I’m behind and not able to catch up with reading and commenting on the blogs I follow.
Today, I’m just letting my followers know that I’m healthy and OK
A break is necessary for me right now.
Family first is and always has been my motto.
I’m also at a place where I find myself needing to prioritize many things in my life – maintaining this blog is one of those things.
Take good care, all – and I’ll maybe be back in a few weeks with my final decision about whether or not I’ll continue WP.
I consciously avoid topics about politics and religion in my posts. Today is different.
It’s a sunny, crisp October morning.
Soon, we’ll be heading to the city to take my 92 yr old mom to visit one of my sisters who is very ill in hospital.
I’m sitting on my balcony listening to hymns being sung over a speaker in a nearby church and I’m trying very hard to pray with faith.
“Thy will be done”
Made by my niece and on my bedside table for review each night.
Carole over at pigletinportugal.com has started a new tag-along. It sounds like fun!
Some years back, our then mayor and city council decided on a downtown beautification project.
It involved pouring large cement flower planters every few feet along both sides of the street in the downtown area.
Community groups, businesses, and individuals sponsor the planters, and each group purchases the flowers and plants their individual planter. The city then looks after the watering. I’m not certain who does the weeding.
The planters do indeed beautify the downtown area.
Now, our current city council is allowing downtown restaurants to add outdoor seating areas in previous parking spaces.
The issue? Parking is extremely limited, and this is a great inconvenience for both the elderly and other physically challenged people. There are parking lots at the rear of some of the main street businesses, but not all. The banks have only front street entrances, so with limited parking in front, these are a challenge, especially in the winter.
Hindsight is 20-20 and sometimes foresight is completely blind.
There’s been a tendency in the past several years here, for people to purchase abandoned churches at a low price, and convert them into homes.
This has never sat right with me – especially when the new owners don’t keep up the property.
My feature photo is one example.
This was once an original Lutheran church in our city. The last time I was in this church, it was many years ago for my father in law’s funeral.
When the new Lutheran Church was built, the congregation split and for a few years, both were operating but with very small congregations.
I don’t know what it is, but something inside of me wouldn’t allow me to have an abandoned church as my residence.
How about you?
“Anyone can see the pinecones in the tree. None can see the trees, none can foresee the forest in the pinecone.”
~ Mark Spritznagel
When hubs and I entered full retirement life, we agreed on winters somewhere warm to get away from our harsh Canadian winters.
Having explored a few options while we were still working (vacations to Mexico and Arizona, a Caribbean cruise, and a 10 Day stay on Curaçao), we agreed on trying the RGV in South Texas.
Our first two winters there were with our motorhome and we completely lucked in to a park and community far beyond our expectations.
During our second season, we decided to purchase a mobile home in that park.
We have zero regrets … well, maybe just one.
Hubs’ health no longer justifies long stretches south of the 49’th parallel, so the mobile home purchase was maybe not such a great idea. The one truly special thing about the large mobile, is that we were able to house and entertain many family visitors after we bought it. Those special memories will last forever.
When he’s feeling up to it, we’ll make one last trip to the RGV to pack up our sentimental items to bring home, list our mobile for sale, and bid a sad farewell to the dear friends we’ve made there over the past seven years.
I’ll post updates as things progress – for now, suffice it to say… I’m OK … Sad, but OK.
There’s always a plan B.
My Sept 09 post featured a bridge photo framed by foreground shrubs in their autumn colours.
The scene in that photo is the exception this year, and you’ll notice that beyond the bridge, the trees are still quite green.
I caught today’s feature photo about 20 minutes before the one of the bridge.
Today’s photo demonstrates how the late August and early September rains in this area, along with mild temperatures, have largely delayed the turning of the leaves.
Usually, by this time of year, autumn is in its full show regalia of yellows, golds, reds, and oranges.
I love the green because it gives the feeling of extended summer and possibly delayed frost.
An unfortunate thing about the extended summer appearance is that our farmers are struggling to get the crops in and the fields that were swathed but not yet combined are losing quality by the day.
What looked to be an upcoming bumper crop (our way of saying a huge and high grade yield), in many cases will be lucky if it meets feed grade.
Agriculture is one of the main drivers of our economy, so if our farmers suffer, so do we all.
We also have many friends and family members who farm. It’s their livelihood, so we truly feel for them in a year such as this.
New York City from the historic Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, 1997. It’s not a clear photo because it’s a picture of a small picture, but it holds significant memories, especially today.
As I posed for the photo after touring the terminal … the twin towers of the World Trade Center behind me were just more skyscrapers. When I used my vacation tine to ride with hubs in the semi, he and I had visited many big cities, so had seen too many tall buildings to count.
Little did we know at that time, that the devastation that would happen there just four years later would change life as we knew it in North America forever.
Blue green is one of my favourite colours except when it applies to the type of algae on the river that meanders lazily through our prairie city.
I still enjoy my early morning power walks on the trails and paths alongside the Souris River.
I’m just not enjoying the views as much now that the annual algae bloom has set in.
The Souris (turns into the Mouse River in North Dakota) is very shallow here. As a result, a rainy summer (which washes nutrients from nearby fields into the river) followed by heat in excess of 30°C (86°F) for an extended period, and an unusual zero wind for weeks on end, makes for perfect conditions for an extreme algae bloom.
And blooming it is! This year, in places, the algae mat is so thick it looks like a wrinkled carpet.
The next photo shows opposite sides of one of the bridges I walk across on my trails.
Blue green algae is toxic to pets and livestock and the usual big flocks of ducks and geese have chosen elsewhere to have their last summer swims before making their way to warmer climes for the winter months.
Thankfully, our drinking water supply isn’t sourced from the mighty and currently nasty Souris.
