Thanksgiving
is my favorite HOLIDAY!
I can remember back a very long way!
The holiday that stands out in my memories the most,
is Christmas (of course!!).
As I have matured beyond Christmas stuff, as when I was a kid,
I have come to understand that THANKSGIVING is my favorit-est one of all.
Since I can remember, the whole house was filled with amazing smells of cooking.
The Turkey was always HUGE! The table was spread with the most delicious things imaginable! Home-made golden brown, extra puffy, hot rolls just waiting for a generous pat of home-made butter and jam; perfect dressing made from day old corn bread, green beans, sweet corn off the cob, red jello filled with fruit and nuts (always a crowd pleaser);
Cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy; and home made pies……lots of pies!

There was always much more food….too much to list and too much to eat! Nevertheless, we ate and gorged ourselves like there was no tomorrow! Not much has changed in that department. Sure, I can’t eat ALL that I would like, but I get plenty! The smell of THANKSGIVING will be forever etched in my memories. Every year those smells come alive on Thanksgiving Day!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. The house will be filled with those memory-making smells again! We have a HUGE Turkey that I will be preparing in the morning. We have my daughter’s family coming over, bringing my sweet Great Grandbaby Girl so her Great-Papa can hold her. All in all, we are feeding about 20 tomorrow afternoon! It will be fun! We are excited! You know, the next best thing to eating all those delicious foods is anticipating the SMELL!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, especially you whom I love!

Hill's Health Care Plan

THE OLD FARM HOUSE

…..is a lot like people.

We spend our lifetime growing old from birth to death. We change so much that our childhood friends don’t even recognize us anymore. Why, we could actually rub shoulders on the street somewhere and never know “who the stranger was”. We spend our life failing to take care of ourselves, letting our body “go”, thinking we are invincible, or something. We fail to do much maintenance like eating healthy foods or exercising. We grow thin on the top and thick in the middle.
The old farm house is much the same. We “let it go” and do the minimum. We don’t know the meaning of the word “maintenance”. Like our body, we fix it if it needs fixin’ and “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke”! It begins to show major signs of wear and tear. Like us, it begins to sag in places where we rather it wouldn’t. Like us, any old barn looks better with a new coat of paint. But we don’t ever get around to doing much more than that.
As we give up and desert the old place, the deterioration really sets in, then! Next thing we know, it falls apart and just can’t be fixed anymore! Then we are either buried or cremated. In this life, that’s all that’s left!
The old farm house where we grew up isn’t standing anymore. As kids, we spent a lot of time there running in and out of that old screen door, climbing the trees and playing “Annie Over”. It’s quiet around there now. The kids have grown up and gone away; the house fell in and apart from lack of use and upkeep. Only the memories remain.
Mom nearly worked herself to death keeping things alive. There was always wood to chop to be used for cooking and heating the house. Later, when we "modernized", Propane brought a whole new way of cooking!

We had a fireplace on each end of the old house, with a roaring fire to try to keep warm by. We had 360 acres of trees that we could cut, split and stack cords of firewood. There was always water to boil for 6 kids to take baths in and to wash the laundry. That old ringer washer still sets outside in this picture.

There are many good memories in that old farm. Life was much simpler then. As we moved on and sold the old homestead, we still go back into our memories and pull out the good times we remember, growing up in Northwest Arkansas.

The really only good thing about “the good ‘ol days” is that they are good and gone!

So how many colors are there in a small waterfall?
I snapped this picture on a recent trip along the Timberline Trail on Mt Hood. The reflections of the surrounding vegetation, the sky and light, and the old tree root giving images of unusual color. This reminds me of a water color painting.

McNeil Point....

was a vista, for sure.

It also offered a couple of unusual sights to photograph.

This towering chunk of Lava makes one stop and think about the tremendous power required to lift molten earth more than 10 miles straight up!



Equally powerful is how some of it cooled around what appears to have been a misplaced Arkansas Razorback!


I'm only guessing,
but judge for yourself!



Now, looking through an age old hole in the tree..... one can see through to the other side!

I suspect this might have been a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Life is hard in the high mountains!






On the way to McNeil Point, we came across this unusual fungus,.... or bear puke,....or elk slobber, ....or whatever it is enveloping this bear grass! I've never seen anything like it!

Heading back down you can see McNeil Shelter.

I find that in hiking the mountains there is always something to see!

It's no Bed & Breakfast
but you can have it for a song!

It's no Hilton
but the price is right!

It's not much,
but in a WHITE-OUT
it would be a good friend!

HAPPY TRAILS!

Mt Hood
at
McNeil
Point

A new discovery this summer was McNeil Point on Mt Hood.

Here is a 360 view.

CODGER WANNABEES



You gotta love ‘em!

Sneakers we call

Codger Wannabees,












Scruitinizin'

Takin' notes





Mimicking,

Waiting for their chance


Their time



When they, too

Become

The Revered Codger!

C A U T I O N

CODGERS

on the Trail

Wikipedia defines Codgers as "the plural of Codger".

I WISH I HAD THOUGHT OF THAT!!

But Wiki also defines the Codge as "An amusingly eccentric or grumpy and usually elderly man".

Then it delves deeper into the word itself and concludes that it's, "Possible abbreviation of coffin dodger, though likely to be a folk etymology."


I neither consider myself as eccentric or elderly. I do sometimes fall into the "grumpy" catagory when I don't get my way or someone steps on my selfish side! But "coffin dodger"??? I don't think I'm there yet! Sometimes I FEEL like one, but I don't make it a habit to dodge coffins just to avoid the inevitable!

I do believe that some of us are beginning to step into the role of "codger". We're the old guys huffing and puffing up the trail with our tongues hanging out like an old dog tired of running! I try to keep mine in my mouth as I have been known to step on it while "sailing" up some of the high mountain switchbacks!

Some of us codgers love the mountains. We try to impress ourselves by taking backpacking trips and getting our heart rate up into dangerous levels. The younger bucks on the trail aren't sure what to think about us.

When they see us gasping for air (not because we're TIRED, mind you, but because the air is much thinner in higher elevations), they appear confused and uncertain (not because we're showing them how REAL MEN hike, but because they're wondering where they can get phone service to dial 911).

So when you see us on the trail,

MOVE OVER AND LET US PASS!

Don't hold us up!

We don't have that much time left!!

The Call of the Wild

The soft forest trail, carpeted with years of falling needles and leaves was behind us, giving way to fewer trees and open vistas. The dusty, rock strewn trail wound its way higher and higher. Patches of late summer snow hugged the bare mountain slopes in nooks and gullies as if trying to hide from the hot August sun.

As the trail zigzagged up the mountainside, drawing us ever closer to the top, each switchback offered increasingly awesome vistas of higher peaks and endless mountain ranges. Words like breathtaking, awesome, beautiful, amazing and spectacular never seemed to really capture the essence of such an experience! Photographs paled beside the movie held captive in my mind, captured by the brain and human eye.

The lure of the mountains is a strong force. It is energy, relentlessly drawing my very soul to bask in the solitude found only in the high country. Every mountain offers a unique portrait of its Creator. Geologically, only in my imagination, in my mind’s eye, can I get a picture of the tremendous forces that gave birth to the mountains. What unimaginable power it must have taken to begin in the bowels of the earth and push once layered rock to create peaks of great heights. Such is the trail upon which I walk in the high country.

Spectacular vistas are nothing, however, without color and light. From the quiet of an early morning sunrise watching the illumination of high peaks and valley fog to the evening sunset dancing ever changing color upon evening clouds, each day never repeating itself.

What satisfaction there must be in the Creator Who made all things and said, “It was very good”. Indeed it was!
I was not always enthusiastic about strapping on a heavy backpack and hiking into the mountains. It was not until the Fall of my life did I really begin to appreciate the high vistas.

Now, as I struggle to find the physical stamina needed for high country adventures, I am filled with an insatiable desire for more. Is there no end?

Gnarly Old Men of the Mountains

Ancient Sages of the Forest

Guardians of the High Country

Sentinels of time

Pose with Gnarly

Old Men of the city.

Stalwart; Tenacious; Vigilant; A testimony of determination.

Glacier fed streams, Liquid Crystal

create clear lakes

with names like

MIRROR

.........Moccasin,

and Glacier,

coexisting with flower-filled meadows.

A time

to rest a

weary frame.

Good friends to share Nature’s abundance and God’s glory.

Beside warm fires and high mountains

Filling mind and soul in meditation;

Giving honor and homage to God,
our creator.

Only in the Mountains can one find peace like no other.