Our New Home in Alabama

Hidden Valley Ranch

We have moved back to Florence, Alabama. Here are a few pictures of our new place, set in the middle of 23 acres of hardwoods. Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger picture which will appear in a new window. Close that window to continue viewing the rest of the gallery. Check back and hopefully more pictures will be added in the future.

Dail's second pet is Dollar, a 20-year old gelding. He is very gentle and a little smaller than Penny. We had a registered Arabian, but we traded her back to the owner for Dollar, since he is more gentle.

Penny again. If we get a third horse, should we name it Nickel, Dime or Quarter?

After a hot ride in the horse trailer, Dollar has a roll in the dirt.

A butterly on horse manure. Dr. Don Hall, entymologist at UF, says it is a red-spotted purple. They are a woodland butterfly that feed more commonly on tree sap, rotten fruit and manure and less on flower nectar.

A tree about 70 or 80 ft. tall fell June 13th, Friday the 13th :) but it missed the electrical lines, carport and house.

This tree will give us a lot of firewood, probably for the winter of 2009-2010, so that it will cured well.

Dail's new pet. The lady Dail bought Penny from was moving and her chief concern was that Penny would have a good home. No worries there.

Penny is an 18 year old mare and very calm and gentle. Sharing an apple with Penny. No, Dail's cheeks aren't puffed out from chewing tobacco.

First morning for Penny (Penelope). Getting brushed down before a ride.

Madalyn gets a ride on Penny.

Lane gets a ride on Penny.

A little sweet feed as a reward after the ride.

The entrance to our new home. This part of the private drive is on top of an old Civil War era trail.

Our new home with a large screened in porch and several rocking chairs awaiting you.

Yes, there is a pool. The small house by the pool is the pool house.

This is a view of the house and pool from a low point in the pasture. The house is sort of in the center of the property and in a small valley, thus "Hidden Valley Ranch" -- unless we come up with some other name.

Standing at the same place as the previous picture, this is a view to the south up the valley. Our property extends in that direction just past the shed and barn you see in the distance.

This view is taken as I am standing in the shadow of the barn looking back towards the house. The tractor shed is on the left.

There is plenty of wildlife around. Hundreds of birds are everywhere in great variety.

A picture of our home from the other side of the swimming pool.

The portion of the home on the right is the later addition.

The pasture looking from the pool toward the barn. This was taken in late April.

This is the guest house. Ok, so it is the barn, but isn't it a cool little barn?

Another view of the pasture from the bend in the driveway.

The driveway looking up towards the entrance from the bend in the driveway.

Notice the old Civil War era trail in the middle. Our driveway bends at this point and it is paved on top of the trail down to the house.

This is not a deer stand, although it might work for that purpose. It is the children's play fort which guards the entrance to our home.

Mushroom.

Flowers.

Mushrooms or toadstools?

There are lots of cicada shells around. The grandkids collect them just like their dad did when he was a kid. Go to Wikipedia for a cool movie of a cicada coming out of its shell. The movie is about half way down this web page on the right side. If you click on the following link, it should pop up in a new window for you the same way the larger pictures do. Cicada article and movie in Wikipedia.

A family of hawks visited us often our first summer (2007). We think a pair of them raised two of their young in the trees near our house. They would drink and bathe in the small pool of water in the ditch right below our bedroom window. The water is condensation moisture from the air conditioning system. They sometimes would spread their wings and get low in the water and take a bath, taking turns, and then they would spread their feathers out to dry. Once everyone was finished, the whole family would take off together for the hunt. I've seen them catching mice in the pasture.

I think a bird was living in there in the Spring. I cut this tree down the next winter because of its location.

Amazingly beautiful, I think, even though it is all brown.

Mushroom.

We have been told that several rare types of hummingbirds live in our area. We see ruby throated hummingbirds plus birds that are mostly green or mostly black.

The hummingbirds are quite aggressive, of course. All of them think the nectar feeder is theirs and theirs alone.

The squirrels are quite humorous. This bird feeder is a mere three feet outside our bedroom window. The squirrels have not figured out a safe way to get to this feeder, since it is an eight-foot drop to the ground underneath it.

They are persistent and keep trying to get on it. But I spoke (wrote) too quickly about their lack of success. The next day a squirrel was hanging from the feeder and enjoying the sunflower seeds as the next picture shows.

I went outside and started hollering at the little creature. It was panic time. He was unable to go back up the way he came down. After several moments of panic, he made a desperate leap to some nearby branches and beat a hasty retreat to the safety of a nearby oak tree.

This feeder has been replaced with a squirrel proof one. Also, because the squirrels are chewing on the house, they are being live-trapped and transported about five miles away. Nine of the furry critters have been transplanted thus far.

These are two doe feasting on the corn I had put out at noon. It was about 30 minutes before dark and this shot was from the far end of the pasture. We made a movie of them and combined it with a hummingbird movie to send to Lane's school as a part of a grandparent project.

Is our son-in-law serious about deer hunting? This part of the pasture was plowed and seeded for a winter green field for the deer. He got two here during bow hunting season 2007 and filled our freezer full, which we hope for each winter.

While Dail's sister, Arlene, and her husband, Glen, were visiting us, a group of several doe with their yearlings and fawns were very cooperative and put on a great show for us. They suddenly appeared right next to the swimming pool very near the house and posed in the pasture for pictures.

The deer feeder which scatters a little corn twice a day before hunting season opens. Coons and squirrels get most of it.

As soon as I took this picture of paper wasps, I sent a copy in email to Dr. Don Hall, my entomologist friend at University City Church of Christ and an award-winning professor from the University of Florida.

A family of six bluejays came to visit one day. I could only get five of them in the picture at one time. They sure are noisy. They sure are pretty. They are around often.

Beautiful bunches of red flowers sprang up wild. What a nice surprise!

Company arrived in November, 2007, from the University City congregation in Gainesville, FL. We had a great time with these ladies who are and always will be among our closest friends. One interesting episode, though, was a nasty aroma in the house the day before they arrived. We suspected it for what it was, but we had a plumber come to make sure. As soon as he stuck his head under the house, he backed away and said, "Skunk." I was already in town shopping for a 22 rifle and other things to deal with the problem. I staked out the end of the house where there was a hole that the skunks could have used to enter the house and at sundown, an animal made its exit. But it wasn't a skunk. It was a beautiful grey fox. We closed the hole up around 10PM and hoped that all the critters had made their exit for the night. The "aroma" wasn't too bad for our visitors, but it was a nuisance. One week later the smell is still there but it is getting weaker as we ventilate the area under the house for a couple of hours each day. Our guess is that the fox was blasted by a skunk outside in the woods and it brought the smell in underneath our house. At least we hope that is the origin of the aroma. The votes thus far are in favor of renaming our place Grey Fox Inn in Skunk Valley rather than Skunk Lodge in Hidden Valley. . . . . . . . . OK, we won't use the name skunk at all. By the way, we continue to spot the fox around our house at night. We aren't sure where he/she is sleeping, but this is its home and its hunting ground. . . . . . . . . Update, May, 2008. A terrible odor at the pool house was our grey fox. We had to pry a flooring board loose to get to it to bury it. The three top possible causes of the fox dying are, in order, (1) poison, (2) snake bite, and (3) shock over the high price of gasoline.

Beautiful tree colors from November, 2007, from the end of our pasture where the shed and barn are located. In the foreground is the winter feed to attract the deer which Will planted.

Picture of one of three types of woodpeckers that visit our feeder regularly.

Another of the woodpecker.

March 2008 snow.

More of the same.

Ditto.

A small woodpecker (tree climber) and a goldfinch on the feeder. The birds are busiest at the feeder in the worst of winter weather. A little tip on taking pictures in the snow for those who are not too bored with this. Meters on cameras operate on an 18% neutral gray setting. Most scenes, when you mix the colors all together, would be something close to a neutral gray color. Snow in your pictures means that the scene is brighter. This fools the meter on the camera and causes it to let in less light to get to that 18% neutral gray reading. If you are using a digital camera, which just about everybody is, set it to increase the exposure value (EV) by about 1.0 (continued).

You can experiment with 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, or 1.3, etc., but increase it a little and your snow pictures won't be too dark. If you can't find an exposure setting to change, see if there is a backlight button and try it. And a reminder from Genie White, you have to do the same thing with pictures at the beach. Apologies for the bird pictures not being as clear, but I'm shooting through a screened window (sometimes you have to set the focus manually on a digital camera in that situation or else it will focus on the screen instead of the scene outside). I tried to get the large red-headed woodpecker on the feeder, but he wouldn't cooperate and pose correctly.

American Gothic 2008. Farmers Steve and Dail on the tractor Mama Nita gave us.

Another picture of a beautiful male goldfinch in its spring colors

The tractor has been a life-saver. I can even use it to mow the front lawn.

Thanks for looking.

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