pond to see if we could see the beavers.  There was no sign of them, but there were birds singing from the woods, bats zooming overhead catching mosquitos, and frogs plopping into the water.  The sky was doubly beautiful as we enjoyed its reflection in the water. It seems quite appropriate that my Sunday school lesson about the 6th commandment used the image of our own reflection in a pond to explain to the children about us being made in God's image!

It got so dark we could hardly see the sky reflected in the water, when Herb touched my arm and breathed, "Look!"  I peered around him and there, barely 10 feet away, was a possum.  He didn't seem very scared of us, although he froze when my flash went off.  Maybe it mesmerized him, because he sat for two portraits!

I enhanced this one so he shows up better.  I'm so glad God made possums!  As soon as we got back to the house, I read a children's book about them.  Did you know: 
They are the only North American marsupial and have more teeth than any other North American mammal--50! They usually have up to 16 babies, but the mother only has 13 nipples in her pouch. After birth each baby (which looks like an embryo) finds its way to the pouch, latches onto a nipple, and doesn't let go till it's ready to leave the pouch. Only the first 13 survive. Isn't that sad?

Our eventful country evening ended with a light show as the half moon (the glow makes it look full) sailed in and out of the clouds above our heads. (Yes, I know the clouds really sailed past the moon, but I'm exercising my poetic license!)

 The next day began with a stunning golden sunrise out the back door and toast made in the new toaster, purchased with a thank offering from a previous guest.  No more burning toast on the griddle!

While Herb mowed the lawn with the push mower, I drew bush-hog duty.  I consider that I got the long end of that stick!  :)  There's been a lot of rain on Sand Mountain compared to our home in Georgia, and the road to the lake had nearly disappeared under long grass.  I bush-hogged from the gate, around the barn, out to the cabin at the lake and around the grove of trees there, and on beyond the lake to the campground above it.

Here are some before and after pictures:

Meanwhile Herb had finished the lawn and started to work on the cabin.  He wanted to panel the inside walls to cover up the insulation, but first he had to add extra studs.  Tony seems to have spaced them very randomly when he framed the cabin!  Nothing ever goes as fast as you think it will, but Herb made great progress until he ran out of siding.  So he swept it all very nicely and headed back to the house.

By that time I was just about finished cleaning.  From tractor to vacuum, I do it all!  :)  One last touch was making the master bed with the new bedspread the Lord provided to replace the mish-mash of throws I was using before. I found this great "old rose" bedspread in a two-year old LLBean catalog and thought it would be perfect. When I called to see if they still had it, I found that they do and that I had almost enough money in LLBean coupons to pay for it.  Within a few days, a thank-you check arrived from a guest, enough to finish the purchase! What a joy to see God provide an "extra" blessing--unlooked for and unexpected--for our guests.

As we finished our work and loaded up the truck to head home, I couldn't resist photographing these last views that capture the peaceful ambience of Leahaven in September. Wind waving over the long grass in the field . . .

. . . and fall-tinted trees reflected in the lake refresh our spirits after a hard day's work.  May this beautiful corner of God's creation continue to bless His servants who come here to rest. 

The Mule Pull at Ider's Mule Days

If you ever happen to be staying at Leahaven over Labor Day weekend, you've got to head over to Ider for Mule Days!  The Mule Pull takes place from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and it is the experience of a lifetime! 

The first time I ever saw the Mule Pull was Labor Day 2007.  Jenny and I had heard about it and decided to see what it was.  A friendly man standing near us took it upon himself to answer our questions, like "Why are those men dressed up in orange-striped pants like prisoners?"  "Because they are prisoners, and this is part of their prison detail!"

The barred metal framework at the left of the photo is a metal sledge. Concrete blocks are stacked on it by the prisoners to equal the weight a particular team of mules is supposed to pull.  Any team that fails to pull its load the minimum distance (28 feet, I think) without stopping is eliminated.  Each team that qualifies moves up to a higher weight for the next pull. At the end of the contest, the last team standing is the winner.

A team usually has three handlers: the driver and two helpers.  The team is driven to the sledge, then the helpers hold their heads while the driver backs them into place so their harness can be attached to the chain at the bottom of the sledge.

The mules are so eager to pull that they are literally chomping at the bit, prancing, and jumping out of their skins. The helpers have to hold their heads to keep them from pulling before they're hitched to the load and the starter is ready. Sometimes the mules actually lift the helpers off their feet.  They're literally rarin' to go!

 

Once the command to go is given, it's a throat-choking sight to watch these animals hunker down and heave against thousands of pounds of dead weight until by sheer will-power they get it moving, bit by bit, and go charging towards the crowd at the opposite end of the fence.  Sometimes it looks like they're going to keep on going right through fence and spectators alike!  When they fail to qualify, you can tell they know it, but when they've made a good pull, you can see them bursting with pride.

The weight the teams pull depends on the weight of the animals themselves.  I tried calling a number I found online to ask some questions, and I ended up talking to the organizer himself, Mr. Dan Allen, who kindly explained the rules to me.  The pull starts with 3000 lbs.  Say the smallest team weighs 3200 lbs., and  it successfully pulls 3000 lbs.  Let's say the next team weighs 3300 lbs.  The prisoners add 100 lbs. (2 blocks) to the sledge as a handicap to make up for the difference in weight between the two teams, so that team has to pull 3100 lbs. to avoid elimination.  If the next team weighs 3500 lbs., it gets a handicap of 300 lbs. (because it weighs 300 lbs. more than the first team) and has to pull 3300 lbs. to stay in the competition.

Once the first round has finished, it's time for the first team to make its second pull.  Each round of the pull adds 300 lbs. to the starting weight.  This time the first team will have to pull 3300 lbs., so the prisoners probably have to remove blocks pulled by the last, biggest team to get down to 3300 lbs.  You can tell the prisoners end up moving each block many, many times! You've gotta feel kind of sorry for them. The mules get cheers, praise and pride from hauling their loads; all the prisoners get is a day out of jail working their butts off in the hot sun!

Once the Mule Pull is over, it's time for the Horse Pull.  Horses and mules compete separately because horses are stronger.  My observation is that they also seem to be more tractable, if less excited about pulling.

Here's a photo of the winning mule team in 2008.  You can see how high they're holding their heads.  What you can't see is that they are prancing with such pride that they're practically prancing in place like the Lippizaners' piaffe.  The record pulls to beat are 7700 lbs. for a mule team and 10,500 lbs. for a horse team.  The prize for the winning horse team is $500 and for the winning mule team, $300.  Nobody's ever going to get rich winning a mule pull, especially considering that teams come from all over the US to compete, but it's obvious that you can't put a price on the pride the winners feel.

Work Day, Part II

This was one of those projects that was harder than I thought it would be and took longer than I thought it was going to, but I finally got it done!  Both the master bedside tables are shabby chic-ed and back where they belong.

This is also one of those projects that is going to give me a feeling of satisfaction every time I go in the bedroom! 

A couple years ago, I got several discontinued books from a fabric store, cut out the papers I liked, and recycled the rest.  I used some of them to make trays, clocks, and photo mats for the Leahaven house, and today I used some more to line all the dresser drawers.

What fun it is to re-purpose, re-use, and re-cycle!

Play Day at the Lake

Leahaven served as the site for a delightful family get-together in early August, and we spent several afternoons at the lake with my sister and her family.  Herb got some help doing something we've wanted to do for the past two years, measure the depth of the lake.  We found that it is 19' at the deepest point (which would make it easily 20' when full).  Once that little task was done, all that remained was to relax and have fun.

We did it all:  Laze on the dock, swim, paddle on the floats . . .

. . . take leisurely tours of the lake in the kayak . . .

. . . have kayak races . . .

. . . play with Zephyr and watch her try to catch splashes . . .

. . . and hold a jumping contest.  We had numerous contests:  farthest jump, highest jump, biggest splash, smallest splash, bravest jump, etc.  Everyone won at least one!

I think this picture says it all.  Just dive in and enjoy it!

Work Day

Lots of people have been enjoying Leahaven recently.  In fact, it's been occupied almost half of July, and we have had to turn people away because the weekends filled up so fast.  Part of making peoples' stay pleasant involves keeping the property and house in good order.  Leahaven has gotten more rain than we have here at home, and the grass grows like nobody's business!  So Herb takes one day a week to mow and edge; if time and weather permit, he does other work.  Yesterday he bush-hogged part of the back pasture, a tedious job in the baking sun, thanks to the rip-rap dams put in by the strip-miners back in the 70's to stop erosion.  They stop a bush-hog blade, too, if you hit one in the long grass!  If he ever catches up with the bush-hogging, there are fences to be mended, the cabin to finish siding inside and out, and screen doors to hang on the cabin.  And then it will be time to mow the grass again . . .

Thanks to thoughtful guests who have done a great job of cleaning, I've had very little to do inside.  But dust collects, cobwebs multiply overnight, and bugs manage to get onto the windowsills.  So after some touch-up cleaning, I got back to a project I began months ago.  Inspired by some of the magazines I read, I decided to "shabby chic" the bedside tables with some country white paint.  I had already sanded one table and put the first coat on when I got side-tracked.  So yesterday I put two more coats of paint on, sanded the other table, and put its first coat on.  Two more coats of paint, sand-paper work to scuff it up, an antiquing glaze of wood stain, old wallpaper to line the drawers, and I'll be ready to get back to cleaning . . .

O, Taste and See that God is Good!

Our grand-daughter Charis is wholeheartedly tasting God's goodness as she devours Leahaven blackberries that her daddy picked during a prayer retreat there this past weekend.  Charis and her mommy were travelling, and what better surprise to come home to than a great big bowl of blackberries for breakfast, compliments of Daddy?

If only we could all taste and see with such abandon, how much more might we enjoy our Abba Father's abundant goodness!

Compliments of Connie

Here is a glimpse of the stock pond, which shall hereafter be known as the Beaver Pond, as seen through the eyes of a couple who truly love Leahaven, Raulices and Connie Fernandez.  Connie helped us find Leahaven almost three years ago, devoting countless hours (and, not to be indelicate, gallons of sweat!) tramping over hot fields in August heat.  She really grasped our vision for what we were hoping to do, and when she and I first saw Leahaven that hot August 2007, we both knew that our search was over.  How appropriate that Connie and Raulices took what I consider the most beautiful picture ever taken of this particular spot!  Thank you both for sharing your list of wildlife sightings (which inspired the Flora and Fauna page) and especially for sharing this gorgeous photo!

Wild About Blackberries

The wild blackberries are ripe!  We probably have enough blackberry bushes at Leahaven to supply a small country!

Herb is there today and has already picked a bunch of berries.  Every year at this time he goes on a mission to pick as many of the berries as he can before they dry up.  I'm sorry to say, it's a losing battle!  But we enjoy the spoils of war regularly until the following season.

Here are Jean-Marc and Jenny--armed with walking sticks to fend off any berry-loving snakes--showing off their spoils two summers ago.  Anyone who stays at Leahaven for the next few weeks has a berry bonanza awaiting them!

Operation ABC

Wednesday was Operation ABC--Anti Beaver Campaign.  This was how we found the pond, very full and right up to the edge of the road.

Herb carried the pipe he bought down to the pond.  He couldn't drive the Beast, our SUV, with the loaded trailer that far because the soggy road is so rutted!  Bad beavers!

Herb also brought down a frame he made to hold the pipe in place.  He ended up not even needing to use it.  Know why?  Look at the next picture and guess . . .

The beavers took one look at his scowl and took off running as fast as they could go!  Last I heard they were in Florida, headed for Cuba!

Actually, he was thinking about how to proceed, and no, the beavers didn't really run.  He didn't need the frame because the whole Operation ABC ended up being simpler than we had thought.

Herb did have to get pretty wet, though!  Better him than me--all I could think of was snakes!  So I stood safely on the big rock at the water's edge and took pictures!

To our surprise, this is what the beavers' dam looks like now!

First, Herb tore away some of the dam at one side far enough down to lay a piece of solid pipe right through the middle of the dam.

Next, he patted mud and debris back on top of the pipe to repair the hole in the dam.  It didn't look quite like the beavers had made it, but they didn't find it necessary to come back and repair it during the night.  I figure if his work passed the beavers' inspection code, it was pretty good!

Then Herb laid two holey lengths of pipe in the pond and connected them to the dam pipe.

He did not have to do this all alone.  Besides me helpfully taking pictures, he had both dogs to help.  Hero went gracefully leaping after field mice in the grass at the pond's edge.

Zephyr was REALLY helpful, setting out to single-handedly devour the entire dam, stick by stick!

She discovered that she could "tightrope walk" on the pipe, which she did happily until she lost her balance and rolled over into the water.  As much as she loves water, she doesn't like to swim, so she headed back to water that was no deeper than her belly.

Hero, meanwhile, had discovered frogs, and for the first time in his life he ventured to put his feet in the water.  As long as he could keep his feet on the ground, he was happy hunting frogs!

While the dogs were busy, Herb had been, too.  The pipe kept wanting to float, but the wooden frame seemed over-kill, so he wired a couple of fence posts to the pipe . . .

. . . and that was all it took to sink it to the level he wanted it at.

Two more lengths of holey pipe laid below the dam in the run-off stream, and we had success!  Operation ABC was up and running--literally!

This was how we left the pond that afternoon.

After dinner we spent about an hour standing out there waiting to see if the beavers would come out to repair the dam or try to block up the pipe.  We thought we saw a bit of wake, but it was too cloudy for the sunset to help illuminate things for us.  We did see about two dozen swallows darting through the air above the pond, hopefully devouring mosquitos!  And we saw a gorgeous blue heron fly right over our heads, honking mournfully as he went.

Thursday morning before we left, we walked out to check on the status of Operation ABC.  The pond was definitely down, and the water was still running.  Herb said the dam was untouched, so we're hoping the beavers are going to accept the status quo.

Compare this to the previous picture of the rock, and see for yourself!  I think we'll send a copy of this report to the FBI.  They might be so impressed with our handling of Operation ABC that they may want to enlist our help in one of their operations!  :)