Category Archives: Rural Adventures

Seeester’s Birthday

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Today is my seeester Eugenice’s birthday.

She came to visit me this weekend and boy did we have a BIG time.

First, we shopped around in downtown Franklin and had an early lunch at Puckett’s.  We left the restaurant to check out a cute little bakery and stumbled upon this completely normal scene on Main Street:

The latest in hybrid vehicles.

Thankfully this guy kept his road rage under control.

Apparently the dress code for this event was formal.

Somehow (perhaps inspired by our canine acquaintance’s fashion statement), we wound up at the mall where I purchased these VERY tall shoes.  I thought that I was going to sneak one by Eugene and finally be taller than her.  But then she also bought some VERY tall shoes.  So I got to be tall and she got to be VERY tall.  At least I was tall.

Here are some very professional photos we took of ourselves dressed to go out to dinner.

I’m not sure what’s going on with my right eye here.  I think it got stuck.

Eugene’s poof was not cooperating.

We take ourselves very seriously.  Obviously.

This makes me laugh uncontrollably every time I look at it.

The point of these pictures was to capture our full outfits, especially our sassy new shoes.  Clearly we succeeded.

Not.

We ventured down to the Gulch and had a delicious dinner at Sambuca’s, where we enjoyed some great live music in our VERY tall shoes.  We also had a celebrity sighting, which was a special present that I organized for Eugene (not really, but that’s what I told her.  I won some major points).

After enjoying ourselves thoroughly at dinner, we started toward the door and realized it was pouring rain outside.  We decided to wait it out for a little while, but then it just started raining harder.

Wonderful.

So, we agreed to cut our losses, take off our new tall (and suede) shoes, stick them in my purse and run for the hills (the car).  I hope someone witnessed this and had a good laugh.

The next morning I whipped up a gourmet breakfast of Eggo waffles, butter and butter-flavored syrup.  I then served this delicacy on my formal storage bin table next to the sofa.  I know this made Eugene feel really special.

As I tried to take a picture of Eugene enjoying this beautiful breakfast spread, my camera went off like a machine gun.  Evidently, the night before as we tried to take pictures before going out to dinner, Eugene had adjusted my camera to a timed, rapid-fire setting so we could back up and get a picture of ourselves since there was no one else to take a photo of us.   I was not aware that my camera was still on this setting when I turned it on the next morning.  As it went off, my instinct was to find cover because I had no idea what was happening.

Eugene just shook her head.

All in all, I would call it a very successful weekend of birthday/sister shenanigans.

Welcome to the third decade of your life, poodle.   I hope you had a stupendous Birthday.

I LAHV you.

Y’all be careful and take an umbrella,

Sugarlump

Family Farms

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I love farms.

Every summer as a kid, when I visited my extended family in Kentucky, I loved to ride around with Papa and my cousins and check out the family farms.  Because I only saw the farms once a year, I never really knew them that well.  Now that I live closer and can visit more often, I have asked Papa to take me around and show me the farms more thoroughly as well as some of the really beautiful spots around the county.

Last week, he took me to one of the farms that has been in the family for several generations.  Most of it is covered in trees, but it’s still fun to drive around hear Papa tell me the history of it.

Apparently, before there was a paved or gravel road to the farm, this was a back way through the creek to get to the farm.

I see you hiding back there, little barn.

Papa said this hollow goes for a mile or two.

Maybe I can convince my cousin Lauren to explore up to the head of the hollow with me this summer.  Perhaps we could fix up Julio for our journey. I’m thinking “Ain’t Skeered: Part 2” might be in our future.

Now, let me tell you a story about me and this fairly moderate incline.

Growing up, I was obsessed with cars and driving and could not wait to get my license.  In the summers before I was 16, I always looked forward to driving Papa’s truck around on the farm, where no other parties were subject to harm.

One day, I was having a grand old time driving up and down the gravel road when I decided I needed to go across this little ditch and up the hill to this barn on the left. I didn’t (and still don’t really) know how to drive a truck on this mixed terrain.  Evidently, I did not give the truck enough gas because I proceeded to get stuck just past the ditch as my wheels slid on the gravel/grass/dirt hill.  Scared for my life, I yelled to my Uncle Brian who was standing nearby and he instructed me on how to put the truck in 4-wheel drive.  After a few dicey moments, I made it up the hill, all 50 feet of it.  Thank goodness I didn’t start to slide backward because I could have been seriously injured as I ran into…..a grassy field.

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t really a life-threatening situation.  It seemed very serious at the time.

For my farm touring adventures, I’m going to let Papa do the driving.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Bantams

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A while back, my dad and I were shopping at the Chestnut Hill Mall in Boston.  As we were walking through the mall between stores, we came upon an unusual display.

Want to guess what it was?

“A waterfall.”

Nope.

“Santa Claus.”

Close, but no.

“I give up.”

White Crested Black Polish Bantam Chickens!

I WANT ONE.

No, seriously.  I REALLY WANT ONE.

Or two.

Or three.

Or a whole brood of them.

I never thought I would say this, but that perm is sassy.

I think I’ll call her Elvis.

This is her husband.  Who said men can’t rock long hair?

He reminds me of Cruella De Vil.

In a good way.

Whoever is responsible for this display needs a raise.

And I NEED some of these chickens.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

Rite Aid

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When my sister and I would visit our family in Kentucky in the summer as young kids, we had a bit of a ritual.  My cousins, my sister and I would make the long-awaited trip to….

RITE AID!

To the average person, that may not seem very exciting.  In fact, for many people it falls into the category of “errands,” thus making such a trip dull and uninteresting.

My cousins, my sister and I, however, lived for Rite Aid in the summer.  Papa would give us each $10 or $20 and take us to Rite Aid, where we really knew how to stretch a buck.

My sister, Eugene (who is 4 years younger than I am), and my cousin Kristen (who is 5 1/2 years younger than I am) were still pretty small when we would go to Rite Aid so they bought toys and bubbles and things.  My cousin Lauren (who is 2 ½ years younger than I am) and I, however, were quite serious about our purchases that would entertain us for the next three weeks.  We spent our money on…

OFFICE SUPPLIES!

Exciting, no?!

No?

Oh. Ok.  Well, Lauren and I thought it was exciting.

We would play “passport service,” a game we invented and probably spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours playing when we were young.  To play passport service, we needed paper and index cards and pens and highlighters and hole-punchers and paper clips and lots of office-y things.  And gum.  We always left room in the budget for a package of bubblicious gum.  That was our one splurge.  Other than that, our purchases were strictly business.

You probably think I’m making this up, but I have evidence:

See how proudly we were displaying our Rite Aid bags? We were very serious and enthusiastic about Rite Aid.  Papa was just glad to have his polecats together.

Sadly, about 10 years ago, the Rite Aid went out in Burkesville.  We wore black for a month.

Not really, but we certainly took it hard.

There is currently a cowboy store in the former Rite Aid location and I can’t bring myself to go in there because I haven’t gotten over Rite Aid closing yet.

R.I.P. Burkesville Rite Aid.   Thanks for all of the good times and practical purchases.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump

Ain’t Skeered

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This is me and my cousin Lauren in the teeniest automobile/go-cart posing as an automobile you have ever seen.  She’s pictured left, in the driver’s seat, and I’m pictured right, being unhelpful and giggling.

I’m not really sure why we own this fierce vehicle with a Harley Davidson sticker. Apparently my papa bought it thinking it was a useful farm vehicle.  Turns out, not so much. It has, however, provided hours of entertainment for his granddaughters.  So, all in all, I would say it was a good investment.

One pleasant, Kentucky afternoon, we set out to trek up old Leslie mountain here (read: small hill) and stalled and nearly went careening down the mountain (read: rolled 10 feet down hill at a snail’s pace), but Cousin Lauren and I ain’t skeered of no mountain and we kept on keepin’ on.

Undeterred, after about 17 of these stall-and-roll episodes (very much unlike the athletic pick-and-roll), we managed to charge up the mountain (minor hill) at 1.7429 miles per hour and made it to the top by what seemed like the following afternoon.  What a journey.

Having arrived on level ground, which proved more agreeable to our peculiar vehicle that I have decided to call Julio, we then toured around on the dirt road and took in the lovely wooded scenery of our family’s farm.

We only ran over a stick and subsequently stalled 4 times.

Then, we began our descent back down old Leslie Mountain (hill).  For our lack of speed traveling up the hill, we certainly made up for it as we flew down the hill in Julio’s alarmingly front-heavy cab, his Barbie Jeep tires barely gripping the grass to prevent our collision with a very dense and at rest object of the bovine variety.

If you look closely in the picture above, you will see that my mouth is open as I am likely screaming for my life or laughing uncontrollably.  Maybe a little bit of both.

Once we reached our resting point, a ditch, I decided to drive.

Did I mention that I had never driven a manual transmission before….?

All parties left the scene unharmed, in case you were wondering.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump