Clouds, Owls, and Tombstones - a story for everything

I am sharing some photos today with little stories that go with them.

Clouds

Clouds over the mountains

On a drive home I saw these beautiful clouds. I have always been fascinated with clouds. When Gay and I were small children we often climbed upon the back of our big broad farm horse, Daisy, and we'd lie there watching clouds. 

We saw images, faces and animals, in the clouds. They were always moving and that was even more fascinating. When I painted, it was such fun to try to paint clouds, but I never mastered them as I wanted. Some days I like to sit on my deck and just watch the clouds sailing over Lake Chatuge. 

I found this owl sitting on my lower deck one day. He never made a sound and didn't fly when I walked out to photograph him/her. I don't know what he was observing or maybe he was napping, waiting for darkness to come so he could see the mice and chipmunks that lived under the ground cover. Not only does an owl see in the dark, it hears exceedingly well. Perhaps this owl sat here because he felt safe from the large hawks that fly during the day and prey on owls and other birds and small animals.

It brought back the memory of the evening, about dusk, when Barry and I were walking back to our house from the stable where we had fed our horses. We stopped under a small oak tree to listen to the evening sounds and breathe in the cool dampness of the woods nearby. One of us glanced up and saw an owl, just like the one in this photo, sitting right above our heads. We continued to stand under the tree wondering how long the bird would stay there with us so near. But the owl made no effort to fly and we finally went inside. I think the owl was waiting for darkness. They see best in the dark and he would begin to hunt when the dusk gave way to dark. 

I loved living in our woods on the farm in south Georgia. Nature was a big part of our lives--birds, squirrels, large turtles, and even snakes which I could have done without. Every day I watched rabbits from my kitchen window as they frolicked and fed in the small meadow near our yard. 

That is why I love my home in the mountains. Now I have deer in my woods, squirrels on my decks, chipmunks scampering everywhere, hawks overhead and geese flying back and forth.

Hummingbirds hover in my deck garden and at my feeders. I see many varieties of birds at my feeders. Butterflies of all colors sip at the blossoms in spring and summer.

Recently a murder of crows startled me and I went outside to see if I could find what they were so upset about. To the right of my front yard, such raucous and angry sounds, but I could only see a couple of the large black birds. Soon, however, I saw a smaller bird with several of the crows on his tail driving him away. Aren't our nature friends interesting? What was that intruder doing to upset those big black birds? 

And now on another subject:

LARKIN ROBISON - 1826 - 1911

Grave marker found in Woodville Cemetery - Leon County, Florida

(The Robison name was continually spelled with an N in it throughout the census records and it seems in the military records.)

Larkin Robinson 

Age: 35 

Civil War (Confederate) 

Branch:

Confederate Army -- Enlistment Date: 1862  -- Fifth Infantry (Ph-R)  Florida

1862 – April 9, 1865

The 5th Florida Infantry Regiment served in E.A. Perry's Florida Brigade alongside the 2nd and 8th Florida. Perry's Brigade served under Anderson’s Division of Longstreet’s First Corps, of the Army of Northern Virginia.^[1]

I believe this is the brother of my great grandfather, John Monroe Robison. Both of them served in the Confederate Army and both enlisted in Leon County, Florida. Their birthdays are very close as well as their death dates. Larkin had a daughter, Laura, I found on a census, and my mother told me John Monroe had a brother named Larkin and a sister named Laura. So many similarities I feel the man buried here is my great great uncle. Someday i will prove it with my research. Just can't find enough time to spend on Genealogy these days as much as I enjoy it.