First Waterfall Hike 2014

I did one waterfall hike so far this yr. It wasnt exactly a bust, but it was close...I will explain.

The trail I picked was part of the Foothills Trial the Sloan Bridge section.  There was 2 falls on this section so great check 2 off the list.  I knew I had to take both dogs and was a little leery because of the injuries I know how the dogs can get sometimes...but Flossie is pretty good off leash and thats what I decided to do. 

Annie is the one who likes to run off into the thick stuff and she can disappear so fast....so she has to stay on leash on a steep narrow trail like this one was..

                            

This is exactly the kind of trail I dont like...narrow. lots of roots, and lots of blow-downs! SO visibility is not so good and its hard since bushwhacking could mean a broken ankle trying to get down the edge of the Chattooga River below. Check out this large tree that was on the trail...

Got a peek through the bushes at the second tier of the falls Sloan Bridge, it has an upper drop I couldnt see....I could only hear those and didnt get a look...if I hadnt had the dogs I may have gone down and waded up the river to find it but with them and Annie on leash it was not possible.

The second falls is a 30 ft tiered falls called Hikers Peril, the trail used to cross the top of the falls but with so much blow down around the trail was moved to the bottom of the falls....and since the trail passes right in front of the falls on a little foot bridge, I couldn't back up and shoot the entire thing! SO I did a couple section shots, the water level was low on this falls which surprised me since we've had so much rain, upstate maybe they didn't have as much as we've had  in my local area..

Its always good to be in the woods no matter! It was 2 miles round trip...The weather was awesome for sure.

So after we hiked we stopped at the fish hatchery that we passed on the way up...There's fish in various stages of development in the swim ways...I think these are brown trout. They sure were crowded in there!!

Dont ask me why I got only part of this sign...I was distracted by the dogs I guess..Its the Wahalla State Fish Hatchery...the road down is a thrilling hairpin drive! Narrow, and steep!! The building is in the "holler" as they call it here in Utah its a canyon, in Texas its a gulch, in Tennessee its a Gulf...so anyways its at the bottom!!

Next time I'll show some of the birds we spotted...Maggie hates car trips something they are working on, but so far unless its a trip to the vet or to come to our house she stays home...

So now that makes 35 SC Waterfalls I've hiked in the Upstate Region. Many of the remaining ones are on private land so I dont know If make it to those...but now Im down to the Difficult hard ones, and a few roadside ones...it will be fun to find them. 

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Windshield Wipers-- You Wear Diapers-!!!

Back from a week away, dog sitting for my sis...and wouldn't you know the day we had to drive back home it poured rain!!  AND then my drivers windshield wiper spazZzed out on me! It literally flew off to the far left and was hitting the side view mirror and got stuck!! I stopped, got soaked, tried to put it back in place went another mile and it did it again!! WTF? Okay that confirms it~Everything does NOT happen for a reason...holy-cow.

So I did what any red blooded American woman would do....I improvised! It's Sunday afternoon in the Deep South, there was not a chance in Hell Fire and Brimestone of me finding a garage open...may as well have driven into Mayberry RFD. So I stopped at a Citgo where 2 men from Pakistan, with big smiles and smart phones  looked at me as if I had fallen outta the sky with the rain...I went to the shelf and bought a bottle of Rain-X, best damned stuff ever invented.( buy some of this and keep it IN your car)  I pulled under the gas pump area out of the rain, dried the window off, squirted a copious amount of the fluid on the window, smeared it all over with a paper towel and let it dry to a haze then buffed it off...

Worked like a charm... as long as you're moving, and on the I-26 everyone was going 80! I went 65 and the wind blew the pelting rain right off the windshield. I couldn't use the wipers at ALL! My Mom thought I was crazy, but when she saw the water gliding off the windshield with NO wipers she was amazed!!  So 2 hrs driving in a blinding rain storm with no wipers can we say White Knuckles?? My newly formed wrist bones were aching and still are...

But anyways you know me, this morning I watched a you tube on how to repair the wiper, this guy said that the wiper has a thin sheet of aluminum lining on the wiper arm where it attaches to the car, and it gets corroded, so start by removing the plastic cover at the end of the wiper, this photo is the other one, cause I forgot to take a photo of the drivers side one before I removed it, 

under that plastic cover is a 13mm nut, remove that and then the wiper arm comes right off...tilt it up like you do when you clean the windshield and then lift it off the "drive spine"

 See all the corrosion? the little grooves have to be cleaned out so I scraped them out using a utility blade and a wire brush...then I sprayed it with W-D40 to knock the green corrosion off...

Here it is after cleaning it....

Reattach the arm keeping it level with the other arm, and replace the nut and tighten...I tapped the arm back on with a hammer to set it good down in that aluminum...

Then snap the plastic cover back on....

Give it a try....

Looks good now, before it was going way over past the side mirror! The guy said its caused when you clean snow off your wipers and you bang them too hard....GUILTY AS CHARGED on that one!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Good Grief!

....sort of an addition to my last blog is this weeks blog.  Before 9 am I'm not only up and filled my bird feeders, I've also cooked enough food to last 3 days!  Just simple stuff a pot of red beans rice is on the other burner, and in the oven some corn, potatoes, then in the microwave a bag of steaming broccoli, and then some tea bags on the boil....

not a good shot of the downy? woodpecker at the suet, due to being taken through the glass...

The reason for all this flurry of activity so early?

...it's snowing again!! AND they say its an 80% chance of ICE later so we could lose our power...at least we will have food cooked to eat and if we dont lose power we have our meals ready to warm up and eat.  We caught up some drinking water and got our lanterns at the ready, and thats about all one can do in prep for the loss of electric.  Now we wait and see..

The birds  are not happy campers it will soon be time for our spring birds to start nest building!

The new wood on the benches

This snow is a very wet and heavy snow...its almost like slush, the temp is 34 degrees...so once it dips tonight it will be ice for sure.

...oh well nothing we can do about that.  

in unrelated news, I found this awesome hard shell camera bag at Goodwill, my Kodak fits in perfectly!  I paid $2.85 I bought it for resale but when I saw how well it fit my camera Im keeping it!

PHOTO?

Here's a short video of the snow..its pretty coming down.
 

              

                                            Today is my son's 33rd! happy birthday JT.

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

The Ups and the Downs...

Okay whats going on here? My little digital weather station keeps me informed about what's going on outside and inside...the time and date are not correct but the rest is...as you know we had snow last week...and frozen water pipes!

the top set is our Inside tempts, the second set our Outside ones!

That created this....

Then....yesterday on a trip to town, I had to put the AC on in the car it was so Muggy we were dying in our heavy winter clothes as the humidity rose to 90% ! 

THEN that same night it dropped, started to rain and the high today was 40F.  We have had several days of very cold weather this winter, these tempts are kinda rare for South Carolina! Not unheard of but rare.  We had a 13F too...

I hear tomorrow it will be back to 60F more rain, and then one day later back to the 40's for highs...

ONE thing we can be sure of....once summer comes this is our normal!

106.3F

...the radio station is 106.7 they cheered it on hoping for it to climb to 106..7F....and if it did, and if you were the 106th caller you would win....Drum Roll Please, $106.70

IT never rose that 4 more tenths! Drat!

This is my new favorite foods...corn on the cob cooked with Hot peppers, and then seared in a hot pan with butter and Garlic!! OMG its awesome..if we get the right pepper our tongues can easily reach 106 degrees!! Youzzers! its so good try it! You gotta rub the corn with the pepper after it's roasted, and let the hot juices drizzle all around the corn..I cook the corn in the husk in the microwave first, its easy to pull the husk and silks off then put in the hot skillet! Yum.

and a pear star for desert!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

White Stuff!

WE had snow! It was late arriving we were looking for it on Tuesday, but it came Tuesday night looks like 3 inches...its cold~

 One good thing it brings the birds into better focus, they dont disapear into the foilage...I got that yellow shafted Flicker through the window...there was a small flock around.

              

I'm having some trouble with the spacing of these photos...but I'm not gonna mess too much the more I mess the worse they get :o(~ so its all over the place! Anyways the Northern cardinal and Blue Jays were busy in the yard, 

                               As well as the chipping sparrows, female cardinals ....

Annie, and a last days Camelia....

                        

Dark eyed Juncos males and females abound, and a few American Goldfinch showed up- for snacks too!!

                     

At least I don't have to look at all the pine needles I have not removed off the front lawn this winter...that's kinda nice!

Course it will still be there when the snow melts, but for now I can imagine its perfect under there...

                      

The mail hasn't run yet, hope the mail person doesn't have an encounter with that icicle!

Annie likes it....and so do I!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Back in the Saddle?

I'll soon be losing my helping hands (literally), cause my sister will be returning to Colorado weather permitting next weekend! Sad is not even close to the feelings I'm experiencing.  Try as I may I can not convince her she should stay here with us! She has no other family there so.....?However my Mom has decided she is gonna stay in SC, she had a hard winter heath wise after all she is 89 yrs young and traveling is much harder for her, she has a lot of GEAR that has to go you need an SUV just to take her to town, oxygen, walkers, etc.

 IF I, as a caregiver of an older person, could dish out any advice to my generation (and younger),  based on the difficulties I see her experiencing, I would have to say work on making and keeping strong bones, do NOT smoke or become obese! My mom has osteoporosis and respiratory disease she has however kept her weight down all these years (thank goodness) because that would mean the difference in her being able to live here or not! I would not be able to help her if she was a large robust person...When she fell in the kitchen last month it took both of us about 15 minutes to get her up...

this is how we found her..

mostly because I was not able to lift with my hands since I'm recovering from the accident I had, so it was some improvising that helped get her up, literally by grabbing her by the seat of the pants, and her putting her arms around my neck as I bent forward, and I placed my feet in front of hers so she could push against them to help lift herself some, and I could lift using my shoulders and my sis lifting the back end! 

Anyway I know its not blog worth material but you never know when you may need to help get someone off the floor, or find yourself on the floor! I had to get up off the floor with 2 broken wrists, when was the last time you got up using no hands?  My sister and I both agree everyone should strengthen the muscles we use to get up after a fall! I was able to get to my knees by pushing up with one undamaged elbow to get off the floor.

A much younger more nimble me could sit down and get up in crossed leg Indian style...but those days of that flexibility are gone, replaced with arthritis due to years of hard work and living a full life, bare-horse-back riding, skiing, backpacking, jumping in and out of ambulances all of that has taken a toll on my joints!! Now I can add stiff uncooperative hands to that list...oh well we don't go out all in one piece now do we?

Any ways IM not throwing in the hat a'contrar in fact I'm continuing on with what I have to work with...I will continue to work on the house project doing what I can improvising when I have to and making use of any resources I can get my (hands) on!!

Things change in life it don't have to be life changing unless its for the better.  

...here is the before of the next room we (I?) will be tackling...

I am very limited but inch by inch things will get done! 

More stuff to sell on ebay!
Before

MY baby sister is leaving Friday for Hawaii---she and I have had this race to see how many states we can visit....she will win that race but....

all my progress photos were lost so this is after the walls were done...

I have asked for a solar Hula doll for my dashboard....how fun is that???????

A fresh coat of paint does wonders...

A nice bidding war has broken out on some Legos I've listed on 
Ebay so off I go to check the latest!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Warn N Fuzzy Feeling!

Although its fun to put up a few decorations its good to see it go back in storage too...less clutter.  I think that's why organizational needs surface right after the holidays! Mom and I straightened up the linen closet in the bathroom, it was an unorganized mess...and we rolled up all the pennies that were tumbling around in my pocketbook, making it way too heavy for me to deal with.

...next we will tackle the Junk drawer....its a treasure trove of "things" cant do without it, but I was thinking one of those silverware organizers may help us keep it in better shape?  So I'll look for one next time I go to the Dollar tree...I will get one about this long....

My Mom fell in the kitchen last week...she banged up a knee pretty good and her COPD has been acting up quite a bit so lots of coughing, oxygen, and pills, and just lots of stuff...so I've been reading her the riot act lately I think she is about ready to knock me out!! See she fell cause she was walking around the house without using a cane or walker!! NOW she is having major trouble walking so we made a deal...she is to use the walker UNTIL the knee is well enough to go back to using a cane...I walked into the kitchen the walker is standing there she is not there then I hear her on the back porch...its 2 steps down  and out to the porch WTH?

So I got angry...she said I'm not giving her any credit...

She just doesn't get it....I don't want to spend 6 weeks sitting by her bed while a broken leg heals...I just got 2 casts off my arms she is my arms for now....

I told her she is selfish she was NOT happy bout that..she gave me the stink eye for a couple days!!

BUT then she didn't complain when I watched the Breaking Bad marathon that was on amc channel....and I taped the last 6 episodes so we could see the ending....I asked in my best "pleaseeee, can we, pleaseeee"... voice and used my best puppy dog pleading eye trick!

She was a real good sport and said "oh stop whinning you can watch it, geeze..." and she even got into it and I think she enjoyed some of it!!!

My friend and I had a good New Year's "brunch" and that was very cool...we chattered away and ate like a couple of ...

So I'm still recovering....Mom is improving and doing very well today, the weather is COLD and the New Year is off and hopping!

Hope your New year is as cuddly as ours has been!!

(...these fellows are part of my Ebay inventory I haven't been out taking many photos recently so they agreed to stand in for my Blog Post)

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.