I HAVE NEVER MADE THIS MISTAKE....'YET'

With not even a hint of wind in the air it made this morning's 35F at least doable as long as I had myself dressed warm enough.  And I was.  And so too was Pheebs with her partially shed furry winter coat.  Not a shred of sunlight anywhere but at least it wasn't raining or snowing.  So nice to be out on the quiet country roads again.

 A VERY LONG TELEPHOTO LENS SHOT

 PHEEBS TAKES A BREAK FROM HER NAVIGATIONAL DUTIES

Home again I checked the 14-day weather forecast and saw that future nighttime temperatures were all safely above freezing.  That told me it would be okay to turn our outside water on for the season.  This task becomes more difficult for me with each passing year and I'd been mulling around in my mind just how I was going to do this for the past month or so because of my hip.  To do this job I have to lift a heavy trapdoor in our front deck and then rather unceremoniously lower myself down into a very cramped space onto my knees.  From here I have to twist and stretch my body around until I am flat on my stomach on the ground.  From there I inch myself forward through a narrow opening under our house.  And, it seems that opening somehow becomes a tad smaller every year.  Or, is it because I seem to become a tad larger every year??  Now, while in this stomach position, I have to reach over to my right and turn a red valve to the right which closes a drain line.  Then, I have to scrunch and roll to the right and onto my back.  From here I reach to my upper right and locate another red valve on a different drain pipe.  I also turn this to the right to close it.  If I forget to close either one or both of these valves, when I turn on the main valve for the outside water I will be instantly drenched.  Surprisingly, in over 20 years of doing this I have never made this mistake.....'yet'.  Now, kinda half rolling onto my left side I reach back with my right arm and locate another red valve on an aluminum-wrapped main water pipe and turn this valve to the left....'Walla', the outside water is on.  Now comes the hardest part.  I have to very carefully extract myself from this totally prone position underneath our unit, bend and twist myself into a sitting position, then kneeling, begin my attempt to stand up through the trap door hole in the deck.  All this while being very conscious of where my right leg and hip are and where I am going to have to place my leg next.  I had pre-positioned a couple of footstools close to the hole so that I could lean on them and then leverage myself back up onto my feet.  I had my cane close by for back up just in case.  Happy to say everything went off without a hitch just as I thought it should as long as I thought things out, moved slowly, and didn't try to do anything stupid.  Doing stupid things can sometimes be quite normal for me.  I didn't tell Kelly I was going to do this because she might have scuttled the mission.  I won't have to reverse this annual procedure until late October or early November when I will have to go down there again to turn the outside water off for the winter.  And, no doubt that small rectangle opening under our unit will once again have shrunk even more!!

 DOWN I GO INTO THE HOLE AND NO I DO NOT HAVE MY SWEAT PANTS ON BACKWARD

IT'S A TIGHT FIT UNDER HERE

 MY MAIN OBJECTIVE IS TO TURN THE WATER ON WITH THAT RED VALVE ATOP THE ALUMINUM-WRAPPED MAIN WATER PIPE AND YOU CAN SEE THE RIGHT SIDE DRAIN TAP TOO

 GOTTA TURN THAT RIGHT SIDE DRAIN TAP TO THE RIGHT TO PREVENT WATER FROM FLYING OUT OF THERE WHEN I TURN THE MAIN WATER ON

 THE OTHER DRAIN TAP ON MY LEFT-HAND SIDE HAD TO BE TURNED OFF TOO

 OKAY, I JUST HAVE TO REACH OVER AND TURN THAT MAIN WATER TAP TO THE LEFT

 I COULDN'T CONFIGURE MYSELF TO TURN THE VALVE AND TAKE A PICTURE AT THE SAME TIME

NONE THE WORSE FOR WEAR I BEGIN TO PULL MYSELF UP OUT OF THE HOLE AND ONTO THE DECK AND YES I'M GETTING A HAIRCUT THIS COMING WEDNESDAY

 I BET THAT SMALL RETANGLE OPENING WILL BE EVEN SMALLER WHEN I'LL BE BACK HERE TO TURN THE WATER OFF IN THE FALL

I finished Lucy Maude Montgomery's autobiography entitled, The Alpine Path.  A very enlightening book and it would be an inspirational read for burgeoning writers.  It was certainly not an easy road for her trying to get any of her literary works published and it was only by sheer determination and not allowing all the consistent rejects of her works to beat her down that after years of struggle she finally persevered and eventually found success.  Now, I don't think of myself as a writer as much as I consider myself a simple blogger.  But, I do like this line that Lucy Maude Montgomery wrote of herself when she said, "If the love of writing is bred in your bones, you will be practically non-squelchable."  In my blogging ways, non-squelch-able equates to 'you will be a Mr. Blabberfingers'.  So yes, I do see a comparison there.  And here's another chuckle I had when I found out I had something else in common with Lucy Maude Montgomery.  In her later married years, she and her husband journeyed to Scotland.  They traveled about visiting various places and here is what she writes about a place they visited called Iona.  She writes......"I would have liked to have spent several days in Iona, prowling by myself around its haunted ruins and getting acquainted with its quaint inhabitants.  There is really little pleasure in a hurried scramble around such places in the midst of a chattering, exclaiming mob of tourists.  For me, at least, solitude is necessary to real enjoyment of such places.  I must be alone, or with a few kindred souls before I can dream and muse, and bring back to life the men and women who once dwelt there and made the places famous"...... Now, as long-time blog readers may remember, I have complained, whined, and ranted about different places we have been in our travels where there were just toooooo many noisy people milling about all over the place for my liking.  Yes, yes, I know...who did I think I was wanting to have the place all to my quiet self!!  When I read Lucy Maude Montgomery's words I was instantly reminded of one of those many times I had myself in quite a fluster because of all the noisy tourists.  It was February 19th, 2014 and we were at Arizona's Montezuma Well.  Here is my post for that day.  My Patience Runs Out At Montezuma's Well.

 MONTEZUMA WELL

Below is a photo I forgot to include in my Saturday post.  Kelly's daughter had bought Kelly several things for her birthday, one of them being a purse.

Al's Music Box:)) Mr. Bo Jangles by Sammy Davis Junior.  This is a song written and originally recorded by American country music artist Jerry Jeff Walker who said he was inspired to write the song after an encounter with a street performer in a New Orleans jail.  While in jail for public intoxication in 1965, he met a homeless man who called himself "Mr. Bojangles" to conceal his true identity from the police. Mr. Bojangles had been arrested as part of a police sweep of indigent people that was carried out following a high-profile murder. The two men and others in the cell chatted about all manner of things, but when Mr. Bojangles told a story about his performing dog who was killed by a car, the mood in the room turned heavy. Someone else in the cell asked for something to lighten the mood, and Mr. Bojangles obliged with a tap dance.  The homeless "Mr. Bojangles", who was white, had taken his pseudonym from Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson (1878–1949), a black entertainer.  The song became one of Samy Davis Jr.s signature performances, which he recorded for his 1972 album Portrait of Sammy Davis Jr. and sang at President Richard Nixon's invitation at a concert at the White House the following year.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band did a version of Mr. Bo Jangles as well.

GROANER'S CORNER:((  A boy is writing a paper on childbirth and asks his parents, How was I born?  His mother awkwardly answers the stork brought you.  Oh, says the boy. Well, how were you and Daddy born?  Oh, the stork brought us, too, and Grandpa and Grandma.  The boy begins his paper, This report has been very difficult to write due to the fact that there hasn't been a natural childbirth in my family for three generations.

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- Being an adult is a little out of my price range right now.

- I do this cute thing where I stay up all night and feel like death in the morning.

- Two hours of cooking just to eat in 10 minutes and now I have to wash everything.

- Apparently staying to yourself and not bothering people....bothers people.

- My ducks are absolutely not in a row.  I don't even know where some of them are and I'm pretty sure one of them is a pigeon.

- About 4 minutes into my run I've decided I want to work on my personality instead.

- I'm so glad I learned about hexagons in school instead of how to do my taxes.  It's really handy in hexagon season.

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KELLY'S BIRTHDAY TODAY:))

 WITH EACH PASSING DAY THERE ARE MORE HAPPY SIGNS OF SPRING

It was Kelly's birthday today:)))) Plans were that Kelly's daughter Sabra and son Ben and his two boys were coming to Bayfield today.  That was the plan when Pheebs and I headed out for our Jeep ride this morning.  By the time we got back, plans had changed and it was decided on a meet-up at Swiss Chalet in Stratford Ontario.  After a good night's sleep for a change, Kelly said she felt fine to drive to Stratford if I wanted to stay home with Pheebs.  She had some stuff to return to 'Winner's in a mall there. So that is what we did and I stayed with the Pheebs.  Busied myself with piles of raked-up leaves and pine needles I had left out by the road a few days ago. Grabbed the wheelbarrow and moved those piles to the utility trailer.  There is still lots of yard work to do but keeping my hip in mind I intend to do it in shorter bursts of energy this time.  By the way, the scar on my right hip is already almost invisible.

While in Bayfield this morning I stopped into the Village Clippers and made an appointment for a haircut next week.  Next stop was the cemetery for a brisk walk around the perimeter for Pheebs and I.  From there it was down the road a bit to the Porter's Hill Wild Birdseed Company for a couple 20-pound bags of 'Deluxe Mix' birdseed.  Steve also threw in a smaller free bag of Safflower seeds for one of the feeders to deter the Grackles from eating us out of house and home.  And by golly, it's working.  While the other birds like Safflower seeds, the Grackles do not.  I was getting some mighty dirty looks from the Gracklegators this afternoon.

 SHADOW IN THE CEMETERY

Kelly made it home from Stratford shortly after 5 p.m. following her windshield wipers all the way.  She said the food was good at Swiss Chalet and they all had a great time. 

KELLY SEATED BESIDE HER SON BEN WITH HER DAUGHTER SABRA ACROSS THE TABLE WITH BEN'S TWO BOYS

Al's Music Box:)) The Gambler is a song written by Don Schlitz and recorded by several artists, most famously by American country singer Kenny Rogers.  It was Rogers who made the song a mainstream success.  Rogers is accompanied on the recording by the vocal group The Jordanaires.   In 2006, Schlitz was featured in Rogers' career retrospective documentary The Journey, in which he praised both Rogers' and producer Larry Butler's contributions to the song, stating "they added several ideas that were not mine, including the new guitar intro".  

GROANER'S CORNER:((  My friend Jim told me that when he asked his wife where she wanted to go on vacation, she said that being married to him was a vacation.  He was the last resort.

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- Why is it called lipstick if you can still move your lips?

- Why is it that night falls but day breaks?

- Why is the third hand on the watch called a second hand?

- Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the radio?

- Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?

- Can you buy an entire chess set in a pawn-shop?

- Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter?

- Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?

- How can there be self-help 'groups'?

- Look, you can either agree with me or you can be wrong.

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When I commented that was a nice thing to say to him, Jim replied, "Well, actually, what she said was I was the 'last resort.'"

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TURKEY DINNER AND SOME SAD NEWS FROM AN OLD FRIEND ABOUT AN OLD FRIEND

OUR FIRST COUNTRY ROAD WALK IN QUITE A WHILE

Sunshine:)) Despite the temperature only being a few degrees above freezing, Pheebs and I didn't waste any time getting out to our favorite country road walking spot.  Due to my compromised walking state over these past few months, my legs have become weak and it's important now to get some muscle tone back into them.  And, that means walking, even if I don't feel like it.

 IT WAS A BIG BEAUTIFUL SKY MORNING

Our good friends Richard and Gayle invited us over earlier this afternoon for a turkey dinner with all the fixins.  Good food and conversation were had by all:))

 SPRING'S FOREST

Sad news from an old Tavistock friend today.  Another one of the old gang has passed away.  John Eifert, my best buddy from the mid 60's died early this morning in Stratford's hospice care.  John's brother Jim drove over from London earlier today to tell me of his passing.  Many memories from Tavistock and high school years with John as well as his brother Jim.  In our high school days the thought was by some that if you saw John, you knew that Al was not far away and vice versa.  John and I did a lot of 'hanging out' in those early to mid-60s days.  A lot of zany stuff went on.  I had just been thinking of Jim and John about four days ago and especially of John wondering how he was and if he was doing alright.  I feel now it was a premonition and I don't think I have ever had that happen before.

 L-R -- GARY BURTON, AL, JOHN, JIM, AND HELMUT HELL WITH THE HAT....HELMUT PASSED AWAY ABOUT 5 YEARS AGO

 L-R-- JIM, AL, JOHN, AND CRAIG WILKER...THE SUMMER OF 1962 IN GRAND BEND ONTARIO AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THE GIRLS WERE

 SUMMER MILITIA -1963...AL ON THE LEFT AND JOHN ON THE RIGHT

JIM, AL, JOHN AND OF COURSE THE PHEEBS

Al's Music Box:)) Samba Pa Ti is an instrumental by Latin rock band Santana, from their 1970 album, Abraxas. In English, the title means "Samba for You."  The song was written by Carlos Santana.  In 2008,  "Samba Pa Ti" was conceived in New York City on a Sunday afternoon,"..."I opened my apartment window and I saw this man in the street, he was drunk and he had a saxophone and a bottle of booze in his back pocket. And I kept looking at him because he kept struggling with himself. He couldn’t make up his mind which one to put in his mouth first, the saxophone or the bottle and I immediately heard a song"..."I wrote the whole thing right there"—Carlos Santana.

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Many years ago, in the South Pacific, there was a small island kingdom that was ruled by a kind and benevolent King. Each year, on the King's birthday, the residents of the island gave the King a new throne as a token of their love and respect for him.  And each year, the King would put last year's gift up in the attic of his small grass house. After many years of ruling the island, the weight of the large number of birthday presents stored up in the attic became too heavy and caused the house to collapse down on the King.  Moral to the story is: He who lives in grass house, shouldn't stow thrones.

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Q. Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?
A. No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.

- At the Olympics a man went up to a competitor who was carrying a very long pole."Are you a pole vaulter?"  "No, I'm German, but how did you know my name is Walter?"
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Howard County Police officers still write their reports by hand, and the data is entered later by a computer tech into their database. One theft report stated that a farmer had lost 2,025 pigs. Thinking that to be an error, the tech called the farmer directly.  "Is it true Mr. Smith that you lost 2,025 pigs?" she asked.  "Yeth." lisped the farmer.  Being a Howard County girl herself, the tech entered: "Subject lost 2 sows and 25 pigs."

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FEELING THE NEED TO FIND MYSELF SOME LIGHTER FARE

Under bright sunny skies, it was 'finally' my turn to drive again so I picked up my good buddy Richard at the usual time this morning, and off we went to find us a couple coffees to go and two carrot muffins.  Our country road coffee tour took us through Clinton's Tim Hortons and then northwest of Clinton around the Auburn area and Ball's Bridge.  Twas a fine morning for a country road drive and a chat:))

 THE FIBRE OPTIC CREW IS STILL AT WORK IN OUR PARK

 LOOKS LIKE A WORKER IN THAT HOLE

Home again and with skies remaining sunny, I wasn't long in getting out into the front and side yards with my leaf rake.  I love the Spring clean-up every year.  So nice to feel the warmth of the Sun and hear the birds happily chirping in the trees.  My hip did good and I think we hit 43F today.  

 GOLDFINCHES ARE CHANGING FROM THEIR DOWDY  WINTER BROWN TO THEIR GOLDEN SUMMER COLORS 

 A DARK-EYED JUNCO IN THE FOREGROUND AND A GOLDFINCH IN THE BACKGROUND

Pheebs and I did get out for a walk this afternoon to our Park's pond and beyond into the pine forest.  We walked along what is left of the old Pine Tree trail enjoying the abundance of fresh cool air blowing in across Lake Huron about a mile and a half to the West of us.

HOW REFRESHING TO BE OUT WALKING IN A FOREST AGAIN

 HOLLY GROWING WILD ALONG THE TRAIL

 I FOUND THIS OLD 'CROWN' MASON JAR ALONG THE WAY

 PHEEBS LIKES TO BE OUT FRONT LEADING THE WAY

 I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO EXPRESS HOW GREAT IT FELT WALKING ALONG HERE THIS AFTERNOON

 IN THE FAR DISTANCE I SAW A BROWN LUMP IN THE POND WHICH I THOUGHT MIGHT BE A MUSKRAT

 EDGING CLOSER AND WITH MY TELEPHOTO LENS I FINALLY REALIZED IT WAS A CANADA GOOSE KEEPING A VERY LOW PROFILE HOPING WE WOULDN'T SEE IT

After my last two books, 'The Lost Bookshop' and The Forgotten Bookshop In Paris' I was feeling the need to find myself some lighter fare.  Some humor, some 'feeling good' stories, some laughter, and whimsical frivolity.  Remembering how much I had enjoyed the whole 'Anne Of Green Gables' book series a year and a half ago, I once again returned to Prince Edward Island and the writings of Lucy Maude Montgomery.  This time I chose her book, Chronicles Of Avonlea which is a collection of short stories related to the same time and place as the Anne Of Green Gables books.  I enjoyed every one of the stories and I like Lucy Maude Montgomery's descriptive and flowing writing style.  She creatively paints wonderful pictures in my mind.  So, I have chosen for my next book, The Alpine Way which is the autobiography of Lucy Maude Montgomery's career in her own words......  In late September of 2018, we took our Motorhome for a spin out East to the Maritime provinces.  When on Prince Edward Island we stopped in Cavendish where the childhood home of Lucy Maude Montgomery still stands.  Up to this point, I had not read any of her books.  Despite all the disappointing commercialism around the site, I was able to venture out onto a grassy expanse of lawn and grab a few telephoto shots of the house and barn in the distance.  It was here where she spent her early years and later wrote the book 'Anne Of Green Gables.  And, here in her own words, she describes the writing of that book in this house......"I wrote it in the evening after my regular day's work was done, wrote most of it at the window of the little gable room which had been mine for many years.  I began it, as I have said, in the spring of 1904.  I finished it in the October of 1905."   

LUCY MAUDE MONTGOMERY'S HOME  WHERE SHE WROTE 'ANNE OF GREEN GABLES AND OTHER STORIES.

 ALONG THE SHORES OF CAVENDISH BEACH

Al's Music Box)) Fire And Rain is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter James Taylor, released in August 1970 by  Warner Bros. Records as the second single from Taylor's second studio album, Sweet Baby James. The song follows Taylor's reaction to the suicide of Suzanne Schnerr, a childhood friend, and his experiences with drug addiction and fame.  On the VH1 series Storytellers, Taylor said the song was about several incidents during his early recording career. The second line "Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you" refers to Suzanne Schnerr, a childhood friend of his who died by suicide while he was in London, England, recording his first album. In that same account, Taylor said he had been in a deep depression after the failure of his new band the Flying Machine to coalesce (the lyric "Sweet dreams and Flying Machines in pieces on the ground"; the reference is to the name of the band rather than a fatal plane crash, as was long rumored). Taylor completed writing the song while in rehab. Friends at home, concerned that it might distract Taylor from his big break, kept the tragic news from him, and he found out six months later.  Carole King played piano on the song. Drummer Russ Kunkel used brushes rather than sticks on his drum kit, and Bobby West played double bass in place of a bass guitar to "underscore the melancholy on the song".

GROANER'S CORNER:((  A magician was working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. The audience would be different each week, so the magician allowed himself to do the same tricks over and over again.  There was only one problem: The captain's parrot saw the shows every week and began to understand what the magician did in every trick. Once he understood that, he started shouting in the middle of the show.  "Look, it's not the same hat!" "Look, he's hiding the flowers under the table!" "Hey, why are all the cards the Ace of Spades?"  The magician was furious but couldn't do anything, it was the captain's parrot after all.  One day the ship had an accident and sank. The magician found himself on a piece of wood, in the middle of the ocean, and of course the parrot was by his side.  They stared at each other with hate, but did not utter a word. This went on for several days.  After a week the parrot finally said, "Okay, I give up. What'd you do with the boat?"

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- A recent study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.

- I have a lot to be thankful for but I'm going to give a special shout-out to Elastic.

Just burned 2000 calories trying to avoid someone I know at Walmart.

It was a whole lot more fun to be 20 in the 70's than 70 in the 20's.

Not to brag, but  I was alive when you could SLAM the phone down to hang up on someone.  It was spectacular.

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