Just A Fun Fall Shot

A Fun Weekend With The Maguires

And that it was! There was leaf raking, pumpkin and apple shopping and a little horse trail hikin

.

The weather wasn't bad either! On the trails I met up with Gail Young and her horse Shadow who was quite a character! I cooked up a crock pot of sausage, yellow bell pepper and mushroom marinara for Friday and an Oma chicken dinner Saturday. Sunday I collapsed with the flu.

After this post I'm caught up with blogging. The wood stove is cranking, my writing basket is brimming and my studio and guitars are calling. LET IT SNOW

Oh Yeah...Some Shots From Cocoa Beach And The Banana River

Out in the back yard on the Banana.

Cocoa Beach By Way Of The Smokeys

This post actually should be in front of the lucky wood stove dude post. I'm catching up here!
With the non existing summer behind us, Bill and I packed up for a visit to his father down in Cocoa once again but this time by way of the Smokeys. Wow! I'll be heading back there at some point to explore more.
It was disappointing heading in from the Tennessee welcome center driving through what I could only imagine being shanty towns from the name of this town called Pigeon Forge. Shanty Town my a-s! This was a over-rated, over-hyped back to back tourist trap built right up to the base of a mountain!
We stayed in Gaitlyburg tho...not quite as bad as there was a twisty wooded mountain road to get there.
We stayed in a Days Inn that overlooked a mountain stream and had fireplaces in each room with wood!
The next day we did a car tour up through a mountain to see some old Smokey mountain homesteads.

A photographers dreamscape! Ducking in to these small mountain cabins it was fun to imagine the way of life back in the 1800's with no washing machines, electric heat and all the other freedoms we are all so spoiled with now.
And oh! The Views! The Smokies are truly amazing!

The Very Lucky Wood Stove Dude

Bill and I finally decided to go back to burning wood. The pellet stove was on its last leg and I was not thrilled with the weak, sputtering, pellet flame. In order to feel any immediate warmth you had to stand right up to the stove. So the bags of wood pellets over the shoulder for Bill, anyway is over. Back to Country Cubbie in Oneonta! After researching a few of the contained outdoor wood burning units which pump out a lot of pollution and are quite pricey. We decided on the Vermont Castings, Encore model 1450 non-catalytic wood burning stove and in bisque if I might add. Our house has never been warmer! 

It was quite a job tho getting the old stove out, and installing the new chimney liner. We had two young huskey dudes over to do the work. The one dude's name is Shane and I remember that cause he fell off my roof from just about the highest peak and walked away with no more than a bruise.

Ten minutes before he climbed the ladder and knowing that it had snowed making the new metal roof extremely slippery. I told the two dudes that maybe today wasn't the day to install the stove as I would feel horrible if any accidents happened. 

They both huffed right up and assured me that my metal roof wasn't the first metal roof they had been on and that neither of them were planning on any long term vacations. Ok! Well there I had it! I was excited to get the stove in. So on they went in the task of installing the stove.  

Several minutes later the other dude came to the kitchen and apologized for being a pain, and would I move my ca-BAM! BAM! BAM! Ba Ba Bam! I ran out of the kitchens back door in time to see Shane hit the pavement on his right side!

I FREAKED! He got up and walked away. 

What a stove dude! He also took the mirror off from my car on the way down. Not that it matters. I wanted to give him a beer or something but still wanted the stove in and knew that someone still had to climb the ladder.

They ended up completing the job and I'm in love with my stove!