The Land of Ozz

Our family hosted a pizza party this passed weekend. The party was very family friendly and did not have any beer, but did end up with a deer. More on the deer in a minute. We had about twenty five friends over for lunch including their children. It was a great time to celebrate the beginning of a New Year. The weather was great for grilling the pizza. Sherry and I have decided to make this an annual event. We intended to have the party on New Years Eve, but ALL of our boys ended up sick enough to be put on antibiotics a few days before the big event. Our two oldest, Riley and Caden were even put on breathing treatments due to wheezing. The big plan was to have a mock up of the “ball drop” at 7PM on New Years Eve in celebration of Zulu New Year. The Zulu New Year was an idea some of us dad’s came up with we would not miss out on the coming in of the New Year…somewhere.

Anyway, about the deer. The big event of the day for me came when I sat down with my good friend Chad after most of the guest had departed. Chad and I were enjoying the cool breeze on the screened porch as we looked out over our backyard into the wetlands protected area behind our house. Chad asked if I had ever seen any deer in my backyard or in the wetlands. I told him no, but I had seen deer tracks. He went on to tell me about the deer he saw in his backyard a few days earlier. Well, it was about 5 or 10 minutes after Chad asked me about the deer when we both just happened to be looking in the same direction at my next door neighbor’s yard. My neighbor has a privacy fence and we were entertained by the leaves swarming up over the hight of the fence as he used his leaf blower. Then, in the flash of an eye, a full grown whitetail doe came flying through my yard (front to back). I could barely believe my eyes. I told Chad that I was so glad we were both looking in that same direction at that moment because he would never have believed me if he had not seen it for himself. I have lived in this house for six and a half years and never once seen a deer. I had not five minuted earlier told Chad as much and then there comes a deer out of my front yard.

A few minutes later my new neighbor from three doors down came walking up. He introduced himself and asked if we saw that deer run through the yard. He said it came running right past him as he was sweeping his driveway and then it took a hard turn into my yard. I think he was as surprised by it as we were and maybe he just wanted someone to verify that he was not crazy.

It was an unbelievable end to a great pizza party to see a full grown deer run through the yard at 2pm. I think the next time Chad comes over, I would like for him to ask me if I have ever seen bags full of $100 bills fall from the sky into my backyard.

On Friday I was at church for a small group leader rally. I happened to end up in the food line on the other side of the table from our senior pastor (Greg Surratt). He was sporting a picture of a big fish he caught earlier that same day up on the Wando River near the 41 bridge. I poked fun at him and told him all I wanted to know was the GPS coordinates of where he caught this beauty, the bait he used, etc. I am still waiting.

Now Pastor Greg’s fish was big, but I have news for him. His fish looks like bait compared to the one my good friend Gary Ezzo has posted a picture of on his web site. Seen on the right here is a picture of a man named Harold. Gary’s friend Harold caught this giant Drum (estimated at nearly 40 lb) in a hole that is not supposed to have fish this big. Gary gives the details of the fight between Harold and this monster Drum over on his site titled Carolina Fishing from Grandpa’s Dock.

Gary also posted a note over on GrowingKids.org tonight highlighting his new web site. He throws out a teaser on GrowingKids.org for his story titled An afternoon on the Wando River. Check out Gary’s new fishing site and drop him a little link love if you like fishing in the low country of SC. Shrimping season starts in just a few weeks, and I will guarantee you that you will be able to read about Gary catching his share of shrimp along side our mutual friend Rich Young.

Our family got to have a little fun while in Atlanta this past weekend. Most of this video is of my son Caden.

I know I will likely catch some flack from the locals for this comment given we have a really great aquarium right here in Charleston, but the GA Aquarium is the best one I have seen yet and I did not even visit all of the exhibits while I was there. You can see a few pictures from our GA Aquarium visit if stop by Caden’s Page before you leave.

For testing purposes I am including the Xianz copy of the same movie. Please let me know which you like better.

What is this all about?  These are screen caputure from my browser at about 9am on Wednesday 12/6/06.  I know weather forcasting is not that accurate, but this is funny.  Maybe we were having solar flares or something that interfeared in weather data communications. One image (left) is from my custom Google home page and the other (right) is from my “My Yahoo!” page.

There are two things that make these weather feeds funny to me. The current temperatures are definitly out of sync from each other and both show that the current temperature at time of these screen captures as lower than their own forcasted lows for the day.  I don’t know what the temperature was this morning, but I am guessing the Yahoo!/Weather Channel feed was a little more accurate.

Here is some suggested basic logic for weather feeds.

ForcastLow < = CurrentTemp

ForcastHigh >= CurrentTemp

We played hooky from church last weekend in exchange for a lunch at the top of the highest point in the Carolinas. The picture on the right was taken a few hundred yards from the peak of Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina.We spent the entire day on Sunday driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and taking in God’s awesome creations. Our boys loved it up there. Can you tell from the pictures below? We may live near the coast of SC, but our hearts are in the mountains. This was the first trip to the mountains for Caden and it was the first time for Riley since just before his first birthday.

We actually started out on Saturday and picked a few apples in Hendersonville, NC on the way up. Okay, it was actually Edneyville, but very few people have ever heard of it. I lived there for almost a year before joining the US Air Force back in 1986. We stopped by the apple house of an old family friend. They loaded us up with apples. My wife made about a bunch different fresh apple desserts for our Preparation for Parenting class that started this past Tuesday night. Everyone loved the homemade apple pie, turnovers, and cake that Sherry made not to mention the other appetizer things. I should have taken a picture for my Grill’n Time blog but the stuff didn’t last long enough to get a picture. Maybe next time.

Hi! My name is Robin McGee. I live in Upstate South Carolina with my husband, youngest child, a dog, a herd of cattle, chickens, goats, donkeys, cats…you get the idea. I’m 44 years old, and I have 3 children and 4 grandchildren. I am a Certified Family Herbalist, and I make my own medicine from plants…mostly whatever is growing wild here on the farm, along with a few friends I’ve planted.

I grew up loving to garden and loving nature. I remember “helping” my Granny to plant beans when I was 3 years old. She always kept a meticulous garden. She would get the soil ready, mark off rows with her hoe then dig the little holes where the seeds would go. After all the holes were dug she’d go down the row and drop a few seeds in each hole, not covering them until every hole cradled seeds. Observing this I decided (remember I was 3) that I would give Granny a hand. Without her realizing it I followed her down the row and covered the beans as she moved along. When she got to the end of the row she turned around to begin covering her seeds, but there were no seeds to be covered. I had already covered them. I was so proud! Now Granny wouldn’t have to spend her time going up that row one more time. She could move on to the next row and dig little holes to plant something else! Granny didn’t see my wonderful accomplishment as helpful. She began to yell, “Whadju do with my seeds? How’m I spose to know whar they at?” as she started toward me. Now, I had had my share of what that little 90-pound wildcat could do with a hickory switch, and I wasn’t wasting any time getting away from her. I ran as fast as my little legs would carry me to get as far away from that frantic woman as I could! I tried to explain that I was helping, but she just kept yelling. Finally, she turned away from me and went back to gardening, muttering to herself. Later on, my Papa got a good laugh when Granny told him how “helpful” I had been that day.

Looking back, I understand why Granny got so upset with me. I don’t think it was me covering her seeds that frustrated her. I believe she was more upset that she didn’t get to do it herself.

Now that I have my own grandchildren I want to pass along to them our family tradition of gardening and my love and respect for nature. As soon as Riley, my first grandchild, was born I began to introduce her to the outside world. I would tell her the names of flowers and birds, or hold a rose near her face so she could breathe in its sweet perfume. When she was around 3 years old I let her help me plant seeds and flowers. Now when she comes to visit Grandma we pick violets to make syrup and tincture, or blueberries for a snack, or we take a walk to visit the “weeds” that will be used for medicine. And she loves to help her mother in her garden, using the tools Grandma gave her to fit her little hands.

I think it’s working!

I want to introduce a very dear friend who will be joining me as a guest blogger. Robin McGee is a certified Certified Family Herbalist. She owns her own business Wild Earth Botanicals specializing in dietary supplements.

Robin and I have been great friends since we met in the Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) International Honor Society in college about 10 years ago. She was the chapter president at Piedmont Technical College in Greenwood, SC back then. She helped me to become the first PTK Carolinas Regional President from Piedmont Technical College in 1997. It was that same year in my travels as Regional President that I met another member of Phi Theta Kappa from Summerville, SC named Sherry (now my wife of six years).

Robin and her family have been a huge pillar of support for my wife and I in recent years. Robin basically stepped in and ran our house for a while right after our son Caden was born. She has been referred to many times on Caden’s Page as Aunt Robin. She did an awesome job of keeping Riley on his normal routine as much as possible during Caden’s extended hospitalization right after his birth in 2004. She continued to train Riley based on the same principles that we were already following. She was an angel to us during those very difficult times.

I asked Robin several months ago if she would be interested in blogging on the subject that she knows best, nature. She loves many aspects associated with nature including camping, kayaking (paddling as she calls it), and hiking. But most of all, Robin loves gardening. She has finally given in and agreed to join me for a little blogging. I am going to start a new category for her stuff called “Nature”. So please join me in welcoming Robin McGee.