Today is one of those days that I dream about all year. We woke up this morning to a beautiful 3-inch blanket of snow, which is kind of rare this early in December. But what really makes this such a unique day is that we’re all five home doing nothing and enjoying it. The kids have been out in the field behind our house playing in the snow. We’re really lucky to have lots of friends, neighbors, and sidewalks on the front of our house, and a large field with rabbits, deer, trees, weeds and a big pond behind our house. It gives the kids the best of both worlds when it comes to playing. Although UK lost today in Chapel Hill, it was a great game to watch with a fire roaring in the living room. Like most other modern-day parents we spend a lot of time running to the ball fields, and gymnastic and karate lessons for our three kids. So it’s days like today that are very rare, but very well deserved and appreciated.

The Three Amigos

Smack Down in the snow

Self-Portrait with Laura

Daredevil Cameron spins his mini-bike in the snow.

The garden troll, watching over our winter garden

Our winter garden

I did my Horses and Hospitality presentation for the Friends of the Library at Eastern Kentucky University on Friday night, and then changed from my suit to my hunting coat and drove to Olive Hill to go hunting again. The weather was beautiful and the deer were stirring. Jack Corn drove up early the next morning to join, Me, Dad, and Nolan on our family farm on McGlone Creek.

Moonrise on McGlone Creek

Saturday was a blue-sky day

I got an Eight-Point Saturday Morning

Uncle Paul’s Barn

Uncle Paul’s Barn

Nolan is working hard at becoming a good deer hunter.

The Spike decided to run over the hill into Lewis County and reminded us of the old saying
about deer hunting, “the fun ends when you pull the trigger!”

We had a great day on Saturday. I got a doe and an eight-point, and Dad got a spike.

Mamaw Evelyn and Laura

Walking back in for the afternoon

Nolan is not driving on the farm as a 13 year old, it just looks like he is.

Death of a frozen mole

Reading Material

I went on a routine assignment today for Central Baptist Hospital. I was doing an environmental portrait of a Jessamine County farmer named Ray Waits, a patient that they are featuring in the upcoming issue of their magazine Care Central. When I arrived at his farm I figured out from the aroma in the air that this wasn’t going to be routine. I smelled something that immediately flooded my mind with memories that took me back to my childhood. I smelled wood burning in a pot belly stove, coming from a small room on the side of a barn, and along with it I could smell the scent of a tobacco. Although I never had the pleasure of working in tobacco very much as a kid, I did spend a lot of time hanging out in my grandfather’s stripping room watching my parents work in it along side my aunts and uncles. My job was to always pick up the leaves that fell on the floor. My uncle used to tell me that that was a very important job!!!

Ray Waits had as much character as his tobacco barn did. I had a lot of fun taking pictures of him, in surroundings that once was Kentucky’s mainstay and is now almost forgotten.