New Years in the Appalachians

Wow, it was so great to be home with my family.  We PRAIRIE folk are lucky that we all get along and enjoy each other's company.  However, everyone needs a break here and there when you are seeing each other ALL THE TIME :)  So, this holiday break was the perfect timing.  On top of it all, we had a white Christmas in Denver and one at home in North Carolina.

This is the house I grew up in (pictured above).  You are only seeing a portion of the house, an original log cabin that my parents found in another section of the mountains, took apart, reassembled here, and then built the rest of the house next to it.  One of the best parts of the house is actually what it allows you to look at from a cozy dining room table.  See below!

It is hard to leave a place like this.  However, duty called and I answered.  I soon found myself in the next stop on our tour (Fayetteville, Arkansas) missing my mountain home.  One gift I gave to my father this year was a new ax for chopping wood. It was needed, to say the least.  His other two axes were hanging on by a thread...soon to be the culprit of a home tragedy!  So, before I left, Dad made sure he got some action shots with his new ax.  The "sensible" one is at the top of this posting.  The "home tragedy" is below.  Thank goodness I like my brother, or it would have been off with his head!