good day sunshine

What better way to spend the morning than to run, meet good friends for coffee, mosey over to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens to see an art exhibit, and then head downtown for some fair trade shopping ~

striking nature photography by a friend and fellow blogger

gorgeous paintings and drawings of flowers by another friend ~ i wish i could link you to her blog, but she doesn't have one ~ yet ~ (hint, hint)

sculpture/water feature at the botanical gardens

lily pads

water lily

funky little critter on the Alabama woodlands trail

Lycoris squamigera

shark rock

Argiope aurantia

Sojourns

Naptime.

where i left off

Highlights since last I blogged ~

rooster donation

Sometime in June, this fellow appeared at our house. We haven't had a rooster in a while, and I love waking up to a good crow, but this one gets started at around 4:30AM and goes all. day. long.

six

We celebrated Neal's birthday at Rickwood Caverns State Park. (Thanks, Allison, for the picture!)

red clay groovy

With the help of Laurie Kramer, Artist in Residence at Art Works Alabama, the Girls Scouts of North Central Alabama made Alabama mud tie-dye t-shirts.

cargo

Did I mention we're going to build a shipping container home on the banks of the Locust Fork? The picture above is an example of one that's being built close to Palisades Park. Our design is somewhat similar in that we're placing the containers on either end, but we'll also be incorporating some hay bale construction in between, and shoring up the sides with dirt for the sake of insulation. We're hoping to cut the driveway and place the first container this fall. Up until now, we've devoted most of our time to pesky details, such as locating the plat, arguing with the loggers, and proving that the now-gated road that provides access to our land belongs to the county and therefore should not be gated (they gave us a key; we're still working on this one). We're antsy to make some real progress, as time and money allows.