Red Rock Cliff Ice

With the bitter cold temperatures of recent days comes the increased production of ice along the shores of Lake Superior! Here's a recent shot of icicles hanging from the cliffs on Red Rock Beach in Grand Portage.

Oh The Temptations I Live With...

Just can't leave anything alone sigh...

My Knights Valley Day

Knights Valley is the most remote area of Sonoma County's wine appellations. It snuggles up against the northwestern flanks of 4342 foot Mount St. Helena - this part of the county's most notable feature. Ideal mountain growing conditions have resulted in Cabernets of regal quality that are sought after for their rarity - there are only two vineyards in Knights Valley!

I was very excited to go on a road trip again. I didn't mind that it was raining "cats and dogs" ho ho ho!!! (Note from Mom: at times, we had to pull off the road because wipers just couldn't keep the rain off the windshield fast enough to see!) It took two hours to get there, so I just snoozed.


We eventually got into the real country. This cool red barn is just north of Calistoga.

Finally we turned into a woodsy place and parked. I began investigating immediately and found lots of things I liked, such as trees, good scents, humans, and ... FOOD!!!
Dad grabbed a long tool and a big sled and I led the way up a steep hill, where I veered off the path to check out these trees! Since it was so wet, the smells were just heavenly. I know there were lots of squirrels right above me!
After tromping around and galloping through a ton of trees, I sat by this one and gave it my smile of approval.
Then Dad got out that weird tool and went to work on it. I tried to help, but Dad said I could assist later. So I supervised.
What'ch'all think? It looks a little lopsided, but I made sure there were no critters in it.
This is the view across Knights Valley from the top of the hill where we found our tree. It was trying to clear up, but failed miserably.
I needed some exercise and time to investigate the woods up here.
Then I became GPS dog and guided Dad back down to the car.
We passed some of these views and places on the way down. Mom and Dad would love to live in that cute woodsy house down there, with smoke curling from its chimney. Mom loved the smell of those cedars.
Cute, huh?
This nice kid gave me lots of pats - I encourage and really dig all the scritches I can get.
Okay: this was something I'd never seen before. Here's a movie about what it does heheheh!

And here's another of me visiting:
On the trip home, we passed some other trees with some odd things hanging from them. Nature's X-mas trees? Anybody know what those clumps are in this old live oak tree?
This looks like a witch's tree to me! Any guesses on this one? Will let you know on my next post! Hope you're all having a great weekend!

The serenity of arrogance

If anybody here can remember my posts from the old bicycleforum.com site, or some of my earlier ramblings over at bikeforums.net, they would probably point out that I used to be quite volatile, something of a "loose cannon", looking for the slightest provocation over which I could lose my temper at the world generally. In recent years, however, I have tried to "turn over a new leaf" so to speak, and in a major shock to the universe, it may actually be working.
Today's incident happened somewhere around 128km into the ride in North Burleigh. Some idiot pedestrian decided to step out onto the road right in front of me without looking. This isn't exactly a rare occurrence on the Gold Coast these days, and I had anticipated it pretty well, so I was able to avoid a collision. However, this moron then decided to abuse me because I was supposedly riding too fast (about 30km/h below the speed limit here). In the past I probably would have responded with a flurry of expletives of my own. However, today it didn't bother me a great deal. There was a mild irritation for a few moments, before the arrogance that I have worked so hard to cultivate kicked in.
I began to realise that I have absolutely no cause for concern that this moron should blame me for his own inability to watch where he was going. After all, I'd been prepared for the eventuality, I'd avoided a collision, nobody was hurt, and I'd even earned an apology from his wife (who was actually smart enough to look before stepping out onto the road). But what really gladdened my heart, was the knowledge that if this guy is in a habit of blaming others for his own inability to watch where he is going, it's just a matter of time before he steps out in front of someone who will be either unable or unwilling to take the evasive action necessary. As a consequence, it probably won't be very long before he removes himself from the human gene pool altogether.
I am at peace with the world, perhaps moreso now than ever before. Unlike the other guy at the intersection about 3km later who wanted to shout abuse by yelling from his car across four lanes of moving traffic. Yeah right, pal. What obligation do I have to prove anything to someone that cowardly?
Oh yeah, as far as the ride itself was concerned, Numinbah Valley turned on the beauty once more, and the changeable weather conditions -- from this...

to this...

to this...

and finally to this:

Interesting thing here -- it only seemed to rain on the descents, never on the climbs. I'm not sure how this works, but it just does. It played havoc with my average speed, but that's life sometimes. It's still better than doing the whole ride in dry weather.

Tomato Seeds

A few weeks ago Meggiehad a fantasticGarden Seed Giveaway. She was very generously offering some heritage seeds. I chose a variety of tomatoes - Tomato Carbon, which have won many taste awards in the last few years!

They arrived today - and I am thrilled and delighted.Thank you, Meggie!

We will get them planted and I'll let you know how they progress.I am really looking forward to the taste test!

I wonder how they will fareat this year's Village Show

We had a huge amount of fun last year,notching up far more successesthan we expected.

The trouble is that it puts the pressure on this year!

I am counting on these purple tomatoes to win at least one class.Thank you Meggie.x









PS. Check out Meggies seed list - newvarieties she is trying out this year.

First Light, Foggy Morning - Pigeon River Valley

The fog this morning was incredible. Unfortunately I did not make it out to take any pictures of the fog at sunrise. So, it made me go back to some photos from a foggy morning in July that I never posted. This photo was made after a night of photographing the northern lights along the Arrowhead Trail in northeast Minnesota. As I drove home via the backroads I noticed that there was quite a bit of fog in the Pigeon River valley below me. I pulled over at the Pigeon River Helipad Overlook along Otter Lake Road and waited for the sun to come up. I knew that once the sunlight started to hit the fog it would be an incredible view. Sure enough, as the fog started to glow from the light of the rising sun I was awestruck by the beauty and depth of the scene laid out before me.

THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WOODSTORE...

Pip, Toby and Bennie are all agreed on that! No doubt it will keep them occupied for a long time. Don't worry about Toby's 'bald side' it really isn't like that, it's down to some quirk on this photograph.





Today has been wet, very wet. So we decided to do some indoor work ...!!! We both scrubbed the utility room floor and part of the kitchen - but I thought you would like this photo of your Pa wearing Marigold gloves and scrubbing !





Jonny, you will know what this next photograph is all about, so no need to go into details.









We nipped to Woodthorpe Garden Centre this afternoon - and guess what they were busy doing...unbelievably ... but here's the photo to prove it. Dreadful!!!





Far more interestingly, we have just been listening to a wonderful Prom .. programme which featured a Spaghetti Western Orchestra from Australia and their music is magnificent. Check them out sometime.





That's it for today, Jonny. Look after yourself.

Call/email us when you have the chance.

Love,





Mum

xxx