Just spent about 3 hours putting everything to-gether, the computer seized up, & I lost the whole post. It’s 10 o’clock & I don’t have enough energy to start all over again:))
ONE OF TO-DAY’S PICTURES FROM BISBEE……………………
Just spent about 3 hours putting everything to-gether, the computer seized up, & I lost the whole post. It’s 10 o’clock & I don’t have enough energy to start all over again:))
ONE OF TO-DAY’S PICTURES FROM BISBEE……………………
KELLY TALKING TO HER DAUGHTER SARAH ON SKYPE THIS AFTERNOON
This was the first morning we were not below the freezing mark in the last 4 days. On the cold nights we turn off all the outside water here. There are a lot of irrigation & water pipes on the ranch so water has to be shut off at a main valve about a foot underground. It's easily accessible so no problem. Trick is to keep an eye on the days weather to see how low the night time desert temperatures will drop.
TOP: PROUD DADDY BRADLEY WITH HIS LITTLE PRINCES……BEAMING MOM SARAH WITH HER LITTLE PRINCE…….BOTTOM : BABY GIRL AT LEFT & BABY BOY AT RIGHT
Mother & twins are doing fine up there in Vancouver BC Canada. Kelly talked to her daughter Sarah & son-in-law Bradley to-day on Skype. The baby girl (twins aren't named yet) is now out of neo natal intensive care & will be in the same room to-night as her new twin brother. Sarah had developed a serious condition known as Hellp syndrome & that had complicated things for a few crucial days. Everything is on the up & up now & they should all be one big happy family back home soon.
TELESCOPE AT LEFT IS SET UP FOR ASTRONOMY & AT RIGHT IS CONFIGURED FOR THE CAMERA (the tall mossmagator thingy on the top is a red laser beam pointer for aligning the scope with an object in the night sky)
Kelly was off to Yoga this morning so I was able to put away my book of 1001 excuses for another few days. Corky's Mom & Dad dropped him off about 11 so there was lots of neat-o play time doggy stuff going on for the rest of the day. In between all that we managed to clear a bunch of old dead tomato stocks out of the garden too.
MY PAL CORKY
Sure wished I had something more exciting to write about but these are quiet days at the ranch right now. I had uploaded a photo album to Picasa Web Albums on Thursday but to-day I deleted it & started all over. Had made too many mistakes in putting the album to-gether & after looking at it to-day knew it was not acceptable. I will do the new upload next time I'm at the Elfrida Library.
SAND HILL CRANES HEADING TO THEIR ROOSTING SITE AT THE WHITE WATER DRAW (700mm lens)
Started reading my new National Geographic book, 'Backyard Guide To The Night Sky' a couple days ago. Great book so far & to-night I was able to clearly see 4 of Jupiter's moons with my telescope. It's a Stellarvue Nighthawk 80mm refractor scope & I have 3 varying power eyepieces for it. A 5mm, 17mm, & a 35mm. With the moon being in it's quarter stage the craters & ridges are easily seen because of the shadowy contrast effect. Contrary to popular belief a full moon is not the best time to look at it with a telescope. Too bright & the lighting is too flat. The cold & dry desert air is perfect of stargazing. No humidity in the air to make images unstable. Later to-night I will take myself for a tour around the sky checking out the Andromeda Galaxy, the double cluster in Perseus & the Orion Nebulae with various stops in between. Like the song says, "fly me to the moon & let me play amongst the stars:))"
MAX IS RESTING HIS LEG ON THE MOTORMOUSE
DOG, DOGS, EVERYWHERE TO-DAY
GROANER'S CORNER:(( At a hastily called press conference this morning, the Taliban Minister of Emigration . . . . . Mohammed Omar, warned the United States that if any further military action was taken against Afghanistan, Taliban authorities would not hesitate to cut off America's supply of convenience store managers.
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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.
MOTORMOUSE & HER BESTEST LITTLE PAL……FUNKY CHICKEN
Turned out to be an exciting day for Kelly. One of her twin daughters gave birth late last night to a set of twins herself in Vancouver, British Columbia. A few complications for the 4.5 pound boy & 4.3 pound girl plus Mom, but they are all doing much better to-day. Sarah, Kelly's daughter, will have to remain in hospital a couple extra days though. Needless to say she has been a busy little computer person to-day with emails & Skype calls to Spain, Cambridge Ontario, Spencerport New York & a few places in between. Exciting times for sure:))
SAND HILL CRANES……..700MM
Did some updates on the laptop at the Elfrida library & uploaded another album to Picasa Web Albums this morning but I have to re-edit that album & make some changes & add some captions. The librarian gave me the website of another couple living in McNeal who are fairly knowledgeable about this area so I hope to meet them before too long. They had a photo of the stone cairn where Tombstone's infamous Johnny Ringo is buried & I would like to know where that is plus the McLaury boys who were killed in the shoot-out with Wyatt Erp at the OK corral had a ranch near McNeal here somewhere & I'm curious as to where that was.
SURVEILENCE BLIMP OVER SIERRA VISTA 30 MILES AWAY
Set my wayward tri-pod up this afternoon & popped my Nikon D-40 on it with the Stellarvue telescope/camera lens attached. Was hoping to catch some returning Sand Hill Cranes but they obviously saw me setting up & immediately cleared the area. All morning & early afternoon there had been flock after flock of Cranes going over but as soon as I was set up & swung my lens around & up into the air.............there was nothing there!! Not a bird to be seen or heard. Nothing!! Isn't that always the way though. About 3 hours later I heard a familiar weebling sound in the distance & managed one photo of 6 Cranes winging their way south just west of the ranch.
TO-NIGHT’S CRESCENT MOON
Managed a few shots of the crescent moon after supper. Also a shot of the Border Patrol Surveillance Blimp flying high over Sierra Vista on the other side of the Mule Mountains from us. It would be about 30 miles away as the crow flies so that 700mm lens did well in picking up that blimp. Also a test shot in the dark of a porch light & silhouetted bell at the ranch house about 300 yards away. Am looking forward to tracking down some local birds at the White Water Draw just down the road. Some of you may remember the bird photos I did this past summer with this lens back home in Bayfield. It's not an easy lens to use though because it is first & foremost a telescope & not designed for a camera so 2 separate adapters have to be used in attaching it to my camera. I have no control over this lens except for shutter speed. Focusing is done manually & because the lens is very heavy a tri-pod is required. Oh well, keeps me on my toes & makes me do some manual thinking myself for a change.
To-morrow my old doggy pal Corky is coming for the day. Haven't seen him since last March so I wonder if he'll remember me. That will be 7 of us old scruffy dogs running around the ranch to-morrow if you include me. And I'm sure Kelly would:))
GROANER'S CORNER:)) My last job was working at Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind and the job had no perks.
BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/
OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.
SUNSET AT THE CORRAL
We've been working on our Live Writer problem to-day but we are not a lot further ahead than when we started this morning despite reading reams of info, applying fixes, trying this & trying that. And I should say it was Kelly who was doing most of the working.
After Live Writer failed to publish last night again for about the 8th time in the last couple of weeks I was just so mad I grabbed the anchor chain & jumped overboard. Kelly spent part of the day hauling me back aboard after RICK from Cowichan Bay in British Columbia had thrown me down a long lifeline in the form of an email this morning. One of my self imposed problems is that I work on the blog at exactly the wrong time of day. I am usually very tired at night & it is that time of day I have the least amount of patience left in my daily patience reservoir for things that go bump in the computer. I think Blogs & things like that are best done in the morning but my problem is, by that time I've probably forgot most of what went on the day before. So, I'm stuck with nights.
Kelly chased the problem up this alley & down the next. Emails to Microsoft & help forums. She found that others were having similar problems & she found answers & solutions by various people. She tried them all & none of them worked. She went at the problem from different angles as did Rick from B.C. Rick sent emails with possible fixes as well. We practically re-wrote the rules but nothing worked. And where was I when all this was going on?? I was making up some egg salad & peanut butter sandwiches to put in my knapsack before heading across the desert on foot to the distant mountains. Figured on becoming a Hermit to escape all this frustrating technology stuff. Living in a cave with a stick actually seemed attractive.
However, Kelly convinced me otherwise so I ate my sandwiches & sat down at the computer. Ran a series of simple test Live Writer tests using text only, text & pics, pics only, plus photos in the Live Writer Photo Album. Five out of 6 tests published successfully & thanks to the folks who responded with positive feedback about those tests. The one test which failed was Live Writer's Photo Album after I uploaded about a dozen pics to it. I am beginning to suspect a problem with that animated photo album.
To-night I will just put a few simple photos in the blog & see if it will publish. To-morrow night maybe the same plus a Table or something. I'll add a little more each night until it fails to publish again & that should give me an idea of what feature is broken in Live Writer. Or maybe I'll do all of that to-morrow as more tests. We'll see. Plan to slip into the Elfrida Library while Kelly goes to an exercise class in the morning & get my Picasa Web Albums updated. Don't want to use our Verizon bytes for that.
We also have to get ourselves working on some day trips around the area shortly as well. Our blog numbers are dropping like the autumn leaves & that tells me I'm boring people so it's time to get out & rustle up some excitement, new ghost towns, & interesting places. Besides, this old rolling stone is beginning to get some moss on him again and I don't like when that happens!! I didn't spend this past totally boring summer sitting around waiting to get on the road again just to sit around allowing moss to grow on me!!
Ok, I'm gonna try & post this now, but if it fails to publish again to-night I am definitely loading up my knapsack with peanut butter sandwiches & heading for that cave in the mountains!!!!!!
P.S. And thanks to Rick's sharp eye for pulling my bacon out of the fire this morning when I got my Jerry's & Suzy's, & Sherri's & Barry's , mixed up with my Bruces & Mooses again. Whewwww, close call there for sure. Thought I saw my life flash before me....................10-4
GROANER'S CORNER:)) A few years ago I thought my mining job was interesting.....but then they gave me the shaft!!
BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/
OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.
WATCHFUL EYES OVER THE MULE MOUNTAINS
(click on the photographs to enlarge them)
Knew for sure we were definitely in Arizona last night when big walloping wind gusts tried their best to totally re-locate us some distance east of where we presently are. People in sticks & bricks houses wouldn't be aware of the wind unless they saw branches blowing by but if your in an RV it's akin to being in a wind tunnel. The rig rocks, the slide awnings flap, & every square corner sets up it's screaming banshee sound. Needless to say this is not at all very conducive to a good night's sleep.
BLACK CLOUDS IN WIND BLUSTERING MORNING
Converging weather fronts brought in a tangled mass of angry looking clouds & the day dawned with a moody determination. Bright blue sunny days are nice but it takes clouds to give the sky a fuming personality & dark ominous clouds are my fav. Took some photos & would have taken many more but it was Yoga morning & I couldn't really come up with a good legitimate excuse not to attend my first class this morning. All the way to the Elfrida Community Center my eyes were on the sky watching Mother Nature's wonders at work. The cloud shadows & sun splashes on the mountains were inspiring.
SILOUETTED SOUTH END OF THE SWISS HELM MOUNTAINS AT SUNRISE THIS MORNING
Looked to be about a dozen ladies gathered around in a large circle with chairs & mats when we walked in to the Elfrida Community Center at 9 this morning. David, an instructor from Bisbee welcomed us to the group & it wasn't long & I was seated in a white chair with a purple floor mat at my feet. I immediately knew I was going to be more comfortable here than the exercise class when David dimmed the lights. I am not a bright lights kind of guy. The first minute was spent in a relaxation mode. Now, this was my kind of exercise. The instructor had a soft voice as we went through a series of stretches with closed eyes. The closed eyes part really worked for me because I was able to drift off down memory lane making some now & then comparisons. My mind took me back 44 years ago to my days in boot camp at a naval base in Canada called Cornwallis. How different my body now as I sat there in this dimmed room trying to do even the simplest of stretches. Where once I scrambled up & down 30 foot ropes, drilled for hours on parade grounds, ran for miles on cross country runs, & did a whole host of improbable physical things, I now found it hard to simply bend a knee joint to reach the floor or raise a leg to an even level while in a seated chair. I was on the floor, on my back, & found that hard. I was on my stomach & that didn't work well either. Mashed my face into the purple mat. The only thing that finally worked for me was when after an hour & a half I heard Yoga instructor David say, "and now for our final move.......:))"
ANGRY WIND TOSSED SKYS
Elfrida has a community garden just behind their community hall so after the Yoga class we took a walk over there to have us a look see. Yes, I was still able to walk after the class. This plot of garden land is made free to the local people & seeds are provided. Each person or family is given a tower or in Canada we'd call it a raised bed with screened soil where they can plant their seeds. Two spacious greenhouses are filled with strawberry plants. A large earth oven has been built as well as a small pond with seating benches. We saw rows of onions & a long patch where peanuts had been grown. A band of roving chickens kept an eye on us as we strolled under an arbor that might have been grapes at one time. Gourds had grown up along a fence line & were hanging loosely for anyone to pick. What we thought were corn stalks turned out to be sugar cane. A Mexican caretaker fellow shoveled soil through a screen in another greenhouse as his boombox belted out Mexican tunes. We talked with a couple of ladies who had walked over from the Yoga class. Eve lives here in the valley near McNeal but has property in Nova Scotia as well. Another lady was visiting from England.
Wind gusts had picked up in intensity & when we arrived back at the ranch two of our tables were blown over & our Star Choice television satellite dish was on the ground with the dish pointing straight up in the air like a turtle on it's back. I immediately assumed the worse figuring the electronics in the LMB arm would be shattered & we would never ever be able to watch television again in this lifetime. Set the tri-pod back up, re-mounted the dish in the high winds, made a few slight adjustments & had Kelly turn on the TV inside. When I moved the dish slightly & saw Oprah Winfreys face fill the screen I knew that all would be right with the world again because Kelly would have her Oprah show back. Whewwwww, close call for me!! I then staked the tri-pod legs to the ground & suspended a heavy jug of water under the tri-pod center for added weight. I then re-positioned the car close to the dish to act as a wind break. It's nearly 7 p.m. now & so far so good.
DARK CLOUDS OVER THE GLEESON MOUNTAINS
Rest of the afternoon was spent inside because every time we stepped out the door we were practically blown right off our feet into the next county. We occasionally have strong winds in Ontario but they are not like the big winds that sweep out of the mountains in the southwest & come screaming across the desert floor to turn your whole world upside down right quick!!
SAND HILL CRANES LOW TO THE GROUND STRUGGLE AGAINST THE WIND TO-DAY
Later in the afternoon I stood outside & watched as thousands of Sand Hill Cranes struggled against the massive wind gusts on the way back from their feeding grounds at the north end of the valley. They were heavy with the days intake & at times were motionless in the sky only to be pushed back by the winds. They reminded me of salmon struggling upstream against the onslaught of relentless rushing waters. Great flocks of birds were down low to the ground trying to escape the wind shears. They came low over the ranch house & dropped even lover as they hugged the ground heading for their nightly roosts another 2 miles south of here. It's dark now as I'm typing this & yet I can hear them overhead trying to get home. Usually they are all back well before dark.....but, not to-night. I'm sure there will be some for which there will be no sunrise.............
ANOTHER 2 MILES & THEY WILL BE HOME
And welcome to new bloggers & friends JEAN and RAY from Gleeson Arizona and their website QUIET COUNTRY CREATIONS
GROANER'S CORNER:(( I once had a job in an Orange Juice factory, but I got canned..... I couldn't concentrate.
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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL