Home, but Leaving Again

We had fun in Chattanooga. Here is a view of Moccasin Bend from Point Park on Lookout Mountain. We rode the Incline Railway up, which the kids loved. It's the steepest railway on earth and the seats and the floor are all at an angle. I hadn't been since I was a kid.

This is a freshwater ray at the Tennessee Aquarium. We found a letterbox stashed outside. I can tell the kids are getting older. No one wanted to play in the outside water features this time.

We went to Ruby Falls, which is a large cave with an underground waterfall. I think this was called the *cactus and candle stalagmite*. They let you touch this one, to get it out of your system.

I finished my Luna Lovegood jacket. I modified the original pattern quite a bit. If you want the details, Here is my ravelry entry with all the modifications listed.

Probably not a great style for me. I wanted to make it for dd, but she didn't want it, and I still wanted to make it.

I put glass beads around the bottom edge, which I've only tried a couple of times. There were a few frustrating incidents (beads all over the floor/knots in yarn/ much cussing) but it wasn't so hard to do.

I went to one of my mom's knitting groups while I was there. I admit I felt like the odd man out with a crochet project, but everyone was nice. One of my parent's neighbors had a pool party when we were there, which was fun for the kids. We met up with a friend who is living in China and visiting her parents too.

I'm glad to be home. We had the house painted (exterior) mostly while I was gone, so dh had to deal with all that. Glad I missed it. We are leaving for a week in Orlando this weekend, then we have a week at home, then school starts.

Bye Bye Squash

I have to admit, I've reached the point where I look at all my unread bloglines and think to myself, don't you people have something better to do?? All this posting?? Every day??? I guess that means I either need to Mark All Read or unsubscribe to a few.

This week has been a bad gardening week. My squash was looking great.


Pretty blossoms, and some fruit. I finally had a few honeybees visiting. They had been a little scarce until recently and I was getting worried about the reported die off.

Back to the squash. I came outside and saw the zucchini lying over.

Then I examined the stems.

The stems on the squash were looking a little strange, but the zucchini,

Ewww. You can't see the actual pest, the squash vine borer, in the photo.  That's a rolypoly.  The actual pest looks like a giant maggot. I read some advice that said to slit the stems with a knife and take them out, but I couldn't do it without destroying the plants, they were too far gone.

I ripped them out and planted more seeds. I'm going to try and keep a better watch next time. The prevention advice seems to go the spectrum from spray! (which I want to avoid) to wrap the stems with foil and use diotomaceous earth, etc.

I'm going out of town again next week to stay with my folks. I love to visit their town and play tourist with the kids. It's the same place where I went to high school and college but it's changed a lot since I lived there 20 years ago. I've got a cute crochet project going and I hope to finish it while away next week.


Have a good week.

Northeast GA Mountains

The house we rented was on the site of an old grist mill. Here's the dam and waterfall.

There were a lot of pools at the base where the kids splashed around and caught crawfish. The water was so COLD.

That's the old water wheel with the house behind it.

This is dd at the Foxfire Museum. I think this building was called the Dogtrot Cabin.

We did a little bit of hiking and letterboxing. The boys went gem mining and we all went white water rafting in North Carolina. The river was a nice easy one, so my youngest had a great time. He's not old enough or heavy enough for the rougher waters.

There's a vegetable stand on 441 called *Goats on the Roof* and it really had goats on the roof. The kids loved it.

The girls went horseback riding at the Dillard House. (Micki I'm sure that's the place you were thinking of.) We ate lunch there afterwards. It was fantastic country food. The kids loved one of the butternut squash dishes, so I bought a Dillard House cookbook, which has a lot of history and other information about the area.

We didn't have time to make it to Tallullah Falls, which was a bit disappointing. That's a reason to go back.