NOT A GOOD FIRST DAY HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL FOR KELLY

It was not a good first day home for Kelly.  She has a lot of pain in her stomach now and her abdomen is very distended.  She had that pain before and during the hospital episode but she said the doctors were not too concerned about it.  It was hurting her this morning and she couldn't bend down to pick up Pheeb's food dish to get her breakfast ready.  I quickly jumped into the breach and took care of that.  The only way she can find relief from the pain is to lay flat on her back and so that is what she did and fell asleep on her bed for the rest of the morning into early afternoon.  She then came out to the living room for a while until she again returned to her bed to lay down in an effort to reduce the pain and soreness in her abdomen.  These are difficult and uncertain days.

We woke up to a lot of noise early today.  The Precision Directional Drilling trucks were right in front of our house and work was underway digging and pulling heavy orange cables through the ground.  There were 3 noisy machines working and of course, every time they backed up they made loud beeping sounds.  When I checked on Kelly several times she was asleep with her head tightly tucked between two large pillows to block out all the noise.  The orange cable sticking out of our driveway for the past month is now finally buried.

WE WERE HAPPY TO GET THAT ORANGE CABLE BURIED TODAY

 THIS IS THE MACHINE THAT 'MIGHT HAVE' NICKED THE POWER CABLE A FEW DAYS AGO

 USING AN INDUSTRIAL HIGH WATER PRESSURE WAND TO DIG HOLES

 MORE DIGGING ACROSS THE ROAD

 IN FRONT OF OUR PLACE THIS EVENING

Pheebs and I slipped out the door and set a course for nearby Zurich Ontario this morning.  Our mission, at Kelly's request, was to pop into Jerry Raders Homestyle Catering Market to pick up some chicken pot pies.  

On the way there Pheebs and I stopped at the Klopp Woodland Trail for a leg stretch before reaching Jerry Raders in Zurich.  Note to self.....'do not never ever go to Jerry Rader's on a Saturday morning again.  I think there had to have been about 53,000 people in there!!!!  Any more than two people within a square mile of me generally causes me a major stress frazzled so you can imagine my dilemma while there.  With 3 frozen chicken pot pies, a small pecan pie, a turkey salad sandwich, and a free half piece of rhubarb pie precariously balanced in my arms, Pheebs and I soon got the heck out of there.

Our second walk of the morning after leaving Jerry Rader's was at the Linwood Wildlife area on the way home.  This was a surreal walk between a hedgerow and a cornfield with the air being so still not even a leaf was stirring.  A calmness hung over the land.  A feeling of peace that I only find at times when walking hand in hand with Mother Nature through one of her many wondrous gardens. 

A FEW SIGNS OF A POSSIBLE EARLY AUTUMN

 STARTING OUT ON OUR WALK AT THE LINWOOD WILDLIFE AREA

 ACRES AND ACRES OF CORN

 NOT EVEN THE WIND TURBINES ARE MOVING

 YES, WE STILL HAVE A FEW DANDELIONS AROUND

Home again, the work crews were still working on their cable burying project and Kelly was still asleep.  Our driveway was blocked but luckily we have a second parking spot accessible from the road.  It's where we once parked our RV's over the years.   

 AT THE END OF OUR DRIVEWAY THIS AFTERNOON

 GLAD TO SEE THAT ORANGE CABLE GONE AND THIS IS THE BEST OUR DRIVEWAY HAS EVER LOOKED

Spring's lush greens and vibrant growth are of course long gone for another year as Summer's season marches steadily toward Autumn.  Leaves have taken on a deeper hardened look, grasses have browned in the summer's heat, and once youthful foliage is showing signs of stress and aging just as we humans are.  For many of us, the bloom has gone off the Rose as they say.  We are all in the final stages of a Metamorphosis that began oh so long ago.  We must all keep our mind's eye on the Butterfly stage and be patient.  We're closing in and it will happen.  Soon, wings will be ours.  

 SIGNS OF THE SUMMER SEASON MOVING ON

I want to thank everyone again for all their kind comments and concerns, the Facebook Likes and messages,  blog comments, Shouts, and emails.  And a special thank you to all the folks for their prayers.  Aunt Jean brought it to my attention a week ago that I had not given thanks to all the people who have been praying for both her and Kelly as well as the Bayfield Bunch in general and of course Pheebs.  On behalf of all of us here, thank you all for your prayers.  

 STRAW BALES

Update:: Kelly has packed an overnight bag and if the swelling and discomfort in her abdomen (fluid) isn't better tomorrow (or later tonight) we are going to head for Emergency at the Stratford General Hospital.  That fluid needs to be drained because it is pressing on her lungs making it harder for her to breath.  I suggested we go now but Kelly says she wants to wait................ 

Al's Music Box:)) Mr. Tambourine Man by the Byrds is a song written by Bob Dylan and released as the first track of the acoustic side of his March 1965 album 'Bringing It All Back Home'.  "Mr. Tambourine Man" was the debut single by the American band the Byrds and was released less than a month after Dylan's original on April 12, 1965, by Columbia Records. The song was also the title track of the band's debut album, which was released on June 21, 1965. The Byrds' version is abridged and in a different key from Dylan's original.  Most of the members of the Byrds had a background in folk music, since Jim McGuinn, Gene Clark, and David Crosby had all worked as folk singers during the early 1960s. They had all spent time, independently of each other, in various folk groups, including the New Christy Minstrels, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and Les Baxter's Balladeers.  In early 1964, McGuinn, Clark, and Crosby formed the Jet Set and started developing a fusion of folk-based lyrics and melodies, with arrangements in the style of the Beatles.  In August 1964, the band's manager Jim Dickson acquired an acetate disc of "Mr. Tambourine Man" from Dylan's publisher, featuring a performance by Dylan and Ramblin' Jack Elliott.  Although the band members were initially unimpressed with the song, after McGuinn changed the time signature they began rehearsing it. In an attempt to make it sound more like the Beatles, the band and Dickson elected to give the song a full, electric rock band treatment, effectively creating the musical subgenre of folk rock. To further bolster the group's confidence in the song, Dickson invited Dylan to a band rehearsal at World Pacific Studios Studios to hear their rendition. Dylan was impressed, enthusiastically commenting, "Wow, you can dance to that!" His endorsement erased any lingering doubts the band had about the song.  The master take of "Mr. Tambourine Man" was recorded on January 20, 1965, at Columbia Studios in Hollywood, before the release of Dylan's own version.  The song's jangling, melodic guitar playing (performed by McGuinn on a 12-string Rickenbacker guitar) was immediately influential and has remained so to the present day. The group's complex vocal harmony work, as featured on "Mr. Tambourine Man", became another major characteristic of their sound.  Due to producer Terry Melcher's initial lack of confidence in the Byrds' musicianship, as a result of them not having gelled musically yet, McGuinn was the only Byrd to play on both "Mr. Tambourine Man" and its B-side, "I Knew I'd Want You" Rather than using band members, Melcher hired the Wrecking Crew, a collection of top L.A. session musicians, who (with McGuinn on guitar) provided the backing track over which McGuinn, Crosby, and Clark sang.  By the time that session for their debut album began in March 1965, Melcher was satisfied that the band was competent enough to record its own musical backing.  Much of the track's arrangement and final mixdown was modeled after Brian Wilson's production work for the Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby".  The Byrds' recording of the song opens with a distinctive, Bach-inspired guitar introduction played by McGuinn and then, like Dylan's version, goes into the song's chorus Although Dylan's version contains four verses, the Byrds perform only the song's second verse and two repeats of the chorus, followed by a variation on the song's introduction, which then fades out.  The Byrds' arrangement of the song had been shortened during the band's rehearsals, at the suggestion of Jim Dickson, in order to accommodate commercial radio stations, which were reluctant to play songs that were over two-and-a-half minutes long.  As a result, while Dylan's version is five-and-a-half minutes long, the Byrds' version runs just short of two-and-a-half minutes.  The lead vocal on the Byrds' recording of "Mr. Tambourine Man" was sung by McGuinn, who attempted to modify his singing style to fill what he perceived as a gap in the popular music scene of the day, somewhere between the vocal sound of John Lennon and Bob Dylan.  The song also took on a spiritual aspect for McGuinn during the recording sessions, as he told Rogan in 1997: "I was singing to God and I was saying that God was the Tambourine Man and I was saying to him, 'Hey, God, take me for a trip and I'll follow you.' It was a prayer of submission."

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A traveler was stumbling through the desert, desperate for water, when he saw something far off in the distance.  Hoping to find water, he walked towards the image, only to find a little old peddler sitting at a card table with a bunch of neckties laid out.  The parched wanderer asked, "Please, I'm dying of thirst, can I have some water?"  The man replied, "I don't have any water, but why don't you buy a tie? Here's one that goes nicely with your clothes."  The desperate man shouted, "I don't want a tie, you idiot, I need water!"  "OK, don't buy a tie. But to show you what a nice guy I am, I'll tell you that over that hill there, about 5 miles, is a nice restaurant. Walk that way, and they'll give you all the water you want."  The man thanked the peddler and walked away towards the hill and eventually disappeared out of sight. Three hours later he returned.  The man at the card table said, "I told you, about 5 miles over that hill. Couldn't you find it?"  "I found it all right. They wouldn't let me in without a tie."

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- Why was the baby ant so confused?

Because all his uncles were ants.

- A genie came to me and asked, "What's your first wish?"  I answered, "I wish I was rich!"  Then the genie said, "What's your second wish, Rich?"
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