I GENTLY EASED THE LITTLE GREEN GUY INTO THE WATER AND WISHED HIM WELL

Thunder, lightning, and lots of rain came in the night and stayed till after dawn.  I knew there would be no muddy country road drives for Pheebs and I so we kept our Subie ride short and slipped into and around Bayfield.

A GRAY DRIZZLY MORNING IN BAYFIELD

 I COULD HARDLY BELIEVE THE LOW WATER LEVEL OF LAKE HURON

 EVERYTHING IN THE FOREGROUND SHOULD BE UNDERWATER 

A LONE FISHERMAN WITH COFFEE IN HAND PATIENTLY WAITS FOR A NIBBLE

Kelly's appointment with her Nurse Practitioner was at 11 a.m. so I dropped her off at the Maitland Valley Medical Centre in good time.  They took her right in.  From there, under cloudy skies, I headed off to Walmart and Pet Smart to pick up a few things.  With a little bit of time to kill, I headed for the Goderich harbor.  Driving down the hill to the harbor I felt something slightly warm on my left cheek.  'A-ha' sunshine:)))  It was 11:50 and the day just kept getting better from there.  Temperatures were on the rise and I think we topped out somewhere just over 70F this afternoon.  A huge bonus for our area this time of year.  

 AGAIN IN GODERICH I WAS SURPRISED YET AGAIN AT THE LOW WATER LEVEL...YOU CAN SEE ON THE RIGHT WHERE THE LEVEL SHOULD BE

 KIND OF ALARMING HOW FAST THE WATER LEVEL HAS DROPPED....I WAS JUST HERE AT THIS VERY SPOT LAST WEEK AND I DO NOT RECALL THE WATER LEVEL BEING SO LOW

 THE FISHING BOAT MIKE-J IS SOUTHBOUND DOWN THE LAKE....AND NO, THAT IS NOT A CANADIAN SUBMARINE IN THE FOREGROUND

 WITH FISHING BOATS ALWAYS GO THE GULLS

From the harbor, I made my way back to the Medical Centre and picked up Kelly about half an hour later and we headed off to A&W for a bite.  My brown winter jacket has lasted me about 10 years and it's been slowly falling apart lately so following A&W we stopped into Marks (Work Wharehouse) and by golly we found me a new jacket.  When it comes to clothes it's kinda rare for me to get new stuff except socks and underwear of course.  Nice to have something new for a change.  But, I'm going to have to give up 10 coffees a month now to pay for it.

Home again, I didn't waste any time taking advantage of this great weather day.  The squirrels got into the shed and grabbed a pair of clippers to cut down one of our bird feeders so my first order of business was to get that birdfeeder back up and running again.  While I was at it I decided to move this birdfeeder to a slightly different location so that led me to re-doing a section of ground right in front of our sunroom.  I took out the heavy concrete patio stone and planted grass seed in its place.  I also raked up several wheelbarrow loads of leaves and pine needles.  Leaves are much easier to work with if they are wet and after last night's rain, the soggy mass cooperated fully.  Oh, and after keeping a close watch on the pond since I cleaned it over a month ago and moved all the frogs to the Park's pond I'll be darned if I didn't see a frog sitting on a rock right beside the pond.  Within minutes I had the little feller in my net and off we went over to the Park's pond where I gently eased the little green guy into the water and wished him well:))

I HAD A FEELING GOOD PRODUCTIVE AFTERNOON

 CLEANING UP LEAVES BY THE ROAD

 I HAD TO TEETER AROUND ON MY TALL LADDER TO RE-HANG THE BIRDFEEDER

LEAF REFLECTIONS IN A NEIGHBOR'S WINDOW

With a warm breeze in the air making this an unbelievably super nice day, Pheebs and I headed off for a late afternoon walk.  Overnight rains had made things muddy but we managed to plod our way through it without coming home looking like a couple of mangy mud pies.  According to the weatherman, we have some nice days ahead.  Also, happy to say, my hip issue from a couple days ago has totally cleared up.  Well, you know what it's like with us men.  If we stub a toe, we right away think we are on the verge of a leg amputation with less than 6 months to live.      

 PHEEBS LEADS THE WAY ALONG OUR LEAF-STREWN PATH ACROSS THE ROAD FROM OUR HOUSE

 AND YES INDEED WE SURE HAD TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE SOME MUDDY SPOTS

 THE LITTLE YELLOW BULLDOZER WAS BUSY MONDAY LEVELING HOUSING SITES

  THERE WILL EVENTUALLY BE HOMES HERE

 PHEEBS MAKES HER WAY THROUGH SOME BRUSH

 AT LAST WE'RE HOME AGAIN

Music Box:)) Days Of Wine And Roses is a popular song, from the 1962 film of the same name. The best-known recordings of the song were by Billy Eckstine in 1961 and Andy Williams in 1963.  The music was written by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer.  They received the Academy Award for Best Original Song for their work, as well as the 1964 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.  In 2004 it finished at #39 in AFI's 100 Songs... 100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.  The song's lyric is notable for consisting of just two complex sentences, each of which forms one of the song's two stanzas.  The best-known recording was Williams' version, which was recorded for Columbia Records.  The song reached #9 on the Adult Contemporary chart and #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was the featured track on the album, Days of Wine and Roses and other TV Requests, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.  

 WITH HEAVY OVERNIGHT RAINS MAKING THE GROUND SOFT THIS LITTLE BULLDOZER HAD THE DAY OFF

GROANER'S CORNER:(( COMPUTER TERMS - TEXAS TRANSLATION:

LOG ON: Making a wood stove hotter.
LOG OFF: Don't add no more wood.
MONITOR: Keeping an eye on the wood stove.
DOWNLOAD: Gettin' the farwood off the truck
MEGA HERTZ: When yer not keerful gettin' the farwood
RAM: That thing tha splits the farwood
HARD DRIVE: Gettin' home in the winter time
PROMPT: What the mail ain't in the winter time
WINDOWS: What to shut when it's cold outside
SCREEN: What to shut when it's black fly season
BYTE: What them dang flies do
CHIP: Munchies fer the TV
MICRO CHIP: What's in the bottom of the munchie bag
MODEM: Whatcha did to the hay fields
DOT MATRIX: Old Dan Matrix's wife
LAP TOP: Where the kitty sleeps
KEYBOARD: Where ya hang the dang truck keys
SOFTWARE: Them dang plastic forks and knives
MOUSE: What eats the grain in the barn
MOUSE PAD: That's hippie talk fer where the mouse lives
MAIN FRAME: Holds up the barn roof
ENTER: Northerner talk fer "c'mon in, y'all"
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- They say that an apple a day will keep the doctor away...Why stop there?  An onion a day will keep everybody away!

- San Francisco isn't just funny it's hill areas.

- Health inspector: "I'm afraid you have too many roaches in here." Restaurant owner: "How many am I allowed?"

- Yesterday I saw a guy spill all his Scrabble letters on the road.  I asked him, “What’s the word on the street?"

- I got my daughter a fridge for her birthday.  I can’t wait to see her face light up when she opens it.

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                           Al's Art Gallery

UM, COULD I HAVE MY RECLINER AND A SNOOZE WITH THAT

Our corn hunt continued this morning as Pheebs and I made our way past a number of roadside corn fields.  Not even a kernel did we see and if we had spotted one kernel of corn on the road you can rest assured I would have braked hard, backed up, and retrieved that one kernel.

 HERE'S A FARMER OUT SPREADING A LITTLE GOOD CHEER ON HIS FIELD THIS MORNING

 THIS PIECE OF FARM MACHINERY IS CALLED A 'HEAD' AND IT FITS ON THE FRONT OF A COMBINE...THERE ARE DIFFERENT HEADS FOR DIFFERENT CROPS,,,CORN HEADS, BEAN HEADS, WHEAT HEADS, BONE HEADS...HEY WAIT A MINUTE, I DON'T KNOW ANYONE GROWING A CROP OF BONES!!

I think my burst of welcome energy today had everything to do with warmer air and sunshine.  I spent a couple hours outside scurrying around doing things.  With the leafblower, I cleaned out our carport and blew all the pine needles and leaves off the front porch and deck.  Also two-thirds of the driveway,  The last third I raked up and took a couple wheelbarrow loads to the utility trailer.  Hauling out our hedge trimmer I cut down a couple stands of bamboo grass.  With hand clippers, I cut down over a dozen tall stocks of Japanese ??  Raked our front yard again and cut back a bunch of Hostas.  I did a lot of bending today and judging from the little aches and pains in my legs and back I figured it was my body saying to me, 'Knock it off ya Doorknob.  So I did and it was 2 p.m.  I would sure be hard-pressed to work a full eight-hour job anymore.  Even four hours would be a near-impossible stretch.  Okay, how about two hours.  Oh dear, now I'm between a rock and a hard place.  Okay, how about no hours then?  Um, could I have my recliner and a snooze with that??  Doorknob!!

 A HURON COUNTY MOUNTAIN RANGE

 OKAY, SO THIS IS HOW HURON COUNTY MAKES ITS MOUNTAINS

 THIS GRAVEL PIT WORKER TAKES A MOMENT TO CLEAN HIS MACHINE'S WINDOWS

IT'S NOT OFTEN I SEE PIGEONS ANYMORE BUT HERE'S A GROUP ATOP AN AREA FARM SILO

 NICE TO SEE A FEW FLOWERING SHRUBS STILL BLOOMING

 MORNING'S GOLDEN GLOW

I finished my latest book, Ten Days To D-Day by author David Story.  This fact-based book is very well written and researched.  It is an in-depth behind-the-scenes look from the prime players like Churchill, Eisenhower, Hitler, Rommel, right on down through the ranks to the code breakers, spies, and the soldiers themselves landing on the beach.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in the war years.  For my next read, I have jumped from my fact to fiction and have just started reading, The Story Collector by author Evie Woods.  She is also the author of The Lost Bookshop which I enjoyed a number of months ago.

 SOME BUSH LINES HAVE MORE COLOR LEFT THAN OTHERS

 A LONG BUSH LINE LEADS TO A DARK FOREST TUNNEL

 I DIDN'T SEE THE POWER LINES WHEN I TOOK THIS LONG-DISTANCE TELEPHOTO SHOT

Poor Kelly just can't catch a break.  Feeling poorly, she thinks her recent bladder infection is back.  She has an appointment with her Nurse Practitioner in Goderich tomorrow morning which I will drive her to.  Her last bone density test about 3 weeks ago showed a significant deterioration in bone loss.  An Osteoporosis Clinic appointment is now being set up for her at St. Joseph's Hospital in London.  I hear her saying sometimes, "I'd just like to have one day of feeling good".

Al's Music Box:)) Country Bumpkin is a song written by Don Wayne, and recorded by American country music artist Cal Smith. It was released in February 1974 as the first single and title track from the album Country Bumpkin. The song was Smith's second number-one on the country chart. The single stayed at number one for a single week and spent a total of ten weeks on the country chart.  In 1974, "Country Bumpkin" received Song of the Year Awards from both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association.  The song has three verses:

• In the first a rural gentleman walks into a bar, where one of the barroom girls refers to him as a "country bumpkin" (a common nickname for a person from a rural area) as she talks to him.
• The second verse discusses the woman (now married to the man) giving birth to her (only) son a year later.
• The third verse discusses her impending death 40 years later, with her husband and son present at her bedside.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( "Just to establish some parameters," said the professor, "Mr. Nichols, what is the opposite of joy?"  "Sadness," said the student.  "And the opposite of depression, Ms. Biggs?" "Elation."  "And you, sir, how about the opposite of woe?"  "I believe that would be giddy up...

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- Roadside sobriety tests are getting ridiculous.  Last night I had to fold a fitted sheet.

- Imagine sleeping all night.  What a trip that must be.

- We need adult Water Parks.  No kids.  Just a lazy river with a floating bar, live music on stage, and a floating taco truck.

- Someone told me I'm immature and need to grow up....guess who isn't allowed in my treehouse anymore!!

- The longest drum solo was 10 hours and 26 minutes and was performed by the child sitting behind me on Delta Flight 987 from Los Angeles to Tokyo.

- Growing tomatoes is the best way to devote 3 months of your life to save $2.17.

- If laziness was an Olympic sport I would come in 4th just so I wouldn't have to walk up on the podium.

- Don't be mad at lazy people....They didn't do anything.

- Where would you grow a pastry chef? Bakersfield.

- It was so hot today I saw a Robin blow on a worm before it ate it.

- What's round and bad-tempered?
A vicious circle.

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Al's Art Gallery:)) It's Halloween Week so the art gallery for the next few days will be featuring Halloweeny photos.