*Written on Saturday-May 26, 2012
I am sitting in the backyard under the hemlock tree listening to Gene Watson blare from The Deer Hunter’s open truck windows. I am thinking what an amazing singer he is; I am thinking he sings the most romantic songs.
I am watching The Deer Hunter bang nails on new digs for our baby chicks while Miss Cindy hangs out clothes with Chatter’s help.
I am tired from hoeing corn, plowing, and weeding beans.
I am impressed with 2 girls who work willingly alongside their Momma and Daddy without complaint.
I am thankful for Blind Pig readers who brighten my day; who give me treasures I can hold close in my heart and ponder.
Tipper
I am thankful for faithful bloggy friends like Tipper!!!
Thank you for your great posts and you have a wonderful family, I’m grateful I met up with you on here..
One thing I forgot to mention earlier: Gene Watson and his friend/protagonist, Moe Bandy, are featured on most of the COUNTRY MUSIC REUNION videos. I watch them on RFD-TV.
Great entertainers, both.
That’s a good kind of tired, from work and not stress! It is a good thing to count the small blessings every so often,and The Blind Pig is a blessing to so many of us!
I AM, thankful I have your friendship, and everything that implies.
As you know, my computer is the only contact I have with everything outside my door.
Your pictures in words and fotos all serve to take me where I like to go, and remind me of the beauty of God’s creations.
I may never know why God gave me you to inspire, comfort, excite, and encourage in so many ways.
Coming to these mountains at a time when I was no longer able to do much physically; nor travel, as I had done most of my adult life, was a last stop in my sojourn through this life.
Not knowing how I would endure while unable to use any of the many skills I had developed along the way, I was ready to “Hang it Up”, in a manner of speaking.
I jokingly stated, “I can do nothing anywhere, and that’s what I mostly do; nothing”
As a new member of the Georgia Mountain Writers Club, in Blairsville, GA, I was asked by a member of that group, if I was a Blogger.
Not wanting to appear backward, my response was “No.” I knew nothing about blogging.
I soon found blogging on the internet, though, and thus began a new journey; and a new world was opened before me.
Not long after, I discovered “Blind Pig and the Acorn”, and the rest is history.
Your ability to carry us with you to so many places and experience so many fun and enlightening things is a God given talent.
I am continually amazed that you can find such peace and contentment in the midst of your busy life. When I think of you, I am reminded of a favorite bible verse.
Philippians 4:11-13, says it all.
Thank you Tipper, and your beautiful family for sharing your lives with us.
Gene W. is the greatest “unrecognized” singer in Country history. He ought to be a household name. Any fan of his is a friend of mine…..
Beautiful, and AMEN!!!
Instead of counting miseries, we need to spend more time counting our blessings, for I am certain we will find they are many if we just take the time to count them. Praise and Thank God!!!
God bless.
RB
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I went on Youtube and looked for Gene Watson and it took me to “Paper Rosie”. It is a song about a little old woman who sold crepe paper roses to support herself “and they only cost a dime.”
About this time every year my mother and Grandma Cora spent hours making those same paper roses by the hundreds to decorate the graves of all their family and friends who had gone on. The flowers were in all the colors that crepe paper came it. Yellow, red, pink, purple, green and blue and more. They made sure Grandpa Gaston, Great-grandpa Leander, Great-grandma Cynthia and Uncle Alfred’s graves were completely covered. The graves were still mounded then and looked like someone had just thrown a flowery blanket over them. Then they had a few flowers for all the aunt, uncles and cousins. And even those graves with uncarved stones got flowers. They didn’t know who’s they were but they were sure to have been family or friends and deserved flowers too.
People don’t do that any more. The graves have all been leveled down and sown in grass so they can be tended by machines. I guess nobody wants get their hands dirty pulling weeds, shoveling and raking dirt. The few flowers that are there are plastic dollar store things.
What a shame we have gotten so modern and sophisticated that we cannot tend the final resting places of those simple folk who brought us here.
Ed is 100% right. You are the treasure and you create an incredible word for your family.
It was a joy spending a few days with you.
Beautiful comments today. I give thanks every day that I have here in beautiful rural PA. I am blessed. And I love that you share so much with your readers, Tipper.
Yes, enough to eat, no one wants to drop bombs on me, a loving family, friends, a watertight roof, serviceable clothes, the sun is shining. All this and Gene Watson too. We are indeed the lucky ones.
Tipper, how sweet! Keep raising your girls the way you are.
Very nice post Tipper, hope you have a glorious Memorial Day.
What Mr. Perry said. I fondly remember childhood Saturdays. Dad always had a project going-usually involving cedar. So, the smell of cedar makes me very nostalgic.
In his essay “The Contest In America,” 19th-century libertarian philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
It is that “decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling” which accounts for why so many “miserable creatures” have downgraded Memorial Day to nothing more than a date to exploit for commercial greed and avarice. While units large and small of America’s Armed Forces stand in harm’s way around the globe, many Americans are too preoccupied with beer, barbecue and baseball to pause and recognize the priceless burden borne by generations of our uniformed Patriots. Likewise, many politicos will use Memorial Day as a soapbox to feign Patriotism, while in reality they are in constant violation of their oaths to our Constitution.
The Patriot Post
Thanks for reminding me of how long it has been since I’ve enjoyed listening to some Gene Watson – fixing that right now.
And thanks for reminding me how special the times spent working with my dad were.
God Bless our troops that are away from their families while they protect us on this Memorial Day weekend. Extra blessings to the men and women who fought in the Vietnam war and are suffering mental and physical health issues so many years later.
Your girls are amazing! Never complaining… how lucky you are.
Listening to Gene Watson can make a job seem so much easier, especially if the volume is turned all the way up.
That is a great reflection, Tipper. Thank you.
Tipper
We worked on the area for our “chickies” new house Saturday too…All the time I was wishing my children(now both grown
/married) could have been here..They always helped us too…
Sounds like you were taking a “Sentimental Journey” yesterday..and if that Deer Hunter is just cute as pie in that sun hat and shorts…We usually see him all dressed for the hunt…LOL
Gene Watson is one of my favorites, one song is especially meaningful to me…Tell you about it sometime…LOL..
Happy Memorial Day to all and remember our many men and women that have given their lives for us…
We are pleased as punch to have you here everyday with us Tipper..
Take a day off and rest…
Soon all that hard work will bring on the “zucchini casserole” and “frash aigs” fer cakes and pies!
Don’t let them “Woolly Adelgids” fall in yore hair, while a’sittin’ in under that hemlock tree…”them little bloodsuckin’ devils”…We need to ask the faeries to raid them “boogers”..LOL
Thanks Tipper, now I’m a’takin a “Sentimental Journey”!
Enjoy your time under the hemlock tree counti8ng your blessings…how wonderful that you recognize them and don’t take them for granted. But most of all, thank you for sharing them with us.
We Are all blessed to have been born in the greatest part of the greatest Constitutional Republic ever conceived by man with the help of their Christian Faith. We all need to thank our Creator and Savior for this and then stand and thank the Vetrans and current Military Personel for the gift they have conveyed to us. We also need to battle the forces who would take the gifts we have enjoyed from our descendants. Thanks Tipper, Jim, Ed, Don and all the rest of the posters who comprise the “Blind Pig” family I get to visit each morning. Now let’s all get out and have a wonderful Memorial Day and then get back to fighting to save our wonderful way of life for those who will follow us.
Tipper, we are blessed to have you and your special way of making ordinary things seem wonderful. Thank you for the Blind Pig and my regrets to those other blind pigs out there who haven’t discovered your daily postings. Thank you God for all of those who have served in our armed forces and for those who were wounded and especially we remember those who gave up their lives for our freedom. God Bless America.
Am sure you realize you are living a fairy tale lifestyle. Only in fairy tales things just happen. In your’s, you make them happen. And all the good things that come to you get spread to all your family both there with you and out here in cyberland.
You are the treasure we look forward to seeing every day!!!!
Tipper–I am thankful for having been blessed with an Appalachian boyhood and growsing up in the highlands which will always be the homeland of my heart, wonderful parents, the opportunity to wade sparkling trout streams and hunt high ridges, to gaze on the glory of spring wildflowers, to have had the kind of grandfather every boy ought to have, and for this blog as one way of perpetuating my pride in being a son of the Smokies.
As for Gene Watson, he’s one of my all-time favorites, and I consider his “14 Carat Mind” an extraordinary song.
With Memorial Day at hand, I’ll conclude by saying all of us are blessed with those who have protected and preserved those things we hold near and dear.
Jim Casada
http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.co
Your post today stirred up memories of when my kids were small and we spent summers tearing down olde structures and then built a barn out of that olde wood to look like that barn was here as long as the cabin—that was usually our vacation and yet never a complaint –they learned much and are now able to use those lessons at their own homes—it is a blessed time when family can work side by side and I hope nothing ever changes for you and yours–that thru your entire life all remain that close.
and I am sitting here thinking you are truly truly BLESSED with your family. just the fact the girls love to work with you and your relatioship with them and your husband is a blessing and you have a wonderful place to live.
I am thankful that I have had a good life, I am free, and I have a chance to start my day reading your writings and those who have shared their writings with you.
On thie Memorial weekend I am…
Thanking God for Tipper who keeps us close to our Appalachian roots (typical example, Her “I am…” essay of today!).
I am…thinking of those who have given their lives for our freedom, especially those who have fallen in war. Important, too, are those who have remained behind and stood behind our military, supported them and prayed for them.
I am…alarmed that forces in our country are whittling away and trying to destroy our basic rights of freedom…of speech, of worship, of right to assemble…and so many more freedoms of what we knew and thought were guaranteed by our Constitution. I am…praying that we and our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, each succeeding generation, may know, enjoy and appreciate who we are, from whence we have come, and where, by the help of God we can go in the future. Have a blessed, safe and thought-provoking Memorial Day weekend.
I am thankful for the whole Blind Pig family and especially for your sharing your family and your spirit with us, Tipper. I think it brings a bit of added richness to my already blessed life.
Best regards to you and your extended family.
So much you have to be thankful for Tipper.
With kids like that, you are blessed. Congratulations! May the Lord bless you this day.