Click!

The takeaway

The follow-through

I was sitting on the bench beside the pond enjoying the sunshine and watching the loon as he would dive and resurface far from his entry point.  Trying to guess where he would emerge in hopes of getting a snapshot was my immediate entertainment.

Then I heard the "click" and it was a familiar sound.  I looked up and across the pond.  On the other side of the lane and perhaps eighty yards away I spotted the old coot practicing his golf swing.  It is okay for me to designate the gentleman as such, for I am an old coot myself.  As I watched him a while, I concluded that he may not have the most powerful swing on the course, but I daresay he would make someone a formidable opponent, or an excellent partner.

I was never a golfer, and in fact I had never played the game until after I retired.  Ellie, my wife at the time, was an avid golfer and an accomplished instructor.  She offered to teach me the game.  So.  Then she bought me a new set of clubs.  And.  We became golf buddies.

Though I missed her terribly, of course, I continued to tromp the fairways for about seven years after her death.  Her brother, Richard, became my pal on the course.  He, of course, is much better at the game than I ever was, and he continues to play on a regular basis.  I quit the game because of the pain in the left shoulder and my reluctance to see a surgeon about that.

"Doc, my shoulder hurts when I swing a golf club."

"Then don't swing a golf club."

Seems right to me.

Elusive Duck, Social Turtles,

and Invisible Frog

String Too Short to Tie

 The sun breaks through the cloud cover!

Stroll over to the pond.  Redhead duck!

Feed the turtles.

I am moderately pleased with the shot of the duck.  Elusive critter, he is, given to trying to avoid observation.  This picture shows the diagnostic blue bill with black tip.  Last year we had several whistling ducks around the pond.  Haven't seen them this year.

I do have better turtle pictures.  All one does is sit on the bench and they show up, sometimes as many as a dozen of them.  Well, that is if one throws little cookie bits into the water!

As I was sitting on the bench thinking I had never seen any frogs around the pond, I concluded that perhaps the turtles had eaten them all.  Wrong.   No more thought than from a nearby clump of bull rushes, "Brr-rump, brr-rump" in a deep bass register!

Nature Walk

String Too Short to Tie

 Stepped out the door and spotted this cheerful little insect resting on a chair.  An idea of size can be noted by comparing it to the grommets and lacing.

Walked to the pond.  As I stood beneath a tree looking at the pond, I heard a rustling in the leaves above me.   I might have ignored the rustling, for it might have been a squirrel, or even a breeze wafting through the trees.

But apparently I had been spotted, and the creature fluttered its wings as it attempted to move to a spot I would not see.  I looked up.  The bird was well-hidden.  Well, except that I did spot it.  I aimed the camera and *snap* and quiet as the shutter was, it startled the bird into flight.  And not only this bird, but its companion as well which I had not seen!

Jeepster!

String Too Short to Tie

Willys-Overland Motors built the Jeepster for about three years, from 1948 to 1950. The mother of a girl in my high school senior class owned a jewelry store and curio shoppe downtown. The girl, Geraldine, drove a Jeepster. Many of us were green with envy, though we would never admit it. The four-cylinder engine provided sufficient power for cruising around, but the thing was no good of course at a stop-light challenge. Thus the car was dismissed as “girly.” Yeah, we were a sexist lot, acned, hormonal, and envious. But then, Gerry was a girl, after all. And if you were one of the truly lucky guys, you would actually have ridden in the Jeepster!

Scootering around Rockport yielded this old car spotting. The Jeepster is sitting next to a couple of old boats and between two buildings right downtown. As BBBH observed, “It’s been sitting there for a long time.” The grass is witness to that, and yet it has no flat tires. 

The last of the phaetons, and a nice looking old car.

Farm Living

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It was during the time we lived in Bladen that I was awakened to my surroundings and began to recognize a world outside myself.

A few days ago, BBBH was reading one of her Westerns, or perhaps a pot-boiler with a western setting, I'm not sure which, and I was, yes, you guessed it, at the computer.  She made a comment on her reading by way of asking, "Can you imagine living in a soddie?"  Actually I could, for while I never lived in one, I remember visiting people who did.

My father had a cousin, Lester Taylor, who lived on a farm not far from us, perhaps less than twenty miles distant.  Lester had a family, yet I do not recall how many children there were, nor their names.  I do remember a couple of things about the visit. (I don't recall whether or not we visited more than one time.)  The first thing that happened when we got out of the car was that a terrifying and fearsome great grey gander, beak open and squawking like Donald Duck, ran toward me, obviously intent on devouring me, or  at the very least, inflicting serious bodily harm on my person.  I put my puny little four-year old legs into action and tried to flee the monster.  This encouraged the beast to pursue me.  He ultimately nipped the seat of the dratted short pants I wore.  Daddy rescued me, but the terror lived on.

On to the house.  While my recollection may not be totally reliable, I believe the sod house was about half dugout/half above ground.  I am surprised yet to this day that once inside this earthen structure, the home-like nature and furnishings of the place were much like any other house I'd ever seen.

So, yes, I can imagine what it might be like to live in a soddie.  Thank you for asking, Beautiful.