Labor Day

Summer's over, football is here, and we're all back in school...well, I guess one of us was never really off, but let's not split hairs.  We spent a couple days up at the mountain estate.  There's usually a big crowd in Breckenridge, which is fine.  We're sort of home-bodies on these weekends.  We went up Friday afternoon and just enjoyed the day and scenery.  We took the dogs down to the river behind the house.  Bode and I were feeling brave, so we each got in...brrr.

The little spot is quite scenic.  I also got some other shots of Bode wading through the water.

Keep in mind Hoosier pass is just five miles to the south of us.  For those that failed geography in elementary school, Hoosier pass is part of the continental divide (if this confuses you, Google it).  Thus, the water is pretty much fresh snow-melt.  It almost hurts when you put your feet it, but the air temperature was quite warm, so once you got out, it actually felt quite good.  Bode and I spent about 30 minutes walking up and down-stream--some good father-son time.  Barkley liked the water...

while Joey wanted nothing to do with it.

On Saturday, we watched some football--the mighty Auburn Tigers had an impressive (sort of) win; the big test is next week versus Clemson.  Sunday, we took a hike to the Blue River Tarn (a big lake).  It wasn't strenuous, but it was very nice.

We came home Sunday night and just lazed around today.  I harvested the cucumbers from my garden--I can't believe how many I got.  The garden was quite successful this year--potatoes, raspberries, green-beans, strawberries, lettuce, broccoli, peas, carrots, and green peppers.  There are still pumpkins ground, and I also have more carrots and potatoes in the ground.  I even started some onions in late August--the root veggies should last awhile.  The pumpkins grew until Halloween last year, so we'll see how that goes.

Our neighbor just sent us the below picture from our mountain estate...that is our front-door in the background.  Those moose are simply huge.

Swim practice starts up this week.  Thus, Ashley and I will spend some quality time on a pool deck--time to stock up on books.  We read some good reads over the summer--The Orphan Master's Son, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Nix, and a few others.  I tried reading The Chemist--it was well reviewed, but I just couldn't get into it.  Right now, I'm reading 1984 again--it was mentioned a lot in the Netflix documentary, Icarus, so I wanted to read it.  I plan to tackle Bleak House, which is one of Dickens's longest...should be fun.  Happy week to all.