Good time at the river house

CONTENTS

PETS

TENNESSEE LIFE

CRAFTS

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PETS:

I must admit, I'm looking forward to Oscar being adopted. Then we can open up the whole house again, not worry about dog fights, not have a dog constantly under foot. While enjoying some outdoor office time, I had my laptop on the table and Oscar was next to me. Ryan decides he wants to play. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on Oscar's "mood". At this time it was a bad thing. A fight ensues, and I jump up to break it up, spilling my full glass of wine all over my laptop!!! Anyone that knows me, knows that I practically live on my computer. I do dog rescue work all day long. Losing my computer is a disaster. As soon as I saw that wine go over, I just knew...but the dogs's safety was more important and had to break up the fight.
Fight finished, all dogs ok and now separated. Back to my computer...blank screen. Just as I expected, but was hoping it somehow would survive. Scott? Honey?? Can you fix this??

Well, as you can see from the photo above, he opened it up, dried it out. My fan need replacing anyway, so this was an opportune time to do that. The good news? The hard drive is fine, so if I have to, I can plug it into Scott's laptop or computer and use it as an external hard drive. The bad news, the keyboard is shot. Will take a few days to get a new one. The good news, the computer is actually still working except for the keyboard.  Scott lent me his wireless keyboard until my new one arrives. All is well. New keyboard arrived, installed and computer is working normally. A week later, damn! My track ball/mouse isn't working. Again, Scott loans me his mouse until my new trackball arrives.

If you look closely at the dog, you'll see that he is muzzled. I've never had to muzzle a dog before in the house. Oscar is just not trustworthy with our dogs. He'll play for a bit and then he gets more excited and it turns into attacks. Poor Ryan, he's almost twice the weight of Oscar, but a bite is a bite, so Ryan wants to be close to us for protection. Oscar will be a great dog to his adopters, since he will be the only dog and get all the love and attention he wants. He's a great cuddler.
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TENNESSEE LIFE:
Starting to miss RV life again. Farm markets, new places, something to blog about, the simplicity of RV life. Living in our house in TN really isn't like the burden of living in a house in NJ. We don't have high property taxes, our house is new and better made. We are retired so yard and house maintenance isn't the chore it was trying to squeeze it in on our off days. I miss trying new restaurants. We only had two dogs and could crate them to go out together. I don't think we have gone out together since acquiring our 3 additional dogs.

I am now a "regular" at the Jackson Knitting Underground or as I call it "Jack Knit" get togethers every Thursday evening. As I said before, a great group of ladies and no one that "bugs" me as in a certain knitting group I was a part of in NJ. If any "What's The Scoop" knitting ladies still read this, it is none of you!

One of the girl's has an in-law that lets us use their River House getaway home a couple times a year. Ever since attending the knitting get togethers I've heard about how great the River House weekends are. I wondered if I was invited since I am still fairly new. Yep, invited and now feel a real part of the group.

And the weekend lived up to it's reputation. Just a chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of life. Although, I really don't have a hustle, bustling life. I brought my laptop (pre wine spill) to the River House and still kept up with my dog rescue duties.
Only 3 of us stayed overnight. Plenty of bedrooms and comfy mattresses to relax overnight in. We spent the evening knitting and watching TV with conversation that caused us not to really pay attention to TV.

We all bring something to contribute to our meals. For breakfast, there was all the makings for omelets. Yum!

More ladies arrived mid morning. More food, snacks, laughter and knitting.

For dinner, our host smoked two whole chickens. Yep, down here in the South, smoking is just like grilling in the North. No big deal.

This house sits right on the Tennessee River which has similar qualities as the Mississippi River.

They are both huge and long and are used to transport goods on barges. I've always been fascinated by the great Mississippi. Would have liked to find a home on that River. We were not disappointed by the Tennessee River though. She has her number of barges also.



The ladies got all excited when a barge would pass, especially after a few chocolate martinis!

I was told that we are supposed to flash the barge workers as they pass. Ya know, show 'em a good time. Hmmm, really? We are all over 40 and many over 50 years old. Do they really want to see our sagging boobies?




Here we go! One! Two! THREE!!!!
Chickens! Or maybe we all know better. We wouldn't want to distract the barge workers, now would we. All in all, we had good company, good food and lots of knitting time. Thanks to Amy and her in-laws for allowing us the use of their lovely home away from home.
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CRAFTS:

Well here's a change...I'm not going to show a knitting project. I signed up for a woodturning demo, taught by West Tennessee Woodturners. We made a pen! I think I could really enjoy woodturning and making bowls, table spindle legs, etc. But lathes are sooo expensive. I'm glad I attended the demo. I was able to experiment a little on the lathe and turned a long rectangle block of wood into a pen!

I made this!