Fall Activities

Our fall activities have consisted of a little bit of fun and little a bit of work.  Here Matthew and I are at Dersty Holiday over Labor Day.

 

Afterwards we enjoyed some delicious snacks at Baconfest in downtown Savannah.

 

The first big storm of the fall, Hermine, caused some delayed damage at the farm.  Luckily we moved the horse trailer beforehand!

 

We also did some fall cleaning around the property, including powerwashing the house and barn.  It's amazing how fast the siding turns green!

 

We finally got around to some inside projects as well.  Here are the new photo prints in our bedroom.

 

Our dining room chairs needed a little facelift too - the seat covers were old and stained.

 

We put new feet on the chairs and I recovered all of the seats with new vinyl.  Not only do they look better, they are easy to clean and won't collect cat hair!

Back to Tennessee

I left home on Labor Day this year for my annual fall trip to visit my parents in Tennessee.  The weather was a little warmer than normal but it felt a lot nicer than Georgia!  Mom and I did a lot of riding during my 10 day stay, including the 50 mile endurance ride I participated in at the Big South Fork park.  Here Mow and I are coming in after our first loop of the competition.

 

Getting checked out by the vets before resting.

 

Ready to head out for our last loop. 

 

It was a long day filled with a few troubles but somehow Mow and I made it through the 50 tough, steep miles in just under nine hours.  We finished in 14th place out of 28 starters.

 

In between neighborhood Happy Hours and working in the garden, we ended up riding another 60 miles during my visit.  To celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the National Park Service the Big South Fork offered a centennial challenge:  if you ride/hike/bike/paddle 100 miles in the park you can earn a patch.  My goal was to earn this patch and we were easily able to add up the miles.  We even rode some new-to-me trails like the one that took us to the O&W railroad bridge.

Mow and Santana patiently waiting on us to eat our lunch on the bridge.

In order to get to and from the bridge we had to cross the North White Oak.  Every time I've visited this river has been too deep to cross.  As you can see from this photo, it was finally low enough! 

 

Mom and I also volunteered to take down the ribbons that marked the trails for the endurance ride.  Here we are in our matching Volunteer shirts.