Dale Hollow Lake – Mermaid on a Raft

03/25/2023 Another month is gone. This was a fun March for Bill and I. We were looking forward to Trace and Jackies’ visit all of February. We spent the week before they arrived working to get things looking nice.

The guest room turned out nice, I like the color. Trace thinks it’s too dark.

I baked way too much and subsequently ate way too much. I went overboard on the fruit too, but that’s OK, I eat a lot of fruit and so do Barrio and Max. It didn’t go to waste.

We had typical March weather, cool and cloudy. The day after they arrived we went to Mike’s Landing on Dale Hollow Lake. I had not been there before but Bill and Jerry rode their motorcycles there last September. This time of year, the restaurant was closed and there wasn’t very much activity. It would be great fun to rent a pontoon boat, or even have a houseboat. I really want to kayak there too, the lake gets warm enough and is one of the clearest lakes in the US.

This is a big floating house. If we rented one I would need to take the dogs, but dogs are not allowed, so we won’t be renting one.

On Saturday we went to Creelsboro Arch. I had no clue what to expect as I didn’t bother to check it out prior to going. I was along for the ride.

This is called the Rock House @ Creelsboro Arch. It’s a 300 million-year-old natural limestone arch. The story says there is an Indian burial ground atop the arch. I was mildly interested in coming back and climbing up to the top. Only 2 things stopped me: SNAKES and SNAKES. The water on the far side of the arch is the Cumberland River.

We were chatting with some young kids who were smashing rocks. Some of them had crystals in them. We managed to find a few.

Only a few small crystals. There is a place in Marrowbone, (told you we lived in the boonies) a few miles from here, that sells geodes.

After there we went back the way we came so we could stop at Campbell’s Country Store. They had the most variety I have ever seen of flavored sodas. They were $2.00 a bottle. I’m not a soda fan at all but this was quite impressive. And the candy, that I could have done some damage on.

If they didn’t have it, it doesn’t exist.

This old nail/screw bin still rotated. Very cool.

And I was falling in love with the entrance. The building was built in 1876. There was a stack of old *Life* magazines by the bench at the front door.

They had a restaurant in the other half of the building. Pretty cool place.

Sunday was a rainy dreary do-nothing day and that’s pretty much what we all did. There’s not a whole lot to do around this area when it’s cool and rainy. I read, never was much into TV.

Jackie had a 7AM flight out of Nashville on Monday so she was up and ready to go at 3:30AM. Bill and I got up to say goodbye to her and then I couldn’t go back to sleep worrying about her driving at that hour and the crappy weather. It wasn’t a big deal to her though, and she made it to the airport with time to spare. We were sorry to see her go but so happy she took time out of her busy life to come and meet us. I told Trace that she’s a keeper. We look forward to seeing her again and we would love to meet her boys, Jacob and Julian. They are 9 & 12.

The rest of the next two weeks are kind of a blur. Bill was working on building garden boxes for me and Trace was painting the lizards, fixing the sign,

I bought this at an antique store and the price sticker was on the front and left a mark. Trace repainted it so the mark is gone.

and painting my mermaid light. Bill’s sister Kathy bought me the mermaid light. It was all creamy white colored. Trace painted it and it looks great.

The lizards we bought at Conchita’s in Loreto, BCS and carried them home on the plane. They moved to Roatan with us but the climate in Roatan ruins pretty much everything metal and leather. Bill moved the lizards back to AZ but they stayed in the crate. After all of this traveling, they came to KY with us too. Knowing that Trace was coming, Bill pulled them out and sanded them, and primed them so they were ready for Trace’s artistic magic.

They turned out great, there are 2 of them.

Up close, now I need to decide where to hang them.

Bill bought lumber to build flower/veggie boxes for me. Trace helped him finish them. There is still one more to build.

I have been asking Trace for a few more paintings, specifically the girl with the sea creatures. He brought her down and also the one with the snakes. I still need one more to balance the wall. We are going to get these framed.

This has been a favorite of mine for years. He was working on this in 2013.

I need one more under Edward Scissorhands. All the artwork is by Trace.

Highway, AKA, the Perv’ of Burkesville or brother humper, was thrilled to see Trace. When I moved back to WA. (from Roatan) with Highway, Trace walked Highway daily after Dooce broke my ankle. Highway for sure remembered Trace, Max was fine with Jackie and Trace also but Barrio was still very timid and nervous.

Highway has many issues but the one that irks me the most is, he will NOT stop humping Barrio. It drives me bonkers and I’m sure Barrio isn’t really into it either. I mean, who would be?? I know it’s a domineering thing but come on, it’s getting old.

I love the way Max is looking at Trace. Don’t mind the different paint colors on the wall, I bought samples and hated them all.

Highway is such a pain in the butt. When anyone comes up the driveway he starts with this high-pitched whine that sounds like a 9-year-old girl screaming. Horrible.

My bulbs were up and partially opened when we got a hard frost, it was 15 degrees.

I covered them with what I could find. I’m surprised any of them flowered.

Now that it’s not super frigid the rest of the bulbs are peeking out of the soil.

Coming out of the upper field where we walk the dogs.

Max and Barrio. Man, I miss Gringo so so much.

We’re getting the pool ready, not sure why Bill decided to do it when it’s still cold, but he did. Yesterday Max wanted to go swimming. Bill tried to set the steps in but they were floating. They have to fill up with water, then we have to use weights under them to keep them down. Max almost used the floating steps and went it, Gringo would have been in immediately. That dog loved to swim. I still can’t believe my boy is gone.

These three love this spot, they can see all over the front fields and the driveway. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. Highway likes to bark.

We are expecting high winds tonight, then the weather is going to change and be summer-like again. I’m ready for that. Tomorrow morning I’m starting my seeds in the plugs that I bought. I hope by the time they are ready to plant that we have soil in the boxes.

I’ve never used these before. Fingers crossed.

Topsoil, that’s something else on the to-do list. It just keeps getting longer.

Wishing everyone a spring-like April, I, for one, am ready.

12/01/2021 Happy December. I can’t believe it’s almost the end of 2021. On Dec 5, it will be a year that Bill and Highway arrived from Roatan. Seriously it seems like months. Crazy how the older I get, the faster the time goes by.

We are getting close. The house should be finished by the end of this month and we are hoping to be in by New Year, Christmas I doubt will happen. Regardless, I have started buying stuff that we will need. Remember, we brought NO furniture.

There is a store in town that has some antiques, I found a cool bench and 2 dressers there. One dresser we will refinish because it’s gorgeous solid oak, the other is maybe cherry but not in great shape. We’ll fix it up and I plan to paint it for the guest room. I decided that old furniture restored is much better than most of the furniture available today. The dressers both have dovetail drawers.

Not sure if I’ll paint this or not, but it’s for the porch. We’ll make a cushion for it.

I’m still buying glassware, although I told myself I was done. HAH. I found these pieces at different stores and some on Etsy.

It was 25 degrees the other morning. It made for a nice crispy crunchy walk. The dogs are super invigorated in the cold weather.

The following photos I took up on the hill where we always walk. I used google lens to figure out what they are. They’re called ice flowers. The “flowers” are actually ice extruded from the stems of certain plant species. They only last until the sun comes up. They occur when the air temp reaches freezing before the ground is frozen. Water in the plant escapes through tiny cracks in the plants and then freezes in gorgeous strange shapes.

This is what the forest floor looks like.

These are so cool, sorry for all the photos but I’ve never seen anything like this before. Obviously, I’ve not been in the woods early enough.

This may be a type of epimedium, growing wild in the fields.

I really don’t know, but this may be a type of wild Tradescantia?? These are all in our fields.

Bill got a new toy. It has a brush hog/mower, bucket and a box blade. He’ll use this often here.

The dogs know we have a mouse or mice. Highway already got one outside and I couldn’t get him to drop it. Bill tried too but the damn dog ate it rather than give it up. Disgusting. We have traps set under the drawers but these are very smart mice. I hate the damn RV.

They spend a lot of time on the bed looking out the window. We’ll never have nice bedding.

I’ve been on a roll making cards, up to 40 so far. I am so looking forward to having a scrap room again!

The other morning Bill walked the dogs with me and it’s a damn good thing he did. This is the first I have ever seen chem trails out here.

They were everywhere and we are 2 hours from any major airport.

This particular morning Gringo caught the scent of something and he took off towards the top of the hill with Barrio and Max (who has lost 15# in 3 months) hot on his trail. Highway was with us. When we got up to where we saw them running Bill said, “Oh Shit.” The 3 boys had jumped over the 3′ wire and barbed wire fence. Barrio and Max were right on the other side. Gringo was nowhere to be seen. We couldn’t find any holes in the fence to get them through so Bill crawled over it and handed the dogs to me. Before we had the 2 over Gringo came back. They couldn’t jump back over because there was a steep hill behind them. These dogs will be the death of me.

One morning I got up and as usual, was going to let the boys out until Bill said we had a problem. The neighbors’ cows had wandered into our field. The cows are not the issue, the way the dogs react is the issue. Bill went to get Mike and he and Bill got the cows back in the right field.

Mooooooo. The cows are fascinated by the dogs and vice versa. Maybe we should let them be friends.

We got a small turkey. Since the oven has never been used, we decided to cook this on the grill. I DO NOT want to clean an oven in the RV.

This is called spatchcocking. Bill cut the spine out and flattened it. It took about 1hr 45 min to cook a 10# bird. It was really good.

We were going to invite Mike (the guy with the cows next to us) but we weren’t sure it would be good and had no clue how long it would take. Bill took him a heaping plate of food later on that day.

Tomorrow I am going to the metropolis of Bowling Green. They have a 72 vendor antique flea market and many other stores that I want to go to. I should probably spend the night so I can shop for 2 days but my car only holds so much.

Today was the first day Bill and I left here together in 3 months. He wanted to run to Albany electric and I wanted to ride along. The dogs knew and Highway started panic howling like a banshee getting an enema. It is not pretty and I can not stand it. We put a crate in the RV and put him in it and we took the other 3. They were really good as usual. After we left Albany we drove out to Dale Hollow Lake. It is so much larger than I thought it would be, 28,000 acre lake. I would like to go back and spend a weekend there. Better yet, get a pontoon boat and enjoy it as often as possible.

But first, A HOUSE.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. XOXO

Tag: Dale Hollow Lake

The Perv’ of Burkesville

Let it snow