WITH HER EARS FLAPPING IN THE COOL MORNING AIR

It was a dull grey morning that found Pheebs and I out in the countryside cruising along slowly with her window down.  Having recently washed the Subaru I was being extra careful to stay on the pavement and off the muddy country roads.  The lighting wasn't the best for taking photos today but I took a few anyway.  With her window down, Pheebs sat up with her head resting against the door frame for much of our drive.  It was nice to see her taking an interest in the passing landscape with her ears flapping in the cool morning air.  She's my very much most bestest Pal......Talked to Aunt Jean last night and she's doing the best she can despite her aging body.  Her mind is as sharp as a tack and she's thankful for all the years she spent on the golf course and feels that it is the exercise of those golfing years that has sustained her so well in her nearly 98 years and held her health in such reasonably good steed.  She is my very much most favoritest Aunt....... and the only Aunt I have left.

 SOME FARMERS HAVE ALREADY BEEN OUT IN THE FIELDS DOING SOME PLOWING

 I LIKE HOW SOME FARMERS ROUUND OFF THEIR FIELDS

 RURAL SYMMETRY

 AN OLD ABANDONED FARM HOUSE

Al's Music Box:)) Summer Wind by Frank Sinatra is a 1965 song, originally released in Germany as "Der Sommerwind" and written by Heinz Meier and German language lyrics by Hans Bradtke. Johnny Mercer re-wrote the song into English along the same themes as the original, which talked of the changing of the seasons using the Southern European sirocco wind as a metaphor.  The song is best known for a 1966 recording by Frank Sinatra which peaked at number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number one on the Easy Listening chart.  Nancy Sinatra would later recall Mercer being Sinatra's favourite lyricist. It was recorded for the singer's album Strangers in the Night, which was the final album he worked on with arranger and conductor Nelson Riddle. The composition of Sinatra's version used both an electronic organ along with a big band, and the lyrics were modified to drop the second chorus. This was Mercer's final work to reach the top forty within the United States.  Sinatra would later re-record the song with Julio Iglesias for the 1993 album Duets.  The song is also well known for being the last song played on New York City radio station WCBS-FM on June 3, 2005, before they flipped from classic hits to the Jack FM variety hits format.  Two years later, the end of the song was also played by the station when they started the montage relaunching the classic hits format.  During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Bruce Springsteen said he would choose Sinatra's version of the track when asked to hypothetically pick only one song to listen to for the rest of his life. Likewise, in an interview on the Yes Network's CenterStage, Bob Costas named "Summer Wind" his favorite song.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Many years ago, in the south pacific, there was a small island kingdom that was ruled by a kind and benevolent King. Each year, on the King's birthday, the residents of the island gave the King a new throne as token of their love and respect for him.  And each year, the King would put last years gift up in the attic of his small grass house. After many years of ruling the island, the weight of the large number of birthday presents stored up in the attic became too heavy and caused the house to collapse down on the King.  Moral to the story is: He who lives in grass house, shouldn't stow thrones.

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Q. Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?
A. No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.

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Mom: Junior, when those boys started throwing rocks at you, why didn't you come and tell me instead of throwing rocks back? Son: But Mom, you can't throw well!

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A distraught senior citizen phoned her doctor's office. 'Is it true,' she wanted to know, 'that the medication you prescribed has to be taken for the rest of my life?'
'Yes, I'm afraid so,' the doctor told her.
There was a moment of silence before the senior lady replied, 'I'm wondering, then, just how serious is my condition because this prescription is marked 'NO REFILLS'.'

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Hard times set in on the elderly lady, and she prayed for GOD to send her some assistance. She stood on her porch and shouted "PRAISE THE LORD. GOD I NEED FOOD!! I AM HAVING A HARD TIME. PLEASE LORD, SEND ME SOME GROCERIES!!"  The next morning the lady went out on her porch and noted a large bag of groceries and shouted, "PRAISE THE LORD."  The neighbor jumped from behind a bush and said, "Aha! I told you there was no Lord. I bought those groceries, God didn't."  The lady started jumping up and down and clapping her hands and said, "PRAISE THE LORD. He not only sent me groceries, but He made the devil pay for them. Praise the Lord!"

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Kelly's Corner

 A MORNING SUNRISE BEAMS THROUGH OUR MOTORHOME WINDSHIELD

 BOONDOCKED NEAR THE  EAST END OF THE 'TEXAS DIP' BETWEEN BORREGO SPRINGS AND OCOTILLO WELLS, CALIFORNIA......KELLY TAKES IN ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL SUNRISE

PARKED OUTSIDE THE 'OLD' BORREGO SPRINGS LIBRARY KELLY WORKS ON MY LAPTOP AT THE REAR OF THE JEEP.....SOME KIND OF AN INTERNET CONNECTION PROBLEM

Al's Art Gallery

NOT MY FAVORITE THING TO DO BUT IT KEPT ME BUSY

No sun this morning and we were back down to the freezing mark again.  Pheebs at first wasn't anxious about going for a ride but she came outside anyway.  I have to lift her up into the car every time now and she sometimes has difficulty maneuvering around in her seat.  Unlike sitting up and watching where we are going, she now mainly lays down and sleeps.  She is sleeping a lot more in the house too.  Driving along slowly this morning with her quietly asleep on the seat beside me I again had to accept the fact that as she nears the end of her days there are fewer and fewer things we can do together and that includes are car rides.  At some point, I will just have to get used to the idea of going out in the mornings without her.  And, I might as well understand and accept that now before she is gone........ I had forgotten to drop a few 'Goodwill' type bags of stuff off at a place in Goderich yesterday so that was the mission for this morning.  That done, we picked up a Hortons drive-thru coffee and headed back to Bayfield.  Stopped at Bayfield's Village Clippers and made a haircut appointment for next Thursday.  Also stopped at the Bayfield Garage and topped up the Subaru.  From there it was over to the Porters Hill Wild Bird Seed Company for 3 twenty-pound bags of birdseed.  At some point in our morning journey, Pheebs had thrown up some bile and I hadn't noticed it until we got home.  It wasn't much and it was an easy clean-up.  I spent the rest of the afternoon house cleaning.  Not my favorite thing to do but it kept me busy.  I will resume my outside clean-up when the air warms up.  And, in last night's post, I may very well have misidentified those green shoots coming up out of the ground as Crocus's.  A reader in the comment section suggested they might be daffodils....and I think that reader just might be right.  Well hey, at least I know the difference between a blade of grass and a tall Oak Tree.  Oh really??

 BARE AND DRY ROADS THIS MORNING AND NOT A STITCH OF SNOW TO BE SEEN ANYWHERE

 SPOTTED THIS DOGGY DOOGANS IN THE TIM HORTONS DRIVE-THRU LINE-UP

 OUT FOR A COFFEE WITH DAD I'M GUESSING

Al's Music Box:)) Too Much Heaven is a song by the Bee Gees, which was the band's contribution to the "Music for UNICEF" fund. They performed it at the Music for UNICEF Concert on 9 January 1979. The song later found its way to the group's thirteenth original album, Spirits Having Flown. It hit No. 1 in both the US and Canada. In the United States, the song was the first single out of three from the album to interrupt a song's stay at #1. "Too Much Heaven" knocked "Le Freak" off the top spot for two weeks before "Le Freak" returned to #1 again. In the US, it would become the fourth of six consecutive No. 1s, equaling the record set by Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles for the most consecutive No. 1 songs. The six Bee Gee songs are "How Deep Is Your Love", "Stayin' Alive", "Night Fever", "Too Much Heaven", "Tragedy" and "Love You Inside Out". The songs spanned the years of 1977, 1978, and 1979.  Robin Gibb reportedly said on the Bee Gees' interview for Billboard in 2001 that this track was one of his favorite songs of the Bee Gees.  Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, and Maurice Gibb wrote this track with "Tragedy" in an afternoon off from the making the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie; that same evening, the Gibbs wrote "Shadow Dancing" for Andy Gibb (but that song was later credited to all four Gibbs) The recording process was the longest of all the tracks on Spirits Having Flown as there are nine layers of three-part harmony, creating 27 voices, though the high falsetto voices are the most pronounced in the final mix:  Imbued with their falsetto style, it is also notable for being one of two songs on the album featuring the Chicago horn section (Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, and Walter Parazaider) "Too Much Heaven" was released nine months after "Night Fever". The single "Too Much Heaven" was released in the late autumn of 1978 and started a slow ascent up the music charts. In the first week of 1979, the single first topped the charts in both the United States and Canada. In the United Kingdom, the single peaked at number three late in 1978. In the summer of 1978, the Gibb brothers announced their latest project at a news conference at the United Nations in New York. All of the publishing royalties on their next single would go into UNICEF, to celebrate the International Year of the Child, which was designated to be 1979. The song earned over $7 million in publishing royalties.  The Bee Gees were later invited to the White House, where President Jimmy Carter thanked the group for their donation. At the ceremony, the brothers presented Carter with one of their black satin tour jackets.'  Cash Box said the song is "gentle and silky with the famous falsettos rising upwards." Record World called it a "flowing ballad, with [the Bee Gees'] trademark falsettos and a light touch." Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys spoke positively of the song, stating, "I was really loved and impressed with the harmonies they achieved on that record. I'm very very proud of those guys; they're exceptionally good at harmony. They’re a very heavy duty harmony group."

 PHEEBS SAT UP WHEN WE REACHED THE HORTONS DRIVE-THRU WINDOW

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A fellow tries to cross the Mexican border on a bicycle with two big bags balanced on his shoulders. The guard asks, 'What's in the bags?'  The fellow says, 'Sand!'  The guard wants to examine them. The fellow gets off the bike, places the bags on the ground, opens them up, and the guard inspects... only to find sand. The fellow packs the sand, places the bags on his shoulders, and pedals the bike across the border.  Two weeks later, the same situation is repeated...'What have you there?'  'Sand'.  'We want to examine.'  Same results... nothing but sand and the fellow is on his way again.  Every two weeks for six months the inspections continue. Finally, one week the fellow didn't show up. However, the guard sees him downtown and says to the fellow, 'Buddy, you had us crazy. We sort of knew you were smuggling something. I won't say anything - what were you smuggling?'  The fellow says, 'Bicycles.'

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What is the difference between dogs and marine biologists?  One wags a tail, and the other tags a whale.

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A woman goes into the local newspaper office to see that the obituary for her recently deceased husband is written. The obit. editor informs her that the fee for the obituary is 50 cents a word. She pauses, reflects and then says, Well then, let it read "Fred Brown died."  Amused at the woman's thrift, the editor tells her that there is a 7 word minimum for all obituaries. Only a little flustered, she thinks things over and in a few seconds says, In that case, let it read, "Fred Brown died: 1983 Pickup for sale."
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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Kelly's Corner

BURGS AND FRIES AT 'FIVE GUYS' IN LONDON

KELLY AND HER FIVE LITTLE ONES YEARS AGO

Al's Art Gallery

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