Willy-Nilly Fall Friday 5…

Baseball season is over.  This makes me sad.  I do have to admit that it was a fun World Series to watch though.  And there was no stress because I didn’t really care who won, although I will admit that I really liked the Kansas City Royals and had to root for them.  Oh, well…  Maybe next year.

I do watch a lot of television from Great Britain on Netflix these days.  You know, things like Dr. Who, Torchwood and Midsomer Murders.  I’m always surprised when people who need to defend themselves on these shows often pull out a baseball bat…a baseball bat, for pity’s sake.  Now, I may be wrong, but I don’t think they play baseball in Great Britain.  So why do all these people have bats in their closets and where the heck do they buy them?  They must be sold as weapons over there in the stores.  You almost never see a baseball bat used as a weapon on American TV.  I mentioned this today to Greg for whatever reason and his answer was short and to the point.  “That’s because,” he said, “American use guns.”

Are you sick of political ads yet?  I sure am.  We get them not only from Massachusetts but also from New Hampshire.  It almost makes me nostalgic for that Verizon ad with the bouncing, whispering couple with the baby that makes the salesgirl shush so as not to wake the kid.  I’d like to slap those people and I am non-violent by nature.  But those dunderheads are a breath of fresh air compared with all this politics.

The biggest leaf I've found this year so far.

I have sciatica and am going to physical therapy trying to get it under control.  I laughed about the first exercise that the PT gave me, which was to lie on my stomach for fifteen minutes three times a day.  Hey, even I can do that!  But I was told yesterday that I needed to roll in and out of bed.  Do you know how hard that is??  I always thought that it was kind of a figure of speech but apparently it is an actual way to get in and out of bed.  I haven’t mastered it yet.  I am afraid that I require further instruction.

I've already posted this photo on Facebook, but I think it bears repeating.  This is my mother, father and me all duded up and ready to leave for a Halloween party at my sister Cindy's house back in 1976.  Pretty funny, isn't it?!  I'm not dressing up this year.  As a matter of fact, I almost forgot all about Trick or Treat and had to run out and purchase last minute candy.  I need to start paying attention to the calendar.  Have a safe and happy Halloween!

P.S.  I'd like some help identifying this cute little guy who has been hanging out at our feeder.  He scrounges underneath and doesn't go on to the feeders.  He must be some kind of sparrow but what kind is the question.  He's a tad bigger than a dark-eyed junco.

Linking up to Tanya's Around Roanoke, VA

Willy-Nilly Friday 5!

Random 5 Friday...

1)  Yesterday was the first anniversary of my new left knee.  It seems that around the three month mark after the surgery, I went to sleep with an achy knee and when I woke up the knee no longer ached too much.  The healing was mostly done and it no longer felt like I had a foreigner living in my body.  These days, there are times when I say that my new knee is the only joint I have that isn’t hurting.  I say that only partly in jest because some days are a true challenge.  Such is the nature of arthritis unfortunately.  The fact is, I am much better off with my new knee and am very happy that the temporary suffering from the surgery was well worth the end results.  I probably wouldn’t have gone out to take these shots last year prior to the surgery on my two aching knees, but am willing to move around more with only one aching knee.

2)  So I’m on Day 123 of my Flickr 365.  I say that with trepidation because I discovered earlier this week that I had mis-numbered my days.  I tend to do this with numbers:  24, 25, 26, 27, 26, 25, 26, 62, 63, 64, 65…  So that I’m never quite sure whether or not I’m coming or going.  As far as my 365 is concerned, I thought I could keep this from happening by keeping a running list of my days written in a notebook.  Well, lo and behold, I did the same thing on my running list in the notebook that I did on Flickr only on a different day.  So I had two mistakes that needed to be corrected.  It took me about an hour to put things right.  Now I’ve discovered that in my 365 set, I have 122 pics but I’m on Day 123.  I know I haven’t missed a day.  Can you hear me screaming?   I just don’t get along with numbers.  Well, I’ll think about that later.  Here’s my latest entry.

3)  I remembered that I promised you a look at my creations from last week’s Craft Night.  Here’s a collage of what I came up with.  The rose print is made from the end of a celery stalk.  Otherwise, I was feeling pretty geometric.

4)  The Titmice have been at the peanuts on our peanut feeder like there’s no tomorrow.  They are so cute.  It’s hard to begrudge them anything.

5)  Well, the Red Sox and the Cardinals are even up after last night.  We have this evening off from the tension of the World Series as the teams travel to St. Louis.  I think these teams are pretty evenly matched and who will win is anybody’s guess.  But I have to say that we had such an enjoyable baseball summer watching the Sox that, win or lose, I am happy with them.  Still it reminds me that baseball season is winding to an end.  Halloween is upon us, followed closely by Thanksgiving.  Soon it will be 2014.

  What the heck?  Where does it go?

LINKING TO A RURAL JOURNAL'S

RANDOM 5 FRIDAY!

My year in pictures continued...

I had a very quiet and uneventful summer once we got into July.  The big highlight of my month was driving down to Griswold, Connecticut with Greg to see the sunflowers at Buttonwood Farm.  I am a sunflower lover and this was one heck of a spectacular display.  Note to self:  make sure you go back in 2013.

August also continued to be quiet and pretty...well, commonplace.  In order to bring a little excitement into my life, I brought a bouquet of hydrangea into the house and took pictures of it.  I do lead a pretty dull life…

September was a time with an almost daily parade of turkeys through our yard.  Turkeys may not be the most beautiful birds in the world, but they are entertaining and fun to watch.  I think I agree with Benjamin Franklin on this one.

In October, things got a little more exciting.  Greg and I went with friends to Italy and stayed a week on the Amalfi Coast.  It was a wonderful trip and I enjoyed it thoroughly even though I knew that I was missing the peak of autumn here in New England…my favorite time of year.  Some day, I wish they could figure out a way that we could actually be in two places at once.  And while they are at it, I wouldn’t mind if they could perfect beaming a la Star Trek.  After our return from Italy, I had ten days to prepare for total knee replacement surgery.  I went under the knife on October 24 not really prepared.  But that was the day I picked so I had to stick with it.

So in November, I spent the month recovering…and I have been spending December recovering as well.  There is nothing fun about recovering from knee surgery, believe me.  I often feel like I take one step forward and two steps back.  But I am done with physical therapy and they tell me I am doing well.  I suppose I will get there eventually and I will have no regrets about it.  But I wish someone were with me in the middle of the night to remind me that I did the right thing when I can’t get comfortable and back to sleep.  Oh, well…such is life and in spite of it all, I know that I am just about the luckiest person around.

I wish you all a New Year filled with wonder and curiosity.  I hope you see beauty in your everyday life and it gives wings to brilliant creativity.  Mostly, I wish you health and happiness.  And a very Happy New Year!

Spring Cleaning…

Cleaning out my hard drive, I came across some photos that I was reluctant to extinguish so am sharing them with you all.

One day not too long ago while I was walking the pug, I heard the unmistakable sound of the Pileated Woodpecker hammering away.  I spotted him and went in for my long lens but he was so far up in the tree, I couldn’t get a good shot.  Still, I like that I got a good look at him anyhow.  Here he is:

Mr. Cheeky just sits and wrings his hands trying to figure out a way into the bird feeder.  How can something so annoying be so downright cute??

Our early spring brought out the bugs early.  

Here’s one of our horsey friends.  He stood and posed so nicely.

Outsquirrelling the squirrel…

I am so pleased to report that the squirrels have still not figured out a way to get to the birdfeeder I hung up earlier this year.  For a while there, I thought that having a squirrel free birdfeeder was an impossible dream but I am here to tell you that it can be done. 

So without the squirrels eating us out of house and home, we have gotten a nice array of birds back to the feeder and in our yard.  But I have to admit that I bang on the window whenever I see a blue jay on the feeder.  They can wipe the food out almost as quickly as a squirrel can and the other birds don’t seem to want to be in the same neighborhood as they are.

 

Yesterday I put the long lens on my camera and took a few shots of our visitors.  Here they are:

Black-capped Chickadee 

Grackle.  He is the king of all he surveys.  And yes, we still haven't taken down those blasted Christmas lights that don't work.

The American Robin.

The lovely female Cardinal.

Mr. Goldfinch almost has all his summer clothing on.

The Juncos are still here.

Foraging for St. John Fauna…

A few creatures we came across on our trip to St. John, USVI.

Glad I don't have to buy shoes for this guy.  Anybody know what it is?

Pearly-eyed Thrasher

A Perfect Day for Bananaquit…

Every afternoon around 4:00 at Reef Madness, the bananaquits started gathering in the trees next to the pool where we were relaxing.  That was Bob’s cue to go in the house and fill the little bowl in their feeder with sugar.  Once the bowl was full, it was no problem snapping away at them.  They were totally immersed in the sugar.  Cute little birdies, aren’t they?

They seemed like cheery little dudes, but I think they kind of look like angry birds.

The sugar was flung all around.

The Grudging Respect Awards…

I have to admit to having a grudging respect for squirrels.  They are devilishly cute and fiendishly clever little buggers.  And apparently, they have a lot of power over me.  They drove me so nuts for years cleaning out our bird feeders in spite of state of the art baffles that I gave up in defeat and quit feeding the precious little songbirds that flit around our parts.

 

But the other night while I was sleeping, I had a brainstorm.  I thought of a spot on our front porch where I didn’t think the squirrels could reach.  So far, in the four days the feeder has been up, the squirrels have not figured out how to breech the feeder that’s hanging there.  They sit on the ground underneath and catch the droppings from the birds.  I’m sure this is beneath their squirrelly dignity, but it works for me.  If they haven’t figured it out in another month, I will feel that I have won and they will have to admit to having a grudging respect for me for a change.  But in my imagination, I can see the bunch of them back at their nest with their protractors and compasses out, doing calculus, trigonometry and other high forms of math I never understood.  It’s only a matter of time, I’m sure, and they will have triumphed over me one more time.

The bird feeder is right above this guy.

I also have to admit to having a grudging respect for the sock that stopped my washing machine.  Who knew a sock could do that?  I didn’t.  Our handy-dandy repairman Michael came out in the afternoon, took the front of the machine off and said, “There’s the culprit.”  And he held up a mangled sock. The fact that it was one of my “No Nonsense” socks makes it all the more remarkable and like it was meant to be.  I guess when a No Nonsense sock wants to stop a washer, it just goes ahead and does it in a No Nonsense sort of way.  Well, the good news is that the machine is working and should be with us for another ten years, according to Michael.  The bad news is that I have to go and finish the laundry.

Oh, yeah…and one more thing.  Before you admit to having a grudging respect for us because we were the first people in our neighborhood to have our holiday lights up, just know that we never bothered to take them down and half of them don’t work anyhow.

Almost paradise...

We had some frequent flyer miles that were going to expire and they were burning a hole in Greg’s compass.  So he got out the map and decided we needed to go somewhere.  What we decided on was a week in California.

We had been to San Diego for a friend’s wedding and to San Francisco and Wine Country for our 25^th anniversary and I went to a conference in Long Beach a few years back, but we had never REALLY been to Los Angeles and environs.  So off we went.

We spent the first three nights in the very beautiful Santa Barbara where we took a side trip up to see Hearst Castle.  Then spent a night near the Santa Monica pier and then on to Los Angeles for three nights. 

I have to admit that I had no idea what to expect in LA, but liked it very much.  I couldn’t survive there for any period of time though…I’m way too old, fat and poor for that.  But it was fun to visit.

I took too many photos and it will take me a while to sort through them, but I will post a few of our first couple days in Santa Barbara…a place that seems very much like paradise.

In the garden of the old Santa Barbara Mission.

Taken from the tower of the Santa Barbara Courthouse.

This little fellow visited us at our hotel.