I ALMOST DIDN'T READ THIS BOOK

 OUR FRONT YARD WHITE MAGNOLIA TREE IS BLOSSOMING

Rains came in the night and left us with a stillness in the morning air.  Not a tree branch moving, not an old leaf stirring.  Temps in the high 50's and that was quite alright with me.  Pheebs and I were out the door, into the Jeep, and on our way.  On our way where I had no idea and for the most part that often works best for us guys.  Letting the Jeep take the reins we ended up over at the Hullett Marsh for a wee walk.  Not much going on there but it was nice hearing the Spring songbirds in the trees.

 I'M GLAD THE MARSH'S ROADS ARE OPEN AGAIN FOR ANOTHER SEASON

A combination of sun and cloud this afternoon and we did make it out for a walk over to the Park's pond and back.  Dandelions are out and some of our front yard trees are blossoming.

 TREES NEAR OUR PARK'S POND ARE BUDDING OUT

 NICE SKIES THIS AFTERNOON

 GOLDFISH IN THE PARK'S POND AMIDST THE DUCKWEED

DANDELIONS

 OVERNIGHT RAINDROPS ARE STILL IN THIS LAMBS EAR PLANT

 OUR FRONT YARD CORKSCREW TREE IS BEGINNING TO LEAF OUT

Finished my latest book today and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I almost didn't read this book because of its title, Space Age Indians.  My internal skeptic meter had me doubting the content.  As it turned out, it was a good example of the old saying, 'never judge a book by its cover'.  I thought the title sounded kind of tacky (National Enquirer-ish) but reading the positive reviews on it and about the author, Ardy Sixkiller Clarke I downloaded the book to my Kindle and soon found out the reason for the title which of course made perfect sense once I read it. (coincidentally it has a Vietnam connection)  This is not a technically heavy book and the author's writing style was easy for me to understand and follow making my reading experience most enjoyable.  If everything in this book is true it only adds to my growing beliefs.  As suspected, Indigenous people around the world have been way ahead of the curve in their beliefs over the centuries.  I had never paid much attention to their beliefs before, but I do now.  At some point, I plan to read the author's other two books as well.  And thanks to a long-time blog reader's email today I have already pre-ordered to my Kindle a new book coming out on May 4th entitled, Making Contact: Preparing for the New Realities of Extraterrestrial Existence.  This book should be very up-to-date with what's currently going on.  In the meantime, I will read Lonely Planets by David Grinspoon.

 A QUIET SUNDAY MORNING IN THE PEACEFUL COUNTRYSIDE

GROANER'S CORNER:((  According to the Knight-Ridder News Service, the inscription on the metal bands used by the U.S. Department of the Interior to tag migratory birds has been changed. The bands used to bear the address of the Washington Biological Survey, abbreviated, "Wash. Biol. Surv." until the agency received the following letter from an Arkansas camper:  "Dear Sirs: While camping last week I shot one of your birds. I think it was a crow. I followed the cooking instructions on the leg tag and I want to tell you it was horrible."

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'WALLA' FUNNY HOW THINGS LIKE THAT HAPPEN SOMETIMES

 MORNING WALK NEAR KERR'S CAMPGROUND THIS MORNING

It is sometimes uncanny how things can happen a certain way at times.  Today was an example.  Now that nice weather is fast upon us I have been thinking about making better use of my time at night between 10 and 11 instead of subjecting myself over and over to the mind-numbing television.  I so liked being outside at night under the stars when we lived in the old farmhouse near Fullarton.  With my astronomy books, I taught myself all the visible constellations, stars, and planets.  I knew where they were and how to find them at a moment's notice.  I would set up my telescope in search of distant objects I had read about.  Since moving here just outside of Bayfield Ontario over 18 years ago I have forgotten most of what I taught myself those many years back then.  Here, I can no longer just step out the door and have the whole night sky visible to me.  I just got lazy I guess and gradually my interest waned.  So, today I loaded up the Jeep with my night gear.  Comfortable tilt-back chair, flashlights, camera gear, binoculars, and star maps, etc.  I have a favorite spot a few miles east of where we live where I plan to go and hopefully re-interest myself once again in the wonders of the night sky.  Don't know if I can get myself back into my astronomy hobby or not but I'm going to give it a try and if I am lucky enough to spot a UFO in the process that would be some real icing on the big cake for me.  Now, getting back to the uncanny part.  I have a main heavy-duty Manfrotto tripod I use for my cameras but I always like to have a second tripod set up for my Celestron 15x70 binoculars as well.  My secondary binocular tripod at the moment is an old Slick-88 that I bought new in the early '80s and it's pretty beat up and rickety.  It even has a partial wooden leg I had to make for it.  I was thinking this afternoon how I would like a lighter secondary tripod to replace my old shaky Slick-88.  It was hardly an hour later while dozing in my sunroom recliner when Kelly answered a knock at the door.  It was our good friend Bruce......with a tripod in his hand.  What??  It seems Bruce's neighbor across the road, George and Sandy, were doing some Spring cleaning when they came across a camera tripod.  Not something they would use and knowing I was interested in photography they gave the lite-weight sturdy metal tripod to Bruce to pass on to me.  'Walla'  Funny how things like that happen sometimes but occasionally we do get lucky and I'm no exception.  A big thanks to George and Sandy for the tripod:))  With sunny skies today I was optimistic about slipping out under the stars tonight on my first venture, but by late afternoon skies had clouded over and that was the end of my celestial plans for the evening.

 GREEN IS DEFINITELY THE COLOR OF SPRING

 SO NICE TO HAVE MOSQUITO-FREE AIR SO FAR

 UNFURLED SCOOTER'S AWNING TODAY TO LET IT DRY OUT...THE AWNING IS ONLY ABOUT 3 YEARS OLD

 MY 'NEW TO ME' LITE-WEIGHT TELESCOPING TRIPOD

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A Few Sayings::

If you can stay calm, while all around you is chaos ... then you probably haven't completely understood the seriousness of the situation.

- Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether.

- When the going gets tough, the tough take a coffee break.

TEAMWORK ... means never having to take all the blame yourself.

Pro tip: if you add coconut oil to your kale...It makes it easier to scrape the kale into the garbage.

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SUCCESSFULLY DE-WINTERIZED OUR CLASS C MOTORHOME TODAY, BUT I DID HAVE AN 'OH-OH' MOMENT

Feeling much better today so I am chalking up Thursday's heavy overall tiredness as a reaction to my vaccine shot this past Monday.  Unlike painful needles I had received many, many, years ago I never even felt Monday's injection.  Looking the other way at people seated near me Monday afternoon I felt a tap on my left arm and by the time I looked back the nice injection lady was already disposing of the needle.  And that was it, I was on my way.  I do have to go back for a second shot probably sometime in July.  

 OUR JUNCOS ARE STILL HERE

 AND THE SPRING PORCELAIN BIRDS ARE BACK FOR ANOTHER SEASON

 I ALWAYS ENJOY THE LITTLE CHIPMUNKS SCAMPERING AROUND OUR YARD

Despite a cloudy start to the day we finished it in sunshine.  A cooler 68F worked well in my favor.  Pheebs and I wandered around this morning southeast of Bayfield before heading home.  Checked on the Eagle's nest along the way but even with binoculars, all I could see was a wee part of the female Eagle's head sitting in the center of the nest.

 'DON'T FORGET MY TUMMY RUBS DAD'

SPRING'S FOREST FLOOR

DAFFODILS IN THE WOODS

 SOME TREES HAVE MORE CHARACTER THAN OTHERS

 THERE ARE FACES IN THESE BEECH TREE KNOTS....CAN YOU SEE THE SQUIRREL FACE?

DAFFY'S ALONG THE ROADSIDE

 LOOKS LIKE SOME FARMERS HAVE BEEN OUT WORKING THEIR FIELDS

FROM A DISTANCE I THOUGHT I HAD SPOTTED A LARGE EXOTIC BIRD IN THE TREES AHEAD....NOPE, JUST A BUNCH OF SESAME STREET CHARACTERS TRAVELING THROUGH THE AREA

Feeling so much better than the previous couple of days and with my energy levels restored I tackled some more yard work.  Our Class C still needed to be winterized so without further ado I set about doing that as well.  Except for one little mishap and with Kelly's help, everything went reasonably well and Scooter is now fully operational once more.  My little 'Oh-Oh' moment occurred when I forgot to close the taps to our outside shower.  When I hooked up to shore water and turned the water on I had a minor flood going on in the main storage bin when water sprayed out of the shower-type hose nozzle.  Quickly turning the water off back at the house I proceeded to quickly empty the storage bins, remove the wet mats, and sponge out the remaining water.  No damage done, just another lesson learned.  However, the last two days I drove it I noticed a kind of swish-swish sound as the rear driver's side tires rotated round and round.  Haven't a clue what that's all about and we may end up having to take it into the Bayfield Garage to have it checked out.

 THE OUTSIDE SHOWER HOSE THAT SPRAYED THE REAR STORAGE BIN

 DRYING OUT THE BIN MATS

A nice cooler afternoon walk netted me a few photos from around the Park's pond again.  No sign of the Mallards today but there were more turtles out sunning themselves than I have ever seen there before.

All and all, a much better day:))

GROANER'S CORNER:((  A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted,” Excuse me, can you help? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."  The woman below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."  "You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.  "I am," replied the woman. "How did you know?"  "Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of you, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far."  The woman below responded, "You must be in management."  "I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"  "Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault!"

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