Saturday, May 14, 2011

A SOGGY SATURDAY CLEAN-UP

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Due to Google’s Blogger site shut down a few days ago I decided to forego writing a post on Friday & preferred to just let things catch up with today.   Looks like my recent posts survived the Blogger breakdown without any damage.  Comments are all intact with the exception of Wednesday where there is only one comment left out of maybe a dozen.  My big worry when things went asunder a few days ago was that hackers had penetrated the Google Blog network & possibly destroyed everyone’s blog site.  I have a habit of always thinking worst case scenarios you know:((
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HAD FORGOT TO ADD THE SECOND PHOTO TO THE CANADA GOOSE SPLASH DOWN LAST WEEK  
Ok, a quick look at Friday before I get into Saturday.  Our Friday was a basic recap of Thursday as we both busied ourselves around the house with various projects.  Kelly picked up some summer flowers at a local nursery & planted all our outside planters.  I ripped the old carpet off our front porch.  We plan to begin some refurbishing to our front porch & adjoining wood deck shortly.
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MALE CARDINAL 
With Kelly’s words today, “there’s a blue bird in the front yard,” I carefully creeped around the corner of the house with my 300mm lens & cracked off two quick pics of a blue 'Indigo Bunting.'   That reminded me of something I had blogged about a couple days ago that I should clarify.  When I said I only take ‘one shot’ of everything I should not have referred to that in general terms.  Landscape scenes I generally do one shot & maybe shift my position or angle slightly for a second shot.  Nervous flittering birds or skitterish animals are a different story.  If I spot a bird I generally try to get the first shot off as fast as I can because the bird may only be there long enough for one quick shot.  After that first shot I will then refocus & recompose the second shot quickly for another photo & if the bird is still there I may try to refine a third & fourth photo.   In the case of the Indigo Bunting my first shot was slightly blurred but my second shot about  4 seconds later was better.  The Bunting took flight about a half second after the shot.   It is rare for me to use a ‘Burst’ type mode although I did do that for the male Oriole dust up last week.
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INDIGO BUNTING 
Kelly will officially start off her busy season at Deer Park Lodge this Monday & that will put her in high gear right on up into the Fall at which point she will be well deserving of a long quiet rest in the peaceful deserts of the American Southwest again for the winter.
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GYPSY is on the road heading from West to East this time with her dog Lady, her 350 Ford dually & a tent.  Might want to check out her progress & see how she is doing.  Last time I checked she was somewhere in Nevada.  And, RETIRED ROD ended up having to tear part of his dash apart in their fairly new Tiffin Allegro Bay Motor Home in search of a possible wiring problem concerning his hydraulic jacks & troublesome console instruments.  I don’t know where these guys get all the patience & know how to do this kinda stuff.
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AMERICAN GOLDFINCHES 
Woke up to the sound of a gentle rain this morning & it turned out to be an all day soggy Saturday.   But that’s OK because it was a mild 63F.  The recent warmer air & rains have really began popping buds out on area trees.  So nice to see all the greenery coming back again for another season.  Yahooie Louie:))
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We are fortunate to have a nice 2 vehicle carport & on rainy days it is a great place to work on rainy day projects.  Today I was able to reorganize a lot of stuff I had taken out of the Motor Home bins.  With the type of boon docking RVing we prefer, a lot of dusty roads are sometimes traveled & that desert dust occasionally has a way of finding it’s way into the storage bins.  When we return to Canada in the Spring those bins & the things in those bins are in general need of a good cleaning & reorganizing.  It was a good rainy day project for me today:))
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SAND CHERRY BLOSSOMS 
GROANER’S CORNER:((  Smith goes to see his supervisor in the front office. "Boss," he says, "we're doing some heavy house-cleaning at home tomorrow, and my wife needs me to help with the attic and the garage, moving and hauling stuff."
"We're short-handed, Smith" the boss replies. "I can't give you the day off."

"Thanks, boss," says Smith "I knew I could count on you!"

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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right
now...... AL.

11 comments:

  1. It's rainy here, and its too cold to work outside, in the low 40's. My coach needs to be washed and I want to start putting some things in the storage bins for my next trip at the end of the month. Good pics of the colorful birds.

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  2. You sure have a lot of goldfinches visiting! I've run into a bit of soggy as well, but at least the temps have dropped out of the 90's. :)

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  3. I have always thought the indigo bunting is an exquisite bird, and you have captured his essence exquisitely! (Say that fast 5 times, lol)

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  4. a productive few days you both had...nice shots of the flora and the fauna!

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  5. Al, be reassured that tearing out the dash and electrical locker of the motor home was not something I looked forward to.

    And the skill to do such work, was largely provided by the Tiffin employee that I had on the phone for most of the time I was working on it. So I'm no more skilled than any other average guy.

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  6. Gray here too but also cold--YUK, I want sunshine and I'm gonna stomp my feet until I get it!

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  7. 90* down here Al. I just had to tell you that...Humidity is 8%!! In that heat all you have to do is step into some shade and your cool. We haven't turned on our A/C in the house yet......
    That said, I'm ready to hit the road and get moving!

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  8. You mean you actually empty and clean out your bins? Don't know that I've ever done that in nine years! Maybe I could find some things I've either lost or forgotten about it I did that!

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  9. I do not consider myself to be a negative person, but I also think about worse case scenarios. After all, they do sometimes happen. When most of the time, it does not happen, I can feel good about it :)

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  10. Al, you might call that second shot of the goose......"goose down". Really enjoyed that sequence!

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  11. The East winds off Lake Michigan blew all Den's paper wrap off the North side of our garage...needless to say, the air was blue...also blew down 2 of our bird feeders....Good 'ol Lake Michigan...even though it's 60 miles away, it can still affect or weather out here!!

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