RAPIDLY UP TO SPEED ON THE 402 I NEARLY BLEW MYSELF RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW

The cloud cover was so low first thing this morning that it was almost sitting on the tree tops when Pheebs and I headed out to our country road walking spot.  We only did half of our half mile walk.  Pheebs wasn't into it so we headed back home.

WINDMILL LAKE EAST OF OUR PARK

A MISTY MORNING WITH CLOUDS NEARLY ON THE DECK

 CAN YOU SMELL THE NEW MOWN HAY?

Changing vehicles and with a bit of drizzle on the windshield Subie and I rolled out the driveway.  Heading south through Bayfield and tuned in to my favorite SiriusXM music channel, I grabbed a Hortons coffee to go and set a southwesterly course for Sarnia Ontario's Bluewater Hospital.  A nice morning for a drive with light traffic all the way including the 402.  By the time we reached the Bluewater Hospital skies had nearly cleared themselves.

 SARNIA'S BLUEWATER HOSPITAL

 A BRIGHT CHEERY HALLWAY

I was early for my appointment of course and things moved along quickly.  Two X-rays this morning instead of one.  Dr. Garach said the X-rays looked good and he was pleased with my progress.  I have to go back for another X-ray in September.  I asked him about the occasional pain in my right leg and knee.  He said that is normal and explained something about the new hardware in my hip.  He said that occasional soreness and pain will eventually go away.  Well, we'll see but I was encouraged by the fact that I didn't have a speck of soreness or pain in my right leg all day.  

 WAITING OUTSIDE THE X-RAY ROOM READING MY KINDLE

Upon leaving the hospital I found Subie in the parking lot with no problem and we were soon heading East out of Sarnia with both front windows down and the Moonroof open.  Oh, the pleasures of warmer weather.  Minutes later and rapidly up to speed on the 402 I nearly blew myself right out the window.  I had to get that moonroof closed and my windows back up to stop the hurricane going on inside the car.  With Subies aerodynamics restored I as able to roll along in quiet comfort listening to my tunes.  With a stop in Forest Ontario at Subway for a Tuna Sub which I somehow managed to not get all over myself, I wasn't long in getting home.

 EAST BOUND AND DOWN HEADING FOR HOME

Finally home and turning onto our street I saw something going on up ahead in front of our house.  It was a Seaforth cable company installing a line up our driveway to the house for a fiber optic installation.  Tuckersmith Communications is installing fiber optics in our Park.  They will be back again to hook that line up to the outside modem at the other end of our unit.  We are currently with Eastlink Communications and this Tuckersmith line will give us an option should we decide to make a change with our internet, TV, and phone company at some point.  Options are always good things to have regardless of what you are doing.

 OH-OH WHAT THE HECKS GOING ON

 IT'S A GOOD THING KELLY IS OUT THERE KEEPING AN EYE ON THE FLOWERS

An afternoon Park Pond and beyond walk for Pheebs and I netted me a few photos and we sure stirred up a bunch of Red-Winged Blackbirds on the East side of the pond.  They must be nesting in the Willows by the water and probably have young ones in the nests.

 THESE BIRDS WERE SURE UPSET WITH PHEEBS AND I

 LATE AFTERNOON SHADOWS ON THE POND'S BANK

 I LOVE A DARK FOREST WALK

 THIS MIGHT BE A BLACK SWALLOWTAIL

Al's Music Box:))  The Weight  is a song by the Canadian-American group 'The Band' that was released as a single in 1968 on the group's debut album 'Music from Big Pink'. It was their first release under this name, after their previous releases as the Canadian Squires and Levon and the Hawks. Written by Band member Robbie Robertson, the song is about a visitor's experiences in a town mentioned in the lyric's first line as Nazareth. "The Weight" has significantly influenced American popular music, having been listed as No. 41 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Sons of All Time published in 2004. PBS, which broadcast performances of the song on Ramble at the Ryman (2011), Austin City Limits (2012), and Quick Hits (2012), describes it as "a masterpiece of Biblical allusions, enigmatic lines, and iconic characters" and notes its enduring popularity as "an essential part of the American songbook."  "The Weight" is one of the Band's best-known songs, gaining considerable album-oriented rock airplay.  Cash Box called it a "powerhouse performance."  The 1969 movie Easy Rider used the song as recorded by the Band.  Robbie Robertson,  found the tune for 'The Weight when strumming idly on his guitar one day.  He noticed that the interior of the guitar included a stamp noting that it was manufactured in Nazareth, Pennsylvania (C.F. Martin & Company is situated there) and he started crafting the lyrics as he played.  The inspiration for and influences affecting the composition of "The Weight" came from the music of the American South, the life experiences of band members, particularly Levon Helm, and movies of filmmakers Ingmar Bergan and Luis Bunuel.  The original members of the Band performed "The Weight" as an American Southern folk song with country music (vocals, guitars and drums) and gospel music (piano and organ) elements. The lyrics, written in the first person, are about a traveler's arrival, visit, and departure from a town called Nazareth, in which the traveler's friend, Fanny, has asked him to look up some of her friends. According to Robertson, Fanny is based on Frances 'Fanny' Steloff, the founder of a New York City bookstore where he explored scripts by Buñuel. The town is related to Nazareth, Pennsylvania because it was the home of Martin guitars. (Robertson wrote the guitar parts on a 1951 Martin D-28.) The singers, led by Helm, vocalize the traveler's encounters with people in the town from the perspective of a Bible Belt American Southerner, like Helm himself, a native of rural Arkansas.  The characters in "The Weight" were based on real people that members of the Band knew, as Helm explained in his autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire.  In particular, "young Anna Lee" mentioned in the third verse is Helm's longtime friend Anna Lee Amsden, and, according to her, "Carmen" was from Helm's hometown, Turkey Scratch, Arkansas "Crazy Chester" was an eccentric resident of Fayetteville, Arkansas, who carried a cap gun. Ronnie Hawkins would tell him to "keep the peace" at his Rockwood Club when Chester arrived.  

 THIS BEGONIA HANGS ON OUR LAMP POST AT THE END OF OUR DRIVEWAY

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!"  The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such inept golf!"  The priest said, "Here comes the green-keeper. Let's have a word with him."  He said, "Hello George, what's wrong with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"  The green-keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."  The group fell silent for a moment.  The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."  The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"

--------------------------------

A zookeeper is ordering new animals. As he fills out the forms, he types “two mongeese”. That doesn’t look quite right, so he tries two mongoose, and then two mongooses.  Giving up, he types, “One mongoose, and while you’re at it, send another one.”

--------------------------------

Getting away from their high-stress jobs, a couple spends relaxing weekends in their motor home. When they found their peace and quiet disturbed by well-meaning, but unwelcome, visits from other campers, they devised a plan to assure themselves some privacy.  Now, when they set up camp, they place this sign on the door of their RV: "Insurance agent. Ask about our term-life package."

-------------------------------

=============================

MOSTLY DANG WELL

 KELLY PICKED UP A COUPLE MORE POTS OF HANGING PETUNIA FLOWERS 

Rain came in the night and nicely washed all the yellow pine tree pollen off everything leaving us once again with vibrant Spring colors here in our Park.  Thank you Mr. Rain.  However, the ensuing cloud cover stayed with us for the rest of the day, and by the looks of our weather report, we might be in for a rainy week.

 THE HANGING PETUNIAS THAT CAN BE SEEN IN THE TOP LEFT OF THE PHOTO

 OVERNIGHT RAINDROPS ON A DAY LILY LEAF

 AND YES, THIS FROG WAS EVERY BIT AS GREEN AS THE PHOTO SHOWS

It was not far Pheebs and I ventured on this slightly drizzly morning.  I knew the country roads would be muddy and had just hosed off the Jeep late Saturday morning so I didn't see any sense in muddying up the Jeep all over again.  A drive into Bayfield and a solemn walk in the Bayfield Cemetery turned out to be our only exercise for the day.  

 THERE IS STILL PLENTY OF ROOM FOR MORE BOATS

 THIS CHAP HASN'T GOT HIS MAST UP YET

 THIS LOVELY SHAPED TREE WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE COLORFUL HAD THE SUN BEEN ON IT THIS MORNING

 COLOR CAN ALWAYS BE FOUND IN A CEMETERY EVEN ON A DULL AND DREARY DAY

Home again I spent the afternoon in my sunroom recliner reading.  I finished the second book in the Emily Of New Moon trilogy and am well on my way into the third and final book.  I love the pictures in my mind that the words of author Lucy Maude Montgomery paint for me.  

I have the free version of a program called Grammerly which is helpful to me by correcting spelling mistakes and punctuation.  I've had this program now for about four years.  It keeps trying to get me to upgrade to it's $Premium$ version whereupon it would correct all my writing errors and suggest corrections to my sentence structures, etc.  In other words, it would strive to make me sound like a perfect magazine-type writer with absolutely no writing errors.  I do not want my posts to sound grammatically perfect.  I want my posts to sound like me because if my posts don't sound like me, they would sound like a professional writer's writing.  And I am not a professional writer!!  I enjoy bending my words, phrases, and thoughts, away from the ordinary norm.  And that is what very much mostly dang well makes me, ME.  And, I like when that happens:))

 KELLY'S PETUNIAS

It will be only Subie and I rolling out in the morning heading for Sarnia Ontario's Bluewater Hospital.  I have my fingers crossed that this will be the 'last' X-ray on my right hip replacement.  I thought the last X-ray was supposed to be the last one!!  I haven't had any pain or soreness in my hip area since about three weeks after the surgery.  I'm hoping he won't say, after looking at the X-ray, 'Oh nuts, I've put it in backwards and it needs to come out and be turned around'!!

Al's Music Box:)) I Can't Tell You Why is a song by the American rock band Eagles that appeared on their 1979 album 'The Long Run'.  It was written by band members Timothy B. Schmit, Glenn Frey, and Don Henley. Recorded in March 1978, it was the first song finished for the album and the first Eagles song to feature Schmit on lead vocals.  It was released as a single in February 1980. Timothy B. Schmit provided the song title and composed the nucleus of "I Can't Tell You Why," which he then presented to Glenn Frey and Don Henley and they completed the song together. Henley described the finished song as "straight Al Green" and said that Frey, an R&B fan from Detroit, was responsible for the R&B feel of the song.  Frey said to Schmit: "You could sing like Smokey Robinson. Let's not do a Richie Furay, Poco-sounding song. Let's do an R&B song."  Schmit describes the song as "loosely based on my own experiences." Schmit said: "I had some writing sessions with Don and Glenn and I threw out a bunch of my ideas and that one "I Can't Tell You Why" stuck. I had composed a pretty good part of it, not a huge part but enough for them to think 'That could be good' and go with it. So Don, Glenn, and I finished it over a few all-night sessions."  He also said, "When it was being developed in the studio...I knew it was a great song. I [thought] 'Yes! This is an amazing debut for me.' When we finally mixed it, we had a little listening party at the studio. As people were hearing it, Don turned to me and said, 'There's your first hit."  Schmit sang the lead vocals, with Frey and Henley singing counterpoint. Schmit also played the bass on the track, which has a distinctive riff believed by Schmit to have been devised by Frey.  According to Henley, Frey wrote the counterpoint part.  In 1980, the band promoted the song with a music video featuring Schmit on bass guitar accompanied by Frey on the electric piano, although Frey recorded the guitar solos on the recording, with Henley on drums, Don Felder on electric guitar, Joe Walsh on organ and Walsh's touring sideman Joe Vitale on ARP string synthesizer. Live versions of the song were released on the 1980 album Eagles Live and 1994's Hell Freezes Over.  Schmit also performed "I Can't Tell You Why" while on tour as a member of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band in 1992. 

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A Swiss man, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Americans are waiting.  “Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?” he asks. The two Americans just stare at him.  “Excusez-moi, parlez vous Francais?” he tries. The two continue to stare.  “Parlare Italiano?” No response.  “Hablan ustedes Espanol?” Still nothing.  The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted. The first American turns to the second and says, “Y'know, maybe we should learn a foreign language.”  “Why?” says the other. “That guy knew four languages, and it didn't do him any good.”

------------------------------------

- "Confucius Say: "Never argue with a fool...he may be doing the same thing."

Confucius Say: "Man who drive like hell bound to get there."

- "Confucius Say: "Adults are just wrinkled kids who owe money."

-----------------------------------

============================

I KINDA GOT MYSELF OUT OF SORTS

I saw on the Friday 6 o'clock news that there might be a chance of another Aurora Borealis so about 10 o'clock Friday night I loaded my camera, tripod, and binoculars, into the Subaru, opened the Moon roof, and headed off out into the darkened countryside.  I had intended to take a tilt-back gravity chair with me but forgot.  I stayed out there about forty minutes but did not see any coloring in the north sky.  However, I did see four airplanes and two satellites. Two of those planes were high-flying jets and two were lower-flying propeller planes.  I did notice something odd about one of those prop jobs.  Usually, airplanes have red, green, and white lights but one of those planes had a strong flashing amber light on it.  I don't ever recall seeing a flashing amber light on a plane.  But here's the oddest thing I saw.  I was just leaving the dark country road spot when I glanced up through the open Moon roof and saw a faint satellite traveling northeast.  Picking up my ?? binoculars I stopped and glanced up again and immediately saw a brighter second satellite seemingly in a lower orbit traveling southeast.  I quickly got my binoculars on it and that's when I saw something different. Every single satellite I have seen over the years has had the same silvery-white color to it.  Every satellite, no exceptions......until tonight.  I had this brighter satellite in my binoculars for about 5 seconds and it was definitely a solid light blue in color.....and no, I was not looking through the Moonroof's glass.  The Moon roof was fully open.  And no, it was not an airplane with flashing lights.  I sure wished we lived out in the country with an open sky overhead where I could nightly renew and revive my interest in an old Astronomy hobby I so much enjoyed a couple decades ago.   

 CORN'S UP ABOUT TEN INCHES NOW

 THIS FARNER IS OUT IN HIS FIELD KICKING UP SOME SATURDAY MORNING DUST

 PHEEBS AND I FOLLOWED THIS FELLOW FOR A WHILE THIS MORNING BUT IT WAS OK BECAUSE WE WEREN'T IN A HURRY

 ON THE COUNTRY ROADS I ALWAYS PULL OVER AND LET THE BIG FARM MACHINERY GUYS GO BY

 AND SOMETIMES ON THE HIGHWAYS WE JUST HAVE TO GET OUT THERE AND GET AROUND THESE BIG GUYS

 HERE'S KELLY ON HER iPHONE FRIDAY AFTERNOON ON OUR WAY HOME LOOKING UP BIG DOCTOR WORDS ON GOOGLE THAT APPEAR ON HER ENDOSCOPY REPORT

Not much going on today.  A routine run to Goderich and back for Pheebs and I this morning.  I kinda got myself out of sorts this afternoon so I retreated to my sunroom recliner and stuck my nose in my book hoping it would make my world go away.  And, for a few hours, it did.

 OUR ANNUAL PINE POLLEN MENACE IS UPON US 

 THIS PINE POLLEN HAS THE CONSISTENCY OF BABY POWDER AND IT GETS INTO ABSOLUTELY EVERY THING

It's finally official.  New and refurbished lots in our Park are now being listed for people interested in putting a mobile home on a land lease lot.  Anyone interested in living in what we consider to be the absolute best mobile home Park in this whole area can find additional information here at this link....Bayfield Pines.  Unlike many other Parks, we are not rammed, jammed, or crammed up against each other and that along with all our Pine trees and forest setting, makes this Park so unique.  And, we now have good owners.

Al's Music Box:)) Black Water is a song recorded by the American music group the Doobie Brothers from their 1974 album 'What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits'. The track features its composer Patrick Simmons on lead vocals and, in mid-March 1975, became the first of the Doobie Brothers' two No. 1 hit singles.  Simmons completed "Black Water" during a subsequent Doobie Brothers' sojourn in New Orleans; a lifelong aficionado of Delta blues, Simmons had first visited New Orleans for a 1971 Doobie Brothers gig: "When I got down there it was everything I had hoped it would be...The way of life and vibe really connected with me and the roots of my music." Simmons cites the song's opening section as "my childhood imaginings of the South from reading Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer" while the lyrics subsequent to the first chorus draw on his actual experience of New Orleans: "going down to the French Quarter as often as possible and going into the clubs and listening to Dixieland": the lyric Well if it rains, I don't care/ Don't make no difference to me/Just take that street car that's goin' uptown/ was jotted down by Simmons while riding through the University District on the St. Charles Streetcar Line en route to the Garden District in Uptown New Orleans to do laundry: "the sun was shining while it was pouring rain the way it does down there sometimes. And the lyrics just came to me there on the streetcar."  "Black Water" is distinguished by its melodious a cappella section, whose lyrics are likely the song's prevalent hook lines: "I'd like to hear some funky Dixieland/ Pretty mama, come and take me by the hand." These lines are also featured in the Train song, "I Got You" (from Save Me San Francisco) on which Simmons received a co-writing credit. Producer Ted Templeman said of the a cappella section of "Black Water": "I stole the idea from my old producer", referencing his stint as the lead singer of sunshine pop act 'Harpers Bizarre' whose 1967 hit rendition of "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" had featured a harmonic a cappella section (Harpers Bizarre had been produced by Lenny Waronker).  Despite his encouragement in regard to writing "Black Water" and his meticulous arranging of the track, Ted Templeman said: "We never thought of it as a potential hit single" - "I put 'Black Water' on the B-side because I figured it was an acoustic thing.

 I JUST KNOW THERE IS A LITTLE ALIEN CREATURE HIDING UNDERNEATH THIS LEAF

GROANER'S CORNER:(( It was the end of the day when I parked my police car in front of the station. As I gathered my equipment, my K-9 partner, Jake, was barking, and I saw a little boy staring in at me.  "Is that a dog you got in the back seat there?" he asked. "It sure is," I replied.  Puzzled, the boy looked at me and then towards the back of the car. Finally he said, "What'd he do?"

-------------------------------------

- I'm not a complete idiot….Some parts are missing.

Q: How many divorced men does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: None, because they never get the house!

------------------------------------

After weeks of getting the cold shoulder from his wife, the unhappy husband finally confronted her.  'Admit it, Linda. The only reason you married me is because my grandfather left me $10 million.'  'Don't be ridiculous,' she replied. 'I don't care who left it to you.'
---------------------------------

============================