7 Ordinary days

Friday: 02.14.2020
I propped two very sweet valentine's cards that arrived in the mailbox up on the fireplace mantle...and I dug through the many cards I had saved from Mom thru the years, and I put one on the Fridge...because it reminds me of how much she loved me.  Do you keep cards given to you, and do you hope the ones you send are kept and cherished by someone you love? 

Saturday: 02.15.2020
I went back to the County Park, and found 2 Winter Wrens this time.  They both chattered back exactly to the playback from my phone...Since I didn't get a sweet look  before they disappeared into a thicket, I wanted to be sure it was Winter Wrens again...and it def was.  I got an exciting shot of the rosy blush of the Red Bellied Woodpecker against a wonderful rare blue sky.

The Water is receding but still quite high as the sign below can testify.  The new shoreline has no path along the edges so I hope the bank walk  will return. 

 

Amazing what you find, some sort of fish?  Catfish? Ancient Alien?

I hung out there a couple hours, then I drove to another park. I love fields where fence posts follow the road, some great birding can happen along those barbed wire perches! Today I found not one, but two Loggerhead Shrikes...the other was in a tree...a mating pair?

At the Lake Wateree State Park, there was also flooding, note the hiking trail...

You could bushwhack and get around it for the most part... This Great Blue Heron was finding his lunch there just off the trail on he may have been on the trail, I couldn't tell. 

No picnic today! This is the table we sat at on our last trip here. 

Sunday 02.16.2020:

I took part in the Big Backyard Bird Count.  It's a 15 minute quick look...So on Friday at 4 pm I had 19 species, on Saturday I had only 9 species at 8 am...then today it's raining again, so I watched from the porch at about noon...I got 13 species.   So I learned something; my feeders and yard attract more birds in the afternoon..

Spent the rest of the rain day organizing some of the Mom photos that I did not have in albums but were stored in bins...listened to my Seals and Croft LP's, watched cooking shows on TV, read your blogs, and worked on this post. The Pine Warblers are warbling loudly from under the Dogwood by the window in between rain showers, and I saw one American Crow carrying nesting material! Life continues.

Monday 02.17.2020,
It was a blue bird day as we say.  The sky was as blue as, you guessed it, the blue bird.  I hung around the homestead and worked on a project...My found item deck chairs needed a new coat of paint so I scraped and painted.  I got 2 of the 3 pieces done..and I used the left over paint from Mom's Ramp. A squirrel has already taken a few bites of the chair! I had to remove the cushions after they destroyed one. Somewhere there is nest full of polyester fiber!

Tuesday: 2.18.2020
Gloomy! Awoke to grey bleak skies, answered email and was reminded of waking up on Saturdays as a child.  That meant the day started with cartoons, and always a day outside playing and wandering. Days like that gave me butterflies.  When was the last time anything gave you butterflies? 

Wednesday: 02.19.2020
More gloom and rain! UGH>I had to run into town for bird seed! I got some onion sets for my garden pots, and checked out my already coming up Black Seeded Lettuce, and Spinach.  Birds are happy! I am keeping these pots covered so the Squirrels won't get my baby greens.  

Thursday: 02.20.2020
Wow...lots of 2's.  In 202 years plus 2 days it will be 02.22.2222 None of us will be here for that...:o/  More rain! Im getting cabin fever, and we may get a wintry mix around 9 pm, it won't accumulate here they say but it could be icy overnight on the roads. Rain Rain Go Away...The SC roads workers have 9 tons of salt..trust me they don't know how to use it, once they salted a road near us and they put it down so heavy it disintegrated the tarmac and it became a gravel/dirt road again!  They repaved, but what a waste. 

 a few camellia blossoms fell off in the heavy rain

Friday 02.21.2020

Finally a sunny but very cold day!  I went to visit Mom...and now it's all final the date she arrived on Earth and the day she skipped outta here and Arrived someplace else...I hope there's trees and birds there...and she gets butterflies every single day. 

Please take a moment to check out the new Etsy link on my right side bar especially if you're into sewing in any way, the Fabric Corner Store, fabric is $1 per yd!!  There is some finished items as well. (....pssst it's family owned) 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Look Back and Look Up

Today is Tuesday and the sky is dark and the rain is coming down in buckets...good thing I had nothing planned, actually I planned nothing cause I knew it was coming.  I know there's others out there who are affected by weather I am in their ranks.  If I don't see the sun, I am immediately let down.  I recall when I was a kid running around on Bramblewood plantation where we lived for a time, I would spend the entire rainy Saturday in the stall with a horse.   I'd lay down beside the horse and that warmth helped get me through the disappointment of the rainy day with no riding!  That is a shot of me and my mare Silky.  She was a great horse to ride and spend time with.  This shot was taken most probably in 1969.  I was about 16 yrs old.  That big tree in the background was another favorite place I spent time I would hide up there. 

Later on at about age 18 I started working at the Hunter Barn where horses were boarded and we taught riding, I'm goofing off here with Blinky one of our jumpers...We had a summer day camp and I was one of the instructors, after a heavy storm this tree hit the barn, my boss had me saddle up and jump the tree for publicity!

Me riding Chinazo. He was my favorite horse at the barn, and I was the only one who would ride him...we got along...most people he  did not like and he was a hand full. 

This is me on the left and my first crush Tommy on the right with the Hunter Barn in the background it's still in use today! 

In our town race horses come to be trained in winter.  My first real job after the riding school was here riding race horses.  No photos of me tho...Mom was supposed to come and watch me one day and get a photo.  I saw here drive up and we rode past her and then she backed up and left...Later I asked did you get a photo of me, she said "I never saw you." Huh, "I rode right in front of you with 2 other horses"...

"OH it looked like 3 boys to me." okay...lol she was right

1971

                                                                                         1970

Only my long hair let people know I was not a boy.   My boss told me I dressed like a truck driver...lol  I was just happy to be out and about on my horse.  This was taken at the first Hunter Barn, it was sold and then the new one (pictured earlier) was built.  

This is me jumping Thunder, he was a great school horse...these are all old photos of photos...so poor quality.  Anyway that's a look back at my early teen years.  Now you see why I hate rainy days, all this adventure was shut down by rain! 

Those were the days!


Looking UP  to present time....did do some birding on Monday saw some cool birds, like the Pileated Woodpecker...

 

More Awesome Cedar Waxwings, 

 

 

and  this odd mushroom 

 

A Yellow Bellied Sapsucker 

 

  

It was a  pretty day this was on Sunday...

It was Jimmy Approved!  On Wednesday we went back to the county river park and saw hundreds of Common Grackle mixed with Red Winged Blackbird...they landed near us what a sight to see that was.  I didn't have my camera that day...The river was flooded due to all the rains. It was amazing. 

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My Mom Memory for this post is


 

 I should have put this one up on my last post this was taken at  Huntington Beach probably 2009?  Even tho she had to carry an oxygen tank Mom still took a cold walk on the beach with me. I hope I have half her spunk if I live as long.

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Fine Stuff

So little sis flew back over and the three of us are together! We were a family again for an entire week...That was a boost for me.   On Sunday we went to the free Community Concert Band performance...this is something I have a history with, I hadn't been to one since I returned to SC, and this was their 40th anniversary.  It was fun! 

 Monday little sis and I drove down to the coast to do some birding.  This is the shot to the soul I needed...to spark interest in the things I love...we had some soupy fog to deal with but we had a great day anyways. 

By the time we hiked the 1.2 miles down the beach to the Jetty we were soaked by mist...

We saw a Great Black Backed Gull here it is with a Ring Billed for scale...a state bird for me...and a lifer for sis, she racked up quite a few this day!

Lots of foggy Ruddy Turnstone  

We had 2 beautiful Eared Grebe pop up...

Some really cute Sanderlings' on the rocks too...

Dunlin barely visible in this fog enjoyed poking thru the mud...

And then along came a Clapper Rail, he seemed to be strutting. 

Missing a few legs but still spunky 

Gr Blue Heron..

More  Shell trees!

How much cuter could a Semipalmated Plover be?

We made an entire day of it...what a great day it was!

Wednesday  we headed over to the McBee WMA, and found many Field Sparrow,  

Photographed at a Cemetery in the afternoon, it was so cold that day...and Thursday we went to the Archives to do some family history research, and later we birded the County Riverside Park...lots of Cedar Waxwings were about.

Today its Friday and raining cats n dogs...the Sisters are hosting a brunch and little Sis leaves in the wee morning hours..it was a Fine Week! spent with Family!

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My Mom memory for this post...

Here she is enjoying some tasty Ice Cream on one of our "Townies" day trips here in a small rural place called Lone Star, SC...this was taken in 2016.  

 Such good times!

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Make it thru Dec.

At time of this writing,  it's Monday and on top of that it's December and heading toward Christmas, a Christmas without Mom. She was not a big fan of Christmas  when my son was little i did it,  now I wish it would just go away...  This year was one of loss, not just my Mom also 5 people from my blog roll!  

Tioga George, Judy the Bird Lady, Lynn of Winnie Views, David of In the Direction of our Dreams, and McQ Travels.  Not to mention many of the Pets I had grown to love via blog reading and Vlogs.
I hope each of these bloggers families are handling their sorrow in a way that makes it bearable.

We did more clearing out of Mom's personal possessions, we found old letters from our Dad, little things we had made for her when we were children, and the most precious gift, a receipt.  If any of you have read my book Before Life Got Complicated, you know we had little.  At one point we lived in a wonderful old house on the grounds of Bramblewood Plantation.  We all loved it there  horses, dogs, cats, it was just on the outskirts of town and a great place to just be a kid. 

 It was owned by a wealthy lady who kept retired horses there and we kids took care of and rode those horses.  Some of the happiest parts of all our lives were spent there.  Only one issue...it was cold! Mom at this point in life was a widow she made little salary in fact I found one of her check stubs her bring home for that week had been $63.  Imagine having to pay rent, keep up an automobile, and feed 3 children and yourself on that...So anyways most of the time we had NO heat in the house.  An old oil burning radiator system was there but buying the oil was not always possible, so one Christmas my mom bought  3 electric blankets.  She did not buy one for herself,  We slept warm.  Mine was the green of nature, big sis's was sky blue, and little sis's was yellow like banana pudding.
While going thru some old receipts I found one from Sears, and it was for 3 electric blankets, $44.  Almost an entire weeks salary...
I have been extremely sad and fragile since finding that receipt.  

 There is a way now I'm waiting on  the will.  If you don't see blogs from me, you know I didn't find it.  

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Mom Memory for this Post

This was taken in Tennessee on a trip we made back to visit our family there.  I am guessing the year was about 1968.  Mom was 44 yrs old here.  This was the first car she alone purchased and owned it was a 1963 Plymouth Fury.  My Dad had always done the car buying etc.  He passed away in 1967.  It had a push button gear shifter...  She loved this car, we were so proud of her.  

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.