YES, IN MY COMMON SENSE WORLD IT IS THE ONLY LOGICAL EXPLANATION

It was a heavily clouded morning with a cold west wind blowing icily in off Lake Huron and it stayed like that all day.  A typical start to the month of November I'd say.  

Curious about those green Osage Orange (Hedge Apples) Orbs Pheebs and I found at a corn spill location a few days ago, we headed back to that spot to scoop up some more corn and have a closer look at those Hedge Apple trees.  The 12 old trees are planted in a straight row between what probably once was two fields, so it's obvious they were purposely planted years ago in a straight line like a dividing hedgerow.  I scooped up another big bucket of corn kernels and I also picked u a dozen Hedge Apples (Osage Orange) to take home and scatter around because I read that they are a good deterrent (not a threat) to small critters like mice, etc.  Upon returning home I put some in both sheds and the carport storage area.  I also tossed three of them under our unit on the concrete base.

 THE 12 OSAGE ORANGE TREES

 THIS HEDGE APPLE GOT SQUISHED AND IT WAS AL SQUOOSY INSIDE

 ANOTHER BUCKET OF CORN HEADING HOME

 FORTUNATELY THIS IS AN EASILY ACCESSIBLE SPOT SO WE MAY BE BACK FOR SOME MORE CORN

Kelly was feeling better today so decided to strike off for Goderich on her own.  She had a bladder infection prescription to pick up as well as a few groceries.  And, I think she was needing a good Thrift Store browsing fix as well.   It's not very much fun for her if she has to drag me around a Thrift Store with her so she much prefers to go on her own.

 YOU CAN SEE IN THE BACKGROUND OF THIS PHOTO THAT THE BUSH LINES HAVE NOW LOST THE MAJORITY OF THEIR LEAVES AND ARE LOOKING GRAY AND COLORLESS

Two mornings ago I woke up with mysterious scratch marks on my right hand.  I had been working around in the yard the day before but at no time did I feel like I had scratched my hand with some branches or anything and if I didn't feel it, why would I have not noticed those marks on the back of my hand for the rest of the day.  I've had strange marks on my body before so what the heck's going on!!  The only sound logical explanation I can come up with pertaining to these scratches is this.....I have a habit of falling asleep with my computer on my lap at night.  I figure I must have fallen asleep with my right hand on the mouse.  Sometime in the night the mouse finally had had enough of my hand weighing heavily on it and turned around and attacked my hand leaving me with those scratch marks.  Yes, in my common sense world, it is the only logical explanation I can come up with............Oh, and about those ghostly Park gals on a golf cart coming to our door yesterday afternoon....They weren't trying to 'trick' me into giving them my stash of Halloween candy, they were going around to everybody's house spreading goodwill and cheer and 'treating' everyone to their own stash of Halloween candy:))  

 ALTHOUGH HEALING UP WELL YOU CAN STILL SEE THE MYSTERIOUS SCRATCH MARKS

 AND THIS IS THE HALLOWEEN 'TREAT' THE GHOSTLY GALS DROPPED OFF

A Blast From Our Past:)) It was on this day nine years ago in 2015 while staying at a campground in Utah's Capitol Reef National Park that we found ourselves enmeshed right in the middle of a real old western cattle drive one morning.  Cattle all around us and real-live Cowboys and Cowgirls on horseback wrangling the herd down a highway.  And, not only did we encounter this cattle drive once, but we encountered it a second time in the same morning.  Got Ourselves Tangled Up Right In The Middle Of A Cattle Drive This Morning.  I have put together a few pictures of that cattle drive in a photo album....Cattle Drive (I hope the album opens for you)

Al's Music Box:)) Every Breath You Take is a song by the English rock band the Police from their album Synchronicity (1983). Written by Sting, the single was the biggest US and Canadian hit of 1983, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks.  At the 26th Annual Grammy Awards, the song was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and Record of the Year, winning in the first two categories.  "Every Breath You Take" is the Police's and Sting's signature song, and in 2010 was estimated to generate between a quarter and a third of Sting's music publishing income. In May 2019, it was recognized by BMI as being the most played song in radio history.  In the 1983 Rolling Stone critics' and readers' poll, it was voted "Song of the Year". In the US, it was the best-selling single of 1983 and fifth-best-selling single of the decade.  To escape the public eye, Sting retreated to the Caribbean. He started writing the song at Ian Fleming's writing desk on the Goldeneye estate in Oracabessa, Jamaica. The lyrics are the words of a possessive lover who is watching "every breath you take; every move you make". Sting recalled:  I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour.  The demo of the song was recorded in an eight-track suite in North London's Utopia studios and featured Sting singing over a Hammond organ.  A few months later, he presented the song to the other band members when they reconvened at George Martin's AIR Studios in Montserrat to work on the Synchronicity album. The band initially tried the song in a variety of different styles and arrangements, such as reggae.  While recording, guitarist Andy Summers came up with a guitar part inspired by Bela Bartok that would later become a trademark lick, and played it straight through in one take. He was asked to put guitar onto a simple backing track of bass, drums, and a single vocal, with Sting offering no directive beyond "make it your own". Summers remembered:  This was a difficult one to get, because Sting wrote a very good song, but there was no guitar on it. He had this Hammond organ thing that sounded like Billy Preston. It certainly didn't sound like the Police, with that big, rolling synthesizer part. We spent about six weeks recording just the snare drums and the bass. It was a simple, classic chord sequence, but we couldn't agree how to do it. I'd been making an album with Robert Fripp, and I was kind of experimenting with playing Bartok violin duets and had worked up a new riff. When Sting said 'go and make it your own', I went and stuck that lick on it, and immediately we knew we had something special.  The recording process was fraught with difficulties as personal tensions between the band members, particularly Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland, came to the fore. Producer Hugh Padgham claimed that by the time of the recording sessions, Sting and Copeland "hated each other", with verbal and physical fights in the studio common.  The tensions almost led to the recording sessions being canceled until a meeting involving the band and the group's manager, Miles Copeland (Stewart's brother), resulted in an agreement to continue.  The drum track was largely created through separate overdubs of each percussive instrument, with the kick drum coming from the box for the Oberheim DMX drum machine while the main backbeat was created by simultaneously playing a snare and a tama gong drum. To give the song more liveliness, Padgham asked Copeland to record his drum part in the studio's dining room in order to achieve some "special sound effects". The room, however, was so hot that Copeland's drum sticks had to be taped to his hands to avoid slippage.  A piano accompaniment consisting of individual notes was added to complete the song's bridge. Padgham remembers that the band and he had "agonized over that part for a long time" with Sting "fiddling around on the piano, banging away on the same note". Padgham recalled a one-note guitar solo and its hypnotic effect in previous work with XTC, and suggested using a similar single-note piano accompaniment - concluding that the one-note line was "kind of his idea in the end".  However, in a 1984 interview, Padgham remembered Sting coming into the studio with a couple of one-note piano lines for the song - instead implying that they were Sting's ideas and not his.  On October 5, 2022, Billboard officially released a statement confirming that the music video for "Every Breath You Take" surpassed one billion views on YouTube.

MY MORNING BREAKFAST ROUTINE IS QUITE A LABOR INTENSIVE FEAT

GROANER'S CORNER:(( An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman were trying to get in to see the Olympics without tickets. So they got to the stadium during one of the main events and discussed how they would be able to attend without paying.  The Englishman walked around the stadium and saw a pole lying on the ground and picked it up. He walked to the entrance and said, "Peter. England. Pole throwing." The guards let him in without hesitation.  While walking, the Scotsman sees a manhole. He picks up the cover, carries it under his arm to the entrance and says, "McGregor. Scotland. Discus throwing." The guards let him in also.  The Irishman is very frantic, since both his friends are now inside. He walks around the stadium and finds a roll of barbed wire. He picks it up, walks to the entrance and says, "Murphy. Ireland. Fencing."

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Q: Why did St. Patrick drive all the snakes out of Ireland?
A: He couldn't afford plane fare
Q: What do you call a fake stone in Ireland?
A: A sham rock
Q: Why do frogs like St. Patrick's Day?
A: Because they're always wearing green
Q: What does a leprechaun call a happy man wearing green?
A: A Jolly Green Giant
Q: What did one Irish ghost say to the other?
A: 'Top o' the moaning!
Q: How can you tell if an Irishman is having a good time?
A: He's Dublin over with laughter!

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You might be a redneck if...

One of the options on your truck is a spittoon.
The Halloween pumpkin on your front porch has more teeth than your spouse.
You let your twelve-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids.
You've been married three times and still have the same in-laws.
You think a woman who is "out of your league" bowls on a different night.
Jack Daniels makes your list of "Most Admired People."
You wonder how service stations keep their restrooms so clean.
Anyone in your family ever died right after saying, "Hey, y'all watch this."
You've got more than one brother named 'Darryl.'

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 GUESS WE DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT 'WHERE'S WALDO' ANYMORE

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                              Al's Art Gallery

T

I SO MUCH MISS THOSE GREAT DAYS

ON THE WAY TO PICK UP MY GOOD BUDDY RICHARD THIS MORNING

Another in a series of mighty fine late October days.  The weather 22 years ago today certainly wasn't like this.  It was the final day for us in the old farmhouse at the old Weenie Roast Ranch near Fullarton Ontario. We had lived there for over 7 years.  It was a cold and dark rain-soaked night when we left our old haunt and moved the last load of stuff to where we now live in the Bayfield Pines Community near Bayfield Ontario.  It was Halloween night 2002 and the weather had played a 'trick' on us but it sure was a 'treat' that cold, and dark night to move into our warm cozy little place right here under the tall swaying Pine trees:))  

 FIERY SUMAC LEAVES

Coffee and muffins time for Richard and me so I picked him up this morning and off we went to cruise a few roads we hadn't been on for a while.  Always nice to change up the scenery from time to time and especially so now that we still have some gorgeous Autumn colors left in the countryside. 

 WE WERE SURPRISED BY A GOLFCART LOAD OF SCARY PARK CHARACTERS THIS AFTERNOON

 THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT IN OUR PARK IS VERY MUCH ALIVE AND WELL:))

I BORROWED THIS PHOTO FROM ANOTHER PARK RESIDENT

Kelly and I headed down to the south end of our Park this afternoon for a walk in the hardwood forest located there.  This is an area we often walked with our dogs in the earlier years of living here.  Sometimes we would make our way down a steep hundred-foot forested embankment to the Bayfield River far below.  But, that was years ago when we were younger and could do things like that on the spur of the moment without even having to worry about anything like getting back up the embankment again.  Actually, we had a purpose for being in that forest today.  We were looking for something we didn't find.  A bench.  Oh well, it was just great to be outside doing something we so much enjoyed doing in our RVing years.  We loved looking for things like old western Ghost Towns, (Charleston) lost gravesites, (Johnny Ringo and some Confederate soldiers) historical markers, old mines, Crested Saguaro Cactus, hidden trails, natural water tanks in the Kofa Mountains, the hard-to-find Mary Kidder ranch and old Fort Rucker in the Chiricahua Mountains, and Cochise's council rocks in Arizona's Dragoon Mountains.  We found the dump site for the old army Camp Furlong in Columbus New Mexico, Marshall South's homestead atop Ghost Mountain in California's Blair valley, and his gravesite in Julian California.  The endless list goes on and on and it was always one of our favorite things to do.  Get ourselves up in the morning and head out the door early to go places and find and do things we had never seen or done before.  I so much miss those great days............   

 WE DROVE SUBIE UP INTO THE HARDWOOD FOREST

 YOU CAN SEE IT WASA VERY WINDY AFTERNOON

 AN OLD FARM GATE IN THE WOODS

HEADING BACK TO THE CAR

 MAKING OUR WAY BACK OUT OF THE FOREST

Al's Music Box:)) Ghost Riders In The Sky by Geoff Castelucci is a cowboy-styled country/western song written in 1948 by American songwriter Stan Jones.  The song tells a folk tale of a cowboy who has a vision of red-eyed, steel-hooved cattle thundering across the sky, being chased by the spirits of damned cowboys. One warns him that if he does not change his ways, he will be doomed to join them, forever "trying to catch the Devil's herd across these endless skies".  Stan Jones stated that he had been told the story when he was 12 years old by an old Native American who resided northeast of the Douglas Arizona border town, a few miles behind D Hill, north of Agua Prieta. Sonora. The Native Americans, possibly Apache, who lived within Cochise County, believed that when souls vacate their physical bodies, they reside as spirits in the sky, resembling ghost riders. He related this story to Wayne Hester, a boyhood friend (later owner of the Douglas Cable Company). As both boys were looking at the clouds, Stan shared what the old Native American had told him, looking in amazement as the cloudy shapes were identified as the "ghost riders" that years later, would be transposed into lyrics.............Here is an instrumental version of the same song played on a steel guitar.  Ghost Riders.  And of course, the version I grew up with....Frankie Laines version of Ghost Riders In The Sky.  And, because it's Halloween, here is Bobby (Boris) Pickett and the Crypt Kicker Five with The Monster Mash.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A car was involved in an accident on the street. As expected a large crowd gathered. A newspaper reporter, anxious to get his story could not get near the car.  Being a clever sort, he started shouting loudly, "Let me through! Let me through! I am the son of the victim."  The crowd made way for him.  Lying in front of the car was a donkey.

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[1] Regular naps prevent old age, especially if you take them while driving.

[2] Having one child makes you a parent; having two makes you a referee.

[3] Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is the husband!

[4] I believe we should all pay our taxes with a smile. I tried – but they wanted cash.

[5] A child's greatest period of growth is the month after you've purchased new school uniforms.

[6] Don't feel bad. A lot of people have no talent.

[7] Don't marry the person you want to live with, marry the one you cannot live without, but whatever you do, you'll regret it later.

[8] You can't buy love, but you pay heavily for it.

[9] Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.

[10] Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

[11] Marriage is give and take. You'd better give it to her or she'll take it.

[12] My wife and I always compromise. I admit I'm wrong and she agrees with me.

[13] Those who can't laugh at themselves leave the job to others.

[14] Ladies first. Pretty ladies sooner.

[15] A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

[16] You're getting old when you enjoy remembering things more than doing them.

[17] It doesn't matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends up with the same boss.

[18] Real friends are the ones who survive transitions between address books.

[19] Saving is the best thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you.

[20] Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something

[21] They call our language the mother tongue because the father seldom gets to speak!

[22] Man: Is there any way for long life?
Dr: Get married.
Man: Will it help?
Dr: No, but then the thought of long life will never come.

[23] Why do couples hold hands during their wedding? It's a formality just like two boxers touching gloves before the fight begins!

[24] Wife: Darling today is our anniversary, what should we do?
Husband: Let us stand in silence for 2 minutes.

[25] There is only one perfect child in the world and every mother has it.

[26] There is only one perfect wife in the world and every neighbor has it!

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                           Al's Art Gallery