happy spring

happy spring
Originally uploaded by Creating Character

I’ve been playing with my Bamboo Tablet again. It is made by Wacom and is a photo editing tablet. Since it has a pen and a tablet, it is easier to manipulate than a mouse. However, the tablet can also be used as a mouse, either with your finger or the pen. The Bamboo Tablet is basically a hobbyist version of the more professional Wacom tablets, at a much more affordable price. I am sure that the higher priced versions have more benefits, but they weren’t what I needed. In my mind, anyway.

I have spent a lot of time fooling around with the tablet, but I still don’t know very much about it. It came with Photoshop Elements 7 and I don’t know the program very well. I have been searching for different things online, and I have found a book that I would like to get. Books a Million didn’t have it, and I haven’t had extra cash to get it from Amazon, so it will have to wait a little longer. Until then, I will just practice.

This picture took me quite a while to complete. Then, when I was completely done, I decided that the text should have been a little darker, but it was too late by then! Anyway, what do you think? Mom, recognize those flowers?

I planted 42 trees this morning!

Now, let me explain, before you start calling me crazy!

I decided that we needed to cut some of the big old limbs out of the Redtwig Dogwood. So Michael cut 8 or 10 limbs off about 6 inches from the ground. Some of limbs were almost 3 inches in diameter and 6 feet long or longer.

Redtwig Dogwood flowers. It is also called Red Ozier Dogwood.

I cut the small ends and smaller side limbs off to root in the backyard, which is pretty wet right now. There is a small sinkhole back there and I don’t like to mow around it – I won’t but Michael will. I stuck 42 “cuttings” in the ground around the sinkhole. The “cuttings” were from 2 feet to 4 feet long and I pushed about a foot of each one in the dirt.

Will it work? I don’t know, but I thought it was worth a try. We had been trying to decide what to plant around the sinkhole anyway so we wouldn’t have to mow there. It would be great if most of them rooted, but if only a few root, then that’s less plants I will need to buy.


This picture was taken in 2008 before an oak tree fell on it and broke about a third of the limbs.

Redtwig Dogwoods seem to be pretty hardy. Mine has survived a flood, drought, temperatures in the teens and above 100 degrees, and a tree falling on in it.

Happy Birthday!

Last week was my birthday. I turned 32!! Can you believe it? I really didn’t want to pass the 30 mark, but my life hasn’t changed a whole lot since then. I was having a really bad week, because I thought that no one had remembered my birthday. No one had mentioned it at all, and we always have dinner at my mom’s house on all of our birthdays. She hadn’t said a word, and I knew she wouldn’t wait until the last minute, so I was getting kind of stressed out. No one loved me anymore! What was I going to do?

My hubby and kids told me I could order a Bamboo Tablet for my birthday, so I did. It was supposed to arrive on the 2nd, several days after my birthday, but I was too cheap to pay for expedited shipping, so that was my own fault. I was really excited, too, because I’ve wanted one for a while. For those of you that don’t know, a Bamboo Tablet is a tool to work with photographs.

Thursday morning arrives. My husband told me happy birthday when he got up. My dad called me and woke me up to tell me happy birthday. My oldest son came in to tell me when he was getting ready. My sis texted me. Then I got online and my mom told me. No one forgot me after all. My youngest son is always in a hurry to get to school, so he didn’t tell me until I went to pick him up.

When I was online, I told my mom that I had ordered the Bamboo Tablet from hubby and the kids. She asked what I was going to do with two of them, and like an idiot, I didn’t get it. She ordered me one too! But she ordered the next level up, so we all decided to keep it and send the one that I ordered back. When they credit my account back, I’ll go buy some new books or something like that.

So, instead of working on anything else on Thursday or Friday, I spent my entire day playing with my Bamboo Tablet. See what I did? Pretty cool, huh? I'll be working on some more here, but it takes me a while because I'm not really familiar with Photoshop too much, and the tablet works with Photoshop. I have to say the effect turned out rather nicely, even if I am complimenting myself. :)

Still Rising

The Alapaha River is still rising this morning here and just north of us. We only got ¼ of inch of rain yesterday, which surprised me because it rained hard a couple of times. Looks like north us there was ¼ to ½ inch of rain. Hopefully this means that the river will slow down some - it is still rising about a foot every 24 hours.

I took these pictures yesterday about noon yesterday. I didn’t have time to go back later, because I had some errands to run and then we had a birthday dinner for our daughter, Marsanne. Just grilled hamburgers, chips and Ghiradelli double chocolate cupcakes, but everybody ate too much.

Here you can see how fast the water is moving through the run from the river. It has eroded the side of the road and formed a small waterfall.

This picture shows how the water is flowing down hill to the dip in the road and spreading out into the woods on either side. See the Century 21 sign on the right side? Wouldn’t you like some waterfront property?

This is just down the road from our house around a curve. The left side is low all the way back to the curve. The right side rises suddenly right beside the run so the water is forced downstream. According to my husband the water has to fill up the low area on the left side of the road and back up the road to the curve. At the curve the water starts flowing back across the road to the right side and fills up the low area on that side. We live on the right side so the water will eventually reach our backyard if the river keeps rising.

I don’t know if this makes sense. It is hard to explain that we don’t get flooded by the river right behind our house because the bank is so high – like a cliff, actually. The water overflows at a lower point and backs up to our house, which is lower than the riverbank here. That is the main reason the water doesn’t drain away when the river level drops – we are in a low spot and the water has nowhere else to go.

Anyway, the water hasn’t reached us yet and maybe it won’t. But more rain is predicted for next week and the ground is very soggy already. We need some hot sun!

Not Again!!!!!!

The Alapaha River is on the rise again. So far the prediction is for minimal to moderate flooding, but it is raining this morning and more rain is predicted too.

This is the “puddle” of water in our backyard left over from the Easter Flood of 2009 and recent rains.

We moved here in June 1984. The people we bought the property from asked us to come see the river in April 1984 when it flooded, so we would know what we were facing. No big deal – the river was running across the back quarter of the yard, which is the lowest part of the yard.

A view of the “puddle” at the back fence – it spreads into the property behind and beside us.

Our property is in the 100-year flood plain, which we thought meant that it would only flood her once in every 100 years. A lot of other people think that too. Wrong!!!

According to The "1OO-Year Flood", a US Geological Survey fact sheet: The term "100-year flood" is misleading because it leads people to believe that it happens only once every 100 years. The truth is that an uncommonly big flood can happen any year. The term "100-year flood" is really a statistical designation, and there is a 1-in-100 chance that a flood this size will happen during any year. Perhaps a better term would be the "1-in-100 chance flood."

The river runs through a deep ditch into the road past our house. This was taken Friday afternoon just as the river reached flood stage.

So …. Of the 8 recorded floods since 1948, 5 occurred after we moved here. The worst recorded flood was the Easter Flood last year, when the river crested more than 7 feet above flood stage.

Right now the prediction is for 2 feet above flood stage by tomorrow night – it is already a foot over flood stage.

The greenhouse is ready.

My greenhouse may or may not flood – it depends on how high the water rises. I moved most of the plants up on the tables just in case. The hibiscus plants are several years old and declining so I left them on the floor. The other two plants are peace lilies and they will survive wet feet.

I will keep you posted - so check back again.