Spring Frogs

I was out today because I have been in the house for quite a time and it was a great day. I went by a small body of water and I was astounded at the sound of spring frogs singing their mating songs! I couldn’t believe it. I mean, here it is still February and the very early frogs were singing in full voice trying to entice the opposite sex into a little dalliance. It was awesome. No, it was not thousands of voices, just dozens, but still, there they were. Soon I’ll record the voices when there are literally thousands and post it here. Spring is coming but I have to say I have never seen it come quite this early.

Zeus and Zelda had some get together time today and, like always, Zeus is completely tired out. He’s currently on his blanket in the living room and out like a light. I approached him just a few minutes ago, petted him and he never even flinched. He likes Zelda but I also think he likes it when she leaves. *laughs*

Hope you had a Tuesday as filled with song as mine was. Here are today’s pictures:

Spring Has Arrived – Almost

What a totally gorgeous day. Temperatures were in the 70′s, sunshine was absolutely brilliant, windows of the house are open, yard is picked up, and the dogs are lazing on the back deck. It’s just a wonderful spring day and it’s not even spring yet! I’m getting the urge to start some spring cleaning. This would include getting down on my hands and knees and scrubbing floors and baseboards, washing windows, and vacuuming every room. Hell, I might even break down and do some dusting. I have noticed with a pellet stove there is much more dust around than I am used to. Oh well, at least it was a warm winter!

The birds are going to town on the new suet feeder I put up. They not onlu like the homemade suet but they seem to like the feeder itself.They avoided it for about the first week but got used to it being there and then decided to try the food. Now all the birds are going for it.

Today I saw a Tufted Titmouse go inside the birdhouse I have attached to a nearby Cedar tree. I’ll see if it actually gets used this year. I’m a little disappointed the camera I used last year gave up the ghost but that’s the way things work. At least the house is nearby and I should be able to get some good photos if it’s used. That is, if I clean the windows!

Hope you had as gorgeous a day where you are as I had here. Here are today’s pictures:

My Lawn Needs Mowing

I’m getting ready for spring. It arrives in three weeks and it’ll probably be here in Tennessee before that. I went out today and worked a little in the yard. My foot was feeling better and the yard needed picking up. Zeus is treating it like his private bone yard, and when I say bone yards I mean anything he can drag, tear off, steal or dig up is fair game and can be left somewhere in the yard. I started my lawn mower, let it run a few minutes and changed the oil. Then I hooked up a small trailer and cruised the yard picking up almost a full load of debris that used to be in the ground or in my woodpile.

While I was cruising the yard I noticed my yard definitely needed mowing! I’m not kidding. Here it is late February and the grass is starting to get serious ideas about growing! I remember living in Atlanta and having to mow my lawn one Christmas eve day when the temperature was in the 80′s but this is just crazy here in Tennessee. If you take a close look at the daily pictures you will see a tinge of red in the trees. If the weather holds this is going to be one absolutely beautiful spring.

We also have a new addition to the household, well, two households. My sister and brother in law bought a male doberman. His name is Baron and we affectionately call him the Red Baron because of his color. He’s a determined little guy and quite headstrong. If he turns out as well as Zelda and Zeus have we’ll be quite pleased.

When I went out onto the deck last night I noticed a nice alignment of what looks like Jupiter and the moon. I snapped a quick picture and thought I’d post that today too.

Hope you had a great Sunday. Here are today’s pictures:

Life’s Perspective

I was going to title this post “Cycles.” That didn’t strike me exactly right. It started with seeing the American Goldfinches today. The males are starting to get their bright yellow coloring back after having deserted it for the more drab colors of winter. The trees are starting to show more life and the buds are certainly filling out. The cycles were are all familiar with are turning once again, preparing for the return of spring.

However looking at the Goldfinches didn’t quite do it for me. It was too high a level to truly understand. Then I saw a moth and a spider and a ladybug today. That got me to thinking of perspectives. The bugs are the very first out in the spring. They’re out now if you really look. They have very few predators, perhaps with the exception of the spider I saw, to worry about. They can mate and lay eggs and start another generation. That generation may also be able to create yet another generation, with even more numbers than the first generation having spent the perilous winter in hibernation. That sets the stage for the return of the birds, frogs, bats and other predators. They won’t return too early because, over millions of years they have perfected their timing. Returning before there is a plentiful food supply mean starvation and returning too late means the best habitats and mates have already been claimed.

Once the frogs and birds return it’s time for the snakes to emerge because the frogs and birds are their food supply. Life ripples through life like a stone dropped into a pond. As the season rolls on into fall the ripples have spread out until the only ones left are, once again, the insects. They produce the last generation of the year and go into hibernation to start all over the following year. Late in the year the birds have gone, the snakes and frogs have retreated to their protective burrows for a long sleep and the insects are once again left relatively undisturbed.

It’s a unique perspective if you look at it from the eye level of an insect. We see it as the color coming back into the feathers of the Goldfinches. Just a small part of a ripple starting once again in the pond of life.

Hope your Saturday was a good one. Here are today’s pictures:

Thermometer

Last Christmas my son and daughter in law sent me an absolutely beautiful brass thermometer. They know I love weather, love watching the temperatures and seasons change and love brass. This was an absolutely thoughtful gift and I put it up right away just outside my living room window. Every time I walk through the living room I check the temperature.

My daughter sent me a gift card to Amazon. Now, I know she expected me to use the card for books. I love to read and my daughter and son in law bought me a Kindle as an early Christmas present so I could see how my own books will look on the device. I sat on the gift card until now. I purchased an indoor/outdoor weather station with it so I could have the display in my writing room. Yes, I’m a geek. I can see what the high and low was today, the current barometric pressure, what the weather station thinks tomorrow is going to be like, and the humidity. As far as I can tell it’s quite accurate. It’s a great little station and it’s on the wall of my writing room. What a wonderful Christmas present from my daughter and son in law I can enjoy every day!

I guess once you’re a geek you never lose your geekiness. Wouldn’t want it any other way.

Hope your Friday was as good as mine. Here are today’s pictures:

 

Windows Open

Right now it’s 4:39 in the afternoon and 75 degrees outside. The wind is howling like a pack of mad wolves and we may get some pretty significant storms tonight. For most of the day I have had my windows open and enjoyed the very springlike breezes through my home. I didn;t go outside very much, or at least as much as I would have liked because the effects of the gout fairy are still very much with me.

The dogs have really enjoyed today too. They were outside scampering in the yard and only once did they ask to come inside to see what I was doing then they wanted to go back outside. Zeus is still outside right now. Earlier he was sprawled out on the back deck enjoying the heat and the sunshine. Yeah, a dog’s life to be sure!

I’m going to make this a short post today so I can go back to the couch, elevate my foot and tolerate the pain.

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Hope you had a much less painful Thursday than I did. Here are today’s pictures:

The Gout Fairy

I wasn’t sure I was going to make this post today. I actually debated because my left foot really, really hurts. You see, whether I’ve scheduled it or not about 3 times a year the gout fairy comes and pays me a visit. If you’ve never met the gout fairy he looks like what you would expect if Danny DiVito and Micky Rooney had a love child. Except the gout fairy isn’t quite as ugly as Danny DiVito.

When you think of fairies you think of silent and furtive little creatures that sneak in, do their job abd leave as quietly as they arrived. The tooth fairy and Santa Claus are excellent examples. Not so with the gout fairy. He came to my home last night almost passed out drunk. He tripped on my front steps and stumbled across my deck until he hit my front door with his head. The entire house shook. I rushed to the front door because I thought it might be one of the druggies a few miles down the road. Nope. It was the gout fairy. I tried helping him to his feet and when he was almost standing he farted loudly, broke into gales of laughter, fell back down onto my deck and promptly puked.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the gout fairy. When he finally did straighten up he stomped on my foot then proceeded back down my steps, out into the back yard and passed out cold. I left him there because my foot hurt too much for me to walk even the short distance he had covered before passing out. I also didn’t care. I took some pain killers and climbed back into bed. When I awoke this morning my foot was swollen and aching and the bastard was no where to be seen. Good thing because I would have shot him. I don’t know if fairies can be killed but I was willing to give it the old college try.

I finally worked up the courage to get out of the house and take the pictures I normally do just to piss him off. Next time he shows up I’m thinking about taking a video. I’m assuming there has to be some kind of fairy union rules and regulations that cover this kind of slovenly behavior.

Hope your Tuesday was less painful than mine. Here are today’s pictures:

 

Pictorial Post of Beauty

I’m posting this early today because I wanted to share it while I’m still looking at the beauty outside through the window in my study. The ice is still clinging to the trees but in another hour it all will be gone. When I awoke this morning the temperature was 12 degrees and it was very foggy. That’s right, heavy fog. I actually went to the weather channel website to confirm what my thermometers were indicating and they were correct. This was about 4am and it was quite dark outside. I turned on the lights and everything was covered with beautiful crystal ferns. It’s the only way to describe what I was seeing. It was perfectly quiet, perfectly still and Jack Frost had gone insane overnight. Just as daylight was breaking I went out to get some photos and this accounts for some of the photos being on the dark side. I knew when the sun burned off the fog the ice would follow quickly. You’ll also see my outside thermometer in some images. The temperature was rising quickly from its morning low.

I made this post simply for you folks to enjoy. The fog is almost gone now and the ice is quickly leaving but I was once again blessed with the beauty I moved to Tennessee for.

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I hope you enjoy these pictures on this early Monday morning:

 

 

Snowfall and Gunshots

I’ve learned quite a bit about living in Tennessee over the almost two years I have lived here. I’ve learned about noodling, about poke salad, about ground fish and today I learned about what you’re supposed to do when a neighbor calls and says there’s some drunk (or high) fool trespassing on their property.

Earlier today it snowed. Where I live we received about 2 inches. Not enough to speak about from my perspective having lived in the northern part of New York much of my life, but certainly enough by Tennessee standards. The roads were certainly slippery and even the dirt road I live off off was very treacherous.

Now, you know someone isn’t quite in their right mind when they go past a home, on a day like today doing 60 miles an hour on a one lane road. They’re either drunk or high. My neighbor, who lives maybe a mile away called my brother-in-law early this afternoon and said that’s just what happened. He was looking out the front window of his house and this car zoomed past. This neighbor got in his truck and drove up the road a ways and found what he expected; the car smashed up against a tree.  OK, that’s bad enough. The idiot was climbing out of the vehicle rather unsteadily. That’s also to be expected. When the neighbor shouted at the guy asking whether he was alright or not the idiot took off running through the woods. In Tennessee that’s not only unexpected, but it’s downright rude. Not only did he not answer the question but he compounded the affront with trespassing. Trespassing is highly frowned upon around here.

So what do you do in this part of the world when you have a trespasser? I received a call from my neighbor who thinks I’m a groundhog and he educated me. He knows I have a loaded handgun always close at hand. He asked me if I’d go out and touch off a few rounds into the air. I live so far into the woods that there’s no issue with hitting anyone. What this apparently does is let’s the intruder know that moving in the direction of the gunshots is not a wise idea.

The police got the plate number from the vehicle and will surely be talking to this individual who, after crashing into a tree became suddenly enamored with hiking. I thought I was always a country boy. I was never been this country. This has been quite an educational experience.

Hope your Sunday was as educational as mine. Here are today’s pictures:

 

Red Sky in Morning Sailor Take Warning

From time to time I start out saying this is going to be a short post. This isn’t one of those times! I’ve got a ton of thoughts going through my head today and I just want to share them. It started early this morning. As any of you who have been reading this blog for awhile know, I’m an early bird. I am always up before the dawn. This morning was no exception and I watched a spectacular sunrise. I had to go out and capture some of it for you folks. Here’s a small sample:

When I saw this I remembered the old saying, “Red Sky in Morning Sailor Take Warning” so when I went back inside I looked at the weather for this area. It seems we’re under a winter storm watch with upwards of 2-5 inches of snow tomorrow. Very interesting. If that happens it’ll be the most snow we’ve had all year.

While I was at the computer I worked a little while on my current story. It’s coming along but writing this one is like pulling teeth. Sometimes stories are like that. As I usually do I turned on music in the living room so I could have some background music while I wrote. I can’t write without music playing. I set the stereo to randomly select songs and went back to the story. It wasn’t too long before Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” started playing. I love that song! Anyway, that got me to thinking about Jim Steinman who wrote that particular song for her as well as most of Meatloaf’s songs. I have Jim Steinman’s album, “Bad for Good” playing right now. Great rock! It’s simply amazing how many songs we recognize and went to the top of the charts were actually written and produced by Jim Steinman.

This got me to thinking about what I have said several times in this blog about seeing what’s all around us. It must have been serendipity because later in the day someone sent me an e-mail story about violinist Joshua Bell. I checked the story on Snopes and it’s absolutely true. I wanted to copy it here for you to see how something we can consider precious and so valuable is sometimes right in front of us and we choose to ignore it.

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A Most Interesting Story

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

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I’ve said before in these posts that we shouldn’t just concentrate on ‘seeing’ though that is also important. This morning’s sunrise is proof of that! However we can also enjoy touch, like cold bed sheets, smell, like chocolate, hearing, like listening to Jim Steinman and taste, like a fine wine. It’s all around us. All we have to do is discover it.

I hope your Saturday was as filled with Beauty as mine was. Here are today’s pictures: