Have You Ever Spent The Night In A Treehouse?

A couple of weeks ago when I was in Chattanooga our group visited Ruby Falls. Ruby Falls is a 145 foot waterfall inside Lookout Mountain. It is the tallest and deepest underground waterfall open to the public. You can read more about it on the Ruby Falls Website here. If you missed my post about Chattanooga and the few days I was there check it out here. Chattanooga Visit

Something very unique and innovative that Ruby Falls has added to their wonderful experience is the opportunity to stay in one of their new Treehouses. This is not a totally new concept in our area. It is one of the first times I was able to actually view them and go inside. They’re adorable!!!

Each of the treehouses are modernly furnished. The ones at Ruby Falls were decorated like you wouldn’t believe. Each one had some type of record player, yes I said record player with records and one of them even had a very old phonograph player with very old records.

Look at this hammock on the deck. It looked so peaceful it just made me want to take a nap under the trees.

I can just imagine sitting on this little porch and having coffee while I look out over the city of Chattanooga.

Some of the houses had a bedroom downstairs and the living area with a couch and desk upstairs. And some were just the opposite with the bedroom upstairs.

The treehouses are filled with windows offering you a view in every direction. The trees around are beautiful but can you imagine snow or rain gently falling while you are nestled in the treehouse, reading a good book. I can.

The stairs leading to the second level of the treehouse are a little steep but definitely doable.

Each treehouse had an outdoor sitting area, a fire pit and at least one hammock. The leaves on the trees were gently blowing and it was just like paradise.

This one had an outside tub with a privacy curtain and also an outdoor shower.

So peaceful!!

Once you get to the parking area for the treehouses you can look down on the tower at Ruby Falls and Chattanooga. Isn’t this a beautiful view?

This is the pathway leading to the cabins. It is lit so if you are out at night you would have no problem finding the path.

You can actually drive to an upper parking area and load your things in one of these little wagons to take to the treehouse.

The treehouse experience is not a cheap one. It is different. It is definitely an experience that you will never forget. A boutique treehouse retreat is what will be waiting for you. Check out the Ruby Falls website and then click Treehouses for lots of photos and availability.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Southern Folklore And Predicting The Winter Weather

November is here and our beautiful fall weather will soon turn to winter. Fortunately here in the south we don’t usually experience harsh winters or a lot of snow. And I have often heard if you live in East Tennessee and you don’t like the weather just hang around for a few minutes and it will change. But you may not know that there are subtle signs that can help you predict just what the winter might hold.

When I was a little girl, usually starting in late summer or early fall, I would hear mama and daddy talking about the upcoming winter. My mama would say “ I think it’s going to be a rough winter just look at those woolly worms.” My daddy would talk about how the geese seemed to be flying south earlier than usual. That meant an early and cold snowy winter was coming.

I still cling to this southern lore, Appalachian way of predicting the weather or whatever you want to call it. My husband makes fun of me and calls it ridiculous but he secretly knows I’m right. Ha!! Just like the various winters we experience before summer actually makes her hot, humid appearance, the weather can be a little fickle. If you missed the post about the various winters check it out here.

Here are a few of the things I have heard throughout my life about foretelling winter weather:

You can tell how harsh the winter will be by looking at the color of a wooly worm. The more black on the worm the colder the winter will be. If it has a broad stripe across the middle or more of an orange color the winter will be mild. Just look at this wooly worm we found at work last week. the brownish orange stripes are so tiny you can barely see them. I would say that means a really cold winter but we will see.

And then look at these guys with all the orange and brown. I haven’t seen any like this so far this year. I think they would indicate a mild winter.

Other predictions include, the number of fogs you have in the month of August, that will be the number of snows you have during that winter.

If squirrels are very active gathering up nuts like chestnuts and walnuts it means there is going to be a longer winter. I don’t know about you but the squirrels around our property have been very busy lately.

Rings around the sun or moon mean that numerous snowfalls are likely. This was a favorite of my daddy’s. I heard him say this many times.

The number of wasps and hornets you see in September indicate a harsh winter.

Larger than usual spider webs built high.

If ant hills are high in July winter will be snowy.

If berries and wild fruit are plentiful in fall bad weather is coming and the abundance of berries and wild fruit and nuts are just what the wild animals need.

Flowers that have a second bloom in the fall or hold onto their blooms late in the season forecast a colder winter.

If squirrels stash their nuts high in the trees, the snow will be deep.

Mushrooms galore, much snow in store. No mushrooms at all, no snow will fall.

Winter time is harsh but I think that birds, animals, and plants provide us with subtle clues to what winter might hold for us.

I grew up hearing these predictions and I have always found them fascinating. Some of these predictions have been passed down for generations.

What have you noticed lately that could be a prediction for the coming winter?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!!

The Dog Days Of Summer

Well the Dog Days of Summer end tonight. When I was a kid I heard my parents and grandparents talking about the Dog Days of Summer. It would be really hot and they would say “oh this is nothing we still have to get through Dog Days”.

I always thought that dog days had something to do with a dog and it does just not the hound dog variety I was thinking of. Dog Days are from July 3 to August 11 each year.

The phrase “dog days” is a reference to Sirius, the Dog Star. During the “Dog Days” period, the Sun occupies the same region of the sky as Sirius, The brightest star visible from any part of Earth. Sirius is a part of the constellation Canis Major, The Greater Dog. The heat is due to the earth’s tilt at this time. Source Farmer’s Almanac

In the summer, Sirius rises and sets with the Sun. On July 23rd, specifically, it is in conjunction with the Sun, and because the star is so bright, the ancient Romans believed it actually gave off heat and added to the Sun’s warmth, accounting for the long stretch of hot weather. They referred to this time as “dog days”. Dog Days are from July 3 to August 11 each year 20 days before and 20 days after this alighment of Sirius with the Sun. Source Farmer’s Almanac

Ancient people often believed that this was a time of drought, bad luck, and unrest, when dogs and men would be driven mad by the heat. I know I have felt that way a few times. And even though “Dog Days’ officially end today here in the south we will still have hot hot temps and high humidity which makes the heat even hotter and stickier.

Since I have been recording the temperature every day for my temperature blanket I thought it would be interesting to show you just how the temps here have been. These are all Fahrenheit:

July 3, 88. July 23, 93
July 4, 95. July 24, 87
July 5, 90. July 25, 85
July 6, 90. July 26, 86
July 7, 88. July 27, 87
July 8, 95. July 28, 85
July 9, 85. July 29, 81
July 10, 85. July 30, 84
July 11, 86. July 31, 83
July 12, 88. August 1, 75
July 13, 84. August 2, 90
July 14, 90. August 3, 90
July 15, 92. August 4, 85
July 16, 90. August 5, 88
July 17, 88. August 6, 86
July 18, 85. August 7, 88
July 19, 87. August 8, 88
July 20, 87 August 9, 84
July 21, 88. August 10, 85
July 22, 89. August 11, 82

I always checked the temperature around 1:00-2:00 PM and this gave me a fairly accurate reading for that day. You can see that the “Dog Days” haven’t been very bad at all this year. I think once or twice it got close to 100 degrees in the early evening but that is all. And as I said we could be in for even hotter weather I have often known August and September to be very hot and sticky here in East Tennessee.

My mama always said you could get an infection easier during dog days. I remember if we ever got a scrape or cut or Lord forbid stepped on a nail we were sure to get an infection if it was during “Dog Days.” Is this just a myth? in 2009 a study was done in Finland to test this theory to see if the rate of infection was higher during Dog Days. The myth was actually found to be true. I guess my mama knew what she was talking about.

Old-timers believed that rainfall on Dog Days was a bad omen. You may have heard this little poem:
Dog Days bright and clear
Indicate a happy year,
But when accompanied by rain,
For better times, our hopes are vain

The old Farmer’s Almanac, 1817

You probably knew how the name Dog Days originated but if not now you do. I wonder what Cat Days would be like?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

A Crazy Week And A Trip to Nashville

Happy Tuesday friends. Today was Nashville day when Mark and I go to Vanderbilt Medical Center for his four month check up. This is to keep an eye on his transplanted kidney. Everything was great!!! We made the trip in the usual eight or nine hours. We leave out early in the morning around 5:00 AM and travel approximately four hours to Nashville, see the doctor, get blood work and drive back home. But more on that trip in a minute.

It seems like almost every week I say “wow!!! what a crazy week this has been” well here we go again.

Last Monday night my little mother in law had a heart attack. She pretty much scared the crap out of all of us. When you are 88 years old everything that happens can be a life changing experience. As I have mentioned before my maw in law lives in an assisted living village. A nurse from the village called my husband on his way home from work and said she had had an episode and wasn’t acting like herself. Her vitals were off and they had called an ambulance by the time Mark got there. She spent most of the night in the ER and then was put in a room in ICU. She was very confused. By Thursday she had been moved to a regular room. She is almost 89 years old so surgery was not really an option. The doctors decided to treat her with medication. We were afraid for awhile that she might not be able to go back and live at the Assisted Living Village. The residents there have to be able to do most things for themselves. But after a few days it seems as though minimal damage was caused by the heart attack and on Friday she was moved to a nursing facility where she will have therapy and then hopefully, if all goes well, she will return to the village. She is much more coherent than she was last week and can’t wait to get back to her room at the village. She told me to tell the village to hold her room she is coming back!!!

***We celebrated her 88th birthday in November so she is almost 89 years old.***

When you work in tourism you know that July is just the busiest month of the year. You look forward to the great numbers but also dread the long, never ending days. It is mind numbing. We have been so busy at work and still very short staffed. We are counting the days until fall, or at least the end of July. I usually do something special for our team members during the last week of July. We call it our Goodbye July celebration. We have something special every day during the week. Last year we had pizza day, ice cream sundaes, and lots of other things. I have been so busy with everything else this week and then taking today off to go to Nashville. I have some catching up to do.

The weekend was good and my sister and I met up with some of our cousins from Texas. They were in Tennessee for a memorial for my cousin’s husband. We all went out to eat afterwards along with some of our Tennessee cousins and we had a great time. Later that night we took a friend out to eat for her birthday.

On Sunday Mark and I visited his mom and decided to eat out, which we rarely do anymore, it seems like we get take out and eat it at home but we don’t make it out to eat a lot.

So a good but busy week and weekend.

Even with all the extra weekend eating I am down 20 pounds. WHOOOO HOOOO!!!!! I will have more on that adventure on Thursday’s blog. I am calling it an adventure because I just hate saying journey. It is not a weight loss journey I am going to make it an adventure!!!!

So back to today when we ventured to Nashville for Mark’s appointment. I had to get up at 3:30 AM to get everything going and all the babies fed and taken care of. We left around 5:15 and surprisingly traffic was not bad. I always drive over and Mark drives back. I am listening to an audio book by Jennifer Weiner and it is so good. I listened to it almost all the way over. We stop on the way back and have breakfast. But today we had another little adventure. Have you ever been to a Buc-ee’s? I think they are mostly in the southern states. Buc-ee’s is sort of like a gas station, truck stop, convenience store etc etc on steroids. It is huge!!!! So a Buc-ee’s just opened in Crossville Tennessee which is about halfway to Nashville for us. We decided to stop on the way back and check it out. Just being newly opened it was packed. If you are a traveler and see one of these stores you should definitely check it out it has everything you could want for a stop. There are several different foods to choose from, books, shirts drinks and amazingly clean bathrooms. Also there are probably fifty gas pumps. We had a good time checking it out.

***I had to pass quickly by the fudge counter because I wanted all of it***.

We didn’t buy anything at Buc-ee’s but we did go next door to the Dairy Queen and get our usual chocolate dipped, vanilla ice cream cone because sometimes you just have to splurge.