Beautiful Lake Cumberland

Lake Cumberland Facts (courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)

Lake Cumberland was filled with water in December 1950, and was constructed primarily for flood control and the production of hydroelectric power at a cost of about $80.4 million. Its shoreline measures 1,085 miles and the lake is spread over 50,250 acres at the top of the power pool.
It ranks 22nd in the One Hundred Largest Dams in the U.S. and required 11,568,900 cubic yards of material in construction. The reservoir ranks 9th in the U.S. in size with a capacity of 6,089,000 acre-feet, enough water to cover the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky to a depth of 3 inches. That's roughly 1.9 trillion gallons.
More than 4.7 million visitors spent 73,252,200 hours in pursuit of recreation and added more than $152,395,044.00 to the local economy in 1999. The number of visitor hours ranks Lake Cumberland 4th in the nation among 383 Corps Lakes.
Since it was impounded, Wolf Creek Dam has prevented more than $500,000,000 in flood damages for cities and communities downstream.
The six turbines at Lake Cumberland are capable of producing 270 megawatts of electricity, enough to supply the needs of an average city with a population of 375,000.
Cost of original dam construction: $81 million
Cost to repair leak in dam (discovered in 1967) during late 1970s: $96.4 million.

We gets lots of tourism from Ohio and we refer to them as the Ohio Navy! Some of them refer to themselves as that as well as you see in the picture below and they have a website too! Many folks come here for the fishing where they catch these huge striper bass. You can always hire a guide to help you with catching those big fish!

The lake holds lots of other activities such as skiing, swimming, tubing, and just relaxing with friends on a houseboat. We live on one small part of this lake which overlooks a private boat club. The houseboats below us are pictured here. The rest of the photos are not ones that I took nor do I know the folks in them. But if you like boating and fishing and the lake in general then Lake Cumberland is a good one to visit!

Kentucky Horses and Barns

Calumet Farm owned and bred two triple-crown winners, Whirlaway and Citation. Pictured here during a workout is Citation. It also owned and bred eight Kentucky Derby winners, bred an additional Kentucky Derby winner, and owned and bred seven Preakness Stakes winners. Eleven of Calumet Farm’s horses were admitted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame, and eight of its horses won Horse of the Year titles. There is also a cemetery on the grounds of Calumet Farm, complete with headstones and statues where many of these equine champions are buried.

Citation became the 8th Triple Crown winner in 1948 and it would be 25 years until Secretariat became the 9th. He was the first equine millionaire in 1951 with 45 starts, 32 wins, 10 seconds, 2 thirds, and $1,085,760 in earnings. He did real good for a horse back that many years ago!!

If you land at the airport in Lexington and on your drive to Lexington you will see Calumet Farms on the left. This is one of their beautiful red/green/and white barns, and also their trophy room.
















The rest of the pictures below are just various barns from around KY. Some are fancy and as you can see the inside of the one below is definitely one of the thoroughbred farms! It looks like you could eat off the floor!! Not like the barns on the farm I grew up on!!

Rooster Attack

We lived on a farm when I was growing up and we always had chickens. There was one particular rooster and, for some unknown reason, he did not like my Mom at all. Every time she went out in the back yard, which is usually where the chickens stayed mostly, that rooster would try to flog Mom and chase her. She kept threatening to put him in a pot of dumplings if he didn’t behave himself.

One day she went out back and he attacked her again. She managed to grab him by the head and she wrung his neck a couple of times and tossed him down on the ground. He just laid there still and she thought she had killed him. In about a minute he raised up and shook his head and slowly got up and staggered off. He got over it and was fine, but he never bothered my Mom again.

More Signs

I like these two signs. They put "Thank you" and "Have a Nice Day" on them!
























This one is an open invitation to throw stones!!

Ramblings

Yesterday I posted about Classes for Men. Now Yoderman has posted "Free Classes for Women" at his site. Check it out!

Ohhhh! I have finally figured out this link thing too. Woo hoo!!

Today was another pretty day. It was sunny but the wind was a little cool. I took a walk with the dog and I took some pictures along the way.
These two guys fishing were trying to catch the big one no doubt!

You can see in the other photo just how low the lake is right now. If I walk down to the water from our house I can almost jump onto the first houseboat docked there, it is so close!

This tree was pretty interesting looking up into it's branches so I thought I'd share that picture with everyone. In the other picture if you look real close you can see the little green buds of the daffodils poking up through the ground! It's too early but it's been so warm this year.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Winter Classes for Men

WINTER CLASSES FOR MEN

at The Floyds Knobs, INN, LEARNING CENTER FOR ADULTS
REGISTRATION MUST BE COMPLETED BY Monday, Jan. 23, 2006. NEW CLASSES WILL BEGIN ON Jan. 30, 2006
NOTE: DUE TO THE COMPLEXITY AND DIFFICULTY LEVEL OF THEIR CONTENTS, CLASS SIZES WILL BE LIMITED TO 8 PARTICIPANTS MAXIMUM.
Class 1

How To Fill Up The Ice Cube Trays --- Step by Step, with Slide Presentation.

Meets 4 weeks, Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.
Class 2

The Toilet Paper Roll --- Does It Change Itself? Round Table Discussion.

Meets 2 weeks, Saturday 12:00 for 2 hours.
Class 3

Is It Possible To Urinate Using The Technique Of Lifting The Seat and Avoiding The Floor, Walls and Nearby Bathtub? --- Group Practice.

Meets 4 weeks, Saturday 10:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 4

Fundamental Differences Between The Laundry Hamper and The Floor --- Pictures and Explanatory Graphics.

Meets Saturdays at 2:00 PM for 3 weeks.
Class 5

After Dinner Dishes --- Can They Levitate and Fly Into The Kitchen Sink? Examples on Video.

Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM
Class 6

Loss Of Identity --- Losing The Remote To Your Significant Other. Help Line Support and Support Groups.

Meets 4 Weeks, Friday and Sunday 7:00 PM
Class 7

Learning How To Find Things --- Starting With Looking In The Right Places And Not Turning The House Upside Down While Screaming.

Open Forum .

Monday at 8:00 PM, 2 hours.
Class 8

Health Watch --- Bringing Her Flowers Is Not Harmful To Your Health. Graphics and Audio Tapes.

Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.
Class 9

Real Men Ask For Directions When Lost --- Real Life Testimonials. Tuesdays at 6:00 PM Location to be determined.
Class 10

Is It Genetically Impossible To Sit Quietly While She Parallel Parks? Driving Simulations.

4 weeks, Saturday's noon, 2 hours.
Class 11

How to be the Ideal Shopping Companion. Relaxation Exercises, Meditation and Breathing Techniques.

Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.
Class 12

How to Fight Cerebral Atrophy --- Remembering Birthdays, Anniversaries and Other Important Dates and Calling When You're Going To Be Late. Cerebral Shock Therapy Sessions and Full Lobotomies Offered.

Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 13

The Stove/Oven --- What It Is and How It Is Used. Live Demonstration.

Tuesdays at 6:00 PM, location to be determined.
Upon completion of any of the above courses, diplomas will be issued to the survivors.

Driving with a license.

Sometimes when you see people driving you wonder how in the world they ever managed to get their driving license. I remember when I got old enough to get my license. My brother had a 1956 Plymouth Savoy and he really taught me how to drive in it first. It had push button gears on the dashboard and it didn't have a park. You just put the emergency brake on and that was it! I have no clue as to what color it was now, but the car pictured above is a 1956 Plymouth Savoy. He used to let me drive down the lane and he had the door open on the driver's side and he stood up on the side and gave me instructions.










I used to drive a truck (similar to the one above) out to the road to catch the bus and leave it parked in the pasture and then drive it home at night. (This was when I was a little older and we had moved from that other place where we had to walk so far!) My Dad had that truck for a little while and it came in real handy for that. Lots of times in the morning during the winter it was dark when you went out to catch the bus. So I got in practice with it and did lots of sliding in the snow with no worries of hitting anything, plus it taught me how to use the standard shift. I already knew how to drive the tractor but I didn't get to do much of that.

My Dad and my brother set me up some barrels so I could practice my parallel parking in between them. Then I did some driving on the road too when a licensed driver was with me.

When the time came to get my test I was so nervous. The written test was a breeze and no worries there. But having someone ride along with me gave me the jitters. I started off doing all the things I knew were right. I turned on my signal to get out of the spot I was parked in. He told me to turn right at the next light and so I put on my signal and turned. I could see him out of the corner of my eye writing things in the notebook he had with him. That got me worried. I thought he was marking things against me so I figured I had already failed the test, so I relaxed and didn’t worry about it anymore. He had me to parallel park in a spot that gave me lots of space between cars and I did pretty well at it. When we got back to where we had started he said, “Well, you passed.” I was shocked to hear I had passed but happy too! I told him why I thought I had failed. He said that he had to mark down things whether I did them right or wrong.

My best friend, who is 3 months older than me, had gone to get hers and she failed. I asked her what happened. She said that when he asked her to parallel park that she hit a street light pole and knocked him down into the floorboard of the car! (Back then seatbelts were not an item like they are today). I always laugh when I think about her doing that.

Wine for Seniors

A new wine for seniors...........
California vintners in the Napa Valley area, which produce Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Grigio wines, have developed a new hybrid grape that acts as an anti-diuretic. It is expected to reduce the number of trips older people have to make to the bathroom during the night. The new wine will be marketed as Pinot More.

School days.

When I first started going to school I hated it. We had to walk about 2 miles to catch the bus. I know that sounds like those tales you hear, but it REALLY is the truth in my case! I didn't mind the walking out to catch the bus, I just hated school. I can't recall why exactly now, it's been so long ago. Back then you didn't go to pre-school or kindergarten like you do now. When you became 6 years old you just went to school. Our cousins lived back there too, so we all usually walked out together. We lived at the very end of the road. They lived about 1/2 mile from us, so they didn't have as far to walk.

I remember one day we walked out and we were waiting for the bus. The mailboxes were at the end of the road (since the mailman didn't drive up there either), and we waited for the bus about 200 yards from where the mailboxes were, in front of another house. I did not want to go to school. I kept after my cousin and wanting to race to the mailboxes. Finally I talked him into it and we raced to the mailboxes. Only thing was, when I got to the road heading home I hit it at full speed and I headed home! I was not going to school! My Mom said I did that about 3 times. There was a cornfield in front of the house. She said that she would see my blonde head darting around in the cornfield and then she knew that I had slipped back home and didn't want to go to school!

Finally my Dad had a little talk with me. He told me that he could not make me go to school, but he could sure make me sorry that I didn't go! I knew what that meant and my Dad never ever gave me a whipping, but just one look from him was all it took! I went to school from then on and didn't slip back home anymore.

Jesus Smiling

Someone sent me these pencil drawings of Jesus smiling. I thought they were worth sharing!

I have been getting all the seed and flower catalogs in the mail. That always makes me think of spring and putting out a garden. I enjoy working in a garden and it can be a lot of work, but the benefits are well worth it. There's something about planting seeds and then watching them come up. Then when you get to harvest and eat some of those delicious vegetables they are so good! A fresh tomato out of the garden will beat a store bought one all to pieces.

My gardening these days is mostly flower gardening. Any other gardening I try to do the groundhogs eat it all up and it's just not worth it. I really don't have a very good place for a garden either, so it's only a very small one when I do. Good dirt is so important to having things grow well. One of the best fertilizers is in the picture below!

Pictures from home.

This is a picture that my stepson painted. He was a very gifted and talented guy. We have several of his paintings and drawings.

Unfortunately he passed away last February due to cancer at the young age of 39.

This is a walling hanging that my Aunt did. I love this particular pattern, the Lone Star. So much work goes into sewing all those little tiny pieces together! This one is about 3' x 4'. I think it looks good hanging on the cabin wall!

This is JB living the hard life that she lives. She is very old and can't hear well anymore. She spends alot of time sleeping these days. The rest of the time she spends being a pain in the butt! She likes to open the cabinet doors and poke inside to see what is in there. Naturally she never shuts the doors back! She has been in the family since she was born and she is about 14 now. Here is another picture of her sleeping in the sunlight coming through the window.

INTRUDER

Just this week there was a home intrusion which happened about 3/4's of a mile from here. This poor woman was 78 years old, has had several heart bypasses and a stroke. Someone kicked in her side door before midnight. He wanted her pills, her money, and her jewelry. He tied her up and was there for about 20 minutes she figured. After he left she managed to get loose and went to her neighbor's house for help. She said she had seen him before walking on the road in front of her house. Since she had seen him around before then he probably had seen her and pretty well figured she was alone and probably has been casing her house for awhile. She can't hear well and her speech is difficult to understand due to her stroke. She didn't even hear him kick the door in and she was still up. But she is hard of hearing and had the TV on. She saw him standing in the hall. He came up behind her and put one hand over her eyes and one over her mouth and said, "I am not going to kill you. I am not going to rape you. But I don't want any trouble from you." Then he made her go to a back bedroom where he tied her ankles together and her hands together. He took about $300, a couple of credit cards, her jewelry (he allowed her to keep her wedding band-nice huh!), and he took all her pills, prescription and over the counter. She said the first thing he asked for was her pills. She told him she didn't have any and he said she was lying. So then she told him. She lives in a house on a corner but there are houses all around! She does have large pine trees lining that side where he kicked the door in though and it's kind of dark.

By her having seen him before I hope that others have and maybe they can figure out who it is and lock the creep up. Down below there they have built a whole bunch of houses, and I mean about at least 100-150 homes and duplexes, and they are fairly cheap, so a lot of what my neighbor calls, "undesirables" have moved in. The houses are built on slabs and have small yards. Some people call it "the project". I really hated to see them build all those but you know how it goes...I think they call it "progress." The court docket is listed in the paper and many of them have addresses listed from "the project."

This poor woman was so traumatized. I just cannot imagine how horrible it would be to go through that. She has lived there for at least 30 years. It is a frightening situation for anyone that this happens to. Frightening seems such a small word for it, as scarred for life probably fits it better! I just hope they catch him.

God Bless America

I thought this was a pretty neat picture! Imagine taking the time to do all this work.

Ventriloguist....anyone????

For Christmas my stepson got me a book titled, "How to Become a Ventriloquist." I never really understood how it was supposed to help us. My husband has had a stroke and his speech is hard to understand, so my stepson said since I was the one who could understand his Dad better than anyone else he thought that this book might help me to understand him better. (Didn't make any sense to me) but I accepted it with an open mind.

Reading this book proves that if you plan to become a ventriloquist that you really need to be alone a lot to practice! First you stand in front of the mirror and practice saying the letters, A, E, I, O, and U, without moving your lips. This is fairly easy. Next you try the consonants. Those aren't too hard either except for B, M, P, and W. So when you do your dialogue with your ventriloguist "dummy" you try to avoid words with those letters if possible. For example you can't say "big piano," so you would actually say "vig fiano." If you use rapid dialogue then folks really won't notice.

The next part - okay stick with me guys - is the foundation for the ventriloquial voice which is the "drone." This drone is really a succession of groans or grunts. To produce this voice, hold your teeth together and touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth near the back of your upper front teeth. Take a deep breath and, while holding it, make a groaning sound at the back of the throat, exerting a steady pressure on your vocal cords. As you do this, change the groan into a prolonged "A" or "Ah," exhaling your breath slowly. Keep repeating this over and over and you will find that with constant practice you will finally produce a clear humming "A" or "Ah" sinilar to the sound of a bee's drone. Then you practice all the consonants and the vowels until you have them mastered and then you learn to put them all together and vary them quickly. You must practice constantly.

It sounds to me that one would really want this bad to become a ventriloquist! You stand in front of a mirror and make these grunts and groans and after awhile someone is likely to come along and cart you off to the looney bin or beat you to a pulp! That's why you need to live alone to do this!

Now you know what you need to do! (Just in case there are any would be ventriloquist out there!)

But, but, butt.......

It hasn't been that many years ago when it was considered bad taste to reveal your butt crack.
Showing butt crack was for plumbers and people that wore their pants too low for various reasons.











Now it seems that showing it is like showing cleavage for some people. I recently saw a young woman who was sitting down and when she leaned over you could see her name tattooed over her butt crack and she also exposed about 2 inches of it for everyone to see. Now they wear those short tops so that a little bit of the middle region shows, so when they bend over there is nothing to fall over it and hide it. Sometimes they bend over and they may expose one of those throngy things. They even wear those at the beach! They look uncomfortable but I have never tried one. I think a thing like that could take some getting used to. It makes the word "wedgie" take on new meaning.

One time I was at a horse show and the inside of the ring had grass where they had the organ under a shelter, all the trophies and ribbons were there, the announcer, the judge, etc. All the bleachers were on one side of the ring. When something happened to a rider and they had to make an adjustment to their saddle or one of the horses got a loose shoe they stopped on the grass and the blacksmith would come out and repair it. This one guy stopped his horse there and got off and he had his back to the crowd. After he checked the horse's foot and was waiting for the blacksmith he squatted down on the grass and he was showing about 3 inches of his butt to the whole crowd!! Everyone started laughing and it was so funny. He finally turned his head around to see what everyone was laughing at. Then this girl beside us yelled out, "Hey, you're mooning us!" He got up in a little bit and led his horse off. I don't know if he ever understood that he was the reason we were all laughing or not. I'm sure that someone probably told him later on!! I would have been so embarrassed!! I would probably have went straight to the horse trailer, loaded my horse, and headed home!!

I think now the posterior has recently become the focal point of fashion and pop culture. The butt crack is the new cleavage, peeking out for all to see. Personally I will just keep mine hidden and I'm sure the world will thank me for that!

Another Joke

(Probably some have heard this. I just got it in an e-mail and I thought it worth sharing).

NINE MONTHS LATER

Jack decided to go skiing with his buddy, Bob. They loaded up Jack's mini van and headed north. After driving for a few hours, they got caught in a terrible blizzard. They pulled into a nearby farm and asked the attractive lady who answered the door if they could spend the night.

"I realize it's terrible weather out there and I have this huge house all to myself, but I'm recently widowed," she explained. I'm afraid the neighbors will talk if I let you stay in my house." "Don't worry," Jack said. "We'll be happy to sleep in the barn. And if the weather breaks, we'll be gone at first light."

The lady agreed, and the two men found their way to the barn and settled in for the night. Come morning, the weather had cleared, and they got on their way. They enjoyed a great weekend of skiing.

About nine months later, Jack got an unexpected letter from an attorney. It took him a few minutes to figure it out, but he finally determined that it was from the attorney of that attractive widow he had met on the ski weekend.

He dropped in on his friend Bob and asked, "Bob, do you remember that good-looking widow from the farm we stayed at on our ski holiday up North?" "Yes, I do." said Bob "Did you happen to get up in the middle of the night, go up to the house and pay her a visit?" "Yes," Bob said, a little embarrassed about being found out. "I have to admit that I did." "And did you happen to use my name instead of telling her your name?" Bob's face turned red and he said, "Yeah, sorry, buddy. I'm afraid I did" "Why do you ask?"

"She just died and left me everything". (And you thought the ending would be different, didn't you?) Now keep that smile for the rest of the day

A New Year and Ways to Relieve Stress

A new year is off and running. Today is like a spring day. It's 66 degrees and sunny. We had thunderstorms last night and this morning. Another round is headed our way. Then the temperature will drop and it'll be around 41 tomorrow. Still very nice for this time of year.

My neighbor with all the Christmas decorations and lights has taken advantage of this lovely day to take it all down. I only had a wreath on the front porch and a bow on another wreath. I told him that it was going to take him a lot longer to take his down than it would for me to take mine down!

I have decided not to make any resolutions. I usually fail at them so why bother? Instead I will strive to do better in some areas of my life. I plan to take better care of myself. When you are a caregiver for someone else you tend to not take as good of care of yourself, so I'll try to amend that! I go to a Caregiver's Support Group once a month and they are always telling us that we have to take care of ourselves in order to be a good caregiver. Makes sense, even if it is hard sometimes. I think stress is the biggest issue.

So in order to relieve some of my stress I think I need to laugh more. I'll start right now by posting this picture of Ralph from http://homespunheadlines.blogspot.com/ It always makes me laugh!!!