Within minutes of publishing last night’s post we did lose our electricity for about 5 seconds which of course was just long enough to knock out our 4 outside light timers & 3 inside digital clocks. The storm was fast moving as it came across the lake & headed inland. The winds were not as bad as anticipated & the hail never did materialize. I think we got off pretty lucky again, considering the overall bad weather damage that has been occurring everywhere. It was still raining when I jumped into the Jeep & headed out to grab a few photos for tonight's post.
Today we welcome Laura from PURSUIT OF IDLE PLEASURE as our latest blog Follower. Thanks for stopping by Laura:))
After finding a second cluster of feathers on the ground & the sudden absence of birds at our feeders I now know why a neighbors 2 cats have been hanging around our front yard recently. It's a perfect place to hide in all the shrubbery & pounce on the unsuspecting little birds on the ground picking up fallen seeds. I am sure they have sensed that Max & Checkers are gone because we never had this problem with cats before. Our front yard has quickly become a killing ground & there is not a darn thing we can do about it as long as people have little regard as to where their pets go & what they do everyday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see Ivan managed to pull himself together a little road trip a few days ago in Canada’s Rocky mountains. How fortunate to be living in the area of Alberta that he does surrounded by nature’s wonders. Posts like his always tug at my traveling heart & take me back to my time living in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley years ago. Makes me just want to once again dig out the old ‘For Sale’ sign here & move right on back to BC. It’s a thought Kelly & I have discussed many times but in the end, at this stage of our lives, it almost seems like an insurmountable task. It’s a big decision & requires both parties to totally be on the same page. Kelly is content to stay put for now & I of course am not, so therein lies our quiet little problem. And, don’t even get me started on my ‘Full Timing’ ideas!! 
A reader recently suggested my time at home in the summer might be made tolerable by a few RV getaways. Well, that is true if we had a time & place for a getaway. Kelly works all summer & on days off is too tired to be heading off camping somewhere & I totally understand that. Second problem is where to go if we did have a few days. As rurally nice as this area is that we live in there is nowhere with the free access to lands like that found in the American Southwest. Here in southern Ontario we live in flat farm country with fields upon fields of farmer’s crops. Not really conducive for RV boondocking that’s for sure. And, as most readers know, staying in a crowded RV Park or area campground is totally out of the question for us. We have far more peace & quiet right here at home than we would ever have in one of Ontario’s crowded summer RV Parks or campgrounds filled with kids, family's & weekend party animals. And yes, we have done that & know it to be so. Slipping away for a quiet RV weekend in our neck of the woods is just not an option. 
Another problem I have with sitting home all summer is simply that I grew up in this general area of Southwestern Ontario & have spent most of my adult life here. There just is not a whole lot left that I haven’t seen or places I haven’t been or are interested in seeing anymore. Had I never travelled very far I might be more content with myself at this point but right from an early boy I have had the hankering to get out & see things. I think the seed was planted back in the mid 50’s when my Mother & I moved to northern Ontario near the Manitoba border to be with my Stepfather who at the time was part of the construction crew working on the trans Canada highway at that time. Now, that was exciting. We lived in a house trailer on a farm & my memories from those days are still very much alive today. A one room country schoolhouse with two mile pony rides to school & horse drawn sleigh rides there in the winter.
I believe it was this period of time that set the tone for my desires of traveling & seeing new things. It was the main reason for me joining the Canadian Navy back in 1965. You might think that now at the age of 66 I would be content with things & happy to putter around with daily mundane routines, numb myself with nightly television programs, engage in hours of small talk at the local coffee shop or join some local service clubs for which I have no interest. Nope, none of the above holds anything for me at all. Just wanna hitch our rig to a star & travel the Universe while we still can.…….10-4:)))))))))
GROANER’S CORNER:(( There was a Scottish painter named Smokey Macgregor who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often thinned down his paint to make it go a wee bit further.
As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the Baptist Church decided to do a big restoration job on the outside of one of their biggest buildings.
Smokey put in a bid, and, because his price was so low, he got the job.
So he set about erecting the scaffolding and setting up the planks, and buying the paint and, yes, I am sorry to say, thinning it down with water...
Well, Smokey was up on the scaffolding, painting away, the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder, the sky opened, and the rain poured down washing the thinned paint from all over the church and knocking Smokey clear off the scaffold to land on the lawn among the gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.
Smokey was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty,
So he got down on his knees and cried:
"Oh, God, Oh God, forgive me; what should I do?"
And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke..
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"Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!"---------------------------------------------------------------
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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right
now...... AL.
