Sunny Days at Last

It seems boys and girls that fall has at last truly fallen around here at the Kudzu Grotto (KG).

While yesterday and today were nice and sunny the temperature has dropped into the 50's during the day and somewhere just above freezing in the early morning hours.

But that didn't deter this young buck and his lady friend from feasting on the Breakfast buffet spread under the huge red oak tree in the front yard.



Only a 4 pointer, he was squiring her around the grounds with all the aplomb of an 8 pointer sure of his dominance over all comers. Of course that may have had something to do with them being in the middle of a subdivision and more mature bucks were being a bit more cautious in the philandering on this the first weekend of gun season here in the northern Piedmont of Georgia. Discretion that this youngster will have to learn if he wants to stay out of the frying pan or off the grill.

They came tiptoeing out into the yard at about 8 am and had a fine time till the neighbor started up his pickup truck.

Yesterday was also a time of rushing down to Walnut Grove to pick up the wife and carrying her to the emergency room at Athens Regional after a tumble from atop a rickety ladder to land in the tub in her sisters soon to be new abode.

It had me a bit worried to be sure as she is usually not one to call about a bruise, but this one was on the point of her left elbow and swelled and hurt quite a bit.

Thankfully it was just a serious bruise and nothing was broken or chipped as we had at first worried.

Of course it only took three hours for the Doctor to finally call us out of the waiting room to tell us that the X-rays showed nothing broken and then another hour waiting for the nurse to wrap her elbow in an Ace Bandage and finally after tracking the nurse down getting her discharge paper.

Have you sat in an Emergency Room waiting room lately? I don't recommend it as being on the top ten list of things to do on a Sunday Evening. I wanted to come home and take a bath in Listerine after hearing all the coughing and sniffling going on.

Of course after we had been there 3 hours we remembered the Doctor on call facility on the other side of town. Mark that down to the onset of the old timers disease in both of us. Next time for sure.

I'm just glad she didn't break a hip. Guess all them calcium tablets have done a little bit of good.

She's her Daddy's little Princess

She's also her Paw-Paw's little pumpkin.

I just remembered where I heard that title for the first time.

My Dad had a cousin....older by probably 20 years at least and more likely 30, hell, it was 35 years (I just did the math). At least one generation between them.....maybe a 3rd or 4th cousin, but we all called him Uncle Hershel. He had a small farm and had always been a small farmer in Dacula where I was raised. (Back then we were probably related in some way to 25% of the population in Gwinnett, County in one way or another.)

He'd work for my Dad on the dairy farm when we needed a little extra help which was a lot of the time. Also help out over at my Grandpa's since he was related to us through my Dad's maternal Grandmother Francis Hinton Mahaffey.

He'd married (I don't know if it was the second time, might have been the first) a widow woman when he was 65 years old and it wasn't long before she bore him a son (her second).

Uncle Hershel had brought his young son with him to visit us one afternoon while we were milking cows. The son was maybe 2 years old or less.....old enough to say a few words anyway. Uncle Hershel was as proud as a Peacock in full strut showing off his son.......carrying him held high up against his shoulder. He'd ask the boy what his name was and he'd say "Pumpkin" and Uncle Hershel would smile like the sun coming up over the Atlantic and say, "that's right, my Pumpkin".

So I guess that might be where I picked up the habit of referring to our small children as "Pumpkin". Come to think of it, I still call some of the grown ups "Pumpkin".

Anyway, back to the little princess.

We kept her for most of the 10 days that her parents were gone on their annual hunting trip to Wyoming (with a little help from her Aunt Hope) (Mama and Daddy each got two antelope and a mule deer) and enjoyed just about every minute of it. (Her Nannie would say EVERY minute)

Today the wife remembered one of the little things the pumpkin did that I didn't know about at the time.

Our sofa and love seat in the living room are covered in real genuine Naugahyde (remember that?) and while watching TV one day while Nannie was in the kitchen preparing supper she came into the kitchen with her little lips pouted up and a apprehensive look on her face and led her Nannie back to the couch and confessed that she had poked about 4 or 5 small holes in the arm of the sofa with the end of a comb she'd been combing her hair with. (Not big holes and a couple were not even all the way through the vinyl.) I'm sure her little heart was near breaking to have to admit it but her pure little heart couldn't tell a lie or pretend it didn't happen. I have to admit that just thinking about it now causes a little catch in my throat that she was brave enough to go tell Nannie of her little indiscretion.

Perhaps that is because I can remember back a long, long, long time ago to the day my Mother came into the living room and caught me In flagrante delicto a'pokin' holes in the freshly recovered naugahyde couch with one of the little Case knives that my Grandpa was fond of buying my little 4 year old self when he'd carry me to the feed store with him.

I don't remember if I got my little ass whipped for the crime or not (probably, but I can sure remember how horrified she had been of my actions), but if not I damn well deserved it.

It's a little easier to consider it an amusing little incident when it's one of the grandchildren and it's a week after it happened, but my little Pumpkin knew she'd done wrong and 'fessed up to it.

I'm pretty damn proud of her for that.

Another one (well actually three) bites the dust

It seems lately that hardly a week goes by that the weekend news doesn't have an article or report about another bank(s)closing.

Unless it happened to your bank you probably put it down to just another hiccup in the ongoing illness that besets the national and global economy. Ho-hum......well, that's what the FDIC is for. They'll take care of things. Right?.......Right??

This weekends closings come in Michigan, Colorado and Minnesota. Between them the three banks had deposits of $585,300,000.00 and assets, which really means loans outstanding, of $633,800,000.00.

Some would ask, "if the banks are supposed to have a reserve of 10% how can they loan out more money than they take in"?

It's not too hard if you take a close look at the second largest criminal enterprise in the country, second only to the bloated, diseased Federal Government.

No wonder we're in such a mess.