Our New Gate!

We have wanted to make a new gate for a long time. Did you catch the "make"? I am very fortunate that I have been married 41 years to a very talented man. He is always anxious to build something, especially when we can save money doing it.


Terry decided we would finally replace the old red gate (it's laying on the ground on the right) with a new wood/metal gate. He needed a new project and we needed a new gate since the old one was rusting out.

He has been working on a design for a few weeks and so we went to Home Depot last week and purchased the initial materials for him to build with. I like this design best with the upswoop top and we plan to fill the top section with metal vines.... morning glory type. I actually would have loved barbed wire with vines all over, but he is taming me some.

So I thought I would share the progress of the gate. He built it in the basement over a couple of days in the mountains without any help from me. I got to help when he had to hang it... the really hard part is where I'm needed. Worked out really good though it is straight and came together good, but he always does pretty good at what he does.

We still have alot we are going to do to the entrance and gate. The top opening in the gate will have the metal vine that I wanted and we'll have to work on that. The gate will have stone columns on either side and then a fence (like Anderson Creek's but you probably don't know what that looks like) that is black 3 horizontal slats on a 6X6 post. I think we'll either paint the gate black or dark green.

So you'll have to stay tuned to see how the gate takes shape. Right now Toby thinks that we have put him in jail!

From fire to water...

Spring is almost here and the buds are popping out everywhere. This is my bridal wreath spirea that was catching the light through the dew. This reminded me of a poem I'd written a while ago.

Loving

Loving isn't always easy and as we think it ought to be. Sometimes it teaches us and shows us things we don't want to see.

Loving is protecting the ones that we hold dear, yet loving is releasing them so they too can learn to care.

Like sunshine to the wintered branch it slowly starts to grow; buds hidden deep within ... no life for us to see.

But wait and God will rain on it and soon the bud appears, tiny, fragile, full of life but it doesn't stop here.

The sun must keep on shining and not without the rain a beautiful fragrant flower will bloom, evidence our God is near.

Loving can't be put in words it's something you know and feel, trust that when we give our love others will see it's real.

And know that love abounds in God and not in our own strength and through the perfect love of God together we can be.

The bud might still be within the trunk hidden from our view, but winter is almost over the light is shining through. Warming in the love of God, our faith in Him is true.

Alex and his first fire

This is a picture of Alex, my nephew and Becky's oldest son. He decided not too long ago that he would become a volunteer fireman. He lives in Big Canoe in Dawson county so a volunteer fireman is a good thing to do. You don't realize how important they are until you have a place in a rural area where there isn't a fire station close by.

My experience with fires in rural areas happened many years ago after we had our place in Ellijay. We were visiting our neighbors out at the end of our dirt road. Junie and Willard Mooney, at that time, over 50 year old brothers, who were also twins but looked absolutely nothing alike. We were sitting in Willard's front yard talking about gardens and hearing tales of when they were young. Willard's house was an old wooden frame house, just two rooms with a wood burning kitchen stove. All of a sudden we heard a telephone ring, this was a real shock, since we didn't have a phone in the mountains. Willard jumped up to answer the phone and it was another neighbor calling to tell him there was a fire down by the Arnold's house. Our house at that time was the cabin sitting down by the road, we'd go there every Friday evening and return back home to Snellville on Sunday evening. Well we jumped up and took off back to our cabin... hoping that it would not be on fire, worried to death about our dog that we had left inside.

When we got back to the cabin it was all fine, but the field up on Bucktown Road was burning very quickly. The pasture grass that had not been cut was dry and brittle so that the fire was moving along the grassy cleared stretch between the creek and the road towards our front pasture and cabin. You immediately feel a little panic when you see the fire coming towards your property. Kevin, who owned the property next to ours had been burning brush and cleaning up when the fire got away from him. He had driven to the nearest neighbor to call for help. Kevin also didn't live on the property but would just come up to target practice and get away from the City. He didn't have a cabin but would occasionally tent camp at his place. Terry got the tractor and began cutting the edge of the field by our front pasture to knock down the grass so it would not allow the fire to spread as quickly. What was so amazing to us at the time, were all of the volunteers. Neighbors from all over the area began arriving to help put out the fire, along with the old fire truck from the station that was at Big Creek, quite a long ways away. People were beating out the fire with branches and the ground was soon just blackened with the fire all put out.

Times have changed quite a bit since then, 25+ years brings about alot of changes. Now the volunteer firemen go to school and become certified, trained to do that important job of putting out fires. You don't realize how important that is until you are experienceing a fire. Especially in the mountains where the water is pumped out of the creek nearby... not connecting the hose to the nearby fire hydrant.

I look at Alex and I can still see that little boy that would play with my boys... now they are all grown up, turned into men. Work for Alex is computers, software, programming and all of the analytical stuff that goes with it; but who would know that if there is a fire near Big Canoe he will be out there helping to put out the fire and the destruction that goes with it.

Thanks Alex... love your Aunt Sally...