Question:

Does anybody read this anymore?

Memories...?

Have you ever seen this movie? I saw it many times as a kid, but I really didn't remember much about it. Found it on TV tonight and had to watch it. It is hilarious!

Come to find out... there are 5 of these movies (the other 4 which I will probably never see). If you haven't seen it, and if you ever get the chance, watch it.

King Cotton

Danny just saw what we believe to be a cottonmouth (water moccassin) in our backyard pond! He went out to feed the fish and came in rather quickly instructing me to stay inside. Danny's description matched what we found on a site about TN venomous snakes. The only one that matched was the cottonmouth (I knew it was venomous when he told me triangle head). You see, I'm a little cautious around snakes since I was bitten by a copperhead when I was 12. Now I'm all stirred up!



Here's some info:

All of the venomous snakes native to Tennessee belong to the family of snakes called pit vipers. Pit vipers are the group of venomous snakes having a specialized, heat sensing pit on the front of the head. There are four species of pit vipers in Tennessee: Copperhead,Cottonmouth, Timber Rattlesnake and Pigmy Rattlesnake.
All of our venomous snakes have a vertical, elliptical shaped eye pupil. They are generally heavy bodied animals and because of this are not very good climbers. They are ovoviviparous, meaning they retain the eggs within the body until the young are expelled in a membranous sac, ready to face the world. Note: Most water snakes are also ovoviviparous and should not be confused with the pit vipers.
They have triangular shaped heads that are offset from the body, although many water snakes and hognose snakes can flatten the head making it appear somewhat triangular.
They have a single row of scales on the underside from the vent to the tip of the tail, whereas all of our nonvenomous snakes have an overlapping row of two scales on the underside from the vent to the tail tip. Note: This detail is best observed on the shed skin of a snake.



Western Cottonmouth

The western cottonmouth is found west of the Tennessee River and in the counties of Cheatham, Dickson, Hickman,Humphreys, Perry, Wayne and Williamson. Cottonmouths are fairly large (30-42 inches), heavy bodied snakes. Found in aquatic habitats where they prey primarily upon fish and amphibians. (They can bite when under water.) They are often dully colored, being almost black. While juveniles may be strongly patterned and brightly colored. Some adults may retain the pattern which appears as hollow, hourglass shaped bands across the back of the snake. Like the copperhead, the bands are widest on the sides and narrowest at the centerline of the back. When confronted, they often gape to display the cottony interior of the mouth and will often stand their ground. Note: All Tennessee snakes have a white mouth. When swimming their head is usually elevated above the water and their bodies appear overly buoyant, riding on the surface. However, they can submerge in search of fish and amphibians.

Too Fat Polka

This is a song by Arthur Godfrey I heard on XM today via DirecTV.




Too Fat Polka
Arthur Godfrey
Words and music by Ross MacLean and Arthur Richardson.

Best-selling record by Arthur Godfrey.

(chorus 1)
Oh, I don't want her, you can have her,
She's too fat for me.
She's too fat for me,
She's too fat for me.
I don't want her, you can have her,
Please do that for me.
She's too fat, she's too fat,
She's too fat for me.

I get dizzy, I get numbo
When I'm dancing
With my Jum-Jum-Jumbo.

(chorus 2)
I don't want her, you can have her,
She's too fat for me.
She's too fat for me,
She's too fat for me.
I don't want her, you can have her,
She's too fat for me,
She's too fat,
She's too fat,
She's too fat for me. Oh,

(repeat chorus 1, then)

She's a twosome, she's a foursome
If she'd lose some,
I would like her more some.

(repeat chorus 1)

The Good Life

I now am living at a new house (new to us, anyway) with DSC WIRELESS internet and DirecTV. I feel like one of the Slowsky's.






It's all so fast... I can't keep up!

I'm tired...

After a long week of "moving in", I'm tired. Okay, so we aren't completely finished moving everything in from the garage (yes, a 2-car garage!). We have made a lot of progress, though.

The greatest challenge thus far was, of all things, finding curtains that looked decent in the master BR. The first few days that we were here there were absolutely no curtains on the one window (with a giant arch at the top) that just so happens to face East. So every morning at about 6:30 the sun was right in our eyes. Four or five trips to various stores (in only two days), we finally have curtains. Doesn't do anything for that arch above the window. We bought one of those accordion temporary shades to put up there, and only after cutting is to the exact length necessary and affixing it to one side of the frame did we discover that it was the wrong length (ie: wouldn't arc from one side to the other). AAARRGHGHGH!!!

Our backyard came with a small fish pond. It already had one fancy goldfish (orange and white fantail) which we couldn't even see when we first moved in. The water was completely green with algae. The fish, after cleaning the pond, was still really sluggish and seemed bored. So we bought four more fish (2 fantail golds and 2 Mickey Mouse Platy). They have a lot of fun together now and all of them do figure-8s around the pond. We thing we have some fishy babies, too. The Micky Mouse fish give birth to live young, and we saw several little orange "tadpoles" at the bottom yesterday.

We also have spent a good bit of time rearranging the plants in the backyard landscaping. Maybe we shouldn't have move some... they aren't doing very well. But who can be sure if it is from us moving them or from the weather (we haven't seen a drop of rain and most days temps have been 100+).

It's nearly 9 am here and Danny is finally sleeping in. He starts 3 days of orientation/training on Wednesday, and begins inservice next week. That's right... no bandcamp!

Send me some love... it's going to get lonely out here.

I caved...

and joined Facebook.

New House

We're finally in our new house. Got our DSL set up yesterday and Direct TV today so I will have plenty to do (besides unpack) until school starts. Danny will unofficially start next Wednesday with orientation, inservice beginning the following Monday, and the next Monday (Aug. 1) is his first day of classes. I have until August 23 before my orientation begins, with classes starting on the 28th.

Here are a few pics of Danny working in our backyard tonight. Note the electric lawn mower.





More to come...