Bummer

What a bummer. Someone smashed my neighbor’s windshield. He thinks by the shape of the damage (long and about the width of a baseball bat) that they probably used a baseball bat.

The rear window was smashed out also. The front windshield is safety glass and so it holds together when smashed but the rear window isn’t and so it shattered into a thousand little pieces. This is the same neighbor whose submersible well pump stopped working and the pipe broke off when he was trying to raise it. He is just having a string of bad luck. But he did manage to get the pump up out of the well and will replace it tomorrow. I asked him if he had insurance on the car and he said that he did. Lucky for him, except for any deductible on the insurance. Since he has gotten all of his bad luck out of the way, he should buy a lottery ticket since now he has only good luck left. Have a nice day and I hope that your day is going better than my neighbors. Lew

one more time

I know that I have posted a lot of pictures of flowers but I must add another because sometimes it is easy to walk right by a beauty of nature without ever noticing it. Do you see anything pretty in the picture? Probably not. Just a bunch of grass, weeds, and dry brown ground.

There is the flower circled in yellow. Still not impressive because of its small size and is easily passed over. You can see my shadow taking the picture in the lower left corner of the picture.

But here is that wildflower close up in all its glory. But for the magic of the camera, its beauty might have been missed altogether. Looking at it close-up you can appreciate the intensity of the color. Also compare the size of the flower with an adjacent blade of grass.

This morning Mary and I had a real southern breakfast. Grits. And we had two chocolate donuts each that Mary had made with chocolate cake mix and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. The chocolate donut actually had tiny morsels of chocolate inside of them. A nice breakfast to start the day. All of that chocolate should give me an energy rush. But then usually Sundays are a quiet day and even though it is early in the day, I already feel hot. Welcome to Florida in August. At least seaside is lucky in that she can go down to the beach and feel the cool ocean breeze blowing on her. It must be nice. Have a nice cool day and try a glass of green limeade over a tall slender glass full of ice. Maybe even top it off with one of those little paper parasols. Lew

Kimasabe's Tonto (aka Duke)

Didn’t they start off the Lone Ranger television show with “These are the tales of the Lone Ranger and his faithful companion Tonto.” ? I may not have gotten the quote exactly right but here is my faithful Chihuahua Duke. Sort of like the lyrics from the old song Me and My Shadow. A good dog, who follows me everywhere. Even now when it is beastly hot outside. Being a Mexican Chihuahua you would think he would do well in the heat. But he doesn’t. And when I see him panting, I put him in the nice cool air conditioned house where he can sit on the couch, stare out the large front windows, and bark at everything that goes by. The window is like a television set to him. He will stare out of it for hours. It provides him with a great deal of entertainment. All of the animals here have a good life: Duke the dog, Tammy, Tony, Dolly and Alex the cats, Benny the Bunny. With all these animals it is like Green Acres from television around here.

Today is Saturday and that means “big breakfast day”. Usually it is fried eggs, sausage, muffins, and a host of other good things. Sometimes Mary will bake some Armour corned beef hash in the toaster oven to give it a little crispiness and then put the fried eggs on top of the corned beef hash after putting the hash on the plates. Yummy! Have a nice day and enjoy your “big breakfast day” also. Lew

angel

Here is the birdbath that Mary has in her front yard so that the birds and squirrels can get a drink of cool water on a hot summer day. The basin of the birdbath is shaped like a leaf. As a decoration Mary put an angel into the birdbath. As you explore around the picture, you will find so much to see. Like the bougainvillea plant to the right of the birdbath or the latticework that Mary put around the well. But wait, what is that lurking in the shadows to the left of the latticework?

Can you see it better now that I have it circled in yellow? Yes, it seems to be black and white. Perhaps we can get a better look.

But of course, it is Tammy the cat. Whenever I am working outside she likes to watch. She is absolutely fascinated by work. She can sit in the shade and watch me for hours laboring in the hot sun. So now who is the “dumb animal”; the cat resting in the shade on a hot day or the human laboring in the bright sun? Definitely something to think about. Have a nice cool day with a chilly cold icee from 7/11. The blue colored ones are my favorite icee. Lew

baby Tammy

This is Mary with her special cat Tammy. Mary raised it from a kitten and I guess that the cat thinks that it is still a kitten to be cradled by Mary. The cat has turned out to be a good one. But then, what shouldn't she. After all, she is spoiled rotten and gets everything and anything that she could possibly ever want. Food -- the best. Sleeping accomodations -- the best. Toys - expensive and plentiful. Medical care - the best. I could go on and on but you get the idea. By the way, the portrait on the wall behind Mary is one that she did of her mother. She is currently doing a portrait of my mom. Mary keeps busy with her painting. Have as cool of a day as you can. It just seems to be hot everywhere. Lew

brown pelican

This is Mary’s latest painting which is a brown pelican. Unfortunately, the bright flash of the camera bleaches out some of the color. Seeing it in person is much better. She seems to have the patience to sit there and laboriously put in the fine detail one stroke at a time. She has built up quite a collection of paintings which look a lot better than what I have seen at some of those art festivals. She has painted on just about every type of material imaginable: canvas board, wood, glass, and something that looks like a piece of masonite with one side a bright white. And the paints are just as varied: acrylics and oils and probably some others which I am just not aware of. And what about my artistic talents? The only thing that I can attest to is that I attempted the paint-by-number paint sets when I was very young and grew very frustrated and gave up because I was not able to stay within the lines of the paint-by-number and the finished product looked terrible. I guess that art just wasn’t my forte. I even tried carving wood once, also at a young age. There was a schoolmate who lived up the road and he would take a small twig, strip the bark off and carve little figures out of it. He did a pretty good job of it. I thought to myself, “I can do that.” So I took my cheap hunting knife and started carving when all of a sudden the knife slipped and made a very bad cut on my thumb near its base. Blood flowed forth like a fountain. I started crying and didn’t know what to do. Both of my parents were at work. From out of the house across the street came Mrs. Benson to the rescue. Remember Mrs. Benson? The Mayberry aunt Bee of our town. She came out of her house across to see what had happened to me. The picture of the Benson house was taken from the spot where as a young boy I cut my thumb.

She cleaned the wound and it was a really nasty one and bandaged it for me. And she didn’t get a single drop of blood on her apron which she wore all the time just like aunt Bee. What a sweet woman she really was. Always kind, always gentle, and always helping others. She led a good life and brought a lot of kindness into the world. But that was the end of my wood carving. I gave up the artistic pursuits and went back to my explorations of nature. To follow a stream to see where it went, to climb over a mountain to see what was on the other side (yes, I actually did that and it took me all day), to watch a caterpillar and marvel at its numerous legs as it crawled along a branch. Nature has always fascinated me. Go forth and have a pleasant day. Lew

Lillian's Gift

Lillian’s Gift

Isn’t this an absolutely magnificent flower. The colors are so intense. This flower was grown from a seed from the packet of wildflowers that Mary and I got at the reception of Lillian’s wedding.

Just look at how straight and tall it has grown. I would estimate its height at about three. It grew so tall so fast that it sort of reminds me of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. I wonder if any of the other people had luck growing flowers from their seeds from the wedding.

She had a very nice wedding and Mary and I had a great time. Thank you Lillian for the wildflower seeds. They are a gift that keeps giving as they say. Yesterday Mary and I went to the library and Publix and got caught in one of those famous Florida tropical downpours replete with thunder and lightning. I am confident that Lillian remembers what the Florida downpours are like. But then up north in the winter those little raindrops freeze into snowflakes. So which is better, raindrops or snowflakes? At least with raindrops we can be "Singing in the Rain" and sayin g "raindrops keep falling on my head". Thanks again Lillian for the wildflower seeds. I am big on wildflowers. Lew