THOR Family Fun Day

Suspicious characters were found riding bicycle in the woods at Lake Manawa State Park (IA). It was THOR's Bring Your Own Kid Mountain Biking day. Kids of all ages had fun on their bikes.
The awesome weather (great scheduling there, Dave), great food, and good conversation rounded out the day.
The photos I shot are on my photo web site

Birds (Again) and Dinner with Friends

Fort Pickens Campground — Gulf Islands National Seashore (GINS), Florida
Temps: Lo 65F / Hi 74F (18C / 23C)

It was another day that was a mix of clouds and sunshine. But no one’s complaining. Not even about the humidity, which was up there again. As long as there’s a breeze to keep us from overheating, we’re good.

We started our day off with what turned out to be a two hour walk. For a change of pace, we reversed our usual walking routine this time. Instead of starting out on the beach along Pensacola Bay, we started out by going east along the Gulf of Mexico. We had the beach to ourselves and kept up a pretty good pace to our Pensacola Bay cutover point at the campground registration building. Then it was a slow stroll with frequent stops going west along the bay to the campground.

Anyone home?
We think this is a Remnant of the coastal artillery system built to protect the area in
the early 1900s. No signage, so we’ll have to remember to ask a ranger about it.

Lifeguard station aground; it’s too far from the beach to do swimmers any good.

The boat pier is a popular perch for pelicans and gulls.

I see one cormorant amongst the penguins Pelicans.
[Yes … I do know the difference between the species … wink, wink]

The gull and merganser convention was still going on off-shore, but the birds were very quiet this morning. As a bonus, a small bunch of the gulls were resting at the edge of the beach, giving me a better opportunity to get acquainted. They tolerated my presence well, flying off every once in a while, but returning immediately to the spot across from where I sat watching them.

Bonaparte’s Gulls is my best guess.

Bonaparte’s Gull

Even when most of the gulls took off for a short flight …

… A couple of them always remained behind to babysit the Sanderlings.

Sanderlings

The gull and merganser convention broke up …

… when this fisherman got too close for comfort.

Proof that Judy was right when she identified the waterfowl
amongst the gulls as Mergansers in the Saturday post.

After returning home we relaxed for a bit before the afternoon portion of our day — which was easier on the feet as we drove to Navarre to check out a few campgrounds. We especially liked the waterfront sites at the St Rosa Sound RV Park and Emerald Beach RV Park. The former has monthly rates for these premium sites; the latter doesn’t — but they have small decks overlooking the water. We might treat ourselves to a stay at one of them one of these years — and a treat it would be considering their hefty pricing!

The best part of our day, though, was yet to come — dinner with Chuck and Anneke at their home. Those of you who follow their blog know that they came off the road mid-year in , bought a house in Florida so they can spend more time with family, and shrunk their 39-foot motorhome to a smaller View and became any-timers. They have a lovely home, and we enjoyed a very nice seafood meal with them there last night. Thanks for the invite guys! Have fun in Freeport — and remember to blog about it ;-)

(Alas — no photos from dinner. Chalk it up to having too much fun to remember to take out the camera.)

Shake it off!

A cow Moose shakes water from its body after digging in the water for some plants to eat along the Gunflint Trail in Northeast Minnesota.

Ice Details

My focus for the past week has been to try and find interesting ice patterns. I believe I have found several that easily fit that criteria, the ones shown here are my favorites from the week. The first one (shown above) is a macro shot of frost on the sheet metal of my truck. This is a very close-up shot that only shows an area about 3x3 inches.

Above: One of my favorite types of ice is shown above, when ice completely coats vegetation along the Lake Superior shoreline. It never ceases to amaze me how things can freeze in such a way, as to have one blade of grass completely encased in ice, like that shown here.

Another fascinating type of ice is when puddles freeze in such a particular way as to have all these patterns within the ice. While walking along the Lake Superior shoreline I found several such puddles. Each one had such unique patterns it was mesmerizing and I had to stop and stare for a while at each one that I came across.

Scottish Election Sausage

I should have known better than to post something about the election. People have asked me to explain the British political system (Pamela and Alli, your curiosity is commendable) . That's like being asked to explain cricket. A visual aid is always good, so with the help of the Scottish election sausage, here goes:
The election sausage explains the political landscape in Scotland. The SNP is the Scottish National Party (nickname 'the snips'. Their leader is Alex Salmond, who is nicknamed 'Eck the Fish' - Eck is a Scottish diminutive of Alexander. Their deputy leader is a Nicola Sturgeon, thus pleasingly continuing the fish motif) They are a left-wing/social democratic party committed to Scottish independence from the rest of the UK (we have oil, I think is the basis of the argument). At the last general election they won the most seats in Scotland and now form a minority administration in the Scottish Parliament.
The Liberals are a UK wide social democratic party. They were one of the two main political parties in the UK until the Labour movement in the 1920's, when they were pushed into 3rd position. Recently they have had a resurgence, and are hoping for big gains this election, including in Scotland.
The Conservatives are our right wing party, but without for example a strong base in Christian groups as in the US. In favour of less state intervention, less European Union intervention in national affairs. Think Margaret Thatcher. They have only 1 of the 59 Scottish seats in the UK Parliament.
The Labour party is the current administration, centre left in terms of European definitions of left-wing. Not as left-wing as certain parts of the US media would have us believe.
And the Green Party is a left-wing environmentalist party which doesn't have any members of either the Scottish or UK parliaments (correct me if I'm wrong), but can make a strong local showing. Green politics is much bigger in continental Europe than here. **Edited to say that
Jacqui and Svenske Floyd have pointed out that the Greens have 2 seats in the Scottish Parliament. Which is shameful of me not to know, because I have voted Green in the past.**
Phew. On to parliaments. I'll have to speed up - I'm out of time for blogging! A referendum in 1997 led to the formation of a separate Scottish Parliament with its own members, separte from the United Kingdom Parliament in London. **Edited to say add that Wales has had an equivalent, in the National Assembly for Wales, since 1999.** The Scottish Parliament has certain powers devolved to it- among them agriculture, fisheries, environment, health, education, taxation (to an extent), legal system, economic development, sport, the arts...The UK Parliament has reserved powers which include defence, foreign affairs, social security and monetary stability. The reference to 'devolved cost' in the poster above is an in-joke about the devolution issue. And a 'porkie' is either a lie, or a pork sausage.
Just to stress - we have completely separate education and legal systems from the rest of the UK. Worth several posts in their own right.
That's it. Out of time. Please comment and fill in my woeful gaps.

Manawa Trail Day

Thankfully, we got some clouds this morning. Instead of normal Saturday Ham Radio breakfast, I attended the THOR Lake Manawa Trail Day. Stopped by Panera Bread to pick up a dozen of bagels for the crew.

I headed to the second section of the trail with my loppers. I had not been down there since late April. WOW, have the weeds have been growing! This photo depicts the hemp "forest" that the trail cuts through.

Didn't cut much. Mostly, I wanted to check out the trail and get a couple photos. The are section of the new trail that a lined by 10+ foot weeds, some sections of flowing singletrack in the woods, and some fine (silt) sand.

Met up a trail crew group rerouting a section of the trail. By the time I made it trough the trail section, I had enough for the day. While a nice breeze today, there was just no air moving in the woods.

It was ther first time I rode the full section of the trail. Did not check my computer then I headed into the trail section, but the times I looked, guessing there is over 1.5 miles of trail in there.

Brought the older point&shoot camera with me. Should have brought the newer one. Another day. Need to get out there to check out the first section of the trail and grab some photos.

Another trail day tomorrow morning at Manawa. Supposed to be hotter. Think I am gonna skip it and do normal Sunday morning at Panera.

Salvia, Salvia, Save Me (from the deer)

This post, "Salvia, Salvia, Save Me (from the deer)", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

A year ago I sang farewell to an Arizona Ash tree on YouTube ~ today's song is a musical tribute to the beautiful, deer-resistant flowers in the genus Salvia.
Welcome to Annie's virtual piano bar ~ find a cozy table and spend two minutes in Austin, the Live-Music Capital of the World. We tried to make it sound live by using a simple mic connected to the built-in recorder on a laptop.





Philo and I had five years to learn about gardening with deer at our last Austin house. I wrote "Salvia, Salvia, Save Me (from the deer)" while we still lived there - it's part of an unfinished musical play called Roots in Austin. This plea came straight from the heart!
Our present garden doesn't seem to need deer-resistant plants so our Salvias don't have to work for us - they can just be beautiful.
This post, "Salvia, Salvia, Save Me (from the deer)", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.