IT IS NOW THE EARLY CALM BEFORE WINTER'S STORMS

     AT GODERICH'S ROTARY COVE THIS MORNING

With our recent cooler, rainy weather upon us, we are well into the annual late-summer transition into early Autumn.  A month from now, forests will begin showing off their finest colors.  I always welcome Autumn, my favorite season.  It is now the early calm before winter's storms.  With clearing skies this afternoon, I'm hoping for a star-filled sky tonight.....But alas, at the time of publishing this, we are still under a patchy cloud cover.....................

 WE HAD A LOT OF RAIN SATURDAY

 A PEACEFUL SATURDAY EVENING SKY AT MY WALKING ROAD

MY NIGHT SKY SPOT IS AT THAT COMMUNICATION TOWER ABOUT TWO MILES NORTH OF MY WALKING ROAD

 CHOPPY LAKE HURON WATERS

Al's Music Box:: Old Cape Cod by Patti Page.

 A SATURDAY NIGHT SUNSET ON MY EVENING WALK

GROANER'S CORNER:(( During a Papal audience, a businessman approached the Pope and made this offer: Change the last line of the Lord's Prayer from "Give us this day our daily bread" to "Give us this day our daily chicken," and Kentucky Fried Chicken will donate $10,000,000 to Catholic charities. The Pope declined. Two weeks later, the man approached the Pope again - this time with a $50,000,000 offer. Again, the Pope declined. A month later, the man upped the price to $100,000,000, and this time the Pope accepted. At a meeting of the Cardinals, the Pope announced his decision in the good news/bad news format. "The good news is: We have $100,000,000 for charities. The bad news: We lost the Wonder Bread account."

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How do you keep a little Moron in the shower all day? Give him a bottle of shampoo which says "lather, rinse, repeat."

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What is the difference between a woman and a battery? “A battery always has a positive side.”

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Woman's Quote of the Day: "Men are like fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it's our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something with which you'd like to have dinner."

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Little Johnny was having problems in English class, so his teacher, Miss Figpot, decided to stop by Little Johnny's house on her way home. She wanted to discuss Johnny's poor performance directly with his parents. When she rang the doorbell, Little Johnny answered. "Hello Johnny, I'd like to talk to your mother or father," she said.

"Sorry, but they ain't here." He replied.
"Johnny!" She said, "What is it with your grammar?" "Haven't got a clue," Johnny replied, "but Dad sure was mad that they had to go bail her out again!"

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Al's Art Gallery

HOW GREAT IT WAS TO SEE TWO OF KELLY'S CHILDREN AND THREE OF HER GRANDCHILDREN TODAY

 USING THE TIMER ON SABRA'S PHONE WE ALL MANAGED TO GET INTO THE SHOT AND YA, I'M THE OLD GUY IN THE CENTER WITH THE ALMOST KNEE HIGH SOCKS:((

Friday:: Another beautiful summer's morn for a walk with the butterflies, the warming sun, the sounds of crickets along the roadside, and a soft, gentle breeze under clear blue skies to make it a perfect morning.  After my walk, I came straight home and got myself busy.  Wanting the place to look nice for my special guests today, I scurried about cleaning up this, rearranging that, and getting things all ship-shape.  Outside, the day before, I had mowed the lawn, whacked a bunch of weeds, and blown all the sunburst locust leaves and peanut shells off the front porch and deck.  I haven't been able to convince the Chipmunks not to eat their peanuts on the porch.  I also cleaned the pond pump and set out a couple more chairs for Friday.  It was around 6 p.m. when Kelly's oldest twin daughter, Sabra, youngest son Ben, his two boys, Kye and Darian; (Sp) and Kelly's granddaughter, Ella rolled in.  Readers will remember 'little' Ella from my posts over the past years.  Well, would you believe it, little Ella is 13 years old now and closing in on 6' tall.  She flew all the way from Spain to Canada all by herself around the beginning of August.  She flies back to Spain on August 29th.  She has come for summer holidays and is staying at Sabras.  Ella's mom and dad, Rebecca (Kelly's youngest daughter) and her husband Ricardo, (in Spain) arranged a special security package with the airline, whereupon airline personnel and attendants would keep an especially close eye on Ella's well-being by assisting Ella along in her long journey.  Sabra and Ella had come to Goderich earlier Thursday and booked into the Harmony Inn Motel in Goderich. Ben and his boys had arrived later and also booked into the motel.  All five of them did manage to spend some time at the beach both Thursday and Friday.  When they came here late Friday afternoon, they came bearing three large pizzas, and with the weather being nice, we all sat out on the front porch for the next couple of hours and had ourselves a great visit. The last time I had seen Sabra was a little over a year ago when she and sister Rebecca came here and spent a couple of days going through their Mom's stuff.  The last time I had seen Ben was the day of Kelly's passing at the Huron Hospice Residence west of Clinton.  And it had been well over a year since I had last seen Ella and Ben's boys, Kye and Darien.  And of course, the biggest surprise was how much Ella had grown, as well as Ben's oldest son, Darien. We all had a great time catching up on everything, and I especially enjoyed our conversation and remembrances of Kelly.  There were tears.  And then, all too soon,  it was time to say our goodbyes.  Parting is always sad, and I knew chances of seeing them again were iffy at best.  Especially Ella, with her life now in Spain.  One of the first things I said to Ella when she got out of the car was, I thought I'd never see you again, and my parting words to her were, I hope to see you again someday.  She gave me a lingering, heartfelt hug, and then they were gone..........

 IT WAS NICE WE COULD ALL SIT OUTSIDE ON THE FRONT PORCH

 THE BOYS WERE OVER AT THE FRONT YARD FROG POND

I DON'T NORMALLY FEEL AS OLD AS I AM UNTIL I AM AROUND YOUNGER PEOPLE AND KNOW IT TO BE SO

 ELLA SURE HAS GROWN BUT I THINK WE ALWAYS KNEW SHE WAS GOING TO BE TALL AND SLIM LIKE HER DAD

THANKS TO TECHY GUY DARIAN FOR HELPING TRANSFER PHOTOS BETWEEN SABRA'S IPHONE AND MINE....I COULD TELL THAT DARIAN IS MATURING INTO A WELL-MANNERED, SOFT-SPOKEN YOUNG MAN

 BEN TRIES OUT MY E-BIKE FOR SIZE WHILE KAI HAS A FEW TIPS FOR DAD ON HOW TO RIDE A BIKE....ACTUALLY BEN HAS HIS OWN BIKE AND HAS BEEN BIKING FOR YEARS

HERE, ALMOST ALL EYES ARE ON ELLA AS SHE TRIES HER HAND AT RIDING THE E-BIKE

 AND, HERE SHE COMES NOW

AND THEN, ALL TOO SOON, IT WAS TIME FOR OUR GOODBYES

LOADING UP

 THREE RAGAMUFFINS IN THE BACK SEAT

 AND, THERE THEY GO

Feeling emotional after the visit, I was soon in the car and headed out to my walking road.  I noted that the mown alfalfa field had already been cleaned up and the field fertilized.  With a weather front pushing a large cloud front in from the west, there wasn't any sunset.  Following my deep-in-thought walk, I headed into Clinton's Tim Hortons and picked up a coffee and a donut to go and slowly made my way west to my hilltop night sky spot.  Before reaching there, I watched the large incoming cloud front slowly overtake the night's nearly three-quarter moon.  I backed into my spot and turned the car off.  Knowing there were no stars or moon to see, I pulled out my phone to have a look at the photos of my visitors I had just taken an hour earlier.  And it was while looking at the pictures and doing some editing of these photos that something strange occurred.  I heard a faint sound to my right.  I had both my front windows down and music playing softly. The night was as black as could be, with no Moon or starlight visible, and I always cover up the dash lights glowing from the Subaru's entertainment screen.  I quickly determined the sound in the darkness was right beside me, and it sounded like crinkling paper.  Had something come in through the open window?  The crinkling stopped, and with nerves on edge, I slowly reached up for one of two dome lights above the front seat area.  With my head turned, looking into the blackness, fearful of what I might see on the front seat, I pressed the light switch, not knowing what might be there.  And of course there was nothing there, but yes, there was.  The empty bag that my donut had come in lay just where I had left it on the front seat.  Something, or somebody, had crinkled that bag, and I thought of Kelly right away, and knew it was her.  Readers may remember me writing about how, for the first few days, weeks, and a month or so after Kelly's passing, strange and unexplainable things had happened.  I felt at the time that they were definite signs of Kelly's presence.  And, here over a year later, it happened again.  I believe it was the direct result of Kelly's son Ben,  daughter Sabra, and three of her grandchildren visiting me today.  There is no other explanation.  Thank you, Kelly......... I miss you dearly.

 FRIDAY NIGHT'S MOON ABOUT TO BE OVERTAKEN BY THE ADVANCING CLOUD COVER

 JUST SECONDS AFTER TAKING THIS PHOTO, THE MOON WAS LOST BEHIND THE CLOUDS

Saturday:: Woke up to a cloudy morning and heard my first rumble of distant thunder at 9:25.  Minutes later, the rain came down in buckets.  It became so dark out that the night lights in the front yard came on.  Water pooled everywhere and lightning flashed.  It was kind of reminiscent of a day fifteen years ago when, on August 21st, Goderich sustained major damage from an EF3 tornado.  One man lost his life down in the harbor at the salt mine, 37 people were injured, and the damage was estimated at $130 million dollars at the time.  You can see my aftermath tornado damage photos here.....The Goderich EF3 Tornado Damage.....The rest of today remained mostly overcast, with random sun splashes traveling across the rain-sodden landscape.  I felt sorry for all the folks who had undoubtedly worked hard for the annual Zurich Bean Festival today.  I think it might have been rained out last year as well.  Zurich is the little village where we first met the Pheebs slightly over twenty-five years ago. 

 RAINING HARD  THIS MORNING AND THE CARPORT'S NIGHT LIGHT IS ON

 WATER POOLING ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE FRONT PORCH

 NIGHT LIGHTS IN THE FRONT YARD ARE ON

 EVEN THE PORCH LIGHT CAME ON....IT'S AMAZING THAT OUR POWER DID NOT GO OUT

Al's Music Box:: Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears For Fears. (one of my favs)

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Walking through Chinatown, a tourist is fascinated with all the Chinese restaurants, shops, signs and banners. He turns a corner and sees a building with the sign, "Hans Olaffsen's Laundry." "Hans Olaffsen?", he muses. "How the heck does that fit in here?" So he walks into the shop and sees an old Chinese gentleman behind the counter. The tourist asks, "How did this place get a name like "Hans Olaffsen's Laundry?" The old man answers, "Is name of owner." The tourist asks, "Well, who and where is the owner?" "Me, is right here," replies the old man. "You? How did you ever get a name like Hans Olaffsen?" "Is simple," says the old man. "Many, many year ago when come to this country, was stand in line at Documentation Center. Man in front was big blonde Swede. Lady look at him and go, "What your name?" He say, "Hans Olaffsen." Then she look at me and go, 'What your name?'" "I say, Sem Ting."

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Did you hear about that cat who swallowed a ball of yarn? She had mittens!

Q: Where do one-legged people eat?
A: IHOP.
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The man was in no shape to drive, so he wisely left his car parked and walked home. As he was walking unsteadily along, he was stopped by a policeman. "What are you doing out here at 2 A.M.?" asked the officer.
"I'm going to a lecture." The man said.
"And who is going to give a lecture at this hour?" the cop asked. "My wife," said the man. 

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Al's Art Gallery