A NEW FEATURE TONIGHT CALLED 'FOIBLES AND FUMBLES'

Seeings how our front yard Squirrels had gained access to our suet feeder a stop at Clinton's Sun Country Eco Store was in order to pick up some more peanut butter suet cakes.  While there I asked if they stocked baffles to prevent Squirrels from getting to the feeders.  They did but at $40 each I felt that was way to much.  I'll just have to work on something else.

HAZE IN THE DAMP MORNING AIR

THIS FIELD IS ABOUT 80% HARVESTED BUT OVERNIGHT RAINS HAVE SOFTENED THE GROUND

IT WAS A GOOD IDEA FOR FARM MACHINERY TO STICK TO PAVEMENT THIS MORNING

From Sun Country we headed over to the Hullett Marsh just as the Sun was beginning to break through mornings cloud cover.  After an overnight rain country roads were a total muddy mess but what the heck.  Maybe a good layer of Huron County mud on the Jeep will help keep corrosive road salt at bay.  Muddily reaching the Marsh we took ourselves for a wee walk thoroughly enjoying just being outside in this milder weather.  And no snow to trudge through.

IT WAS STILL A GRAY LOOKING DAY WHEN WE ARRIVED AT THE MARSH

WE WERE ONLY THERE A FEW MINUTES WHEN SKIES BEGAN TO BRIGHTEN

I HAD NEVER SEEN THESE BEE HIVES BEFORE

NO I DIDN'T LIFT THE LIDS TO LOOK INSIDE....DIDN'T THINK IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO

MILK WEED POD

CAME ACROSS THIS SNOWY LITTLE POODLE PUPPY HAVING A SNOOZE IN THE GRASS

CAN YOU IMAGINE ICE SKATING THROUGH THE FOREST HERE

STILL SOME SNOW LEFT ON THIS BOARDWALK THROUGH A PARTIALLY FROZEN SWAMPY AREA

KIND OF AN OLD WOODEN VIEWING STAND AT THE END OF THE BOARDWALK

LOOKING BACK FROM WHERE WE HAD COME

IF YOU LOOK CAREFULLY YOU CAN SEE THE JEEP

From the marsh we slowly ambled our way home snapping a few pics along the scenic way.  The clouds won out and by noon any traces of sunlight were gone.  No matter, we were still over 40F.

A ROADGRADER JUST WENT BY ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THIS VERY MUDDY ROAD

LOOKS LIKE THIS FARMER IS HAVING HIS BUSH LOGGED

LOOKS MORE LIKE OCTOBER

LOTSA MUDDY ROADS THIS MORNING

I THINK THOSE MIGHT BE DOGWOODS

Picked up about where I left off yesterday and spent couple of enjoyable hours raking up pine needles this time in our back yard.  Another four tall  wheelbarrow loads dumped into a big pile across the road.  Don't know if I will get that big pile moved to the Park's yard waste location or not.  Drove by the area this morning and it's a quagmire there with big trucks churning up already soggy ground.  Been a big yellow bull dozer playing in the mud down there as well.

A few days ago Kelly may have been captured on a surveillance video cam snatching a parcel off somebody's porch right here in the Park.  Yep it really happened.  Remember Pheebs two dog beds last Friday.  Well that's when it all started.  Kelly ordered the doggy beds from Mammoth Dog Beds in Markham Ontario.  They were shipped right away and we had the tracking info which said the shipment would arrive in 3 parcels.  So the UPS guy pulls up and hops out with a fair sized box and a smaller green package so that was one doggy bed and a small pillow cover for one of the two beds.   Two beds, right??  Okay.....so where's the other bed.  UPS guys was in a hurry (when are they ever not in a hurry) and said he only had one other delivery here in the Park and didn't know anything about a second box for our address and with that he was off to his next delivery.  Well now what??  Houston we have a parcel missing!!  Kelly thinks about it for a minute then heads for her car figuring maybe that other delivery 'somewhere' here in the Park might have been our second doggy bed.  Off she goes to drive around looking on people's porches for a box.  I think there's about 65 units in here.  Then she gets a light bulb moment.  What if the UPS driver mistook our street number 38 for 28.  Twenty eight is where the Millers live so she went straight away to that address and sure enough there was a big parcel (same size box as our parcel) sitting up on their porch.  Nobody appeared to be home so she just simply slipped up onto the porch and stealthily snatched the parcel.  Ya Ya I know, we've all seen the TV You Tubes.  It was then she noticed the video surveillance cam.  Oh-Oh too late now so she threw the fairly heavy parcel into her car and raced for home.  Yep, it was our second doggy bed alright.  Haven't had any police come to the door yet or the Millers themselves but then again we keep a pretty low profile around the Park and maybe she wasn't recognized.  But who knows, could be some wanted posters up by now or maybe Kelly's already all over You Tube.  Anyway we've got our fingers crossed and Pheebs has her beds.  Kelly said if they come to take her away she's going to demand she be locked up in a warmer climate!!  Awwww Nuts, then what would I do...…………...….

I DON'T THINK THESE DEER COULD HAVE POSED ANY BETTER....IT WAS JUST TOO BAD I WAS SO FAR AWAY WHEN I SPOTTED THEM AND BY THE TIME I GOT THE JEEP STOPPED I ONLY HAD A FEW SECONDS TO GRAB THESE FOUR QUICK FUZZY SHOTS THROUGH THE PASSENGER SIDE WINDOW WITH MY18-300mm LENS

DUCKING BACK INTO THE FOREST

I haven't taken my new Nikon CP9 (Coolpix 900) on a field trip yet but I did take it with me this afternoon when Pheebs and I took a walk around the Pine tree trail.  I hope to get a protective lens hood and 67mm lens filter  shortly and with those two items in place I'll feel better about being out and about with the camera having the front element glass in that phenomenal lens well protected.  And what a lens it is too.  I've heard it described as a powerful lens with a camera attached.  I took the first two photos to show just how powerful this zoon lens is.  All five of the following photos were hand held.

SEE THAT BARN SILO IN THE CENTER OF THE PHOTO....BELOW THAT SILOW ARE A NUMBER OF BIG PIPES LYING HORIZONTAL ON THE GROUND....PHOTO TAKEN AT 24MM

I ZOOMED THE LENS ALL THE WAY OUT....FOCAL LENGTH 357mm OR 2000mm IN 35mm FILM TERMS (DON'T ASK ME TO EXPLAIN THAT),,,,,  CAMERA DATA--ISO 400 - F6.5 - SHUTTER SPEED 1/400 

ANOTHER LONG DISTANCE MAXIMUM ZOOM SHOT

PHEEBS AT 450mm

PARK POND REFLECTION AT 1000mm

Over the past dozen years I've written posts about different things in the lives and times of the Bayfield Bunch.  Most if not all of them on the humorous side of things and mostly concerning my own true foibles.  A few years back I re-posted a number of those happenings.  Long time readers have read these true stories before but I've picked up a few new readers along the way since then so I'm going to intersperse those posts with Memory Lane in another feature called Foibles & Fumbles.   which I will include after 'Groaners Corner'.  I'll kick it off today with, 'Oh Boy Did I Do Something Dumb'.

YES I'D SAY THE GROUND IS TOO SOFT FOR HEAVY FARM EQUIMPENT

      GROANER'S CORNER:((  A husband asks: Why do you weep and snuffle over a TV program and the imaginary sadness of people you have never met? 
Wife: For the same reason you scream and yell when a man you don’t know makes a touchdown.
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Knock-knock. Who's there? Dishes. Dishes who? Dishes the police! Come out with your hands up!  
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Jim's son: Dad there is some one at the door to collect donations for a swimming pool. 
Jim: Give him a glass of water.
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What do you call someone who gets run over at a Black Friday sale: 
A Wal-Martyr.



 ::Foibles and Fumbles:: It was December 2006 and we were at an RV Park by the name of Hickiwan Trails less than a mile from Why Arizona and only about 30 miles north of the Mexican border .  It was here I did one of my usual dumb things and so the story begins...…...………….

Boy oh boy oh boy, did I ever do something dumb last night. I had been re-organizing my wallet after cleaning sand out of it in the afternoon & laid it on a small wood table beside my lawn chair. Max, in his quest to get a game of sticks going, bumped the table & knocked my wallet over the edge into the doggy guys water dish. No problem I thought as I lifted it out, but noticed it was already pretty wet inside. In order to dry everything out I made the first part of a big mistake. I laid my wallet on the tonneau cover of the pick-up truck to dry.  (We had a pick-up truck and 5th wheel at the time) Laid out some credit cards, driver's license, CAA card, etc. The tonneau cover is black & felt warm from the sun so figured everything would dry quick. Well, you probably know what's coming. A couple of hours later just after supper I decided to head down the road to update the website at a remote Wifi spot near another campground. (Coyote Howls) Out I went, jumped in the truck, & took off out of the park & down the highway. When I reached the wi-fi site I stopped, got out of the truck, walked around to the passenger side to access the computer, glanced at the back of the truck & "OH OH!!" In a sickening flash I remembered my wallet & cards that I had laid out there earlier, and..........they were all gone. Jumped in the truck & raced back to our campsite, rushed in & told Professor Rockhound (Kelly was collecting a lot of rocks at that time) what had happened. I knew the only hope I had of ever finding anything lying on the ground was to get an expert ground scanning person involved. She quickly headed out the driveway to the highway in full scan mode. I took the truck & started driving the highway shoulder & immediately found my Scotia debit card lying right in the middle of the road. Continued up the road aways & turned around. By the time I got back to the area where I found the debit card I saw the Professor busily scooping things off the highway & alongside the road. Oblivious to traffic, she was on the job!! By the time I got the truck stopped she had already retrieved my wallet which had been lying open upside down in the eastbound lane. I probably drove right over it myself in my rush to get back to the campsite a few minutes before. She had also found what was left of my driver's license. It was the only thing damaged. I found one more card on the southbound shoulder & that completed everything. We were only moments away from complete nightfall but the eagle eyed Professor had saved the day. Nothing missing from inside the wallet either. Both American & Canadian money were intact. It sure would have put an unfavorable dent in our vacation plans if all had been lost. Thanks to our superb ground scanning Professor Rockhound, we were spared to travel another day. It was a close call & I had to promise that I would not be so dumb in the future. Well, that didn't last long because here's what I did just a few days later.

Decided to clean up the cab of the truck so opened the passenger door to pull the floor mat out. I was wearing my black cowboy hat which I had just purchased near Carlsbad New Mexico a few weeks earlier. As I bent over I knocked my hat off so just reached down, picked it up & casually tossed it around the corner onto the tonneau cover behind the cab. Sound familiar!! Finished the clean up & went inside the trailer. Kelly said she was heading into Ajo for some groceries & would be back in an hour or so. I had some stuff to catch up on with the computer so said, "Ok, see ya in a bit." It was probably about 10 minutes later when the hair on my head almost stood straight up as I suddenly realized............my hat was on the back of the truck!!!! Oh noooooooo!!!! I rushed out of the trailer, down the road, around the corner & up to the highway vainly looking off in the direction Kelly had traveled with the truck. No black object on the road or shoulder resembling a cowboy hat. Walked a short distance along the road but knew it was futile. My hat was gone forever & that's all there was to it. I'm not a hat person & this cowboy hat was the only one I had ever stuck on my head that I thought didn't make me look like a total nerd. I was like a little boy who had just lost his most prized possession of ever. And I was sooooooooo mad at myself because of the wallet incident just a short time before. Why didn't I learn my lesson that time about setting things on the back of the truck. I beat myself up so bad for the next hour that I was barely human by the time Kelly got back. I was in the trailer slumped in a chair when I heard the truck pull in. How was I going to explain to her that she had probably married the dumbest creature on the planet. The thought did occur to me that she was most likely quite aware of that already:(( The screen door opened & Kelly came in with a couple bags of groceries and there perched atop her beautiful blonde head was............................ my cowboy hat:)))))) At that moment I was the happiest little cowboy kid west of the Pecos.

It was a movement in the rear view mirror that caused her to look as she was accelerating down the highway after leaving the park. That movement was my cowboy beginning it's take-off roll across the tonneau cover runway in preparation for lift off into the big blue Arizona sky. She quickly backed off the gas, slowly braked & pulled over to the side of the road & retrieved my precious hat. Now she was faced with a decision. She could turn around & bring the hat back before I probably even knew it was missing or she could keep on going & let me stew about my missing hat until she got back. She knew I would and made the right decision. She cranked up the truck, continued on her way, & let me stew for an hour real darn good!! Do you think I learned my lesson?? Say, did I tell you about the time I.................................................:((

AND THERE'S MY HAT I THOUGHT I HAD LOST

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