You call this a drought?

According to the local weather prognosticators, our area is just under 2" below the normal rainfall amount for the year. But this has got to be one of the wettest springs I can remember. So in the midst this "great drought" I decided to take the short drive (about 10 minutes from the house) to the North Chickamauga Gorge and take some pictures of the North Chickamauga Creek as it exits the mountains, leaving the Cumberland Plateau and heading on to the great Tennessee River. And yes, Chickamauga is an indian name -- as are many of the names you will find in this area -- that is Cherokee for "River of Death".





By comparison, the following shot was taken from almost the same spot in the fall of 2007, when we were about 10-12" below normal rainfall for the year.

I Heart Faces: Easter

It's Easter time over at iHeartFaces. This week's theme is naturally Easter. So please check out their site to see all of the other great images that everyone has submitted.



Here is my Easter picture.

Wind Damage

We had some pretty nasty weather come through our area Friday, luckily we didn't have any tornadoes like they did to our northeast up near Nashville. However, we did get our fair share of strong wind gusts. Fortunately we only had some limbs blown down in our yard, but some of our neighbors were not as fortunate.






And this house that is behind us, has so far been saved from any damage by the fallen tree being caught by another tree. Hopefully another storm won't come through here until they are able to safely get the tree on the ground.

"A horse is a horse of course, unless..."

My wife already posted about this over at her blog, you can go there to check out the full story and see more photos. But how many chances to you get to post pictures of horses in your back yard.




Thanks for the pictures hon.

Lula Lake Land Trust

This past weekend I took my oldest daughter up to Lookout Mountain, GA to check out this place that I have heard a lot about on the local talk radio, but didn't really know what it was all about. Lula Lake Land Trust is a real hidden gem.


We first found some other people that came out to enjoy the aftermath of the abundant rainfall we had last week.


Then we went down to the bottom of the 120' Lula Fall. I am still out of breath from the climb back up.


But we did find our pot of gold at the bottom.


Then we decided to check out the view.


I took some more shots from the bluff and merged them together to create this panorama. The valley is Flintstone, GA. Click here for a bigger image.

Orchid in Bloom

Cherry Grove Beach

On our last day at Myrtle Beach, SC we went out on a fishing pier at Cherry Grove Beach. Saw some pelicans, more overcast skies, and in the last picture some of the only distant rays of sunshine we saw the entire trip.