Dogwood Acres, 02/21/11

DOGWOOD ACRES, 02/21/11, ELANE CRUM

Hello friends. The big winter coat felt real good today with rain pouring down and putting a chill in the air. We expected to go to Erin’s ballgame tonight, but it was canceled due to sickness. The other team only had 6 players and 3 of them were sick. There are already several makeup games due to those that were snowed out.
Last week we watched Plainview play at Taneyville. It’s always fun to go there as we see a lot of hometown folks that we know.
Neal and LeaAnn brought the girls over Friday night and stayed to eat with us. Supper was nuthin’ fancy, just venison spaghetti, bread, brownies and a salad, but we filled up on it. They had a busy week on the farm, helping Bill and Mary Lou with the new spring calves.
The girls and I went to Vanessa Bilyeu’s 18th birthday party Saturday afternoon at the Oakmont Community Center near Big Cedar. There was a big crowd of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, good food, lots of presents and then a little pool time for the younger ones.
It hardly seems possible that the first great-granddaughter of Cliff and Zoe Bilyeu is 18 now. She will be graduating from Blue Eye in May and looking forward to college at C of O.
There was a birthday party at the log house Sunday afternoon as Justin Fisher was celebrating the big 30. He traded his jeep off today and got a nice looking little car, so I guess his mud slinging days are over.
I don’t purposely go mudding, but crossed a lot of creeks in a day of house showing last week. Early one morning I went to Bradleyville and stopped to take pictures at Beaver Creek. Later that same day I was in Walnut Shade and decided to take the back road home. When I got to the Goodnight Hollow Slab, I was surprised to find a few inches of water running over it; guess it was from snow melting up stream. The water was a pretty green color where it comes out on the low side of the bridge so I took pictures there. The road up towards Meadows was muddier than I expected, but my car was already dirty, so it didn’t matter. I put that picture of the slab on Facebook and was amazed at the number of comments. So many people have memories of fun times there.
Ken and Nita Puchta had coffee at their house Saturday morning. With busy days of Christmas and weeks of bad weather, it had been awhile since the coffee club had met.
It has been a big week for new babies. At Sandy church, Makinna Humbyrd is the newest “big sister“. She had pictures of McCoy Doyle at church Sunday and made sure we all got to see them. The big boy weighed 9 lbs, 9 oz. and has already gained another ounce.
Dallas Bilyeu is finally an uncle, as Sam and Latasha Swindle are new parents to Gabriel Michael, born on Sunday morning.
Jeff and Janet Dalton have a new granddaughter, Baylee. She is a cutie and sure to be spoiled by big sis, Kiley.
Rick fired up his 4-wheeler last week and took Zoey to see her family at Jay and Brenda Gideon’s. Rick said she looks just like the mama dog and the other babies were all excited to see her. Brenda picked her up to cuddle and in all the excitement Zoey peed on her. The little dog has grown a lot since Christmas, but she is still just a little weenie dog and not going to be very big.
Make no mistake, Zoey is Rick’s dog, although he tells everyone he got her for me for Christmas. He says every old man needs a dog because they’re not judgmental, they are forgiving and they don’t talk back. Bye for now.