Book Review - Killing Lincoln

If you like history, then you'd probably enjoy reading "Killing Lincoln" by Bill O'Reilly.   I enjoy Civil War history and this book gives you snapshots into the final days of the war, from the perspective of several of the main players - Grant, Lee, Booth, and of course, Abraham Lincoln.

The book does an excellent job of putting you onto the final battlefields, lets you stroll the streets of Washington DC during the final moments of the war and takes you into Fords Theater, and Lincoln's private box seats, the night of the killing.

I learned more about the key players in this historic event than I ever learned from a history book.  Previous to reading the book, I had very little knowledge of John Wilkes Booth in particular.  O'Reilly does an excellent job of describing all the main characters and making them come to life on the page.  Personally, I could not put the book down.  It was a page turner for me.

If you like history and want to learn more about the final days of the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination, check it out.  This review is given just because I enjoyed the book, and not because I was solicited in any way to give it.

Milestones - Bugleann Hits 2000

Yesterday my good friends Tom and Mary, along with cachers BDSmiley and KeeganC hosted their monthly FLC Loves BBQ  GC3G2KR (Friday Lunch Club).  The lunch clubs are always a good time, and a quick and easy way to meet up with others cachers, grab lunch, chat and disperse.

They had a great turnout of around 40 cachers....

  That's Mary in the Red shirt....

Mary's husband Tom, also in red and our buddy Barry who made a surprise visit....

The event was also a milestone for me - it marked my 2000th geocache....

That's my friend Scott grinning behind me....

Fellow cacher Glenn also reached his 2000th milestone cache at the same event.  It was a great cause for a double celebration.  Congrats Glenn!

Geocachers sure are a fun and supporting group.

Tangled Happy and RAKJ Patterns

A couple of weeks ago Kristi from RAKJ Patterns sponsored a give away over at Sara's Tangled Happy Blog.

If you like to crochet, you'll want to visit both of their sites.

I won the give away (Yeah me!!) and got to pick out 3 patterns from Kristi's shop.  With her permission, I'm going to re-print her adorable pattern photos here so you can see what I chose....

First up is the Ugg Style Baby Boots.  How adorable are these??

My favorite pick was the Blue Bird Beany....OMG!!!!

And finally, the Bundle of Joy baby blanket/sleeve.  What a cute idea....

Since I'm still perfecting my crochet techniques, I can't wait to give these patterns a try.

Tangled Happy is one of my favorite go-to sites for tips and tutorials.  Sara has one of the best blogs for crocheting help and I'm learning a lot from her.  Thanks Sara!  Tangled Happy also has a ETSY shop that you can visit here.

Again, thanks Kristi for sending me 3 great patterns and giving me permission to re-post your photos.  Be sure to visit her Etsy shop and buy some patterns from her.

Miracle Gro Winner

The winners of the Miracle Gro Give Away were comments number 4 - Ron & Kathy Groll.  Thank you every one who entered.  As soon as I get the sample from Miracle Gro, I will forward it on to you.  

I will also contact you in the fall to get your thoughts on this product!

True Random Number Generator

Min:  1

Max: 8

 Result:

4

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Last Day for Miracle Gro Give Away

Today is the last day you can enter the Miracle Gro Give Away!

Click on this link here to go to my original post.  Leave a comment in the comments section there.  You must be a follower of my blog.

Contest is over at 5 pm today, central time.  Good luck!

More Turtle Shells

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the different treasures we find around Kentucky Lake.  If you missed that post, you can go back and read it here.  At the end of that week, we found 3 more turtle shells laying along shore.  All of them had dead turtles still stuck inside.  We took the turtle shells back to the lake house and placed them in the garden.  I put a bucket on top of them, and then a brick on top of the bucket so no wild animals would get to them.

Yesterday, just shy of 4 weeks, I went and checked them and all the turtle bits had been picked clean by the bugs.  I took the shells and dipped them in a little bleached water and then scrubbed them up with an old toothbrush.  Look at the nice shells I have now!

Wheels00 5K Large Swag Recycling Center

GC3G964 Wheels00 5K Large Swag Recycling Center is a milestone cache that was recently placed in honor of my caching friend Wheels.  If you remember, several of us embarked on a multi cache journey back in February 2012 to help Wheels achieve this milestone.  You can read about that caching day here.

Wheels and his family are avid recyclers, so cacher Dinaworks came up with the interesting concept of placing a milestone cache for Wheels in which cachers could place items that others can take home and re-use.  Here, take a look at the cache page GC3G964 for a really good explanation.

On Sunday evening a bunch of us met Wheels over at the cache location so he could find his cache.

The inside was already stocked with 2 DVD players, some books, CD's, speakers, an aquarium and assorted other items that are still in working order and can be re-used by somebody.

We all quickly signed the logbook and then scattered because the skies chose just that moment to open up and drown us with rain.  It was a quick, and sweet, moment.  Congrats on 5000 finds Wheels!

Don't forget about the Miracle Gro Give Away.  Click here to enter!

Just Call Me Mother Goose

Chablis & I were kayak fishing for blue gill the other day.  We were doing pretty good too.  Fishing out of the kayak is a lot harder than fishing off the dock.   In the first place, the wind was blowing us one way and the current was shooting us the other.  But we were very determined to get over to where some brush piles were because we knew that was where the fish were.

We caught some bluegill.....

A couple of perch.....

Some redear.....

But the most adorable thing was this cute little baby duck    goose.  He spied me and came swimming over, full steam ahead.....

I mean, come on, how cute is he???  He kept swimming around our kayaks and would not leave....

Finally I decided to drift over to shore and see what the little guy wanted to do.

I was absolutely dying to hold him but I was afraid of putting my scent on him, so I put the paddle out, he climbed up and didn't seem the least bit scared of me.

He even tried to climb into the kayak with me, but I wouldn't let him.  He seemed perfectly content to go for a kayak ride too...

A couple of geese flew overhead and landed on shore close by.  They started honking and the baby started baby honking back, so we decided to take the little guy over towards them and see if he went by them.  Just as we did, Louie and Jr. pulled up in the bass boat and got to watch the show!

I scooped the baby up and placed him back in the water and I started to paddle towards the geese.  The closer I got, the more they honked.  The little baby swam right behind me.  It was so cute the way he was trying to keep up.  I was actually afraid of getting too close to the geese, because I didn't want them to attack me, so I swerved off to the right and the baby swerved to the left and swam right over to them.  Whew.   Big sigh of relief!

Watch this video - it's really cute!

Give Away - Miracle Grow

Don't forget to leave a comment under this link to be entered in the Miracle Grow Give away!

You must be a new or current follower of my blog and leave a comment in the comments section under the original post.

Good luck!

Give Away - Miracle Gro Expand 'n Go

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Scotts® for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
The good folks over at Miracle Gro have contacted me and asked if I was interested in doing a give away of the Miracle Gro Expand 'n Go product.  Since I'm right in the middle of re-planting my disaster of a garden, I thought I'd give this product a try and offer a give away sample to one of my readers as well.


I've had a vegetable garden for years.  But last year it rained so darn much that I never got a chance to actually plant anything.  My garden space was sadly neglected, grew nothing but weeds, and I did absolutely nothing to supplement the soil.  Fast forward to this spring and thoughts of lucious tomatoes for bruschetta and home grown green and hot peppers for my homemade hot pepper jelly were dancing in my head.
One look at my garden plot and I was in a funk.  What to do?  Enter Miracle Gro Expand and Go,...

• Up to 3X the Flowers and Vegetables!* *versus native soil
• Significantly improves soil for multiple years
• Concentrated planting mix expands up to 3X when water is
added
• Feeds for up to 6 months
• All natural fibers hold up to 50% more water than basic potting
soil
Expand ‘n Gro™
Miracle Gro could not have come at a more appropriate time.  It's suposed to be easy to use, is formulated to give me big and beautiful veggies and is readily available on retailer shelves.  Because it’s a unique blend of Miracle‐Gro plant food and coconut coir fiber, a compact, lightweight, easy‐to‐carry and easy‐to‐store bag of Expand ‘n Gro can do everything a big, heavy bag of soil can do, only better. This concentrated planting mix expands up to 3 times when mixed with water, feeds plants for up to 6 months, makes native soil more workable and retains up to 50% more moisture than basic potting soil.   Why wouldn't I give it a try?

How would YOU like to give it a try as well?  If you follow my blog, just leave a comment on why you'd like to try this product.  If you don't follow my blog, become a new follower and leave me a note in the comments section.  I'd love you send you a sample of Miracle Gro Expand 'n Go.  We can compare notes on how it performs in the fall.  I'm already planning on having lots bruschetta and hot pepper jelly!


 Contest closes on Wednesday, April 25th at 5:00 pm central time

Bugleann Plays Helper Monkey

The other day we were out geocaching with mom and dad and we did a couple of fun and different caches.

We started out with a really easy one....

Every once in awhile you will run into a mean wiener.....

The next one was a little precarious.  Dad and I climbed a little close to the edge for this one...

Mom supervised.....

Then found the next one....

We found another one near a brook....

We found this nice size cache near a park.  This one was filled with lots of fun goodies for the kids.

This was a really good one.  It was hidden on a parking garage, but I won't tell you where.  It had 5 levels to search...

I had no idea this tunnel existed underneath a street that we have driven over many times.   We started off on the street and kept walking back and forth across the street, but the GPS kept insisting that the cache was in the center of the street.  We finally realized that there was a tunnel under the street and scrambled down the bank to the entrance....

If you had to guess, where do you think the cache was hidden?

It's a good thing Stretch    Dad, was along, because Louie and I would never have been able to reach this tiny cache....

But my favorite cache of the day was GC2Z070  Panda 2.   This cache has a difficulty level of 3.5 and a Terrain level of 5, so we knew it was going to be difficult.  First, I needed a boost up, just to reach the lowest limb.  Please excuse my ass.  Louie looks to be struggling a lot more than he really was.  Honestly, I don't weight that much.   LOL!

Around here, a "Helper Monkey" is the nickname for cachers who have to climb for a cache.  Today I was the designated Helper Monkey.....

Man, that was a stretch for me to get that one.  The cache container was strapped to the limb, and was just about out of my reach.  I had to unscrew the cover with my finger tips, poke my forefinger into the container, snake out the log sheet, grab a pen from my pants pocket, sign the log, replace the log sheet and screw the cap back on.  All while clinging to the main trunk with my left hand.  It was intense!

On the way back down, I ripped my pants....

As hard as it was tho, it was still my favorite cache of the day!  Hey, I'll take one for the team every now and then.