Overflowing River...

Cheater, cheater pumpkin eater. YES. I am unashamedly cheating. By the time this is over, I will be the Champion Blogger... if only I can learn to modify my blog like PPP does.

You might be a redneck if, know when to wear your waders...


My brother, BB, and I "wadin' in the water, children just wadin' in the water. The Lord's gonna trouble the water.”

Fay (Tropical Storm) meandered over the entire state of Florida late August. As she made her way over the panhandle she tarried and poured water all over the eastern part of Florida, but more importantly South Georgia. Thus begins the story of When Fay Strolled through Town.

Chapter 1

The water for our river flows directly from South Georgia. As Fay approached, we lost power for two days. Nothing compared to the loss of a lineman in the line of duty; May God bless his family. We had watched as reports came from all over Florida recording how much rain Fay had distributed. We were sure that our river would get in our first floor (aka basement/storage area). We needed to get ready. In effort to ease tension and allow us to work unfettered, I took the kids to G’ma's. They might just as well have been on their way to heaven.

However, by the time we arrived, trees were down all over the place. (Has anyone considered questioning our town's perpetual partiality toward trees? What about my sanity – driving in that storm, what was I thinking?) Power was out! What would they eat? Here I had taken them from our generator and grilling heaven to granola and fruit and no microwave. What would G and P do with three young'uns, no power and no entertainment (Politically Correct word for TV)? Should I just take them back home, Ma? They'll be fine. We'll be fine… "duh duh duh duh duh..." (What G says when she's played too long!).

During all the storm issues, I had chatted with some friends about phone service during power outages. How wonderful it is to be able to make a phone call to report an outage when there is one! I remembered that G didn’t have a corded phone. I hit the local dollar store and found almost the last one they had. Good, now at least we can call and check on each other. With the boys and their stuff settled into G’s and the phone hooked up, I was ready to get back home.

I kept telling myself this wasn’t so bad. The linemen were at work and being in the city I was sure power would return shortly. We’ve had worse rain than this. We checked the radar and the hydrologic predictions. They won't raise it tonight, will they? Oh this self talk is bad. Just go to sleep. See what it looks like in the morning. Get some rest.

Check in tomorrow for the next chapter: "I love the waterfront view"

Have you ever been goaded...

into doing something that seems to consume way more time than it should?

That question has nothing to do with my blog today.





But I have pictures. And they have everything to do with my post today. We love our riverhouse, even if from time to time I whine about living 20 miles from the city limits and literally 20 miles from the nearest W*mart. What do you do when you are out of Velve*ta? (I'm sure there's a fancy way to put trademarks on these names, but for now you'll have to assume you know what I'm talking about even if I skip more than one letter per *.) I make my own! Really.



Before I continue, I must add a disclaimer: I'm not confident at the use of HOH, but I'm trying. Please bear with me. Is it "My HOH..." or "HOH was..."?



But here I go again not explaining to you why exactly would I gross you out with a picture of raw flesh when you pull up my blog! He he he! That's what I do when I am goaded. But not really. I did want to share this with you. Down here on the river we have a lovely view from two sides of our house. We are encased in trees (I hold my breath during hurricanes!). Along with our neighbors, we try to have a line in the water most every day that is good for fishing. This day was no exception (don't ask which one it was, but it was last week). My HOH had been gardening all day (I'll have to post more about that another time) and our neighbor had been checking the lines. When he checked this one line it had a fish on it that fought like the dickens (what is the dickens really like, anyways? - s added for irritation of potential readers). After a good fight, the fish was reeled in and wow was he a whopper.



HOH weighed him on our spring scale (google that for science today) and he weighed 10 pounds. I quickly googled how to clean a carp. After sifting through the whining about whether or not it was junk fish (and there really is some junk fish in our river) we found that the scales are tough and require skill in cleaning (not like bream or bass). Well one of the best skills we have is obtaining and using the right tool for the job, which in this case isn't even pictured, but was none the less present in HOHs hand. (This picture only cost one arm!). It's an electric knife, like what some use to carve turkey on Thanksgiving, but we use routinely throughout our days.



You are asking yourself many questions about this winding river. Right now, one would be, did you eat it? No of course not. We caught it, cleaned it, cooked it then we ate it; silly. What about the very fleshy picture at the top, whose finger is it and what is it hilighting? Carp is very bony meat. Some of the bones are shaped like a y. The finger hilights the white tip of a bone. I only saw one in my cooked portion bc my HOH is so good at what he does best: taking care of us. Finally you may be asking what I consider to be most important: did you get sick from eating that lovely flesh? No. In fact, it had the nicest texture of any fish I've ever, ever had. HOH cooked it (see mine cooks, too!) for a very long time to be sure that it was done. It was done and oh it remained tender through it all. A picture is worth a thousand words, but really pictures don't do this meat justice.



Some have likened it to fresh water tuna. I'd agree, except that it has no really fishy taste and HOH likes it but he hates tuna.



Meg, are you happy now?
Did I post before Princess?
Did I post on the one day that she will miss?
Oh I hope she's alright! Pinatas. Teenagers. Parties. BDs....

You live where?

So, my fellow homeschooler and friend has been doing this blog thing. She started it. So now I've caught the bug. I don't think the local e-group of which we are part will tolerate my ramblings about the latest curriculum I found or my really lame puns. Therefore, I'm starting my own blog.

I think It's kinda cool. I get to write. You may or may not read. I'll have sated my keyboarding apetite. (I really hope this hasa spell checker.... Oh, there it is! Ah....)

You see there's this river, folks from out west -really anywhere else- would call it a stream or tributary, it runs right through my front yard. The road is on the back side of the house so even the most annoying people enter as back door guests! Do you know what lives in the river? Fish. Yes, lots of fish. Do you know what happens to lakes, rivers, and streams when it rains? You guessed it, they swell with water. When it rains enough our river swells right into our yard. It makes me queen for a few days in my castle. My castle is complete with rain, boating, wading, swimming and gardening gear. (You get wet when you garden, too!) When the water recedes (as it always does, Thank you for rainbows, Lord) there are certain places where fish are trapped, but naturally. The best thing we can do is catch them and eat them! Right now we have about 200 in our deep freezer waiting for a fish fry with all the fishermen present. Nets are great!

Do you know what else lives in rivers? Crawdads. We have them, too. But that's not all. Our river is the complete package, the real deal. We have mosquitos too. You might argue that you have them and you have no river, but we have river dwelling mosquitos. They are extra thirsty and very fruitful. That's not the big deal around here (according to everyone else), we have cotton mouths and gators to boot! Really, we do have them but they have their house and we have ours. We live here they live there. If they come to visit, it's sure to be their last (except the gators - they're too ornry to ever visit our side of the river. We've got to go boating to see them most of the time!

Back to my friend. She used to live in a different city altogether and enjoy the country life, sans rivers and gators, but now she boasts her life in the city. I'm glad she started blogging.

Final river notes: You don't have to live on the river to seel the snakes. They're everywhere. We had some friends visit today and rather calmly one of the children notified me that down on the ground with my toddler son is a snake of unknown kind. Without shoes I bee-lined to the location. My oldest knows what a moccasin looks like and they all know to steer clear of all snakes. I wasn't too worried. A little prodding brought out a thumb thin oak snake that was very long (2-3 feet) for his breadth. After observing it in our habitat for a while, we proceeded to clear the area and go about our business.

When, I married my dh I knew that this house would be our home. I've always felt at home here.

I promised ramblings and that's what you are getting.