Here we are in Tahlequah, two thirds through this project. My goodness! Where did those two weeks go?
When we started this project on Sept. 16th, it was down right hot. Temperature on my little thermometer read 95 degrees one day. I was never so thankful to be painting inside an air-conditioned house and living out of an air-conditioned RV! Yesterday, a good rain came through with a cold front - this morning we woke up to temperatures in the 50s and right now at 6:37 p.m., it's 72. Much nicer.
We are working at the Methodist Children's Home in Tahlequah. It's located on a beautiful piece of property just a block or so from the main high school. Every morning we wake to the sounds of the high school band practising. They are a dedicated group of kids to be up playing their instruments at 07:00 a.m. It's a large dynamic school - they are rated first in football in their class.
The buildings here at MCH are arranged in semi circle facing a huge park setting that has a pool, pond, basketball court, and sidewalks. It's walled in with a short stone wall and has stone arches at the entrances. Guess I should take a few pictures of the grounds.
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| This is our little neighbor - Good Friday. She's a six-month-old filly who comes over to the fence whenever we walk that way. Look at those clear blue eyes! |
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| Evening cloud formation over Tahlequah - we missed getting this picture with the brilliant gold that was shining in the center |
Belle thinks she's a people - wondering where
her dinner is
And Lexi in her favorite place on my side of
our bed
Let's see - what have we done so far? As is par for the course, a paint brush has become part of my right hand. Helped get rid of some hideous yellow walls in the director's house and currently painting in one of the homes. Bill has put in a new toilet, new faucets, fixed a roof leak, repaired gable end of a house, repaired leaky pipes, etc, etc, etc. We never worry about running out of things to do. The list grows and grows.
The only thing I had known about Oklahoma before now was driving through it on Interstate 40 and the musical "Oklahoma". Yes, there are some wide open fields around here but mostly it's forested and green. This is the area where the Cherokee settled after they were forced to leave the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee and Tahlequah is the capital of the Cherokee Nation. It is a pretty area and reminds us a bit of our home in N.C. except for the lack of peaked mountains. There are loads of forests and a huge dammed lake called Tenkiller Lake. We'll be right next to this lake when we move down to Gore, OK next week for another three weeks of work. We'll be at the Boys Ranch there. Lots of fishing, hiking trails, and other outdoor activities. Bill went fishing the other morning and caught a few fish. Gore is known as the Trout Capital of the OK. I'm sure he'll do more fishing while we are there.
About twenty miles from here is a big resort called the Fin and Feather. It's perched on a hillside that overlooks Tenkiller Lake - gorgeous view of the lake. This past weekend they had a big craft festival so while Bill went fishing, I joined other team members and went to the festival. Some interesting crafts and some of the usual stuff. I bought a red oak woven basket that a man had made by taking a plank of wood and cutting in into strips. Then he wove smaller pieces of wood vertically down between the strips. Beautiful work. I can add this basket to my few other unique baskets.
Last weekend, Bill and I drove over to Fort Gibson State Historical Site. I was thrilled to see this fort - it looked just like the western forts of cavalry and Indians that I remember playing with as a kid. Tall spiked wood square walls with high watch towers in the corners, big parade ground inside with buildings surrounding the ground. Fort was established in the 1830s to facilitate the resettlement of the eastern Indian tribes. Also played a role in the Civil War with Federal troops stationed here. There are rock buildings scattered outside the walls. One two story building was used as a barracks and the officers' dining hall. Beautiful wide porch was relatively cool even on the hot day we were there.
Outer wall of Fort Gibson
Barracks and Officers' Dining Hall
Officers dined in style
Has anyone out there in my blog world ever worked with this blog program before? As you can tell from the ragged condition of this entry (and some of the others, for that matter), this program and I don't exactly get along! When I work in the composing section, the Fort Gibson pictures are right next to the text but when I look at the "Preview", there's a huge space between the text and pictures. I can't get rid of that huge space. And I can get captions under the first two pictures, but the program won't allow me to put captions under any other pictures. Computers are so nice when they work right but at other times, . . . well, I'll leave that to your imagination.
More later . . .
