Roadtrip - May

This year, for the first time, I'm participating in the Post AtoZ Road Trip.  Basically, it's just committing to continuing to visit the blogs that participated in the challenge and to make posts about your "trip" visiting those blogs.

Being a Southerner, it just seemed good manners to start my trip off by stopping by to visit each of our AtoZ Hosts.  Some I had visited before, some I actually follow and others were new experiences for me. 

Next, it seemed only right to return the visits to Life & Faith in Caneyhead that the Challenge brought to me.  Since I don't know who visited, unless they commented, that means I dropped in on everyone who left a comment here at Caneyhead.

You know how sometimes you start a trip with an itinerary and then some sight or a particular road sparks your curiosity and suddenly you've abandoned your plan and turned off into a new adventure?  Well, that's exactly what happened to me!  Arlynda Lea surprised me by featuring Caneyhead on her Sites to See #2 list!  Evidently, she is wife to Jerry of the Crackerhead Chronicles.

Once I went to her list, I just couldn't resist the urge to turn down every little side road on that list and check them out.  I suggest you do the same.  

And don't forget the many ways you can road trip, too, over at The A to Z Challenge Blog.  You can visit Challenge participants, those with less than 100 followers, other roadtripers, reflection posts or the co-hosts.

As for blogs and posts that interested me, I tweet those.  So you can click my Twitter bird in the sidebar or find many cross posted to the Life & Faith in Caneyhead page on Facebook.  

Happy journeys!  And don't forget to check the air in your tires.

M. J. Joachim’s Writing Tips: Totally Random A - Z Challenge Survey #1

M.J. is one of the hosts of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge and is conducting the first of several surveys about the challenge.   Go here and read his post:



M. J. Joachim’s Writing Tips: Totally Random A - Z Challenge Survey #1: by M. J. Joachim Because I think you guys are awesome, and I want to know what you think about when it comes to all things A - Z. Please sha...


Now for my responses:


1. What is the first shape that comes to mind when you think of the AtoZ Challenge?  A circle.  Because it is a circle of bloggers sharing posts, ideas, visits, comments, etc.


2. What is the first color(s) you think of, when you think of the AtoZ Challenge?  This color.   Because it was the color in our .jpeg for this year, 2014.


3. Why do you like visiting the A to Z Blog?  I like to visit the blog to see what new thing the co-hosts might be up to and to use the linky lists to visit other blogs.


4. If you could change anything about the A to Z Challenge, what would it be?  Since it has grown so large, I'd like to see the linky list divided by blog type.  And for blog type to be manditory.  Otherwise, change nothing.


5.  What is your favorite thing about the A to Z Challenge?  In all honesty, more traffic to my blog.  Which means more folks seeing my posts and more comments left.  And more people following Caneyhead on one platform or another.


Bonus Question:  What is your favorite letter of the alphabet and why?  B of course!  For Barbara. 


If you A to Z'd this year, join in and take the survey yourself! 

Bee Hive Jive

Someone bought the two story house down the road from us not too long ago.  And one day, on my way home ,I saw them moving in bee hives.  I thought that was wonderful, as ever since Hurricane Rita came through, we've have less  and less bees around.  Once was, if you set a canned drink down outside, at least one or two bees were going to hover it.  And if it was a Dr. Pepper, you could count on one crawling up inside if you didn't cover the opening when you weren't sipping.  For quite some time it has been that you could eat or drink most anything outside and never see a honey bee. While that may be convenient, it's not good for nature or gardens.  

As April came round, we began working on the pool to get ready to enjoy it once more.  Just as we had the water crystal clear and was primed and pumped for an approaching warm weekend we discover a couple hundred bees ringing the side of our pool!  This distressed me greatly, as much as I enjoy having the pool and as happy as I was to see bees back.  Would we have to do all our swimming in the late evening and night to avoid them?  

I shouldn't have worried or stressed over it.  Pete looked the situation over and thought it through.  He said, "They aren't coming for water.  They are coming for the thin layer of pollen that is accumulating around the side of the pool at the waters edge.  Armed with a  cloth and a spray bottle of chlorine bleach, Pete would dampen the cloth with the bleach and scrub the vinyl from the waters surface to the top of the pool.  Once again no more than three or five bees hummed near the pool.  Perfect solution for us and the bees. 

  

Stuck in the Middle With You

Last month, one of our cats, Bunny  -   (Yeah, strange name for a cat.  But first she belonged to Baby Ruth, and she had been adamant that the cat be named Bunny.) - who was expecting kittens by my precious Tom Kitty, decided during a rainstorm to have her kittens in the dirty clothes hamper in Pete & mine's bathroom.  Due to the in-climate weather, we allowed her to proceed with this.  

A couple of nights later, Pete hears the dogs raising a ruckus and goes outside to see they had a large possum treed.  Due to our chickens and fruit trees, he considers this a varmint and shoots the possum.  Upon inspection, he discovers it had four wee ones in her pouch.  Since these were little and cute, they were not considered varmints, only orphans.  So, he brought them into the house in a bucket with straw and decided they needed the dark of our bedroom closet to rest in. 

Later we were laying there in our bed.  The bathroom is on our left and the closet is on our right.  Suddenly, the kittens start mewing for their mama.  They are awake and want to eat, but Bunny is out feeding her own self.  It wasn't long until we started to hear these odd, loud sucking sounds from the closet.  Apparently the little possums were missing their  own mama.  We lay there a few minutes listening to this symphony of hungry little animals, and a song starts to play in my head.

I turn to Pete and say, "Kittens to the left of me, possums to the right - here I am, stuck in the middle with you."

If you want to hear the song that was in my head, you can listen here:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ukstws19D4

In Honor of Mother's Day

The Allbritton Girls

Top:  Aunt Billie, Aunt Catherine  Botton:  Aunt Norma,  Jesse Ruth ( My Mother)

Taken in Arkansas at Aunt Norma's House in the 70's.

Reflections on the April A to Z Challenge 2014

Reflecting upon this latest A to Z Challenge, I'm satisfied with how it went and disappointed all at the same time.  

I'll start with what I am disappointed in this time around, as I'd rather end this entry on a positive note.

Once again circumstances prevented me from getting all my posts done ahead of time and this in turn limited my time to explore, read and comment upon other blogs.

I made the choice to post entries that let readers get to know me better, but I wish I'd have stuck to a story telling theme as I did in the past two years as that is my strong suit.  Visitors didn't get to see me at my best.

Somewhere along the way, and I don't know when exactly, my link disappeared off the AtoZ Challenge linky list!  I have no idea why.  I left a comment inquiring, but received no reply.

Now, on to the reasons I'm satisfied with this year's Challenge.

I met several of my personal goals for this year!  One was to have one hundred followers on my blog, which I now have 102!  Another was to get over 50 on my Facebook page, and as of today I have 58.  And though I set no goals for it, I also picked up several new email subscribers!  Also found my twitter followers increase and picked up a couple of new people on Pinterest.   A great big THANK YOU to everyone who begun in some way to connect with me here at Caneyhead!

I did manage to get the 1st week's posts and the last week's posts done the weekend before.

I found a few new blogs that I think I'm going to love following. I was looking specifically for blogs whose writers seemed to have a quirky sense of humor similar to my own.

This year I actually was able to get in on a Twitter chat when I was on lunch break at work.  I enjoyed that.

The hosts, as aways, are proficient, courteous, helpful and inspiring.  Thank you all!

I have already made a regular post since the end of the Challenge, so perhaps this year I will actually stay engaged in blogging.

To surmise,  I enjoyed this year's Challenge and have every intention of being in on next years'. Even have a couple of ideas in my head for a theme, sticking more to a storytelling vein. 

The Challenge may be over, but you can still visit the blogs through the Survivor tag on my sidebar.  With over 2000 blogs involved, you are sure to find something you enjoy.