DEBBIE'S WEDDING

We thought that we would have the building schedule well in hand, but...., not even close.  Our oldest daughter, Debbie, was getting married and she wanted to be married at the new ranch.  Of course, we will have plenty of time to get ready for a wedding ...... 

The wedding was to be take place down by the waterfall.  It was a beautiful place, especially in  the spring when the mountain laurel is blooming.  The wedding was to be just a few days before the mountain laurel would bloom but it was still a very pretty place.  I laid out a path to the waterfall with a gentle slope for the guests to use and cut out the brush for the "Bridle Path".  Well the kids went down to the waterfall all the time and they would just go down the steep bank and that was what they did on the wedding day.  Wade Stallings and Mrs Stallings just followed the kids down the bank and came the hard way.  Luckily, nobody fell down.

Andy, Debbie's intended, built a small bridge to go from rock to rock on the creek to get the wedding party over to the larger rock where the ceremony was to take place.  That part went well and Andy finished the bridge well ahead of time and it even held the load.  A failure of the bridge would have made for a more memorable day with a wet Bride and Groom.  They could have said anything during the ceremony because the waterfall was making so much noise we could not hear what they were saying.

Back to the house.  We didn't have the painting done yet but we had to go ahead and get the carpet installed anyway because we were about out of time.  We were painting late into the night before the wedding with the carpet already down.  Our normal way of doing things, of course, was backwards.  If it had not been for the help of our friends, Carlene and Larry Dunn, we would not have made it.

By that time we even had running water and two working bathrooms. heating and an attic fan, doors on the rooms, painted walls, carpet, a stove and refrigerator and kitchen cabinets!  Pretty luxurious living compared to where we had been.

We had a lot of rain just before the big day but, somehow, the wedding went went well and nobody got stuck in the mud. We had a house full of friends and family share the day with us and !!!!! then the next day we were able to bring all our furniture up from the basement and start living like somewhat normal people again.  

We still planned to plant fruit trees, grapes, and asparagus that would bear every year and we did all that.  We raised pigs, cows, rabbits, and a chicken.  More about that later.

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.
Frederic Bastiat