Not a week goes by that I don’t wish we could go on a vacation.  I’d never want to leave the mountains in terms of where I live, but I also enjoy getting away.  It’s been a while!!   I wanna go!    However,  this will wait until the Dear Girls are gone….they are too feeble, too spoiled…too precious to entrust to anyone overnight.  Margie, a close friend and fellow animal lover, will pet sit and give us a break when we need to leave for more than a few hours, but that’s it.

So, when you’re stuck at home…just go home.  That’s what I did yesterday when I started walking around our property taking pictures.   A beautiful tree…but it just gets better.

Mike joined me and on the GOLF CART of all things, we headed up the ridge. This old road…really a path…normally only has animal traffic…horses, deer, and I’m sure a few coyotes among many other smaller animals.

Limestone formation…looking very untouched. I think it looks like a dog or a bear.

What do you think this one looks like? A whale’s mouth?

At this point, we’ve left our property and we’re on our neighbor’s land. He has a system of gates so that we can come and go but keep his livestock safe. In the drought a few years ago, it worked well, as his cows grazed on our side. I so enjoyed having cows even though I had to make sure their water tank stayed full.

The ground is flat up here on top. Have you read about the “Grassy Balds” of the Smokies? I wonder if they are like this…meadows on top of a ridge.

Isn’t this beautiful, and I discovered my phone works up here because it’s so high. I can come up here alone and if I get chased around by a bear, I’ll be able to call!

Yep…there’s part of “the knob” of Clinch Mountain.  I belong to this mountain.

Just a few months ago, I was able to get a way for a “spec” of time and visited a congested large city. A deer tried to cross the four lane, and everyone just kept flying by. It stumbled and fell. Everyone kept driving. No one could stop because everyone was going so fast.    It haunted me for the remainder of the visit.

Here on top of the ridge where I took this picture, I can look down into a “bowl”.  It’s hard to tell from this picture but that is what it looks like when you’re here.

My home is back behind and over that ridge that is shown in this picture below. It feels so peaceful here.

Discoveries…I’d never seen a hedge apple. I’ve heard of them, and I guess they are in lots of places here in Mendota based on my Facebook post asking what it was. They were on the trees up here. Do they really keep spiders away?

Looks like green brains to me.

We started winding around going down hill and through a maze of gates…and ran into this girl. Moo!

Sometimes I just need an attitude adjustment. Got it!!