Swamp People

We might not have been hunting gators, but there was probably a "choot 'em" yelled out at some point this weekend. Saturday, my brother Brad and I took a little trip down to the swamp to ride around and enjoy the outdoors. Bless his heart. He was at my picture taking mercy, kinda like Heath was a few weeks ago. Yeah, don't invite me to come with you if there is a camera in my hand. You WILL be my subject!

After we got all our (umm..I mean my) stuff loaded up we hit the road and went to go see what trouble we could get into.

First stop we made was to the big river (the Apalachicola River to non-Calhoun County natives) for Brad to show me where all the Purvis men had camped out the weekend before. Yes, my father has found a new place to hang out, and that is the sandbar. Wow. Never thought I would see the day!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, that is "the spot." They tried to get me to go with them camping, but the last time I camped out on the sandbar with a group of friends, we all pretty much wanted to leave our crap and never go back again. Ha! I did have to take a picture of my father's redneck live well. Evidently, he and my two cousins like to catfish at night and they put the poor fish in this "live well" until they have a mess of fish to cook.

How do you like them apples? Pretty high-tech if you ask me. When I saw it I had a flashback to a Friends episode where they are at the beach and Joey digs a big hole. "I was in my hole..." Yeah, I'm a Friends nerd. Don't hate. After our journey to the sandbar, we got back in the woods and tried to find some hogs to stalk. At first all I thought we would see was this poor guy. I stopped to take a few pictures of a slough and saw a really cool looking cypress stump. See if you can see the picture crasher.

See him?

Didn't know when you read my blog that you would get to see random dead animals hanging out, did you? We ran a few hogs out of the woods with the four wheeler and decided to get off and follow them. I think Brad just really wanted to shoot something. So we got to walking. Brad made fun of my shoes.

Pretty, huh? I couldn't find my hunting boots in the mountain of boxes at mom's, but I did find a pair of old Uggs, so I put those on. Plus it was a little chilly, so I wanted my feet nice and warm. Brad said I looked like Pocahontas and that I should be running around the forest in deer skin with my hair in braids. Pure hateful. Back to our search for innocent animals to harass...

Here is Brad in his super stealth hunting mode:

Such concentration. And you're digging his denim on denim outfit, right? After our mad forest walking skills paid off, we finally found our hogs. I just prayed that the big boar wouldn't chase me up a tree :-)

You can't really see them that good in the pictures. I really needed my zoom lens to get a good shot of them. Oh, well. We did get to watch a cute little piglet scratch his booty on a log. It was quite comical. After I scared them away trying to get closer to take a picture, we decided to head back to the four-wheeler. It was getting close to game time for the Florida/Georgia game (yeah, we should have stayed in the woods for that goat ropin). We saw a few deer on the way back.

The deer is in the middle of the trees if you can see... sorry! I had a better sighting of a deer out the back door of my parents' house!

Really, the only critter I came into close contact was this little guy.

That's Waldo. Can you find him? He scared the crap out of me while I was crouched down watching the deer. I HATE spiders and he about gave me a heart attack crawling across my boot.

After our 10 mile hike back to the four-wheeler we headed out. I got to do my best realtor impression when we went by my friend, John David's house boat.

The poor house boat is sad. Sad, I tell you. I posted this picture on Facebook to mess with John David and his wife, Stacy. I posted it for sale, and I actually had a girl ask me about it!! Ha! Maybe I should take advantage of all those real estate classes I took in college and get my license :-) Highly doubtful...

That's about it for our sibling bonding time. We had a nice morning just riding around. Good times. It reminded me of all the Sunday afternoons when a big group of us would get together and ride four wheelers in the swamp back when we were all in college. Made me miss those days and seeing all my buddies on a regular basis. Maybe at Thanksgiving when everyone is home we can make that get together a reality. Home really is where the heart is. I grew up in those woods, doing just what Brad and I did this weekend. It really refreshes the soul, just being out in God's creation with one of your best friends, who happens to be your brother.