23 Monday Mar 2015
Posted in Family, Living, Passages, Relationships, Seasons, Time, Totem Hall, Vacation
Tags
beach, boarding school, children, classes, college, empty nesters, life, savannah college of art and design, spring break, tides, woodberry forest school
that last sunset…
Perhaps, I should say, spring sprunged. My youngest returns back to his boarding school later today, and in Savannah my oldest returns back to the college grind today, which all means that today at Totem Hall we return to life as empty nesters today, not a bad life mind you, but a life nevertheless…
18 Wednesday Mar 2015
Tags
beaches, children, friends, high schoolers, reunions, spring break, sunsets, tides, wants, wishes
that first sunset…
I could blame my youngest because this is what he wanted, but why bother…
12 Friday Dec 2014
Posted in Family, Gentleman Farming, Seasons, Totem Hall
Tags
27-ton, chainsaw, chopping wood, family, farm boss, farm chores, farm equipment, farm tools, fireplace, firewood, front-end loader, hydraulic, kubota, laurel oak, log-splitter, nephew, Quercus hemisphaerica, Quercus virginiana, southern live oak, splitting wood, stihl, troy-bilt, winter fire
So, besides the feeling of power and glory, compensation issues really, the main reason that I chainsaw is for firewood.
laurel oak…
On the ground is a Laurel Oak (Quercus hemisphaerica) that we took down because it was growing too close to a Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana). Don’t you just love the Quercus rolls off the tongue? Go ahead say it really fast three times over.
rounds…
After the initial felling, the main trunk is broken down into smaller sections known as rounds, using the Stihl Farm Boss, which I referenced in an earlier post.
loaded…
I tractor up and use my front end loader to move the rounds from the tree site to the well house shed where I can split the wood.
setting up shop with my nephew…
Now, I used to split wood using wedges, hatchets, axes, and mallets, but that was before my enlightenment. At the shed, out comes one of my favorite boy toys, the Troy-Bilt 27-ton hydraulic log splitter, and a complete exercise in brute power,strength, and dominance.
my nephew experiencing the joy of pure hydraulic power…
From there it is just what you would expect. Stack the wood.
stacked and ready to go…
Burn the wood. Enjoy the life…
the end result…
29 Friday Aug 2014
Tags
bulldogs, college football, dawgs, dreams, georgia bullogs, hedges, heritage, sanford stadium, season opener, southern boys, tradition, uga 1
For me, the high holy season of college football begins this Saturday when my school, my team takes to the field.
me and uga one…
It is an acquired taste, not for everyone, though very important in my part of the world.
We start young, us southern boys, playing and dreaming as long and as far as our playing and dreaming will take us.
Throw in the generations of family men who played and dreamed before and will play and dream to come.
Mix in the atmosphere, the pageantry, the tastes, smells, drinks, sights and sounds.
Add the excitement, the energy, the contact, controlled violence.
Then you can see why it is in the blood. Then you can see why it is who we are.
12 Tuesday Aug 2014
Posted in Family, Living, Passages, Relationships, Time, Totem Hall
Tags
dodge, lexus, memory, moms, moves, moving, nissan, packing, pathfinder, poodles, ram 2500, roommates, rx400h, scad, sons, u-haul
Our oldest made his return to college Saturday. This was not our first fond farewell, having over the years sent him off to summer camps, boarding school, and the first year of college, but somehow yesterday was different, he was moving into his own home, well, own home with four other roommates.
folding sheets for the first and last time…
boxed up and ready to go…
The whole process was most entertaining and it brought back a flood of memories.
i’ll just stuff this in…
it doesn’t take me long to pack…
To begin with, all our carefully thought out plans fell by the wayside. The big Dodge 2500 is still in the shop. She was going to be the workhorse of the move. So, you say, no problem, I am sure you have a Plan B. Well good old Plan B did not work out either. Since my son’s Pathfinder did not have wiring for the trailer lights, there was no U-Haul for us, not rentable. Surely, we can use one of the open-air trailers here at Totem Hall, right? Ooh, too bad, the Lexus, choice three, with tow package and harness, is no good, faulty wiring.
The end result: ah, stuff it in the back of the Nissan.
packed in the back…
packed on the side…
packed on the other side…
and packed in the front…
He is definitely my son.
How crazy time is, really. We move through it, try our best to hold on to it, swimming upstream, you know.
bye moms, bye poodle…
Was it just the other day that I was making my own moves, possessions stuffed into a trash bag, or two? Or how about renting the first moving truck, enlisting a couple of friends with offers of beer and lunch, forgetting to tie down everything in back.
bye totem hall…
Then came children, just the births alone seem long ago, though, in the grandness of time, not too far away, remembered, just not able to be captured again, the first words, the first walk, off to school, off to university.
bye son, fare thee well…
Life is such a funny game…
06 Wednesday Aug 2014
Posted in Family, Living, Passages, Relationships, Sporting Life, Time
Tags
archery, avon old farms school, bait fish, boarding school, fishing, golf, hiking, hunting, lacrosse, landlord, quail, roommates, savannah college of art and design, tadpoles, woodberry forest school
Do you ever think that life shows you, gives you, just what need, when you need it, as you need it?
stuff of boys, stuff of dreams…
Case in point, entering every day into the world of gentleman farming at Totem Hall, I pass a little corner in my home. Until yesterday, I never paid it any mind. It was just stuff. But for some reason, for some reason, yesterday was different; I sat down and, as if for the first time, I saw the stuff of dreams, stuff of boys…
gotcha…
Blessed, our family has always lived surrounded by nature. Nature has all sorts of bugs, butterflies, tadpoles, and baitfish that need catching by young boys.
boys and bows and arrows…
My two sons and I like to hunt and fish. After summer camp one year, one of the little rascals, maybe both got the idea of bow hunting and fishing. So we bought an archery set. Now the only thing left is the bow, the arrows are long gone.
walking and talking…
I take long walks on our land. Because of the possibility of running across a rattlesnake or water moccasin, just about all the time I’ll carry a stick with me. For me, it’s better than a machete, which is too close quarter.
get up and fly, dagnabbit…
My part of the world has quail. Sometimes even if your dog sets and holds, the bird might be a bit reluctant to get up and fly. The boys use this strap to beat the bushes in hopes of getting the bird to move along.
spring sports…
Both the lacrosse stick and baseball bat are relics of the past. My oldest son earned a varsity letter playing lacrosse at Avon Old Farms School. My youngest tried baseball when he was much younger, maybe not even ten, in the end deciding the sport was too slow for him.
I did not even talk about golf, or tennis, or squash, whose tools of the trade you can see in several of the pictures. And there is no way I can possibly describe how much fun I had teaching and then getting bested by my two, just a great way for me to grow up and stay young at the same time.
all gone now…
Okay, I staged this scene, but still, why not a bit of poetical license, after all we are all adults here. The oldest is off to college in Savannah by the end of the weekend, moving into a home with four other roommates. God help the poor landlord. Then our youngest son leaves for Virginia and the start of his boarding school career next week.
Time moves along downstream like a river, always present, always changing, always there, never there…
10 Thursday Jul 2014
Tags
ella fitzgerald, heir, kingdom, louis armstrong, parenting, primogeniture, spare, summer break, teenagers, the tams
Gosh, can you even remember no school, no worries, no problem?
Or, as the fabulous Miss Ella and Mister Louis would put it, “summertime, and the livin’ is easy”.
the heir to the throne…
the spare to the throne…
the heir and the spare…
The good news is I know where they are.
The bad news is I have no idea what they did.
How does that song go? Oh yes, “be young, be foolish, be happy”.
14 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Family, Passages, Time, Totem Hall
My buddy…
I am an early riser, and that is a good thing given all the little chores that define my day, family, farm, home, business. One of my all time, absolute, favorite duties is waking my youngest up so he and I together can pull our collective selves together and make our way to his day school. This morning, like so many more before it, started with me quietly going up the stairs, turning on lights, gently shaking my son awake. He never pops right up, takes after his mother on that account. Back downstairs in the living room, making my way to the kitchen, and my misplaced cup of coffee, I suddenly realized that all this is no more this time next year. You see my youngest, like his older brother before him, is off to boarding school. In a bit of a panic, I looked around, taking in the sights, and the silence, particularly the silence, for, as I said, the boy takes a bit a time get up and running. Anyway, as I stood contemplating the silence, and the passage of time, I took several pictures with my trusty iPhone, which I now share with you, my dear reader.
Not that tall…
What was her life…
Old and broken…
Throw…
Loose art…
More curios…
26 Wednesday Dec 2012
Posted in Family, Totem Hall
I have a large family, which includes a single mother sister that lives in the same town as me. My parents, much older, made the drive down here to help her out during this season, leaving behind a brother and a couple of more sisters in our hometown.
The modern day family, being what it is, affected by divorce orders, visitations, and all manner of legal this and that, means that today is when this branch of family gets to celebrate.
Beef tenderloin will be the star of the show, though I am not entirely sure what is going to go along with it. One item I can confirm, since we live in the south, my sister is bringing a grits, cheese and mustard greens concoction that promises to be a perfect accompaniment.
We will drink. As a family, we rather enjoy that. Every year I put together a batch of eggnog that includes rye whiskey, rum, sherry, and brandy, along with heavy cream, eggs, milk, and sugar. As pointed out in an earlier post, my eggnog has a definite effect on my photography.
Our youngest son, with help from the mistress of the home, put together our table arrangement. Soon the fire will be crackling. Cold weather really is coming. Laughter will fill the air and life will be good.
our table awaits…
Before anyone makes any type of snarky comment, we are not having a salad, so there is not a salad fork in the place setting. Yes, I checked my etiquette.
might be the closest we ever get to seeing a snowman…
just a sweet little santa claus…
pickup trucks and christmas trees…
frasier fir – less askew…
