The Blind Pig family has been hiking more than usual this Spring. The above average temps we’ve had beckon to us all-and on more than a few days we’ve forgotten chores that needed finishing in favor of heading out the back door into the woods.
You might notice a new addition to our family in the photo-meet Jake. As part of a school program the girls each had to bring home a baby simulator and take care of it’s needs. Once you start carrying the baby around and hearing it’s cries, it does indeed simulate a baby. Of course tending to it is a lot easier than reality. To settle Jake’s fussing-all you need to do is stick the appropriate key in his back.
Most of the days-we start walking with no destination in mind. A few times we’ve headed out for the Pear Trees-but we’ve yet to make it that far. The Pear Trees are in the last holler before you get to the gap of the mountain-about 2 miles from our yard. Pap can remember the old homeplace when it consisted of a house, garden, fields, Apple Trees, and Pear Trees. The Pear Trees continued to bear fruit up through the 60’s. But in my lifetime-the things Pap remembers are faded to a pile or 2 of rocks and a pretty place to eat a picnic or hang a deer stand.
On one of the days, Chitter wanted to go back to the place where we found the sword scabbard. This time there were no “2 running legs” telling her where to find stuff-but she did discover another blue and white piece that matches the one she found previously.
I wanted to go back to Pap’s old spring and see if it was still cleaned out from our adventure of finding it last year-it was. And the Daffodils my Great Grandmother planted are still going strong-outlasting the house by more than 60 years.
We stopped to exam frog eggs in a wet weather spring that feeds into a huge mudhole.
When we marched by a few days later-the slimy eggs had turned to squiggly tadpoles.
The best thing about our hikes-the hardest decision we have to make is where to cross the creek.
Tipper
Sounds like fun!
That is a bunch of frogs!!!
Tadpoles are some of the finest things ever created! They are almost as good as daffodils and forsythia in signalling spring for me!
Yep, you gotta transplant some of those “Easter flowers” as my grandmothers always called them. Seriously. (Typing this as I listen to Pap singing Gathering Flowers)
Hey Tipper,
Me and the kids have been doing some hiking too. Just today we headed out with a short hike in mind, but by the time we got to the top of the mountain, we just kept going. Mr. Sellers told us last year that there is a trail that comes out behind the school. Unfortunately we didn’t find it and we ended up all the way over on Pinhook Road. We are going to try again….just not tomorrow. Thank God for the beautiful weather.
Thanks for the hike, ladies! I have never seen frog eggs before. They were kind of spooky looking – but nowhere near as spooky as imagining all those tadpoles turning into all those frogs in the same place!
The pictures are really fantastic, love the tadpoles.
When I took child development in high school, back in the day, we had to carry an egg. You drew a face on it and named it and you had to carry it with your books from class to class. If you dropped it, you had to notify the teacher and then you got marked up for “losing your baby.” Ahhh, good times.
What a great place to hike and enjoy nature! That is easier than a real baby if you only have to use a key, lol! When I first looked, I thought it was a real baby, I had to take a second glance!
Hey there sweet lady!! I have been so busy , have not been rummaging around my bloggy blog as of late. thought I would stop by and take a look at what you have been up to , and LOVELY LOVELY as usual!!! love the pics!!!
My kids had those mechanical babies too. It makes you wonder if they will remember the crying babies at the right time in their life.
As for the frog eggs, gosh it’s been 53 years since I’ve seen them. My neighbor back in the days, made his girls and I a concrete swimming pool. Those little eggs always made their way into “our” pool. so slimmy, YUCK!
I have to agree with B.Ruth; some of those daffodil bulbs should be living at your house! The original clumps will benefit from the division and you will have some at hand where you can preserve and protect them for your great-grandchildren! Not to mention enjoying their sunny blooms right from your window.
Am looking forward to your next adventure!
Thank you for sharing the woodland/mountain hiking. Enjoyed the tadpoles, we had a pond when I was a kid-looked forward to seeing the eggs and tadpoles every spring.
I could not stand it…..I would mark the place with a circle of rocks…and go back in the fall and dig me a bulb or two…but leave most…bring Great Grandmothers daffodil and place a start in my garden….and label it…I must confess I have a double button bush, a rose, a flowering almond, old blue flags (iris), a lavender lilac, dark purple iris, Old fashioned white Pineys (Peonys) as my Grandmother called them, an older version of Rose of Sharon (purple)….all passed from my grandparents to my parents, and now to me thru the years…as they were passed to their parents…all growing on our place…When I see the old white Piney blooms..I laugh and think of my Grandmother and can see her gently tying a string, (from the ball she kept in her kitchen) around them to hold the blossoms off the ground….The Old Rose of Sharon I see and I remember my Dad saying that he and his brothers would slip up and catch hummingbirds in the blossoms, laugh and let them go…..back then he said they actually swarmed the shrub like bees….I have never seen that many on mine! These plants are like having them living with us all the time….and i always remember never thank anyone for a cutting, a bulb or a dug-up sprout…as my Grandmother said.. it won’t live if you do….
You could make a garden stepping stone with those old pottery shards with the girls…Lucky you to have such a nice place to walk…and blessed to be able to…
Tipper, I was very relieved to find out Jake was a practice baby. What a wonderful teaching tool for young people.
I love that you have your grandmother’s daffodils. That’s fabulous. Older varieties tend to be more fragrant than the ones you find today. As a child, there was always some kind of flower in a vase by the side of my bed. The daffodils were my favorite.
Sam
Hi gang,
I would like to roam the woods in the Spring again. The closest thing to mountains here are the speed bumps in my neighborhood. I took a walk the other day and spotted some new stray cats. We have fields of grain very near the house but they lose some of their beauty when you have to view them from the bank or Starbuck’s. Enjoy your little piece of paradise. Pappy
I just love this time of year when everything is coming to life….the green popping out everywhere.
As I was walking a couple of days ago I passed an old rock house foundation. This is in a residential area of Black Mountain. The house was torn down a few years ago to keep it from falling down. There was a car parked there and an old lady was raking.
I wondered why she was bothering, there were trees everywhere and I knew it wasn’t going to make any difference.
But she wasn’t there to make a difference, she was there to remember….the past, the flowers, the garden plot. It was a small foundation, it was a small house. In my years walking here the house was always empty. Must have been her family home at one time.
Memories come up in the spring with the flowers.
Beautiful.
It’s been gorgeous here, too.
We call those, Baby-Won’t-Shut-Ups!
I can’t think of a better way to spend some chore ignoring time. What a great place to wander. Thanks for virtually taking us with you!
I love those clues of a vanished homestead — daffodils, rhubarb, boxwoods.
Tipper, Hub and I just got home after hiking all week-end in the mountains around Ocoee. We were there for the Tennessee Wildflower Conference. We saw tons of wildflowers. Loved it. Thanks for this great post.
Wanda North Alabama
Tipper, I love this post. Love the tadpoles most.
What an interesting post Tipper … I really enjoyed it. We just came back from a walk in our woods and I can’t believe how the wildflowers are literally popping up overnight!
Just being together and being outdoors in the sunshine is wonderful! And Lil Jake doesn’t seem to be too fussy! (Wait till she gets the real thing!)
Love those “hard decisions”. We love our impromptu hikes out our back door but I am itchin’ to take some time away from the farm and do the mountain trails a bit. It looks like you are having a truly delightful spring.
Hi Tipper, Thanks for taking us on your hike. What great memories in that place. I loved seeing the Daffodils… That is just so special–knowing that your great grandmother planted them. WOW!!!!
Hope you have a wonderful Sunday.
Hugs,
Betsy
Nothing better than a nice hike in the woods doe it.
Such a beautiful place to walk. I can’t wit to get to our cabin this month. We should be there on the 21st and I am so looking forward to walking through the woods. Got to find some good trails. Loved the part about the baby, my granddaughter just did that and had to take her’s to Texas for Spring Break. Lots of laughs on the airplane.
Sheryl
Hiking around in the woods is one of my favorite things to do. AND finding pottery/dish chards. We have those baby simulators here and they are called, “Baby think it over”.
Tipper: So glad that was a practice baby. Loved the little tadpoles.
That certainly looks like a nice place for a hike Tipper!
Glad you guys are enjoying the out doors, we are doing the same down here, it is greening up quite nicely now.
Shane