SO, What's UP?

Okay October went so fast, and now it's November already? I've been laying low...doing what has to be done and resting when I need want to. I recently told my sis that I live a very exclusive life, meaning many things are excluded...haha...to me it's a luxury to have a couple good meals a day and a comfortable place to lay my head.  Simple is what I strive for, sometimes the outside world draws me off and destroys my tranquil existence. For now I have restored hozho, balance. 

 Here's what's up in my little world...with some photos of a recent soul soothing walk around my local State Park, Goodale.  My version of the Navajo's Blessing Way. 

                                           calming water

After dinner Laptopping:

Most of my net time is spent creating a blog post, reading and commenting on your blogs, uploading photos to Flickr, arguing politics on Facebook, reading and responding to email, and visits to Find A Grave, Ancestry, and eBird. That and a few searches sums up my interaction with the outside world! 

          

             good reflections 

daylight hours:

Are mostly used up doing chores around the homestead, chopping wood for the nightly fire, keeping twigs picked up  out of the yard, and doing some painting at Mom's, getting her screen porch spruced up a bit, so when she returns home she will be super surprised!  Speaking of Mom she is doing very good, still in good health and recently celebrated her 93rd birthday!  There's  the occasional trip to town for supplies, I always have bins full of twigs to drop off at the trash dumpsters and occasionally I bump into people I haven't seen in a long time. 

                                        Bright cheerful colors

New Toys:

A new angle grinder is now in my shed! (thanks Mom for the birthday money) Very handy for sharpening tools, and I'm sure I will find many more uses for it.  Got it for 20% off at Harbor Freight.  It is an inexpensive one but I don't figure to be using it on a daily basis so it should serve me well. 

AND:

For my birthday I received: the complete box set of all 6 seasons of Breaking Bad! Absolutely loved/love that series...it is fun to go over it frame by frame. The fact it was filmed in beautiful New Mexico is a bonus too.

AND: a new portable DVD player to take along when I 'm out traveling...if you recall I blew the other one up in a charging mishap.  The new one has blue tooth earphones! SO if that jerk (you know the one I'm talking about) is running a generator I will still be able to hear my DVD of the night!

                                     a peaceful Eastern Phoebe 

 Some recent evening activities:

Watched almost the entire PBS series on the Vietnam War.  I knew classmates who were drafted and sent away to Vietnam from my high school back in '69 and '70.  I wore my POW bracelet, and I just wanted the war to end.  This documentary put the entire era into sharp focus... conclusion: It was a complete waste of life on all sides.  :o(

Currently watching the PBS Frontline Report on Russia and Putin I hope this can help me understand that issue more. Being informed is important to me.  

AND just for the hell of it....watching The Walking Dead new season (8) has begun!! YAHOO.  It's a wonderful hour of mindless mayhem, where one can cheer for the good guys even tho the line between good and evil is very blurred.   Our heroes are fighting back  against Negan and his authoritarian regime.  

The leader Rick made a speech.  

"those who would kill, take, steal, and carve out the world only for themselves, we will destroy"

Wow, we need someone brave enough to say that in real life!  I'm wishing for a super hero? 

                                           a  quiet still cormorant 

 I'm having a visitor! It's going to be wonderful, my baby sister is coming for the whole weekend!! I am excited! It's kinda quiet around here these days just me and the dogs...so some laughter, and some chatter and to actually have someone speak back when I'm talking will be kinda nice! We have planned a day trip for Saturday so hopefully I'll find something of interest to put in this blog!

Next thing you know it's gonna be Thanksgiving, and then the silly season and then a new year. 2018 wow.  In February I will celebrate the 10th anniversary of this blog! I must do something mindblowing to commemorate that milestone. 

How's your daily grind going?

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Me a City Gal?

Seems I'm always a week late making my posts--I used to make a one paragraph post every night when I first started blogging back in NYC on Yahoo 360.  Each night I would get home around midnight after a 12-14 hour tour of crazy EMS runs in the city and it would take me an hr at least to unwind before I could hit the hay...so I would fire up my desktop and write a little one paragraph wrap up blog post on my day.  I had no digital camera then...so my posts had no photos...eventually I bought a little 3 MGP digital camera (still have it), and I started to add some photos of my day in the city....I would just snap photos out the window of the ambulance as we traversed east to west  north and south all over the 5 boroughs of NYC.  

Me  Sept 2001 

NYC from the ferry 2001

That has nothing to do with this post just saying that I used to blog nightly...and sometimes it was a rant of some sort of an incident--- sort of a decompression tank---...it was eventually  filled with my need /desire to get myself OUT of NYC! LoL...so many people wanted in and I wanted out...after 5 yrs I was burnt out , The Thrill Was Gone for sure.  So I began my exit plan in 2006---and now here I am 10 yrs later!

Last week I took a walk around my local park to see what was out and about... hiked around the side of Goodale lake..

A Great Blue Heron flew to the back side of the lake as I approached and some kind of Sandpiper I got no photo of either one, and I still don't know what sandpiper it was...but I got a photo of this bird at first I thought common grackle, but all the other grackles around were boat tailed grackles, so I think this is a Brewers Blackbird.  To me he is just too small to be a grackle...what do y'all think?

The lake looked so lovely almost HD under those fast moving clouds...the water lillies were blooming, I always think of the Lotus flower as a lantern all aglow...

Another fellow was there with his camera and we compared notes on the 4 clumps of pitcher plants now reduced to only 2 clumps!! I don't know why the parks employ people who don't have a clue about the plants, animals, and environment they are charged with the care of--when I asked a new ranger who was taking a kayak out on the lake if he had seen the sandpiper he said "Now tell me again what a sandpiper is"...OKAY.....nuff said---- here are 2 of the  pitchers in one of the clumps they are currently forming blooms...

and here is the Ranger, aka grass cutter...

I saw a very backlit Orchard Oriole it's a first year male, 

Great Crested Flycatcher, Blue Grey Gnat Catchers, Black n Whites, and a Prothonotary Warbler was calling in the thick woods but no sighting..just about then the kayaking Ranger flushed the only Wood Duck of the day....I snapped this Tufted Titmouse singing up high... 

around the backside of the lake I saw 3 female Red-winged Black Birds feeding in the new needles of the Cypress trees..

the surrounding forest is very thick and hard to spot anything unless you see it move

I saw this Skink scurry up a tree as I walked up..

out on the lake saw an Eastern Kingbird, Black Vultures circled, and I heard some Canadian Geese do a fly over but they didn't stop!  I headed over near the boat rental area and startled this Savannah Sparrow, and he was very patient while I took his photo.

I had a great walk around didnt' see anything new but it sure beats any day in the City!  Living in the city was quite a thrill and added a lot to my life experience but I am just not a city gal...

Time...well spent!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

the Fallen...

With all the awesome fall color I saw in NC, VA and TN on my recent trip I almost forgot about the fall happening right here at home!  Course with all the leaves in my yard I should of seen the clues....Yesterday I needed my body of water fix so on the way home from dropping off the recyclables I stopped at our local Goodale State Park where all the Cyprus are flaming rust!! Some needles fell with the recent rain and wind storms we had but enough were on for me to enjoy it... and I'll share it with y'all  

This is the view looking to the lake from the boat area..I wish I had my own kayak its a great place to put in and have a quiet paddle they do rent kayaks too...western hikers have to be wary of bears, here in SC... 

We have other big toothed things to be wary of...

The lake is so calm its perfect for a nice float---

The ferns were all in various stages of color change ...

Photo missing,

even the rocks seem more colorful right now..

And this weird Spider it's called an Arrow Shaped Micrathena 

and the trees were full of yellow rumps...Audubon's 

These Pitchers look like they're singing all hitting high notes together...
The Autumn Leaves Are Falling..la-te-dah

Now back to work raking up the Fallen...!!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Photog Day!

Well my last post was a bit of a downer, I wish life could be hunky dory all the time but ANK...it's not so anyways as I had hoped I got out with my sister when she visited and it was a beautiful day! Cool and breezy, fall is on the way.  We visited the state park that is less than 5 minutes from my house so I guess I should be making my top 10 list of things that help me defeat  the grumpies? eh? I will save that one for another time.



The water lilies were really showing off today! The lake was full of flora! Ran into some other "amateur photogs" and we compared notes on what was interesting at the lake today..They got a good shot of the Blue Heron my sister and I flushed out of the back cove of the lake.  We didn't get a shot of him but sure enjoyed hearing him ONK at us as he flew away with long legs dangling..I like the wavy movement and  reflections of the trees in this photo and the highlight on the fern!

                   

Once again I enjoyed the cattails by the water they are starting to bristle out with seed...

I don't know all the plants I encounter

I didn't plan this shot but it sure looks planned! I love when good things JUST happen don't you?

this was a PLANNED Depth of Field shot..I don't know the person in this kayak but I think the kayak in the bokeh really helps support the "witness" of the reed stalks in the foreground! Whatta you think?

We've had a fair amount of rain lately and mushrooms are all over the place, my dogs (the girls) LOVE to go "shrooming" they know which ones to eat, I DON'T so I watch...but apparently butterflies know which ones to eat too!

The eastern tiger swallowtail male and female

A lady strolling a very cute boy of about a yr old pointed out this lovely writing spider...

                  

IT looks like all the turtle nests have been raided and only the wrinkled and dried up shell casings remain...Raccoons maybe? I'm only guessing these are turtle nests..you can see the hole where the eggs were dug up..

Around the backside of the lake my sister who has a great eye for spotting, found 2 Woodstocks resting in the high limbs of the Cyprus trees..

                
and here is the other one...they were a bit far away so some grain here...

                                  It was a fun day out!!! I was hugged by nature!!

PEACE