brimming over

A friendly rivalry

In our house, fall means a lot of things...back to school, pumpkin foods, Halloween, crazy weather.  But most of all, fall means college football!

And college football means University of Alabama football!  Roll Tide! (that's for Craig and the boys.)

College football rivalries can be pretty fierce in the SEC.  And we are out of our element since we live in a part of Georgia that is liberally populated with about 30% Auburn fans, 30% Georgia fans, and 20% Georgia Tech fans.  The remaining 20% are split widely among teams as varied as Maryland, Virginia Tech, Ole Miss, Miami, and more.

We have developed a very friendly, and mostly civil, rivalry with our very close friends who are Tennessee fans.  It's particularly interesting since I'm a UT traitor, having given up the fight when I realized it was just too difficult being married to a man who eats/sleeps/dreams Alabama football.

A few years back, our friends' teenage son covered Craig's Alabama car tag and decals with UT stuff when they beat Bama.  And that started the ongoing battle.  There were a few bleak years when the Vols won several in a row.  Then Bama won and we hung an Alabama flag in a tree in their yard (where it remained for several days while they were out of town before they came home and removed it!). And so the rivalry progressed.

Now this year, it should have been easy victory.  Alabama is ranked in the top 5.  Tennessee has been struggling.  But this is a game that never goes as expected.  The Tide won, but just by the hair of their chinny-chin-chins.  Or should we say by a certain player's chin.  Terrence Cody saved the day by blocking a last minute UT field goal (his second block of the day!). 

Craig and Parker worked on this masterpiece and delivered it to our friends on Halloween.

Tonight our doorbell rang and we found this awaiting us on the front porch.

(It says "VOLS" for anyone having difficulty reading the word.)

If I must watch endless hours of college football, at least this makes it fun.  :) 
 
  

Yummm...Georgia

Last weekend we made the short trek to Fort Valley, Georgia, for a Southern summer treat...peaches!  We visited Lane Orchards for the afternoon and had a lovely time. 

We took a tour on an open air tram through the orchards and heard about the history of the Lane farms as well as all sorts of interesting facts about growing and harvesting peaches and pecans.  I thought it turned out to be a very educational tour!

Looking through a pecan orchard...my pictures are on the fuzzy side due to the bumpy ride!  And yes, they are called orchards.  Pecan groves are created by nature.  Pecan orchards are planted by humans.  :)

 

 

A young pecan orchard...eventually every other tree will be removed to give the trees room to expand to their full size.  They are now working on ways to successfully transplant the removed trees to new orchards.

Looking through the pecan trees to the peach trees behind.

 

Peach orchard...oh, how we wanted to hop off and grab one!

 

 

 

 

And the highlight of the day for me and Craig:  homemade peach, strawberry, and butter pecan ice cream!  Heavenly.

But I think the children might say that the highlight was playing on the "fake merry-go-round"...

 

It all depends on your perspective

Yeah, it's been cold here this week.  A lot colder than January normally is.  The kind of cold that makes thin-blooded Southern folk like us hibernate in the house except for absolutely necessary trips outside.  In a very warm vehicle.  With the seat warmers on. 

Yes, I know my friends in Connecticut are laughing at me now.  My friend Karen can't quit giggling about the fact that my children have Under Armor sports long undershirts for cold days.  But when you're accustomed to warm, even hot, weather nearly all the time, you get cold easily!

So all this week it's been around 20 degrees when we got up.  There's ice in the bird bath and the down spout drains.  And ice crystals on the pine straw.

But this morning there is a giant icy patch on the driveway and front sidewalk.  I don't know exactly how the water got there but it's a nice sized sheet of ice.  Wesley discovered it when he took the recycle bin out to the curb a bit ago.  And naturally he called the others out to see.

So they all went "ice skating". 

See what I mean about perspective?