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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