My brother-in-law and his wife live in East Texas out in what we affectionately call the boonies.

I guess boondocks would be the technical term.

They live in a farmhouse on top of a hill looking down into an open meadow with pine

woods beyond that. It's beautiful and it's peaceful there. Well, it used to be. Last fall,

my husband and I went to their home so my husband could help his brother with some carpentry work.

This is not my forte, so I decided to take the mule. I think

that's the term for a four-wheel-type vehicle that you can haul stuff with. Although I think I would

have preferred an actual mule because the mechanical one I rode was about as smooth as taking a spin

and a washing machine. Not that I've ever done that.

I took some trash bag so that I could gather pie needles to use in my chicken coop and garden.

After an hour of bouncing up and down on that hard seat, I found a great spot to gather up some pie needles.

It was at the back of their property where there are a lot

of trees in a creek that zigzags back and forth across the property. It was a beautiful

fall day. The only thing I was concerned about at this time was watching for snakes as I gathered

the pie needles. And I love listening to the birds seeing as I went about my work.

I had gathered a lot of pine needles and loaded them on the mule, and I was still wishing it

was a four-legged kind of mule.

I decided to walk for a little while before I bounced back to the house thinking maybe I could somehow

use one of the bags as a cushion. I'd been walking for about a half an hour and had come to a

washed out area that made sandy high banks on each side. The banks were 15 feet tall. There were

several rocks exposed from the creek flooding, I guess,

and some of the rocks were really pretty, so I amused myself by digging around and looking for

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