Thursday, April 24, 2025

MORE SIGNS OF SPRING ALL OVER THE PLACE

A BUMBLY BEE IN OUR FRONT YARD BUZZING AROUND THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS
Looking through our living room window this morning, I saw for the first time this year.... signs of Spring. I noticed a touch of greenery in the trees. Early buds. Later in the day, I was to find other early signs of Spring around our front yard.

 IT WAS THESE SMALL TOUCHES OF GREEN THAT CAUGHT MY EYE FIRST THING THIS MORNING
Monday morning I have an appointment with my diabetes lady at the Maitland Valley Health Center in Goderich so this morning I slipped up to the Dynacare Lab beside the Medical Center to have blood drawn.  After that, it was a quick stop at Walmart and coffee to go at Tim Hortons.  I was home again inside an hour.

 NO, NOT AN AIRPLANE MAKING A TIPSY LANDING IN A FIELD...IT'S A SPRAYER PROBABLY WITH FERTILIZER
HOME AGAIN, I NOTICED THE DAFFODILS AND HYANCINTHS AT THE CORNER OF THE HOUSE
 OUR FRONT YARD FORSYTHIA IS IN BLOOM
A WHITE MAGNOLIA TREE OUT FRONT HAS  A FEW BLOSSOMS NOW TOO
 CHRISTMAS BLUE BELLS ARE STILL IN BLOOM TOO
It was a mosh of things I flitted around and busied myself with today. A few more things into the recycle bins, a load of laundry, cleaned up a couple of pedestal fans, and brought them into the house. I think of them as two of my best friends when the hot weather gets here. A couple of wheelbarrow loads of pine needles and firepit ashes to the utility trailer. Cleaned some glass and a Weber BBQ. George would be proud of me. All and all, it was a perfect weather day (almost broke a temperature record) and the very type of day one dreams about while suffering through those long, cold winter days. And, here's the best part...... It was about 3 p.m. when a little burgundy VW pulled into the driveway. 'Yahouie Louie' it was WOODSY:)) Yay team:))  By afternoon, I still didn't have much in the way of photos for tonight's blog, so I slipped out into our front yard to see what I could find. And, sure enough, there were even more signs of Spring all over the place.

NO FROGS IN THE FROG POND YET, BUT SOON
 ANOTHER SURE SIGN OF SPRING ARE THESE HOSTA SHOOTS POKING OUT OF THE GROUND
Al's Music Box:))
 Sail Along Silvery Moon by Billy Vaughn
 is a song written by Harry Tobias and Percy Wenrich in 1937 and performed by Bing Crosby. It reached #4 on the U.S. pop chart in 1937. Outside of the US, the song peaked at #1 in Canada, Germany and Norway. Billy Vaughn released an instrumental version of the song which went to #5 on the U.S. pop chart in December 1957 and #1 in Germany and in Canada in 1957.  The following year, the song went #1 in Norway and made #4 in Australia.  It ranked #6 on Billboard's Year-End top 50 singles of 1958.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( The Ant and the Grasshopper::

THE ORIGINAL VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
MODERN CANADIAN VERSION::
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come the winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.  The CBC shows up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. Canadians are stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?  
Then a representative of the NAGB (The national association of green bugs) shows up on The National and charges the ant with green bias, and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the Frog appears on the Nature of Things with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings "It's not easy being green.  "Canada's Prime Minister" makes a special guest appearance on the CBC Evening News to tell a concerned public that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan/Thatcher summers. Sheila Copps exclaims in an interview with Peter Mansbridge that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."  Finally, the Government drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. A prominent Government lawyer gets his law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal hearing officers that the Government appointed from a list of single-parent welfare moms who can only hear cases on Thursday's between 1:30 and 3 PM.  The ant loses the case.  The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he's in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow.  And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are showing the Prime Minister standing before a wildly applauding group of followers announcing that a new era of "fairness" has dawned in Canada.

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Stuff Happens::

Tao: Stuff happens.
Catholicism: If stuff happens, you deserved it.
Protestantism: Let stuff happen to somebody else.
Judasim: Why does stuff always happen to us?
Islam: Stuff happens according to the will of Allah.
Buddhism: The stuff is an illusion.
Zen: What is the sound of stuff happening?
Hinduism: This stuff happened before.
Mormonism: This stuff should multiply.
Baha'i Faith: Stuff happens in a progressive manner.
Agnosticism: I'm not sure about this stuff.
Atheism: That stuff about the stuff is all just made up stuff.

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Kelly's Corner
 KELLY AT THE 2015 BLOGGERFEST IN QUARTSITE, ARIZONA

 WITH KEVIN AND RUTH FROM TRAVEL WITH KEVIN AND RUTH
Al's Art Gallery













5 comments:

  1. Loved the grasshopper and ant story...isn't that the truth!!!!????!!!! Yup. And the aroma of hyacinths is wonderful, such a heady scent. Spring is bustin' out all over your place, Al, so very nice...and quick after all that snow and cold. Great that Woodsy arrived! Barb M.

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  2. So glad you got company today🥰

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  3. Do those cherry blossoms make cherries? Or are they just ornamental. MMM if they make fruit. Sounds like you had a good day!

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  4. Your photo gallery photos were terrific tonight. Here in the So Cal mountains, the lilacs and Dogwood trees are starting to bud out. They are late this year, thinking our crazy weather is the cause. Generally by now, the Dogwoods are putting on quite the show.

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  5. Spring is certainly springing at your place! Looks like you're ahead of us - no Hosta spikes here at all.

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