Starting Over

Well , I had a little vacation from writing this thing , ready to start telling the tales again of my mysterious and eventful journey around this planet . I think I got a little fed up with myself for awhile , wouldn't call it depression just generally pissed at the human condition , so withdrew to the mountains and my own little world . The good news is as I surface and begin reading the news via the net , I see I haven't missed much ! Politicians still suck , cities have the same problems , the economy is still in the tank , the liberal yahoos are still calling the conservative yahoos names and the bottom line is .... wait for it .... none of the above means dick in the real world ! My friends are still my friends , the mountains have changed little if any , I feel pretty good health wise , my mental health [ which has always been an area for speculation ] I feel is fairly good . So as Willie says in that famous song " after taking several readings , I'm surprised to find my mind still fairly sound " I guess we can leap right into what's been going on :
We had a pie day to raise money for the Portal Rescue Sevice , a good bunch of folks and no whiners here , they needed some $ to get new equipment so started out and raised the money , sort of a down home stimulus or taking responsibility for themselves , great food , a fun day and some nice people this was back in Sept , here are some photos:

 

The impressive part is , there are about 500 people in the valley , these guys raised almost $5000 in a two hour period ! Not bad for a little place like this !

Next up is the running around I've been doing , lots of places and lots of history . Much of what I've been looking at has some historical significance , whether it is the old west or how some of these little towns have survived , the impact of the railroad , some of the things I've been scoping out are new , the building of quite a few observatories , homes that are predominately built for alternative energy , , the advent of modern farming and ranching . There are still a goodly number of cowboys still working stock by the tried and true methods , but with modern vet medicine and assistance from mechanical means also . The agricultural side of this area has went from cotton to hay and alfalfa , and of course the chile . Modern irrigation , new ways of prepping the soil and less dependence on chemicals and hormones , back to basic growing techniques .

The seasons are starting to make themselves felt with a nice change in temps , down to very cool at night , and a more moderate temp during the day . I'm still waiting for the blistering summer that the locals predicted , I guess all those years in Fl jaded me pretty good , I don't think these folks here have ever experienced a North Fl summer where the temp goes up , stays up and the humidity is high enough to wash cars with without a hose or bucket!

Anyhoo here are some photos of some of the places I been tooling around to .

Still as beautiful as ever ! Don't have the words to express the beauty of everything , nor the space to show all the photos , I'm back in the groove now so till the next time .

Stay tuned .......