BUT WE STILL LOVE YOU AMERICA

It was a few minutes shy of 9 a.m. when the expected burgundy van rolled around the corner and picked me up.  Yep, it was Richard alright and it was his turn to drive for a twice-monthly country road coffee tour.  Wasn't long and we were armed with two Tim Horton coffees with a couple carrot-cake muffins to go and heading north out of Clinton.  And what a beautiful early Autumn day it was for the first day of October.  Another couple hours well spent as we leisurely cruised around over hill and dale through our beautiful rural countryside.  Just a great time of year to be out and about.

Taking a few bird pics through our sunroom windows I noticed the photos appeared a little drab.  Had a closer look at the windows and 'yep' they needed cleaning.  Forty minutes later the windows were sparkling as well as the living room windows.  Cleaning windows is not one of my favorite things but sometimes we just have to do things we would rather not do.  Actually, I'm not very good at doing that either.

THIS LITTLE NUTHATCH WAS JUST TOO FAST FOR ME

Despite a cool breeze it was a nice sunny afternoon to head out for a walk and once again Pheebs and I took ourselves around some of the Park's new roads back through the forest.  Sections of our trails are still here so we walked a few of them too.

THIS SECTION OF TRAIL WAS ONCE PART OF OUR OLD WALKING PATH THROUGH THE FOREST UNTIL THE BULLDOZERS CAME AND NOW IT IS ALL GROWN IN....BUT WE WENT THROUGH HERE ANYWAY

THAT CLUMP OF PURPLE ASTERS ARE THE SAME CLUMP OF ASTERS BELOW

AT LEAST THIS PART OF OUR MAGICAL FOREST HASN'T BEEN DESTROYED YET

With the gathering storm south of the border quickly gaining strength by the day I am sure thankful to be a Canadian living in Canada.  When we were kids we always wanted to be Americans living in America because America was where all the really neat stuff was like  Disneyland, The Grand Canyon, Ozzie and Harriet, California girls, and the bright lights of Las Vegas.  America had all the neat-o army tanks, ships, and airplanes.  Arizona was where all the Cowboys and Indians were.  Nashville for music, Hollywood for movies.  They had palm trees, long beaches, and Sea Hunt in Florida.  How about all the hot rod guys, monster magazines,  Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Benny Goodman, Jack Benny, Laugh-In, Bonanza, and Gunsmoke.  Hey, even Hop-A-Long Cassidy lived there, and let's not forget about the Beverly Hillbillies.  It was the land of wild imaginations, hopes, and dreams for many of my younger years.   But alas, the reality of time marches on and here we are today.  And oh my how things have changed.  I sure feel lucky all these years later living right here where we do.  It's not that I don't like the United States anymore because I do, and I still think of the good old USA as our second home after all our wonderful RV Snowbirding years there.  Lots of great places, unforgettable memories, and scads of very fine people.  But I'm just glad we're not living there now.  We greatly enjoyed our house and property in Arizona years ago but we had a feeling when the political field changed four years ago that there was a very likely possibility of serious trouble ahead for America.  I foresaw the possibility of closed borders and what is now the gathering storm.  That concern was one of half a dozen determining factors in the sale of our house nearly five years after we bought it.  I'm sure glad we sold it when we did.  But we still love you America and we'd love to come back someday if and when you get all your troubles sorted out.........

GROANER'S CORNER:((  At the urging of his doctor, Bill moved to Texas.  After settling in, he met a neighbor who was also an older man.  “Say, is this really a healthy place?”  “It sure is,” the man replied.  “When I first arrived here I couldn't say one word. I had hardly any hair on my head. I didn't have the strength to walk across a room and I had to be lifted out of bed.”  “That's wonderful!” said Bill. “How long have you been here?”  “I was born here.”

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A pig and a chicken were walking by a church where a charity event was taking place. Getting caught up in the atmosphere, the pig suggested to the chicken that they each make an offering.  “Great idea!” the chicken replied. “Let's offer them ham and eggs!”  “Not so fast,” said the pig. “For you, that's an offering. For me, it's a sacrifice.”

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MAINLY A FEW PHOTOS

BLUE JAY TAKING A SEPTEMBER BATH

With overnight rains lasting to near mid-morning we had us a rather dull and drab Jeep ride this morning.  The overcast ceiling was about 200 feet with some of the areas wind turbine blades lost in the clouds.  Couldn't seem to drum up any writing interest today so I will leave you with a few of this morning's photos.

THIS WAS OUR MORNING

LOCAL BOATS HAVE BEGUN THE PROCESS OF BEING TAKEN OUT OF THE WATER FOR THE WINTER

SEEMED TO BE SOME MAJOR ACTIVITY AT THE TIM HORTON SITE....THEY MAY HAVE PUT A RUSH ON FOR THE 2025 GRAND OPENING

TURBINES IN THE MIST

OUR NEW BIRD FEEDER IS PROVING TO BE A BIG SUCCESS

RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH

BLACK CAPPED CHICKADEE

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Vocabulary::

- Accountant - Someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
- Auditor - Someone who arrives after the battle and bayonets all the wounded.  
- Banker - The fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. (Mark Twain)
- Economist - An expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
- Statistician - Someone who is good with numbers but lacks the personality to be an accountant.
- Actuary - Someone who brings a fake bomb on a plane, because that decreases the chances that there will be another bomb on the plane.
- Programmer - Someone who solves a problem you didn't know you had in a way you don't understand.
- Mathematician - A blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there.
- Lawyer - A person who writes a 10,000-word document and calls it a "brief."
- Psychologist - A man who watches everyone else when a beautiful girl enters the room.
- Schoolteacher - A disillusioned woman who used to think she liked children.
- Consultant - Someone who takes the watch off your wrist and tells you the time.
- Diplomat - Someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.

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I AM FINALLY RETIRING MY BELOVED NIKON D7200 DSLR CAMERA

One of the things we noticed on our last couple of short Ontario trips is the number of people out and about walking, biking, jogging, and simply enjoying the outdoors.  No matter what age, size, or condition of folks we are seeing more and more people out than ever before.  We are a far more health-conscious society now than years ago.  I don't know if this Covid thing has had something to with it or spurred it on but for whatever reason, it is having a positive outdoor effect on people both mentally and physically.  And even here right in our own area, I've never seen so many bicycles on the road before.  Well, not since I was a kid that is.

I wonder how many Ontario folks know that the Tractor Supply Company (TSC) stores are changing their name to Peavy Mart.  You can read about it here....TSC to Peavy Mart.  With that thought on my mind, Pheebs and I headed back to Goderich to get the birdseed at TSC I forgot Monday.  Having only a few handfuls of seed left it was important to get our bird station re-stocked.  Hungry birds can soon become angry birds and I didn't want them lining up on our sunroom's window sill making mad faces at me and chirping feathered obscenities through the glass.

It was an uneventful morning Jeep drive to Goderich and back and yes I did get me a big sack of birdseed, some suet, and a new metal bird seed feeder.  No more of those breakable plastic bird feeders for this guy anymore.

I ALWAYS LIKE TO SEE RV FOLKS ENJOYING THEMSELVES AT THE BEACH

I am retiring my beloved Nikon D7200 camera.  Having successfully cleaned the sensor a couple times over the years I accidentally scratched it on my third cleaning attempt late last winter.  Sensors are not fixable and have to be $$replaced$$.  Not an option for me.  The damaged sensor meant I had to spend a lot of time retouching the scratch marks on most of my photos and after doing that for the past 6 months I'd had enough.  On our RV travels last week I had a lot of sky and water photos with scratches which meant a lot of re-touching to make them presentable.  I have been using my newer Nikon CoolPix P900 sparingly this past year and a half knowing I would retire the D7200 eventually.  The 'like new' P900 will now become my main camera.  I began using it full time starting Monday. This fantastic Nikkor 83X Wide Optical Zoom lens with a camera incorporated into it has a range from 24mm to 2000mm.  I had been using this camera along with the D7200 more frequently lately.  I think you might begin to notice a slight subtle difference in some of my photos now. 

And, continuing with the photo theme I amazingly enough remembered a question asked about a month ago by Marlene at Marlene and Benno's Odysseys on Land and Water.  Marlene wondered how do I get the black backgrounds for many of my flower photos.  Well, there's an involved technical answer and there is my simpler answer.  Look for dark backgrounds behind your subject, meter your subject only, and experiment with purposely underexposing your shot.  I prefer deep rich slightly underexposed colors so those are some of the things I do.  There's more to it of course, but that's a start.      

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Not So Long Ago...

A window was a pane of glass you always had to clean. And a hacker had a lousy swing and could never hit the green.

Meg was the name of a girlfriend and a Gig was played on stage.
Memory was what our elders lost in their golden age.
An application was for employment and a program was a show.
A cursor used to cuss a lot and mail didn't seem that slow.
A CD was for money in a long term bank account. And if you had a floppy you hoped that nobody ever found out.
Compress was something you did to garbage not something you did to a file. And if you unzipped in public you'd be in jail a while.
A keyboard was on a piano, a hard drive was down a long road.
A mouse pad was where Mighty Mouse lived and a backup involved a commode.
Cut you did with a pocket knife, paste you did with glue.
A web was what a spider wove and a virus meant the flu.
Nobody gets killed in a computer crash but some would've rather been dead, I guess I'll stick to pen and paper and the memory still in my head.

If I could ever go back in time and start all over again, I'd make sure that I grew up as Bill Gate's closest friend. 

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Buckwheat of the Little Rascals fame grew up, became a Muslim, and changed his name. He then went by the name, Kareem of Wheat.

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