Garnett Vance, Jr.

I had quite a shock a few days ago.  My boss passed away very unexpectedly.  He had leukemia and had been ill for some weeks, but no one knew with what.

So I have not felt much like posting.  I'm going to miss him ever so much...
But I would like to tell a couple of stories about Garnett, so that you can all get a feel for what kind of person he was.
The first one involves food.  Yes, Garnett must have been a purebred corgi in a previous life.  He loved food.  Really, though, he was quite chubby as a child and young man and I forget what he told me he weighed in grade school but it was significant.  He was a fat kid.  He decided to do something about it when he acquired the name "Husky" for the jeans his mom bought for him.  And while I knew him, he was slender and in very good physical shape.
So he would come into my office and if my lunch was sitting on the desk, he'd open it and go through it, inspecting it. Every day.  At first I was sort of horrified, I mean, that brown paper bag could contain ANYTHING, after all, it's a plain brown paper bag, right?  :)  But he would ask me what kind of sandwich it was and then go merrily on his way down the hall.  It cracked me up.  I finally told Janie, another employee, that she had to come and check my lunch every day because I missed him doing it. And then nearly cried when she came in and did so one day.  :)

Another funny story, Garnett had bought something like $400 worth of country ham.  (I will save the explanation of what country ham is, exactly, for another posting.)  This was right before Christmas and he had them in the back of his pick up truck.  He went around town to deliver them to friends and business acquaintances.  He stopped at the first place and took the ham in, visited for a short spell, and then came back out to his truck. Which was filled with stray cats.  He told me there had to be 30 cats in that truck.  Worse, they had gotten into the ham.  Not one ham, but ALL of them.  They had clawed and damaged every single ham.  He came back to work with a pickup full of messed up ham.  I thought he would be angry.  No, Garnett was almost always pleasant to be around and he shrugged and laughed and said "What are you gonna do?  They were hungry and I left the back of the truck open."  I don't know if he went and got more ham but suspect that he did. And the poor man had to be deathly ill by then, with only a couple of weeks left in his life.
But he smiled and made jokes and although we all noticed he was  a bit cranky now and then, and knew he was sick with "something", we had no idea that his life on Earth was approaching his transition to a better world.
Garnett was a great boss and a friend and he cared about all of us.
God bless you, Garnett, and keep you in His care. I know we will see you again some day.  And I miss you so very much....

Sunrise Movie

I have just done my first movie!  I have wanted to learn to do this for a long time and today was the day I decided to sit down and attempt it.  It's a slide show with music of the lovely sunrises and sunsets we have here on a daily basis.  Also there is a Sun Dog and a rainbow!
Let me know how you like it!  You will probably have to cut and paste it into your browser to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPcApE48oqs&feature=g-upl&context=G2dd323fAUAAAAAAACAA

Christmas Dinner~!

I forgot to blog in this~ Ham with pineapple, home made mashed potatoes, perfectly cooked broccoli.  MmMMMMMMmmmmmm!

Dry Counties

We live in one. A lot of Kentucky is "dry" meaning they do not allow the sale of alcohol here.  Some counties are "wet" where you can buy liquor at a store. And some are "damp" where you can buy it only in a restaurant. No bars in damp counties, either!
In the next town over, there is a roadhouse, we call it "Bubba's" in a fun way, not mean at all.  The first time we ate there it was the day we closed on the house here.  Around 7:00 am and there were a bunch of farmers debating how much money they would make if they legalized pot and they could just grow that.  Cracked us up and we could only understand some of what they were saying, as we hadn't gotten used to the accents, yet.  But I knew these were good guys, one talked about how he took care of his woman, another said if you had a good woman, you'd better take care of her.  These were hardworking guys and I respected them.  Not what I'd call a Bubba at all.  Not the "here, hold my beer and watch this" kind of attitude at all.  :)

I was surprised there are are so many dry counties in the US.  A lot here in KY and throughout the south, 4 still in Florida (and I remember as a kid, hearing my folks talk about this or that county being dry).  83 counties in Alaska are dry (and I wonder just how many people live in those counties?) and about half of Mississippi is dry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_counties

Blizzard in Kentucky!

We woke up to a gorgeous sun rise this morning:

Kentucky has good weather for the most part. But we do have some severe weather, just as so many places do.  We were surprised today by a freak blizzard!  The snow came down and it is very cold outside.  The corgis are not wanting to spend much time out.
We have incurred considerable damage.  This water bowl probably won't be usable until at least Wednesday:

And even worse, we are going to have to shovel the deck.

We are tucked in and safe. I'm sure this storm will be over soon....

Kentucky Agates

This is a Kentucky Agate, the state stone.  I love agates anyhow, so was pleased to see there are some here in Kentucky.  Apparently the ones they find here have more different colors than anywhere else.  I am hoping to use some of these in my store when I get going on that. Still working on a lot of things and will announce what I'm doing in a few weeks. But for now, you will just have to wait.... :)

The red and red/black combo is more rare here, you can find red agates but these are very uncommon.

They come in all colors.  I like the one above!

Kentucky agate is found in a geode type of formation, so you look for "dinosaur eggs".  It is found primarily in the counties of  Estill and Powell counties, occasionally some agate is found also in parts of Jackson, Lee, Madison and Rockcastle counties.  I am not familiar with these counties so will have to look at a map and see if I can find someone who can help us to look for one of these!  Each geode is a surprise, you never know what you will find when you cut it in half!
More beautiful ones can be seen here:
http://www.kentuckyagaterocks.com/agate01.htm
And here is some gorgeous jewelry made from Red Kentucky agate:
http://www.kentuckyagate.net/Catalog-Jewelry-2005/Jewelry-2005-Pg1r.htm

Happy New Year!

And have you had your Hoppin' John, yet?

I fixed mine last night in the 1 quart crock pot.  1 cup of black eyed peas that I soaked all day.  A can of chicken broth.  A slice of chopped up onion.  A spoonful of bacon fat (or you could use some ham base or a bit of ham for flavoring).  A couple of good shakes of hot pepper flakes.  A bit of salt.  Cook for a couple of hours (there is no setting on the little crockpot, you go at the speed it says it wants to go at :) and then add about a half cup of rice, I always use instant and used instant brown rice this time.
You have better luck for the year if it is the first thing you eat. So I had a spoonful this morning before breakfast.  It doesn't hurt to cover all of your bases!
http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HoppinJohn.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoppin'_John