Fall Colors

A colorful shot across a field. I love the one hour drive that I make to the cabin. About thirty minutes of the time I'm in the Cherokee National Forest.


Red is visible alongside the road. Gold, green, yellow also abound.


The last three miles of my ride is on gravel road. This colorful limb hangs over-head.


The view leaving the cabin.



The creek at the cabin is moving ever so slowly.


This is the only tree at the cabin showing any color yet. Maybe there is so little color right at the cabin because the building is down in a low place between two mountains?

Why am I here? Because we have a friend who loves to do things for "Mama Frankie". Kathy came Monday to paint the den, kitchen and hallway of our house. I find that the best thing I can do to relieve stress for them and for me is for me to disappear...so out to the cabin and stayed until about 3:30p when a meat truck passed through the mountains selling meat. I bought $1,400 worth of meat for only $706, including tax. I stuffed as much of the meat into my cabin freezer as the little thing would hold, then was forced to take the remaining meat home. I barely managed to get it all stuffed into the freezer. I won't have to buy meat for at least four months.

O.K. -- so the painting was still going on -- which meant that yesterday morning (Tuesday) I also got up and hurried out the door to escape to the mountains!

Visitors

I have always loved company. It doesn't matter who they are, when they come, or what the circumstances. We had a saying at our house growing up that if we didn't have a bed we would "drive a nail in the wall to hang company on", meaning that we would make room for them to stay awhile. I can remember many times us three boys giving up our bed and sleeping on a quilt thrown on the floor to make room for guests. But it was always fun! Part of the fun was the good eats - cause Mama always cooked her best for visitors. Part of the joy was that sometimes the visitors had kids my age. Some were kinfolks - but not all. It didn't matter, we just enjoyed visiting with the folks.

And especially do I love company when it's someone I haven't seen in a long while - like this visit Sunday night and yesterday by my 1st cousin, Terry Junius Jones and his lovely wife Trish, who now reside in Alabama. In town, I was awakened from my afternoon nap by their knock on the kitchen door (all strange visitors come to the front door). After a good visit at the house in town on Sunday night - we laid out our plans for Monday by calling my Mom and starting the day at her apartment for breakfast of mullet roe with grits! Junius' career has been commercial fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico. He brought these fresh frozen fish roe up to Mom because he knows how much she enjoys them. And we made her day by visiting with her and allowing her to cook for us. She still loves visitors too.

Then we headed out to the cabin where I cooked deer steaks, baked potatoes, and had cake, cinnamon rolls and muscadines for dessert!


Of course I made a fresh pot of coffee which I poured into a thermos bottle to keep it warm.


Canned biscuits to go with our deer steak - unfortunately I left them in the oven just a minute too long but the visitors bragged on them anyway.


These venison steaks cooked up to perfection! They went down well with the baked Idaho potatoes.


These delicious cinnamon rolls were just part of dessert. A berry cake, made by daughter Ruthie - and muscadines - and scuppernongs topped it off.



Delightful Trish was offering to help clean up the dishes but I insisted that it was my job today.


Took them outside to the fire pit where we had a camp-fire going. We needed the fire as the weather was a cool 41 degrees this morning - and only up to 55 for a high.


Sitting here and re-hashing stories from our past times with Grandpa and Grandma Jones consumed a good portion of our day. We also took the vacuum cleaner apart and put it back together so I could vacuum the floor inside. The gas heater was not working properly so Junius helped me take it out of the fireplace box and into the truck to take to town for repairs. And finally, just as I was finished with the dishes - can you believe it? - the water-pump stopped working. Our last item of work was to remove it and place it in the truck to take to town for replacement. Yes, we had our inconveniences - But we had a GREAT time with our visitors!!!