I was scanning through images this morning when I came across this Shoe cartoon, which ran one year ago today.

I was about ready to close shop on Secondary Rds when I first saw this.  For that reason, I captured the image with the thought of featuring it in a farewell post.  The encouragement of friends plus a move to self-hosting WordPress changed my mind and renewed my commitment.

A new friend, recently passed an award along to me and this blog.  This sent me into a search of earlier awards.  As I looked at the list of those who had issued those awards, I noticed a lot of them are not currently active.  Others no longer swap blog visits and comments with me.  While some blogger buds disconnect and others leave the scene, yet others connect or enter the blogosphere.  Then there are those special friends that visit and remain.

In my first year of blogging, I spent about six hours a day in blog-related activity.  For more than 365 days there was a new posting each day on Secondary Rds.  Eventually enthusiasm that was found at the start was lost.  Later it was found again only to wane and return once more.

This time of year, I find it difficult to spend much time here at the computer.  That will surely change as warm weather gives was to cold.  Thus goes the ebb and flow, the lost and found.

I was mowing on Friday, when I noticed something moving slowly–kind of flopping actually–in front of the tractor.  I slowed and stopped.  It was a baby bird.  [No doubt from the dove’s nest in a crab apple tree that’s very close by.]  It didn’t take the baby long to move out of my way.  I drove on past the struggling youngster.  (Fortunately the cut grass exits the deck on the opposite side from baby bird.)

The next pass repeated the above scene.  Baby bird is tiring.  It’s a struggle for the little one.  No feathers and hence no flight.  This may be the first adventure out of the nest.  As I drove past the crab apple tree, mama dove dropped out of the nest doing the cripple bird act, but not very convincingly.

I changed my mowing pattern.  I’d come back 45 minutes later to see if I can complete mowing in that portion of our huge lawn.

When I returned the youngster was not to be seen.  I completed the job and then went inside to retrieve my camera.

Mama dove sat on the nest.

Mama dove is looking at you with her left eye.

The light spot on the side of her head looks like a beak, but it’s not.  You can see it better in this picture.

The crab apple leaves provide excellent cover for mama.

After capturing these images, I left the birds in peace.  They are doves after all.  I had a different agenda and that was to make a glass of cool water disappear.  Mission accomplished. 😀

Posting in cooperation with:

Our friend, Vanilla, started it when he posted a satellite pic of his neighborhood.  That was interesting and I made a mental note to do a similar post.

I don’t know how you handle mental notes to yourself, but I will surely misfile or forget most every attempt.  An hour later will likely find me several layers deep in distractions.

On Saturday, Sharkey did a similar post.  Before it escapes me again, I’m going to try to follow in the footsteps of these friends.

Our neighborhood as seen by the circling buzzards

Dirt roads form the North and West boundaries of our homestead.  The house and garage have red steel roofs.  Beacon Bay Farm and Kennel (home to Meghan and Kurt) is in the upper right.  The farm in the lower left is home to Bob and Rosemary.  (Bob raises beef cattle and makes hay from what used to be our lower lawn.)  Hubert and Joyce live at the bottom center.  He raises a few chickens these days.

These are some of the best neighbors we have ever had.  That is wonderful!

Having to travel dirt roads means we despair of ever having clean cars for more than a few hours.  That’s not so great, but it also means we don’t have a lot of traffic zipping by our country home.

The forecasters tell us to expect hot weather this week.  The lawn has turned from lush green and is beginning to brown.  You’d think it was summer . . .  Oh!  Yes.  It is summer.

Flashback Friday is hosted by Camille.  (Click on the badge to visit her blog, which is the home of Flashback Friday.)  Won’t you consider joining in the fun?

Today’s flashback rolls back time for five decades the year was 1963.  I was working my first full-time job as a TV cameraman at WMSB, the TV station for Michigan State University.  At that time we shared transmitter time with a commercial station on Channel 10.  Later, after I had left, the university sold the transmitter and gave up their rights to shared time for enough money to purchase, license and install a transmitter system on channel 23.

A member of the publicity team snapped this shot when sportscaster, Jim Adams (on the left) interviewed MSU alum Chuck Davey the boxer (far right).  Davey boxed for MSU, and for team USA in the 1948 Olympics.  Chuck had a professional boxing record of 42 wins (26 by KO), 5 losses and draws.  Chuck was also the boxing commissioner for the state of Michigan.  I believe he held that position at the time of this interview.

When I was in High School I had watched Chuck Davey a couple of times on TV, so this was a big deal for me.  I was glad to stand behind the camera.  It was even better to meet the man and shake his hand.

Sorry I’m late posting today, I’ve been very busy.  Hope you all have a great weekend.  We’re looking forward to having my three sisters come to visit us tomorrow.  I’ll tell you about that next week.

Last week I showed you pix of neighbor Bob cutting the tall grass on the lower part of what used to be our lawn.  There is a two acre (approx) patch that I’ve turned over to him to make hay.  Over the course of a year this may save me as much as $500, plus it gives food to Bob’s beef cattle.  I call that a win-win situation.

Bob bales hay.

Sylvia and I worked hard to clear the willow trees that were starting to grow in that area.  I didn’t want to see it revert.  The background will give you an idea of what it might be.  For that reason, when Bob said he’d like to use it for hay I didn’t hesitate to approve the idea.

I love living in the country.  We have the best neighbors.  Ever!

 Posting in cooperation with:

Bryant and Barbara gave Sylvia a gift card for Mother’s Day.  It has become their tradition.  Sylvia’s tradition is to use that gift card to buy a rose and some other flowers for the gardens.  This year was no exception.

Sylvia went shopping and came home with a rose called Joseph’s Coat.  At least I think that’s what she said.  The following photos will show you why it is called that.

I took these photos this morning.  The cloudy sky did a beautiful job of diffusing sunlight, which meant no post-shoot processing.  Actually, I did crop and resize the images.  This is my practice so that you get faster downloads and so that I use less server storage space for the images.  (You can click on the images, but they are already full-size.)

Monday evening, I was alone in the house.  It was hot.  Hot enough that this old man was walking around in short pants.  No shoes.  No socks.  No shirt.  (Not a pretty sight!)

I had just placed left overs in the microwave to heat.  My supper would be the remains of Sylvia’s kung pao chicken from the day before.

That’s when the doorbell rang.  Grabbing a shirt, I headed for the back door.  There was Meghan of Beacon Bay Farm and Kennel.  She had brought me a fresh loaf of banana bread.  As we stood talking at the back door, Meghan said she would have arrived earlier but she had stopped to watch a mother raccoon and her babies eating mulberries under our tree.  She had even taken a picture with her cell phone.

Raccoons eating mulberries. Photo by Meghan Rosenstengel

Meghan took the photo from her truck while sitting in our driveway.  That’s her barn in the background.  It is home to chickens, goats, sheep, lambs and a llama named Grace.

So here’s a tip of my hat to the neighbor.  I’m really enjoying that banana bread.  I’m also sorry that on the way to the door I walked past a stack of 14 egg cartons that we’ve been saving just for you.  Remind me of that next time.  Okay?

NASCAR champion, Brad Keselowski, is a Michigan native.  Yesterday this video was posted to YouTube.  Can you believe that authorities let Brad drive his stock across the bridge at Mackinac?  I’m glad they did.

I hope you enjoyed this extra from Secondary Rds.  Hats off to Brad!  We are cheering for you.  You will always be a champion!