I SHUDDER TO THINK HOW MUCH MONEY WE SPEND ON BIRDSEED EACH YEAR

Heavily overcast skies this morning and thankfully not a spit of wind in the air to blow around the 37F temps.  I dressed warm.  Traveling bands of rain showers in our area Friday have left the cornfields still too wet for heavy farm machinery so many fields stand only partially harvested.  Heading southwest of Bayfield to the Linwood Wildlife area, Pheebs and I loaded up a shopping bag of apples while there.  No, not for us but for our front yard Critters.  

THE COUNTRYSIDE IS RAPIDLY LOSING ITS AUTUMN COLORS

SEEING THE CORNFIELD HAD BEEN HARVESTED AT THE LINWOOD SITE I WAS HOPING TO FIND A CORN SPILL BUT THIS HARVESTING CREW WAS TOO EFFICIENT AND NOT A KERNEL WAS  FOUND

 UP THERE ALONG THE HEDGE ROW ARE A FEW APPLE TREES

 LOTS OF APPLES ON THE GROUND FOR PICKING

 AFTER A COLD CLOUDY START TO THE DAY THIS IS OUR FIRST SUN SPLASH AND DID YOU NOTICE THE SHADOW COWBOY

 ON THE WAY BACK TO THE CAR PHEEBS SNIFFS FOR CORN COBS

Heading home, we stopped in at the Porters Hill Wild Birdseed Company for three 20-pound bags of birdseed.  I shudder to think about how much money we spend on birdseed each year.

 SNAPPED A FEW PICS ON THE WAY HOME

 WE WENT BY BIG BARKY'S HOUSE AND HE SURE CAME FLYING OUT AND GAVE US A BIG SCOLDING

 PHEEBS JUST SITS QUIETLY IN HER SEAT WHILE BIG BARKY MAKES A BIG BLUSTER OF HIMSELF

Home again and with the Sun out now full tilt, I was soon busy outside with my pitchfork, leaf rake, and wheelbarrow.  Friday's rain showers traveling through the area made for wet leaves today and wet leaves are easier to work with than dry flighty leaves.  The rain binds the leaves together adding weight and making them easier to rake and pitchfork into piles.  Sunday's weather looks good so I will likely hitch up the utility trailer and haul myself a big load of leaves to the Park's recycle area.

 SOMEWHERE BEHIND THIS BIG PILE OF LEAVES IS OUR HOUSE

 RAINDROPS IN THE LEAF PILE

With sunshine and blue skies overhead, Pheebs and I headed off for a walk back into the Park's forest.  It was a bit muddy going in places but we didn't get bogged down.  Entering the pine forest I noticed that Park owner Adam has cleared a way through an area of heavy brush and brambles alongside a small creek running south in its own little valley.  This previously unwalkable area with its cluster of Silver Birch trees is now accessible.  I don't know what Adam plans for this area but it would make for a nice forest path with the creek running alongside below.  

 NICE TO HAVE A NEW PLACE TO WALK IN OUR PARK

 THERE IS A TINY CREEK DOWN THERE BUT IT'S HIDDEN BY ALL THE LEAVES

 YES, OUR PARK'S LANDSCAPE IS CHANGING

 WALKING PAST THE PARK'S POND ON THE WAY HOME

 AND YES, WE STILL HAVE DANDELIONS BLOOMING

 COLORFUL LEAVES ALONG THE POND'S BANK

Al's Music Box:)) Welcome To My World by Jim Reeves is a popular music standard written by Ray Winkler and John Hathcock , The melody was likely written by Eddie McDuff rather than Winkler.  A traditional love song, the bridge includes lyrics taken from Matthew 7:7-8 ("Knock and the door will open; seek and you will find; ask and you'll be given ... ," from the Sermon on the Mount)    The most well known version of this song was performed by country music singer Jim Reeves, who styled the song in his favoured style of Nashville Sound. Reeves' version was included on his 1962 album A Touch of Velvet and was released as a single in the United States in early 1964, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in the spring of that year. The song became one of Reeves' last major hits in the U.S. during his lifetime before he was killed in a plane crash on July 31, 1964.  Reeves' version had been a hit single in the United Kingdom prior to its release as a single in the U.S., peaking at No. 6 in July 1963.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A film crew is on location in Kenya, when a tribal shaman approaches the director and says, "Tomorrow rain." The director pays no attention, but the following day it pours and shooting has to be delayed.  That night, the director sends his assistant to bring the shaman back. "What will be the weather tomorrow?" asks the director.  "Bigger rain tomorrow, much wind," and sure enough a terrible storm once again delays the filming.  But then the witch doctor disappears for a week and the director, now depending on him, sends his people out to find him and bring him back to camp.  Finally, he is located and brought to the director's tent. "What will be the weather tomorrow?" asks the director in desperation.  "No idea," says the shaman, "Radio batteries dead."

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My wife asked me to buy ORGANIC vegetables from the market. I went and looked around and couldn't find any.
So I grabbed an old, tired-looking employee and said, "These vegetables are for my wife. Have they been sprayed with any poisonous chemicals?"  "The produce guy looked at me and said, "No. You'll have to do that yourself."

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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.”

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                        Al's Art Gallery

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

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