Sure Sign of Spring - Even in the cold :)

Miles and miles of tomato farms getting ready for tomato plants. It is always amazing to see the crops in different parts of the country and the specialized agricultural techniques and machines that have been developed to maximize the harvest.

The area in Florida's panhandle and SW Georgia is specializing in tomatoes these days. You rarely see a tobacco field in the south any more. This picture was taken near Bainbridge, Georgia.

Fishin' in Georgia :)

Mom nearly finished her book, so it was a successful fishing trip for her.

Dick bought 4 dozen minnows - put out 6 poles, and never got a bite. Water is still muddy....maybe tomorrow will be a better day! He has 3 1/2 dozen minnows to try again. :)

Biloxi Mississippi

Pascagoula....rebuilding the seawall, pouring sand behind it and making a promenade for miles. Road was washed out by Katrina, so it is also under construction.

A property for sale along the beach in Pascagoula. We called and talked to the owner/seller, and he said it had 10 feet of water over it when Katrina came through. He lost 2 trees, but it is hard to see any remnants of the mess caused by the hurricane. However, at $3500 a front foot, we will have to pass on this. :)

Stimulus dollars at work. You can see the stream of sand being dredged from the gulf floor and being dumped onto the area behind the seawall. The sand, when it dries out, is beautiful and white and looks like powdered sugar.

The hotel where we stayed had about half damaged beyond repair. The rebuilding process is well underway all along the waterfront in Biloxi.

Deep South in February 2010

Nine a.m. - Is that snow??? No more like sleet I think.

Noon - Why I do believe it IS snow!

Poor little flower. :(

El Nino Winter in Georgia

It has definitely been an "El Nino" winter down here. Even with full sun for the past few days, it hasn't felt very warm with the wind howling all day long. It is great for drying clothes on the outdoor clothesline, but not much else. A big barge braved its way through the white caps on the lake this morning to head up lake.

Mom's "Dry" Creek bed Revisited

This river is normally a dry gully. After 12 straight hours of rain and 4" of new rain in the gauge, it has become a raging stream.

After listening to thunder and seeing lightning all night, and hearing rain on the roof for hours, it seemed like a good time to check out Mom's dry creek bed.

It is hard to see, but the water is flowing nicely over the two waterfalls.

The water in the drainage ditches that feed this culvert is at the top and we have a 10' wide stream through the 6' culvert on Lot 7. We wondered when we first saw that culvert and everything was dry why in the world they had such a huge culvert.

Panama Canal

We spent our first evening in Panama at the restaurant at the locks. The elegant restaurant has an outdoor patio overlooking the locks so we watched big container ships being pulled by small rail cars as they passed through the locks.

Later, Chino took us to the top of the highest point in Panama City, where we had a bird's eye view of the locks and the containers waiting transport.

The rows and rows of containers look almost like a city of houses.