MY HO-HUM DAY

ALWAYS LOTS OF GOLDFINCHES IN OUR YARD THIS TIME OF YEAR

Well I definitely had myself a ho-hum day alright & was determined not to write a post tonight but here I am again with myself ker-plunked down at the keyboard.  My determination sometimes has a few holes in it.  Maybe it is a need for people like myself to express themselves.  Whatever it is, for the most part I do enjoy the daily challenge of attempting to come up with something remotely interesting to write about.  Sometimes it is as mundane as saying I’m attempting to come with something remotely interesting to write about.  Say, have I told you about my fear of repetition…………………………

SPRING IS DEFINITELY IN THE AIR
It was almost non-stop lightning for about half an hour late Wednesday night & the rains were torrential.  Checking live radar on my computer I could see a line of several small severe weather cells had formed up out over Lake Huron & steam rolled their way directly into & right on through Bayfield.   Our driveway looked like a lake in the lightning flashes.   Our power somehow remained uncharacteristically on for a change.  Most amazing.

Kelly is re-thinking the vanity sale.  Didn’t appear to be a lot of interest in it plus Kelly’s youngest daughter Rebecca today said she is thinking she may like to have it.  If so we’ll hang onto it until Rebecca & husband Ricardo can slip on over to Bayfield & pick it up.

<<< THIS RED BREASTED MALE GROSBEAK WOULD NOT TURN AROUND & SHOW US HIS BRIGHT RED CHEST

That overnight speeding freight train of a thunderstorm blew all our warm air & humidity out of town & replaced it today with cloudy & cold.  The cooler air spurred me on to finish up my little back yard project this morning.  As well I slipped on up my tall step ladder & cleaned a bunch of wet rotting pine needles out of our front porch eaves trough & that yukky job soon had me inside running my frozen hands under the hot water tap.

A FEW FINISHING TOUCHES YET & WE SHOULD SOON HAVE A GRASSY AREA TO PUT OUR LAWN CHAIRS ON

Years before we were the Bayfield Bunch we were the 'Dreamweaver's'.  In the late nineties living in an old farmhouse near Fullarton Ontario we decided on that name after buying an old & aging (think it was a 1979) 17' Class C Dodge Centurion. It was our first RV. We were very new to computers in those days but I do remember putting some kind of RV site together even then. It was probably 5 years or so before we even knew about Blogger. In fact I'm not sure if the word 'blog' had even been thought of then. I remember having a few pics on the site along with some kind of blurb. I don't think anyone ever saw it except Kelly & I but at least it was a start to something we knew nothing about. Those were exciting days & I did have a slight inkling even back then that maybe something just might come out of all that darn fancy new space age computer stuff. Digital photography was new to me & had re-newed my lapsed interest in a 35mm photography hobby I had dropped years earlier.   Traveling has always been in my blood & it wasn’t long before another long lost but not forgotten interest from years gone by made it's presence known again. Writing. Kelly's Son made up some decal lettering for us & you can see our Dreamweaver name & website on the back of our rig in the photo below. 

 

WE WERE DEFINITELY A BIT YOUNGER THEN & I EVEN OCCASIONALLY WORE SHORTS

The whole RVing thing was new to us but we were eager to learn & get out there & be a part of that daring lifestyle. We began weaving our dreams into a plan & that is how our first name came about. 'Dreamweavers'. It wasn't long before large pieces of the giant jigsaw puzzle started falling into place & I began to realize how to tie all our interests of Traveling, Photography, RVing, & Writing together. Yes indeed, those were exciting days. You can see how young we looked back then & our dear boy Max was only a year or two old.  Photos were taken at the PINERY PROVINCIAL PARK about a half hour’s drive south of Bayfield. 

YES WE DO LIVE IN A NICE AREA

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A guy goes into a bar. He's sitting on the stool, enjoying his drink when he hears, "You look great!" He looks around - there's nobody near him. He hears the voice again, "No really, you look terrific."  The guy looks around again. Nobody. He hears, "Is that a new shirt or something? Because you are absolutely glowing!" He then realizes that the voice is coming from a dish of nuts on the bar.  "Hey," the guy calls to the bartender, "What's with the nuts?"  "Oh," the bartender answers, "Well they are complimentary."

HORN ME IF YOU WILL BUT I WILL NOT HORN YOU BACK

After weather forecasters predicting another cold wet rainy day you can imagine our delighted surprise at having ourselves a warm sunny 70+ day.  Some things are just a downright bonus in the old weather department.

OUR FRONT YARD IS GREENING UP NICELY

 

THESE 2 CHAPS KEEP CLOSE WATCH ON ALL OUR GREENERY

No point in me trying to jazz up our day's activities.  Nice day of course but just not too jazzable in the old writing department.  If it doesn't interest me to write about our day it sure isn't going to interest anyone to read about our day.  There is always a very fine line between what makes a post interesting or ho-hum.  Always a challenge for any Blogger sitting down to write a post to know where that line lies.   A very fine line indeed.

Kelly has had an old antique vanity in her bedroom for years & after re-vamping her room this week decided it was time for the vanity to go.  Deciding to list it on a couple area 'For Sale' sites she needed a picture.  We carried the vanity to the sunroom where I took a photo of it.  Funny thing happened.  She had over a dozen replies right away but only two of them were interested in the vanity.  The other replies were folks answering just to say how much they liked the picture.  Don't know if I have ever heard of that happening before.  Frustrating for Kelly though because she has not had any firm offers on the vanity.  It does need re-finishing but maybe folks aren’t into doing that so much anymore & maybe older furniture has lost it’s charm over the years.  We do have a much younger buyers market out here these days.

 

STILL BUSY ORGANIZING, RE-ORGANIZING, PRE-ORGANIZING & POST ORGANIZING THE RIGS BINS

Our 03 Hyundai Santa Fe is still at the BAYFIELD GARAGE waiting to have a new clutch installed.  Latest word from our trusted garage is we may have the Santa Fe home Friday afternoon sometime.  Ever since meeting Kelly back in the summer of 93 we have always known the convenience of being a 2 vehicle family.  Sure would take some adjusting on our part if we were to ever decide on having just one vehicle.  With our own independent natures we are both just used to coming & going anywhere anytime we please.  But come to think of it now as I am writing this, we are actually a 1 vehicle family for half the year.  In Congress Az we only have the Jeep & by golly come to think of it we get along with that just fine.

DOGGY RUNNING FAST IN THE GRASS THIS AFTERNOON

I have never been a horn honker.  You can cut me off in traffic, do something totally stupid, be a flaming idiot with your vehicle, hog the lane beside me or do whatever it is you do but you will not get me to honk my horn at you.  Experience has shown me horn honking just makes an already unpredictably unstable situation worse.  I'm sure many road rage cases are quickly escalated by drivers hammering on their horns when another driver intentionally or unintentionally does something stupid.  Now instead of having one emotionally upset driver, you have two.  Sometimes it doesn’t require a driver to do anything wrong at all.  Horn honkers will use their horns to bull their way through traffic anyway.  So horn me if you will but I will not horn you back…………10-4:))

SPRING IN THESE PARTS IS ALL ABOUT BEING GREEN:))

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Said the FBI agent to the bank teller after the bank was robbed for the third time by the same bandit: "Did you notice anything special about the man?"  "Yes, he seemed better dressed each time!"

---

Mother decided that 10-year-old Cathy should get something 'practical' for her birthday. 
"Suppose we open a savings account for you?" mother suggested. Cathy was delighted. 
"It's your account, darling," mother said as they arrived at the bank, "so you fill out the application."   Cathy was doing fine until she came to the space for 'Name of your former bank.' After a slight hesitation, she put down 'Piggy.'

WE ARE FAR MORE FAMILIAR WITH RVING IN THE STATES THAN WE ARE ABOUT RVING RIGHT HERE IN OUR OWN PROVINCE

WATER RUNNING OVER SOME ROCKS IN A NEARBY CREEK CREATED THIS MYRIAD OF BUBBLES

Had ourselves a cold, wet & miserable weather day.  Outside activities were  consequently curtailed.  Even our morning walk was rained out.  Nice to see everything greening up so fast though.
  

GUESSING THIS MAY BE AN INDIGO BUNTING ON OUR FRONT YARD FEEDER WITH THE GOLDFINCH – MAMA ROBIN ON HER NEST IN OUR BACK YARD
Took us awhile to find a wall space in the rig big enough to hang up our big South-West Lizard but we did finally locate a space in our bathroom for him.  He fit in there just about fine.

Last summer Kelly's daughter bought herself a new Blackberry & gave Kelly her old one.  Kelly just activated that Blackberry last week & likes it.  That means the cell phone she normally carried now goes to me & I have it hung on my belt beside my Canon point & shoot camera.  Guess that kind of brings us up a notch in the cell phone world.  If I can ever remember to turn mine on that is.
In about a month kids will be getting out of school so we hope to take the Big EEE out on her shake-down cruise before all the kids & families flood the campgrounds, Provincial Parks & scenic areas around our Province.  I'm thinking we'll probably head north up along the Lake Huron shoreline somewhere.  Been quite awhile since we have been up that way so have no idea what's out there for internet etc.  We have heard some Provincial Parks have Wifi now.  Guess we will just have to venture forth & find out.  Since about 99% of our RV travels have been south of the border we sometimes feel like strangers in our own land.  We are far more familiar with RV sites thousands of miles away than we are with what’s available right her in our Provinces own back yard.  We hope to make some in-roads about that this summer.  We have traveled through many Ontario areas & places years ago but we just haven’t done a lot of it in an RV.  Especially one 36’ long so we will be kinda feeling our way along seeing what works for us & what doesn’t when we get out there.  We do have some marvellously scenic country north of us up along the Bruce Peninsula between Lake Huron & Georgian Bay.  Even got shipwrecks up there in them waters too.  Just gotta wait for some sunny warm weather now before heading out in probably early June:))

LOOKING FORWARD TO SUNNIER DAYS AHEAD

Should add that my new header photo is actually a file photo from last summer.  Some of you may remember it.  Soon as I manage to get out & get myself an acceptable current up to date picture I will replace it again.  Thanks to the reader for reminding me to change my header photo.  I always seem to forget that.

MONICA’S MAGNOLIA

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Before going to Europe on business, a man drove his Rolls-Royce to a downtown New York City bank and went in to ask for an immediate loan of $5,000. The loan officer, taken aback, requested collateral. "Well, then, here are the keys to my Rolls-Royce", the man said. The loan officer promptly had the car driven into the bank's underground parking for safe keeping, and gave him $5,000.   Two weeks later, the man walked through the bank's doors, and asked to settle up his loan and get his car back. "That will be $5,000 in principal, and $15.40 in interest", the loan officer said. The man wrote out a check and started to walk away.
"Wait sir", the loan officer said, "while you were gone, I found out you are a millionaire. Why in the world would you need to borrow $5,000?"   The man smiled. "Where else could I securely park my Rolls-Royce in Manhattan for two weeks and pay only $15.40?

A TRILLIUM WALK

We spent most of our day just puttering about.  Nice walk this morning through our peaceful Pine forest.  From previous years we knew Trilliums would be in bloom so branched off on another loop trail leading through an adjoining hardwood bush.  The forest floor was covered in white, pink, & burgundy Trilliums with white making up the majority of flowers.  We are so fortunate to have all these natural woodland wonders at our very doorstep.

 

  

 

 

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Although he was a qualified meteorologist, a local broadcaster ran up a terrible record of forecasting for the TV news program. He became something of a local joke when a newspaper began keeping a record of his predictions and showed that he'd been wrong almost three hundred times in a single year.
That kind of notoriety was enough to get him fired.
He moved to another part of the country and applied for a similar job. One blank on the job application called for the reason for leaving his previous position.
In the blank he wrote quite honestly, "The climate didn't agree with me."

WITH A BIT OF THE USUAL BUMBLING ABOUT WE DE-WINTERIZED THE RIG TODAY

A mixture of sun & cloud this morning but enough sun to get little Bugsy & I into the Jeep & out into the countryside for a nice Sunday morning drive.  Air was a bit cool but no wind so we were able to get out & do a bit of exploring around at a few of our favorite places.  A stop in Goderich on our way home netted me a tote bin for the rig, some paint for a little project & a few 'quick connect' pieces for hooking up a garden hose to the rig.  I always seem to have problems threading a garden hose onto water faucets so that quick connect stuff makes it much easier & keeps my short patience fuse from launching me into orbit.

OUR TREES ARE BEGINNING TO FILL IN:))

 

STOPPED ALONGSIDE A SWAMP FOR A FEW PHOTOS
We spent some relaxing time in the rig Saturday just sitting around with some nice music on the stereo revelling in all the comfortable space we now finally have.  With 2 full sliding wood doors between the living room & Kelly's bedroom (bathroom in between) the set-up is perfect for us.  The living room television or stereo isn't going to bother her later at night.   Pheebs & I can watch Family Guy.  And again we marvelled at the overall brightness in the coach with natures outside wonders beaming through our big windows. 
 

KELLY READING UP ON OUR36’ 2003 TRIPLE E COMMANDER
We somehow bumbled our way through the rig's de-winterizing process today as well.  Seemed to be the usual grumbling on my part, turning of valves & levers & shouting back & forth, 'is there any water coming out of that tap yet'?  Had to refer to the book half a dozen times but after nearly half an hour we finally had some H20 flowing freely from all the taps.  Previous to that I had even managed to keep myself reasonably dry while loading in half a tank of fresh water.  Didn't even have to put on my rubber boots, snorkel & water wings.

With a reasonably normal amount of difficulty Kelly figured out how to turn both the drivers & passenger Captains seats around.  I stayed out of that one except for  when some extra oomph was needed to leverage the swivel.  I did manage to figure out how to retract her sun visor for her a few days ago so I was able to score a few points with that one.

We have hydraulic levelling jacks on this coach & I kind of have a love/hate relationship with those things.  It's a better system than our Damon & I've had to do some reading on their operation.  Hydraulic jacks do have their pluses for sure....as long as they work properly.

For whatever reason every day last week felt like a Saturday.  Week days have been melding together on me for quite awhile now & I think that is natural for anyone stepping away from the workforce after awhile.  Dates & times become less important as a once necessary awareness takes on less importance.  I'm still very time conscious but with my week-end days now merging with my week days I find myself increasingly having to ask, 'what day is it today'?  Saturday, right......

Saw a question in our Shout Box while writing tonight’s post.  Question asked: “Why do so many RVers own a dog, cat or both”?  My answer to that question is simply, ‘because it is the type of caring people we RV folks are.’  When we began RVing back in 06 we had 3 dogs & it never entered our minds once that our 3 beloved family members would not be traveling with us.  And I emphasize the words ‘family members’ because that is exactly what our best Pals are.  Pets bring endless hours of love, affection & entertainment for us.  Whether we be out traveling or not they get us out for walks, remind us when it’s breakfast time & keep our laps warm on chilly nights.  They give life meaning.  And they give us a purpose for getting up in the morning & a contented reason for going to bed at night.  In their own way which sincere & caring pet owners understand they communicate with us & us with them.  It is a special bond like no other.  Our pets are our life.  Take away my best Pal & you take away my heart.

I have started my second Kindle book & have decided to stick with the fact based issues of UAP's (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) commonly referred to as UFO's. (Unidentified Flying Objects) Fascinating stuff for many of us.  This one is entitled, "UFO's: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities” by Col. John Alexander.  Thanks Kevin M:))
 

NO NOT UFO’S…….JUST A COUPLE LILY PADS FLOATING ACROSS A SKY REFLECTION
Looking forward to having some warmer weather move in Monday.  Up to 70F inland they say but of course cooler here along the lake which I'm thinking still probably has ice on it out in the middle regions.  We will probably be lucky to reach 60 but no matter, 60 is good:))

GROANER'S CORNER:((    A man was in bad shape. He constantly gasped for breath and his eyes bulged. The doctors didn't give him long to live. He decided to live it up. Withdrawing all of his money from the bank, he went on a shopping spree. His last stop was at the most expensive haberdashery in the city. He pointed out a dozen silk shirts. He wore a size fourteen.  The clerk said, "Your neck looks bigger than fourteen. You need a sixteen."  The man said, "I know my size. I want them in a fourteen."  The clerk said, "I'll get them for you, but I want to warn you...if you wear a fourteen you'll gasp all day and your eyes will bulge."

SOMETHING DIFFERENT FOR A CHANGE

Well it's Saturday night & what to write about.  I feel I have been a little repetitious again with my focus on our Motorhome so.....something different for a change.  I recently heard a singer/songwriter describe song writing as a form of therapy. Couldn't agree with him more & I also understand the close connection that therapy analogy has to a few Bloggers such as myself. It's actually an opportunity for some of us to sit at our keyboards each night & write about what's on our mind.  For some people like me conversations do not come as easily as they once did.   Writing about thoughts & feelings instead of talking about them has become a very acceptably comfortable form of communication.   My preference of choice if you will.  I am one of those people with a type of introverted shyness which this phenomena of blog writing has helped over the years & I sensed that from the very first post I ever wrote years ago.  It just felt good inside to sit down & write something.  An avenue for creativity.  A soap box to climb up onto & shout 'hey I have something to say too'.   And say it I have been doing.  So just a big thank-you to all the readers who have hung in over the years through the ups, the downs, the gray days, the funny days, the flubs, the mistakes, the embarrassments, the high points, the accomplishments & the feeling good times.  Thank you all again for letting me have my say...........................

GROANER'S CORNER:(( "Lou, sit down. I've got some bad news. You don't have much time to live."  "How much longer do I have, Doc?"  "Ten." "Ten *what? Ten weeks? Ten months? Ten years??" "Nine ... Eight ..."