We went down to central Florida to visit family for Thanksgiving. We were staying in housing close to Lake Monroe in Sanford. In the morning we enjoyed walking along the lake. Not surprisingly, there were lots of boats in the lake though there is only one in this particular picture.

 There were lots of other people walking along the lake, many with their canine companion (s).

We don’t see many palm trees in our part of the world, so it was neat to see the ones lining the side of the walk closest to the lake.  Many of them were full of berries.

 The birds were munching up on the berries, and there was another familiar critter in the trees…

Squirrel in Palm Tree.

Yes, these furry little beasties seem to be everywhere!  We have lots running around in our walnut, hickory, and oak trees back home, but they look to be equally at home in the palm trees in Florida.

However, this little squirrel didn’t limit itself to berries from the palm trees.  It also looked for bread crumbs on the sidewalk, and when it saw one, it went flying across the walk to pounce on it.

Yep, things are squirrely in Sanford!

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The woods in my world are always interesting. There’s always something new to see, even if I go over the same path every day. Birds, flowers, a different pattern of light on a tree – I just never know what I might see. But sometimes a visit to the woods is really special.

Sometimes there are little people in the woods.  It’s true! Recently when I was in the woods, I saw the most beautiful little fairy queen.

Isn’t she precious? I wish I could see her there each and every day, but most of the time she lives an alternate life far north of here, in Canada. There’s she’s a busy little person with therapy sessions, doctor visits, and playing at home. She has a sunny disposition, and is a delight to be around.

Every year Ellie plays dress-up and Grandma takes pictures for a calendar.  We use a mix of these fantasy photos and pictures from her every day life for the calendars.  The profits from selling these calendars (and one I make with farm life pictures) help pay for some of the expenses of special equipment, therapy and other stuff Ellie needs because she has Cerebral Palsy. 

She’s one of the best things in my world.

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“Tag, I’m it!”

Yes, a blogging buddy from Laughing Orca Ranch decided to tag me for the ‘6 Things About Me”. Without further ado, here are my six things…

1. I have a 3-year old granddaughter with Cerebral Palsy, and every year I make special calendars to sell. The profits help with her expenses for therapy and special equipment and stuff.

Our little ballerina stars in this picture for February.

2. I grew up on a farm, during which time I declared I never wanted to be tied down like that when I grew up. Always worrying about taking care of the animals! Every summer spent in the hayfield and garden! But here I am, on the farm again, and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

3. I’ve always wanted a parrot. I mean, a bird that talks? How cool is that? A couple of years ago I got one as a rescue. The lady said the parrot was “molting”, but alas! When I saw it, I knew better. The pattern of bare neck and chest, plus no tail feathers, was indicative of plucking problems common with an African Grey. I paid the lady and took the parrot. She did allow her beautiful red tail feathers to grow back, but I don’t think she’ll ever get over the habit of plucking the feathers on her neck and upper chest.

4. I live with chronic pain, a thoracic neuralgia on the right side of my body, and fibromyalgia, and the accompanying fatigue, so sometimes… no, MOST times… I don’t accomplish near as much I want each day.

5. I’ve moved almost 30 times so far, and lived in 7 different states. And no, not because my spouse or I were in the military. I hope to stay right where I am now, figuring my next move will be 6 feet under and I won’t have to pack for that one, ha!

6. I’m an introvert that really likes people, but doesn’t do well out in crowds. Definitely not a party animal. Email and blogs and yes - gasp!  Snail mail! - work well for people contact in my case.

And there you have it, “6 Things About Me.”

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We’ve got some crisp, cold weather this week.  Okay, I should probably say that it’s cold for the south.  I know our northern neighbors would probably snicker at us for whining about a little nip in the air and frost on the ground.

A lot of trees have lost their leaves, but some are still hanging on.  The oak tree at the corner of our front yard and driveway has leaves that have turned rusty red.

Some mornings I get mooned as it is still visible in a lovely blue sky.

We’re having some beautiful sunny days here in the south, even if they’re cold enough to freeze ice in the water buckets!

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On our way back from West Virginia a couple of weeks ago we drove through the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. Our destination was Cumberland Falls State Resort Park.

They have a beautiful lodge. We ate a late lunch there, and got to sit by one of the big windows and check out the view.

This is the Cumberland River.  It flows nearly 700 miles from Harlan, Kentucky, to the Ohio River at Smithland, in the western part of Kentucky.

A sixteen-mile segment from Summer Shoals to Lake Cumberland, which includes the Cumberland Falls area, has been designated a “Kentucky Wild River” and is being preserved in its natural state.

The falls are beautiful, and known as the “Niagara of the South,” with a 125-foot wide curtain of water. At night during a full moon that you can see the moonbow, a phenomenon not found anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere.

Although I don’t live in Kentucky, I think Cumberland Falls is still a beautiful part of My World!

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Almost every morning when I’m out to do the morning chores, my canine companion, Toby, and I go for a walk. We go down through the bottom pasture and into the woods.

We have about 4 acres of woods on our little farm, so although not real big, it’s enough to get in there and not see any civilization.

We had some rain a few days ago, causing a lot more leaves to fall off the trees and carpet the path.

Going into the woods and under the bigger trees makes me feel a little like I’m a hobbit or elf or something, treading along through Middle Earth in the Lord of The Rings.  It’s so tranquil, and a great way to start the morning.

Our usual path through the woods takes us by a big hackberry tree (Celtis occidentalis). The morning sun and a low limb makes an interesting pattern of shade on the big tree’s trunk.

This is the same tree that had all the slugs crawling up and down the trunk earlier this year.  It’s too cold now for such critters to be sliming their way up and down the tree, so we didn’t see any today.

We passed by an old fallen log with a covering of moss, plus an added decoration of a bright red leaf.

Eventually we meander along the creek. With the sun shining so brightly today, it made some nice reflections of the trees in the water.

In the deeper areas of the creek, we can usually see some minnows swimming along. They zip by pretty quickly, so it’s hard to get a picture.

The reflection off the water also makes getting a decent picture difficult, but at least you can see there’s little fish in there!

It doesn’t matter how cold it is, Toby has to splash around in the creek.  He loves playing in water!

Many of the fallen leaves have caught on some rocks in the creek and made a little dam, slowing the flow of the water.

They’ll eventually float away, especially if we get more rain and it raises the water levels for a while. 

Further down the creek there is a fallen log.  It’s been there a long time, and has created another bit of a dam in the creek.

The water and floating leaves rush over one or two little sections.

Listening to the water flowing along is quite soothing.  Maybe a walk in the woods would be better than medicine for high blood pressure or depression!

Here’s another little video taken from the bank hanging over top of the end of the log.  I kind of like this one because at the end a walnut goes floating over and bobs in the water.

On the loop back through the woods, there are ferns here and there. It may be fall, but some things are still green.

Sometimes we wander around the paths in the pasture at the end of our walk, but that’s more fun in the spring and summer when there are butterflies and other bugs livening up the place.

For today, That’s My World is a walk in the woods.

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Yes, things have changed a lot in my hometown area since I was a kid.  There are other big changes in the view from and on the farm where I grew up.  From the top of the hill where the house we built sits, you can see the Pleasants Power Station. 

You can’t miss it.  The power plant looms large in the area these days.  It’s located down the road a little ways in Willow Island, West Virginia.

It dominates the landscape, our history, and our memories.  It looks serene enough in the above picture, but on April 27, 1978, it was the scene of the worst construction disaster in US history. That day is seared into the memory of people living in Pleasants County in much the same way the 9/11 disaster is seared into the country’s collective memory.

At the time, the second of the two 430-foot cooling towers for the new Pleasants Power Station was being built. The men worked on the next section of the tower from scaffolding attached to the previous pour of concrete.

Unfortunately, on April 27, 1978, the concrete was too green and hadn’t hardened enough to hold the scaffolding properly. Contractors were trying to speed up the construction, and in hindsight, it appears safety wasn’t given the priority it should have had.  Key bolts meant to attach the scaffolding to the tower were missing, and other problems were found during investigations after the accident.

Bottom line, the scaffolding ripped out, leaving a scar on the tower about halfway up where a dark line marks the level the concrete failed. There’s another scar on the community as 51 men died that day, tumbling about 166 feet to their death.

Pleasants County became the unwanted focus of media attention.  Many were not kind, and portrayed the people as ignorant hillbillies, yet they were the ones hiding in bushes to film funerals.  They were relentless in their push to get a story and had no respect for the grieving family and friends of those 51 men.  This cruel treatment and skewing of facts left yet another scar on the community.

In the following years, the construction was eventually completed and the towers put into operation.  People living nearby then had a new problem - pollution.  Fine ash settled over houses and cars.  The power plant solved the problem by buying up the houses closest to the power station.

When Dad bought the house we’d built, he sold the old home place to the power company.  As they did with all the other houses they bought, they destroyed it.  In this case, the house was used as a training exercise for local firefighters and burnt down.  I saw a picture of the house burning when we visited Dad last week.  It had a powerful impact to see the house where I grew up in flames.  I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it actually happen.

The story twists yet again, however.  Where the house I was raised in once stood, there is now a memorial to those 51 men who died during the construction of the cooling tower the looms tall in the background.

Anthony Lauer, the grandson of one of the victims, Larry Gale Steele, raised $70,000 as a sixth-grade social studies project to build the memorial.  The names of each of those 51 men who died is written on a bronze plaque attached to the memorial.

This tribute is a constant reminder of those men.  It’s also a reminder of some of the many changes in my hometown. 

You see, while it’s true no one can go “home” again, some people’s hometowns have changed more than others.   And just maybe Pleasants county has seen more changes than most.

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