I did not see or hear any fireworks this holiday weekend since I was in the boonies at the lake house. But it was a classic summer weekend nevertheless. We rode our bikes a lot (new record: only TWO cars spotted in one hour!), went bass fishing (I caught a 5 pounder), picked blueberries, found a few arrowheads in the field, got eaten alive by chiggers. And we ate the best barbeque ribs to my knowledge (but I can't tell you where we got them. If the secret gets out, then demand will so far exceed supply that I will never get to eat them again.) I cooked a big Southern meal for the family, topped off with homemade peach cobbler. During our bike rides, we saw wild turkeys, chickens, cows, goats, horses and an armadillo.

When we passed by the chickens, I yelled, "I EAT BIRDS!!" which seems to have gotten them into a clucking frenzy. I think chickens are hilarious. As a city dweller I don't see them often and wish I could have some of my own since I like fresh eggs. While I'm not particularly queasy when it comes to seeing innards and blood, I feel a twinge of guilt about killing animals to eat them. When we catch bass in the lake, we will eat what the rules allow us not to throw back. I feel kind of terrible when the fish's head gets cut off by the electric knife. Then I was fascinated because the fish head kept moving several minutes after his entire body had been removed. We have been instructed not to throw the remains back into the lake and were told to dispose of them in the woods. (Not sure of the logic, but I'll follow the rules.) So I took the fish's remains into the woods and dumped them out under a tree. Lo and behold, Mr Fish Head was still breathing in his gills at the bottom of the tree. If that isn't enough for a strange nightmare involving fish that hide in the woods and try to invoke revenge upon me for killing their relatives.

Small town Alabama is fascinating to me. People are generally very nice, not in a hurry, and stop to chat with you. But for all that generally clean air that they get for not living in a congested area, they smoke more than a drunkard at a bar.