Rudy and Gretchen Portrait; JeanMarie; Our New Home; Kayaking; The Low Country; Pinckney Island NWR; Snake! Signs; Keta Salmon!!!

In our last post, I mentioned our eternal gratitude to JeanMarie for taking care of our beloved Dachshunds, Rudy and Gretchen; imagine our delight when JeanMarie sent us a portrait (suitable for hanging in our coach, where it now is in a place of honor) of our pups…  We were happily enjoying that portrait, which we shall treasure forever, and thanking JeanMarie profusely, until we heard that she had had a serious accident and broken her right knee and left shoulder! OMG, what could be worse??? We visited her in the rehab ward, and in spite of these terrible injuries, was as upbeat as anyone could possibly be. We are wishing you a speedy recovery!!!







On a happier note, our lot in SC has been cleared, and here is a photo of Jimmy B., the master trackhoe operator who cleared our lot in South Carolina. Jimmy B has operated a trackhoe for 27 years with Cleland, and for the uninitiated, he is as much an artist with that 15 ton excavator as a brain surgeon with a scalpel. 


















Here is Jimmy using a tree trunk about 20 feet long and 3 feet wide to smooth out the dirt on our lot… he also split a 48 inch oak stump vertically, using the sharp ends of his trackhoe, like a log splitter, but delicately… not only is he a master at his profession, but he is also a very humble man.











The work on our house continues, with the latest progress being over 50 dumptruck loads of dirt to raise our foundation platform over flood level (YIKES!!!). Here we have the foundation forms being placed… an interesting description provided by our dear friends, Irene and Tony Vouvalides, of Helping Parents Heal” “The forms for the foundation are started…” My Lovely Bride (MLB), when hearing of this progress, asked, “What forms do they have to submit and for whose Foundation?”  (She thought it was for HPH, a charitable organization. But I shall not make fun of her… HA!!!)





But life here in South Carolina is not all work – here is MLB preparing to launch her newly painted (candy apple red) kayak on Mackay Creek, near our new (soon-to-built-in-about-a-year-or-so) home…

















Bluffton/Hilton Head is famous for good kayaking, and we have had one outing with the Kayak Club in Moss Creek, our new development. On this beautiful morning, eight of us paddled out into the marshes north of Hilton Head Island…









The peaceful solitude was marred only by the occasional car horn from a few miles away… (oh, and also by one of our fellow paddlers who was more loquacious – and loud –  than I might have desired…)

Speaking of food, I must mention the hilarity this bag of Keta salmon provided me at the local Sam’s Club… yes, there is a story here that My Lovely Bride might prefer I not recall, but she’s in Virginia now teaching at The Monroe Institute, so I’ll share this with you if you won’t tell… Here is the story as written back in 2013…














I am in deep doo-doo. It’s a long story, so I’ll start at the beginning. I was having some frustrations with repairs to The Coach and with my new Windows 8 computer, which was not connecting to the Wi-Fi at the RV shop. My Lovely Bride took pity on me and said, “I’m going to run out and get some salmon for dinner.” She is so considerate and sweet; she knows that salmon is one of my favorite meals. So, off she goes… meanwhile, I walked the puppies in their favorite rabbit hunting ground. 

We had just returned to our home on wheels when Suzanne returned from Safeway with a big smile on her face. “I’ve got dinner under control. You go sit down and have a glass of wine.” Well, this was going to be a treat. A few minutes later, the dinner bell rang, and we sat down to a feast. Perfectly prepared salmon, spinach and Asiago cheese-sprinkled bread… a meal fit for a king. As we were eating, Suzanne mentioned what a bargain the Keta salmon was… she even asked the fishmonger if it was overdate or anything, because she had never seen salmon marked down to $2.00/pound (this particular type was normally $7.99). He replied that, no, it was fine, they had just over-ordered, and their customers were reaping the benefits of their mistake. Great! I said to her, “Keta salmon… I’m not familiar with that particular fish…” So, I looked it up on Google right in the middle of the meal. (MISTAKE #1)  

I shared with her the Wikipedia entry for “Keta salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), also known as chum or dog salmon, the least commercially valuable salmon. Despite being extremely plentiful in Alaska, commercial fishermen often choose NOT to fish for them because of their low market value…” Also, it’s what the Eskimos used to feed their dogs before Alpo arrived in Univik. (MISTAKE #2)    Okay, I might have survived this event unscathed had I not started laughing and barking like a dog… (MISTAKE #3) Rudy and Gretchen looked at me in awe, but My Lovely Bride looked at me coldly after my fourth round of barking and said very quietly, “If you don’t stop, you’ll be wearing your glass of red wine on your white polo shirt.”  (Sometimes you just never know what’s going to make your bride laugh, cry or assault you.) Smack!