Bye to Florida, on to Mississippi

A comfortable and relaxing stay with our "mom-away-from home", S, ended with another trailer-ride shortcut.  S trucked us across a big bridge and through a tunnel to Gautier, Mississippi.  Sorry Alabama, skipped you again.  We'll have to catch you on the return trek!
We did stop on route in Mobile Alabama for a quick visit with a holistic "no force" chiropractor. Thanks for the help and good advice on handy horsey stretches.  Meadow does them every day.

Our next destination was "The Shed", recommended by Hannah's friend and fellow Warren Wilson College grad Dan, who met us there.  Within ten minutes we were welcomed by a fellow by the name of "Coal Miner", who offered us our favorite kind of trade... barbecue dinner for a gig.

The famous 'Coal Miner'

We camped in their backyard beside a real-live bayou, supposedly complete with alligators, though it's winter and they're all still hiding.

Pardon, do you have Dogfish Head on tap?

The Shed is built of everything you can find in your crazy uncle's backyard, and they make the best barbecue this side of the Mississippi border.  Olive agrees.  She got so many scraps she felt queazy for a few hours.  Hannah is thrilled to be this side of the Mississippi border.

An easy sunshiney morning began with, you guessed it, a barbecue breakfast!  Then music practice, and an interview with the local television.  Here's the links we dug up, though we've had some trouble making them work...

http://m.wlox.com/#!/newsDetail/24831411

http://www.wlox.com/story/24831411/couple-lives-totally-carefree-lifestyle

http://www.wlox.com/category/240214/video-center?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=9887444

The afternoon found Harvey songwriting and babysitting the "kids", while Hannah went with Dan to his job on the Mississippi Sandhill Crane Wildlife Refuge.  He monitors the health and whereabouts of the impressive species, and taught Hannah all about all his spiffy bird-locating gadgets.  The finale of the day was shrimp, scallops and fish in a spicy red sauce and lemon meringue pie, served by the volunteers at the Refuge.

The mighty journal pen

Some facts Hannah gleaned on her educational venture:
-The Mississippi sandhill cranes are a non-migratory subspecies of sandhill cranes.
-There are only about 100 left, all of which live in and around this one refuge.
-The oldest recorded crane was a whooping crane in a zoo, who lived 79 years.
-One of them is named Gladys.

We finally received a package of things that we ordered, too.  Mandolin strings, Nyckelharpa strings, the second printing of our album, and... (da da da daaa)... Two Canon Powershot cameras... they're both pink.  They take decent stills and shoot HD video as well.  Harvey is thrilled to finally have a camera of our own; America has done an awfully good job taking shots for us, but we started to get bored with the pictures showing the same posed-on-the-side-of-the-road look.  Uploading them hasn't proven easy but we won't let technology beat us.

One night it rained, there were serious lightning strikes every 3 seconds for about an hour, and it blustered all night, but we were snug as two bugs in a bus.  Meadow hollered to us from the fields at 3 am, demanding to be tied closer to the bus so she could hide from the wind behind it.  The bus belonged to the friendly folks at the Shed, what a godsend.  Another day of singing practice and barbecue with sweet potato fries, a farewell concert with Dan, and we're on the road again.

A local delectable:
1) get a Dixie cup
2) fill it with pickle juice
3) place a toothpick in it
4) freeze it
5) then... eat it, I guess


- FCF

Olive is now sporting a pretty pink bow that Hannah "ground-scored". Everyone knows our puppy is a girl now.
Meadow, unfortunately, is still called a mule by most folks, likely because of the white winter fur on her nose and her shaggy ears/fetlocks.  Also some people mentioned her short stature and the fact that she's laden with gear... ah, well.