We're Back.

We have just returned from 3 weeks in Europe - most spent in the UK. A couple of things to report - we usually fly British Airways and this time was no exception. Julia and I have been flying for 45 years, ever since our first flight to Yugoslavia in 1964, on our honeymoon. In all of that time I estimate that we have made more than 400 flights. For the first time ever, in all of those flights we were given an upgrade! Not much of one its true, but an upgrade never-the-less. British Airways has four classes - first there is "Cattle Class", which they call "World Traveller", then there is "World Traveller Plus", then "Business Class" and finally "First Class". We were upgraded to "World Traveller Plus". The one we usually frequent, World Traveller, is 7 seats across on this plane, the World Traveller Plus is 6 seats across, giving a slightly wider seat, plus they are further apart which gives more legroom too. All very welcome, especially as we had to sit on the runway for an hour before we took off. Getting off in Baltimore was nice too because we were one of the first off and we were very early in line for Customs. Of course having got to the luggage early and then picking up the first 3 of our 4 bags we then had to wait until almost all of the bags were delivered before we got our last bag! But, glad to be back, and to have Sarah pick us up, and to get back to our lovely new home on The Lake, which we had missed. In all of the years that we have been travelling, neither of us can remember missing our home, until now. We both missed home this time, which just goes to show you how much we love this place.
Second thing, it has been almost two years since we were last in the UK, the longest period in some time between trips due to our house building, Julia's new knee and all the problems with the builder etc. Anyway, one of the things that I noticed about the UK this trip was - all the fat people! I guess it has been happening slowly over the years but it seemed to be more noticeable this time, partly because of the longer break since we've been there I'm sure, but also partly because they ARE fatter! Especially the women. We hear about the number of obese people in the US, but I really think there are more in the UK now! This brings me to my theory about their added weight. During our stay we visited two or three supermarkets near my parents house and I was reminded of the choices available in the British supermarkets. Hard as it may be to believe, the variety of choices there are three or four times as many as in a supermarket here. I don't know how they get through their shopping - there are SO many choices. For example, I happen to like marmalade, my supermarket here has maybe 6 different ones to choose from, there, I could probably choose from 30 or 40 different ones! All the supermarkets that we went into baked their own bread, there simply wasn't enough time in the day to look at all the different breads available. Same with cookies, there had to be a hundred different, at least, and I am not lying! It was the same with everything, a hundred different cheeses? Every fruit or vegetable you can think of from every part of the world. Chocolate, I must have spent a half hour looking at them all, in the end I couldn't decide which one to buy, so I bought a half dozen! There is no way most people have the time to look at all the choices, if you need to buy 10 items you have hundreds to look at and decide amongst. So, my theory is that a lot of people can't decide, so they do what I did and buy several! Then they eat them all! The thin people are probably either very busy or have no imagination and buy the same thing every week without looking at anything else.
Just a thought.
We are happy to be back and looking forward to getting together with our friends and neighbors.

Cash for clunkers.

Just a thought but it seems to me that the reason for the Cash for Clunkers program is to help reduce our use of oil and therefore our dependence on foreign oil.
To this end something like the following would seem to make sense. Using 18 mpg as a base - which they are using now - how about if you were to get a refund of $1,000 if you bought a new car that got 10 mpg more than the base, $2,000 for a car with 20 mpg over the base, $3,000 for 30 mpg over and $4,000 for 40 mpg over the base (Or 58 mpg, not sure if that is available yet or not.) This way we would get more value for money by encouraging people to get the more gas efficient cars on the road. Just a thought.

Health Insurance.

A touchy and complicated subject, why would you want to even go there David? Maybe because I have a new idea! At least I have never heard any one bring this up.
First, lets cover the main points real fast. When I was in business for myself and raking in the princely sum of $50,000 a year - most years - for working 60 to 80 hours and 6 days per week, I was paying $1,000 a month for health insurance for my wife and myself. That amounted to 24% of our income (and doesn't include the deductibles, for doctor and hospital and medicines. So it was actually more than 24% of our income.) Now that we are retired we pay $96 Medicare and $32 for drug coverage each - $128 a month each. That comes out of my wife's SS of $660 - so that's 19% of her income, and $128 out of my $1700 is about 8% of my income. Again it does not include deductibles on Dr. Hosp. and Rx. So the lowest I've paid in the last 30 years or so is 8% of my income in Health Ins and usually two or three times as much, or more.
If the US went to a National Health Insurance, everyone would need to pay in depending on their income. The simple number to pick out of the air would be 10%, seems reasonable, or actually low based on my experience. But lets use it. So using my income - before I was retired of $50,000, I'd pay $5,000 or $417 a month. - a lot less than the $12,000/yr or $1,000/mo that I was paying, so I'd be happy. Some pay less now, so they'd be unhappy, I guess. But maybe not, if they earn say $30,000 they'd be paying $3,000 a year or $250 per month - real low!
Now for my big idea. I think that the people who cause the expensive medical care should pay their share. I am referring to manufacturers who make defective products that cause injuries, illnesses and deaths. Why should they not pay their fair share? Lets take a small example, and here I will have to use some figures that I am pulling out of the air, they seem reasonable to me, and I'm sure someone smarter than me could verify or put them in perspective. Now follow me closely here. Lawnmower accidents, lets say there are 100,000 per year and it costs the hospital $1,000 on average to fix up each injury. That's 100 million dollars. Now, how many lawnmowers are sold a year? Lets guess 10 million. So, if we tax each lawn mower a $10 'Health Ins Charge', we collect 100 million dollars - enough to cover the medical costs incurred by the manufacturers machines. The manufacturers meanwhile can say, "We don't want our machines to cost an extra $10 each, what can we do?" Well what they can do is design their machines to be safer and cause less injuries. Lets say they do that and in a couple of years lawnmower injuries drop in half to 50,000 a year, the Health Ins Charge could then be dropped to $5 per machine.
We can check with the Hospitals to see what are the most dangerous things that cause the most injuries, illnesses and deaths and are the most expensive. Why should these things not pay for the misery and expense they cause? They make their living, and profit from them and it is in their power to reduce those costs and I'm sure if it was financially profitable to them they would. Other items that come immediately to mind are :- Chain Saws, Cars, Cigarettes, Guns, Alcohol, Soda's, Fast Foods, Fat Foods, I'm sure there a few more. That Health Ins Charge - which is within the makers power to reduce, and if they did would be win/win/win situation for everyone involved, would go to the National Health Insurance to help reduce every ones premiums.
There are probably a couple of other place to pull money into the National Health Ins Fund without too much pain. Lets see, how about a tax on gambling etc, the good old sin taxes, or add 1% to the sales tax of every State, they can collect it - it shouldn't cost a lot more for them to collect as they already do it, and then they send in the 1% to the National Health Ins Fund every week or month. A lot cheaper than the Feds setting up a whole new Federal Sales Tax and it would only tax money that was spent (Not incomes, savings etc) Of course there would be a deductible - say $10 when you visit a Doctor, $10 for a Rx, otherwise people would go to the Doctor for a band aid or a bottle of Aspirin. We would also be collecting money from 47 million more people than we are now - the 47 million uninsured Americans, and we'd be collecting from the rich people too, someone making a million dollars a year would be contributing $100,000! Someone making $20,000 would be contributing $2,000 - seems fair to me.
It would probably be possible to reduce the 10% National Health Ins Tax by using those suggestions, maybe considerably - to 8% say or even 6%.
Comments please.

Food waste.

We have chickens - so we don't have food waste, they will eat virtually anything except . . Wait we did have some food waste the other day, chickens will not eat anything citric, like oranges, lemons, limes etc. The other day there was a perfectly good looking orange - until I picked it up and turned it over, gross, no way we could eat even a bit of it and I knew the chickens wouldn't touch it. So, on to the compost pile. I guess that counts as waste huh? We also live on the water and as you can't put any meats or fats onto the compost if we EVER do have meat waste that I don't want to give to the chickens, that goes into the crab trap.

Rascal's Big Adventure.

I had trouble sleeping last night. We went to bed at 11.30 and after a half an hour I got up and read for about two hours. I think that I also went out onto the deck. Back in bed I lay for some more hours, I remember watching the clock at 4.00 and 5.00. The next thing I remember is Julia saying, "Oh my God the door is open." I looked up and sure enough the bedroom door out onto the deck was wide open. The time was 7.30. It was windy, I must not have pushed it hard enough to latch and the wind had blown it open. Rascal the cat has not been out since we moved here. For the first 9 months he showed no interest in going out, but lately he has been looking out a lot and if the door is left with just the screen door, he sits by it and smells the air. Well he must have smelled the air this morning and headed straight outside. I searched the house in case he was still in but found no sign of him, I really hadn't expected to because ever since we moved in, wherever Julia is, there is Rascal. Julia was in the bedroom, so it followed Rascal must also have been in the bedroom where he would have smelled the scent of the open road - once a cat, always a cat I guess. So I went outside, closed the door and went looking for him. I found him at the bottom of the steps and when I went to pick him up he bolted up the stairs to the door, which was closed. I approached cautiously, he was looking panicky as I got close but I managed to reach over him and open the door. He shot in and lay down. A Big Day for Rascal.

A visit.

Our very good friends Mary & Don visited last night. There are few things in life as good as friends, and family, and these are wonderful friends indeed. They came bearing gifts, wonderful gifts from wonderful friends. What kind of wonderful gifts you say? What does it matter, if it comes from friends it's great whatever it is. But as it happens these were super - food - a huge box of fruit and vegetables AND a home made carrot cake. What more could anyone ask? We hugged, we ate, we talked, we hugged, talked some more, we played cards, they let me win, we hugged again (I especially like that part) and they left. A lovely evening.

Cancer survival

My daughter is approaching the 20 year survival mark of her battle with Cancer. It began just a couple of days before Christmas 1989 and continued for most of the next year, much of it spent in Johns Hopkins Hospital, an Institution that we are fortunate enough to reside close to. There is no way that I could possibly go into the high's and lows, mostly lows, of that year. The nightmares, pain and tears, live in me even now every day. The pain and suffering that my daughter endured remains with me as one of my recurring nightmares. In fact even now I am starting to lose it, so I'll end this very short Blog with a prayer of thanks for her recovery and her new lease on life - which also gave me a new lease on life, there is no way I could have gone on without her.

Giant Egret

A surprise awaited me this morning as I gazed out at my own personal piece of Heaven, (No you idiot, The Lake, not Julia.) because there, right outside of the window, was a beautiful Giant Egret stalking the shallows. I watched fascinated as he (or she?) busily thinned out The Lakes stocks of minnows and other small fish. As I watched, I wondered what those fish think about as they swim around in their own world, surely almost completely oblivious of a whole other Universe right next door to their own. All they can see of that Universe, from theirs, is a new "tree" towering from its base, right up through their realm and out into that "Other World" beyond their sight. A World that they can never visit. Then 'BAM', all of a sudden they are grabbed by a huge powerful pair of tongs, whisked completely up and out of their World into a entirely alien one, that they get to see see for a few brief terrifying seconds, until they are plunged deep into the even more terrifying world of the belly of one of the denizens of that 'other world' that they can never visit, except as food for the aliens.

Hmm, I wonder, do we live right next to another Cosmos that we are as entirely unaware of? Are we as unaware of a world right next to ours that we know as little about as the fish in my Lake know about our world? Just think, what do they know of us? They see our shadows, sometimes they see us if we pull them out of the water, they may even be lucky enough to survive the trip and be placed back into their own wonderful world, but what did they learn of our world from their brief visit? Do they now know about our homes, our family life, pets, TV, MacDonalds, cars, our forms of communication, books, education, politicians now? I don't think so. If there is another, or many other, forms of life as far above us as we are above fish, how could we possibly know about them? Why should we be the 'ultimate' form of life? I'm sure the fish thinks he is the top of the chain. The usual way of 'things' is that most 'things' are somewhere in the middle of a "bell curve", why should we be right on one side of that curve? Isn't it much more likely that we are more in the middle. In the scheme of things - and of bell curves - it is in fact highly unlikely that an item is going to fall all the way to one side. So, we are much much more likely to fall somewhere in the midstream. I must say that I would hope we fall more to the 'high end', but we are probably sort of Middling, more than a microbe, but less than a God. After all what kind of a job are we making of even taking care of ourselves and our kind? Pretty awful I'm sure we would all agree on that. We can't be even be a little bit Tolerant of each other, let alone care for or love each other. War, Hate, Envy, Stealing, Hurting, and a whole bunch of other nasty stuff is "What We Do Best", surely we cannot be the best the the Universe has to offer?
What do you think?
Have a Happy Day.
David.

Friends of The Lake

This is for my friends who follow my Blog to read about The Lake and it's unique wildlife and my stories about them.

Apart from the Fish and the Mosquitoes, 90% of the visible species of wildlife on The Lake are Birds. Actually, come to think of it there aren't all that many mosquitoes. I wonder why that is? Everyone thinks that there are a lot of mosquitoes around lakes, but I think that may be a misnomer. Could it be because mosquitoes lay their eggs in water and with such a huge amount of water in The Lake they don't have to look for little pools, they just get lazy and lay them right there in The Lake where the layers and the layees become a tasty snack for the minnows that abound there. One supposes that mosquitoes lay their future issue in still, dank, stagnant water and maybe they do usually, but The Lake is often so still that it is like a mirror and it fools them into laying their precious cargo there - or maybe like us, they are just lazy. Anyway, I don't see a whole lot of mosquitoes around here.

As I said, most of the wildlife around The Lake is in the form of our wonderful and hugely varied bird population. Today's short stories are about two of those birds.

The first story is about a Cormorant that Julia saw last week, just one, on it's own and just once. It must have been lost or on its way somewhere else when it stopped in for a quick snack. Some of you will remember that earlier in the year when I first saw the Cormorant "Invasion", I had been concerned enough to call the Dept of Natural Resources. There were at times 50 or more of these fascinating diving birds here, all feasting on "My" fish! The DNR assured me that they were just passing through on their way north - to the Great Lakes, and sure enough in a few weeks they had disappeared. The DNR also told me that the Cormorants are making quite a comeback all over this area, having been almost extinct once in The Chesapeake Bay. In the Great Lakes they have rebounded from a few dozen pairs to a few thousand pairs today. Another success story - unless you are a fish!

The second story occurred today. Julia was doing her civic duty and carefully keeping watch on all of her charges, otherwise known as 'The Lake's Wildlife,' when she spotted one of her favorites, an Osprey, who dived into The Lake right in front of her and came up with a big fish. Now here is where we learned something, apparently the fish is often killed right away. We know this is not always the case because to our horror we have often watched the Osprey perched in a tree eating a still struggling fish. But don't worry about us, we are used to this now! Anyway we know this fish was dead because the Osprey dropped it into The Lake and it just floated. We watched for some time expecting the fish to be just stunned and to suddenly come to life and swim away. But it just bobbed along on the little wavelets. The Osprey did a couple of fly-bys right over the body and then flew away. We could not understand that, he had already caught it, now all he had to do was pick it up. Mind you, it was a very big fish, but I doubt if that was the problem, I guess they just don't eat dead things and maybe he wasn't smart enough to know that he had just caught and killed it himself!

After that we got to wondering what was going to happen to the fish body. You hadn't wondered about things like that? Too much other important stuff to think about? Well why don't you break out of that rut and just spend a couple of minutes thinking about what will happen to the dead fish. Julia's immediate thought was, "The Buzzards will get it." But the Buzzards don't go onto the water. My response was, "Yes, when it reaches the shore." So her reply was, "If the crabs don't get it first." Of course it will also have to run the gamut of the other fish, the minnows and any other bird that spots it. If it, or any of it's remains do somehow make the shore and it is nighttime, there is not much chance that it will escape the notice of the Raccoons or the Possum, not forgetting any hungry cats or dogs. There are doubtless other unseen night creatures that search the shore line at night. All these ensure that we rarely, if ever are subjected to nasty smells around our perfect piece of heaven. Night, night, sleep tight.

Pro and Con

Pro and Con, if Pro is the opposite of Con, is Progress the opposite of Congress?

July 20th 1969

I've been busy lately. I meant to do a Blog on our fantastic achievement in 1969 of landing a man on the Moon and retuning him safely to Earth. Not many people know that I had a small part in the project myself, having worked at RAF Farnborough in the UK from 1961 to 1964. During this time the US Astronauts visited Farnborough several times to use our large Centrifuge. We also worked on ways of preventing another fire in the Capsule after the fatal fire that took the lives of several Astronauts. There were a number of other interesting experiments and tests that we did to further the project.
Having said that I have to say that I have been very disappointed in the progress in Space Exploration since the Moon Landing. I had fully expected by now, 40 years on, that we would at least have a Moon Colony with regular trips being made to the Moon. (I even had dreams of going myself.) Certainly I thought that my children and grandchildren would likely have been and find it "old hat". I thought we would have had manned trips to Mars, most of the other Planets and have ships on their way to the Stars. Instead, virtually nothing has happened, not even more trips to the Moon! Has such a long period gone by without major exploration since we set off in ships to explore the seas? I don't think so. We have stagnated. Sitting on our butts, we are going to drown in our own filth as we pollute and ruin our home, The Earth. We need to be looking for places to expand into (And ruin!) as we have done for centuries. If we stay here we are doomed.

Right wing crazies.

There are still some right wing crazies out there that are saying Obama is not a US citizen. This is in spite of the birth certificate being produced, the courts ruling him a citizen and the newspaper in Hawaii producing the paper with his birth announcement in it. Even John McCain says that Obama is a US Citizen. And McCain was born in Panama! I didn't hear any fuss from anyone about that. I think it is time for Rush Limberger and his ilk to settle down and accept the truth. They are not doing themselves or anyone else any good, with their wingeing.

The Wonderful Fig

Figs are delicious, they are also high in calcium and fiber, and they are delicious. They can be eaten freshly picked, or dried, or made into a delicious jam. They can only be picked when ripe as they will not ripen after picking, so do not travel well. If really ripe they are one of the most delicious fruits you can get. The flower of the fig is INSDE of the fruit! A tiny wasp enters the fruit through a small hole that opens in the end of the fruit when it is ripe. The wasp fertilises the flowers that are inside the fruit. (Or other insects can do the job - like ants.) Figs are about 60% sugar. It is said that man could live on figs. Did I mention that they are delicious? Or as my friend Edna Vincent Millay once said -

FIRST FIG

My candle burns at both ends.
It will not last the night,
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.

If you can figure out what that means, please let me know!

As you may have guessed I have a fig tree, several actually, but one in particular is about 15 feet high and 20 feet across, last year I picked, and ate, about 400 figs from this tree. They were delicious! I dried several large jars full, also made jam, and we put some into our morning fruit smoothies, delicious. I thoroughly recommend planting a fig tree. It may take several years to start producing large quantities of fruit, but the sooner you plant it the sooner you will have the fruit - which is delicious - as a famous person once said, the best time to plant a tree is last year, the next best time is now!. So go for it, get planting, now. (They are delicious!)

Insecticides and herbicides.

I was over at Dock Road today. We lived there for 28 years. Some one asked me if I had a problem with Japanese beetles, I said, no. Then I got to thinking about it, the birds eat the beetles. We get a few, they attract the birds who eat them. There are grubs that live in the lawn and eat the grass roots. Moles come and eat the grubs, the moles make tunnels but when the grubs are all gone the moles go. The cabbages and broccoli used to get caterpillars on them, when I saw them I'd go out and pick them off. Sometimes I found myself competeing with the birds. My neighbors on the other hand would spray. This would kill the insects, the birds eat the dead and dying insects and the birds die. Does this make sense? Now there are no birds to eat the insects, so when the insects return - as they always do - more spray. You can also spray to kill the grubs in the lawn, doubtless the moles will eat the poisoned grubs, and die. Now you have no natural controls. Also in my garden were many praying mantiss, they eat lots of insects as do lady bugs - several times their own weight in insects every day. If we spray to kill the insects we also kill the natural controls. And not just the control insects, insecticides also kill bees and butterflies. These sprays are poisons, they go into our food, into our air, into our water and into us. I'm sure that a lot of people will say, "The poisons are safe. The manufacturers say they are." Well I say, "Ask them to drink some, and see how safe they think they are then!" What would you expect the manufactures to say? What would you say if you were selling something? Of course they are going to say they are safe. And of course they are not safe. These poisons are endemic, they are everywhere, as I said before in our food, our air, our water, our children and us. And there are more and more of them being spread over the landscape every day. The touble is, once upon a time there would be an infestation and you would use the insecticide to get rid of it. Now we see one Japaneses Beetle or half a dozen caterpillars and the whole garden has to be sprayed as if there were a plague of locusts! Come on, give the birds a chance, they are anxious to eat them, give them a chance, by spraying everything in sight we are just killing the beneficial insects and birds and everything else that has taken care of these problems for centuries - and longer. It's better to put up with a few weeds and insects that will be taken care of anyway by the things that were put here to do just that, rather than poisoning ourselves, our children, our air and our water. Weeds - there are "Perfect" lawns all over the place, but what I see are huge amounts of weed killer that washes into our water and into the Bay. The Bay used to have lots of underwater grasses, in these grasses lived small fish, crabs and all kinds of life. It was the nursery for our food chain. The grasses have gone, could it be the thousands of tons of weedkiller that are spread on all those lawns? I prefer to have underwater, fish, crabs, oysters, clams and the whole myriad of life that used to be in the Bay. I'm quite happy to put up with a few weeds in exchange for this. If you don't like dandelions, a few minutes each day with a trowel and you can get rid of them, they are easy to find - just look for the big yellow flower that sys "Here I am" - after the first few days you find less and less, and you are comuning with nature and enjoying you property more. Listen to the bees, watch the butterflies, enjoy the 'weeds'. If you have 'weeds", you will also have more bees and butterflies, that is what they feed on. No flowers (weeds), no butterflies. Look at those 'weeds' sometime, there are some lovely ones. buttercups are beautiful, so are violets, cornflowers, red and white clover and many more. Right now my lawn in some areas has masses of 'weeds' with tiny blue flowers on them. There are probably a dozen or more different flowers in my lawn, I can't name them, but I can enjoy them. The weedkiller manufacturers spend millions getting us to hate weeds and telling us to kill them!
(Just like on another subject for another day, our politicians spend millions telling us to hate other peoples. Then when we hate them enough and go to war to kill them they can make vast fortunes selling weapons! But lets save that for another day!)

What about Watermelons?

"What about watermelons?" said the parking lot attendant. "OK" we said, confused,"What about watermelons?" He replied, "You get four for a dollar and one free." as he pointed across the parking lot at the largest pile of watermelons that I had ever seen.
We were in El Paso Texas, just across the border from Juarez Mexico. The time was June 1970. We, was my beautiful wife Julia and myself. If you think Julia is beautiful now you should have seen her in 1970. In 1970 she was 28 years old and 'breathtakingly beautiful' would be a more accurate description. But the attendant was not interested in her, he was only interested in selling his lovely watermelons. Who could resist 5 watermelons for $1.00? Even way back in 1970 that was unheard of. Certainly we couldn't resist and we were soon on our way with 5 big, beautiful, bright green watermelons.
But what were we going to do with 5 watermelons, we were not even all that keen on watermelons, it was not our favorite fruit. But at five for a dollar the deal was irresistable. We stopped and ate a watermelon. We drove on, it is HOT!! in El Paso. We needed ice for the watermelons, ice costs money. Just then we passed a family store at the side of the road. Going back, we went in and asked the owner, "Do you have any water melons?" His answer of "No." encouraged us and we asked "Do you like watermelons?" He looked puzzled, we repeated the question and we were even more encouraged when he replied "Yes." We exchanged a watermelon for a bag of ice. Further up the road we repeated the deal.
Just one of my memories of a full life. I have many more, if you'd like to hear another one leave me a comment. Just click on the 'comments' under this post and ask. I can tell you several stories about when we went into Mexico, or of our travels around the US for three months in a VW bus, or how about Texas at Christmas 1967, or, well you tell me a tale and I'll tell you one. Or two. Or more.

Planting trees.

I have been planting trees and bushes at the Lake House for the last few days and I am reminded of the old saying - "The best time to plant a tree is last year, the next best time is now." This is of course because everyone says, "If only I had planted it last year, I would have a tree by now." From there you go to, "Well you'd better plant it now - or next year you will be saying 'If only I had planted it last year . . ." Again. So, I am planting trees. I'm putting in more than I have room for, more than I need and more than I want, but, some will die and I can pick and choose among the rest which ones to keep. I can even try to move one or two, maybe they will survive and maybe they won't, but at least I won't be saying, "I wish I had planted those trees last year!"

Do it now.

Confucious him say -

Yes Confucious really existed, and he really was smart. Here's an example of just how smart he really was, I like this saying because it reflects my feelings exactly -

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."

I could not have put it better or more concisely myself. Unless it is to say - read, or even, please read.

7-7 the UK's 9-11

Today is the fourth anniversary of the Muslim terrorist bombings in London when 52 people were killed and hundreds injured. It happened on July 7th 2005.

Julia.

I've loved you ever since I first saw you. I love to see you smile as much as I love to see the sun rising and the sun setting. What more could this man ask of life other than that the love of my life said "yes" when I asked you to marry me and that you then gave me a daughter almost as beautiful as you are, and then you stayed with me for 47 years.
A perfect life and a perfect wife.
All my love, David XXX

An evening on the deck by The Lake.

Our friends Bob and Ann came to dinner last night. A rare treat. They brought a bottle of red wine made from organically grown grapes which we drank with dinner on our new deck. They seemed to be suitably impressed with the deck, who wouldn't be, it is big and new, sporting a table and chairs shaded with a big green umbrella, surrounded with cushioned easy chairs and overlooking a Lake that is without a doubt the most beautiful in Anne Arundel County. In addition there is shade from some lovely evergreen trees and a view of a different sunset every night of the year. Last night produced another good sundown. The two trio's of Goslings put in an appearance, a flotilla of our fine feathered friends, visiting briefly along with their parents. They came late and we had hoped for a longer stay - maybe even one of their frequent forays up onto our lawn for one of the Lake Treats where they tend our lawn as they lovingly remove the weeds and graze the more delicious stalks. It is a picture indeed and much better than me having to push the noisy mower around. While "mowing" they also fertilize. But this was to be a short visit, a 'sail by' as it were, as the two flotilla's appeared on the horizon, came fairly close and then disappeared while we were distracted with something else - maybe it was the blueberry pie, ice cream and whipped cream - or maybe I was distracted by the two beautiful women.
But the sun went down, the mosquito's came out, and found us, and we were forced to retreat to the cool interior where we continued our visit until it was time for the inevitable parting. They roared off in their bright red Mustang, Ann's blonde hair flying in the wind and Bob's grey hair doing the same.
We went in to finish the wine, but it was all gone. After a few minutes of checking the "news" we decided to have an early night.

I was thinking . . .

Just about the time that I realized that maybe my father was right I had my daughter Sarah who thought that I was wrong. I think she realized that I might be right about at least a few things somewhere around the time that she had her son Bradley, who undoubtably thinks that she is wrong. Now Bradley is 16, has a girlfriend and it occurs to me that sometime in the next 5 or 10 years he will have a son/daughter who will think that he is wrong - right about the time that he realizes that his mother was right after all. Twenty years after that . . . . .

Water, water everywhere.

While our friends in San Antonio, Texas are suffering from the heat and a drought, we in Central Maryland are under a flood warning. Our esteemed weather forecasters called for a 1/4 inch of rain today. However, I have been up since 5.00 am watching The Lake level rise and can assure them that they are wrong, wrong, wrong, as of now we have had almost 2 inches of rain this morning and it is still raining like crazy. The weather channel is frantically issuing flood warnings for our area every five minutes and The Lake level is about a foot higher than it was when I got up this morning. (The water level in The Lake is of course not just dependant on the rainfall, the runoff accounts for more of a rise than just the 2 inches of rain on it's own.) I just called one of my neighbors to warn him that the boat and chairs on his pier are about to become floating boats and chairs. I watched from the comfort of my easy chair as he came out with his umbrella to rescue his nice white Adirondack chairs. So far he has left the boat. Maybe it is tied to the pier or maybe the lightening is too scary for him! I don't blame him. Our "boat" - an 8 foot long aluminum jonboat is safely on land. Unfortunately I did not turn it over, so it is probably half full of water. I use the term 'land' loosely as it is getting harder to separate our lawn from the water of The Lake, they look just about equally wet.
I'm sure that our friends Tom & Martha in Texas would be happy to observe what I am looking at now! But it is not to be Tom, sorry, you are going to have to put up with 100 degrees plus temperatures and a dry as dust lawn. In this modern day and age I think we should be able to do some swapping between States - rainfall for sunshine etc. But as wonderful as our technology is in some areas, Wii, cell phones that blow up your tires, barbecue your hamburgers, cut your hair and mow your lawn, not to forget Sexting and even making phone calls, we still can't do a simple thing like moving rain and heat around. Lets get on that as soon as we fix the economy, health care, put a solar car in every garage, and a robot in every home.
Back to the present, it is still raining. Gotta go and get more coffee.
David.

Being wrong, and right.

I f you don't say anything and don't do anything you can never be wrong and you can never look stupid. But on the other hand you can never be right either!

Bang, bang, bang

We went to bed quite early last night, at about 10.30, as I have a busy day today. At about 10.45 we heard some strange sounds like loud pops and bangs. Gunshots? Fireworks? At 1/4 to 11.00? A few minutes later it happened again, minutes later, again. I got up and went outside, nothing, came back inside and it happened again. I went out and waited, after five minutes there was still nothing, but as soon as I came back in it happened again, I went out again and this time waited 10 minutes. Again nothing, until just after I came back in. I never did see any fireworks and never determined what it all was. Back to bed and sleep.
At a quarter to 12.00 I was a woken by an awful, loud wailing sound. Our smoke detectors, we have 5 of them in the house, were all going off together and the sound was deafening. I got up again and toured the house, no sign of any fire or smoke but the detectors continued to wail. I waved a tray under them all, no good, they continued. I had no idea what to do, I was reluctant to take the batteries out of 5 smoke detectors, especially as there could be a fire somewhere and in any case I think that they are on the regular electric too. I had no idea how to turn them off. After about 20 minutes they stopped, although one or two went off on their own for a few seconds. Then they all stopped. Again no idea what set them off. Back to bed and sleep.
At 2.30 we were woken by a tremendous flash of light and an almost simultaneous explosion. Thunder and lightening. The storm continued unabated for . . . about 5 minutes! That was it, about a half dozen flashes and bangs and it was over. Back to sleep.
Now it is time to get up and go to work.

An exciting day at The Lake.

I got up at 6.00am 0n Tuesday to a fine clear day. The sun was just up, both the sky and The Lake were a lovely pink color. I went down and sat on the pier to look and listen for any signs of a repetition of yesterdays splashings of the carp spawning in The Lake, but there was none. Not a sound, not even a ripple, The Lake was perfectly smooth and quiet. So I went back to bed. Less than an hour later it was raining, heavily, which was quite remarkable as there had been hardly a cloud in the sky an hour earlier. We got ready to go to Annapolis and got there in the afternoon after a couple of stops on the way. By now the day was so glorius that we took a harbor cruise, visiting Annapolis Harbor, the Severn River and the Naval Academy. The sky was clear and it was very sunny and hot. Next stop was at The Red Lobster Restaurant to get Lobsters for Margaret & Ed. While in there Sarah called to tell us that the boys ball game had been cancelled, "Due to the storm." Apparently they were having a really bad storm but there was sign of a storm where we were. However when we left a short time later it was clouding up fast and by the time we got to Trader Joe's a few miles away the sky was looking very black. Just after we got into the store it started and we couldn't get out for almost an hour. The rain and wind were some of the heaviest I have ever seen anywhere. Eventually a man from the store escorted us out to our car with an umbrella. It rained all the way home. When we got home there was no real damage, except for a few small branches down but the big heavy bench on the pier had been blown into The Lake and was nowhere to be seen. With thick heavy cloud covering the sky we could see no chance of a nice sunset for Margaret & Ed's last full day here. But to out absolute amazement as the time of sunset approached the sky started to clear and we had one of the best sunsets ever. It got better and better as the clouds cleared away and were replaced with blue that turned to a wonderful gold.
The next day, Wednesday, Ed and I went out in the kayaks to look for the bench and found it only a couple of hundred feet away at the edge of The Lake in the bushes. We towed it back and put it on the lawn.
So we went from clear sky to storm, back to sunshine, back to storm and back to blue sky and a great sunset.
All in all a very eventful and exciting day.

Two things that never come back

Two things that you can never get back are the words you speak and lost opportunities. So, be sure to think carefully before you speak those words, escpecially if you have any thought at all that you may regret them someday!
Lost opportunities - if you make a wrong judgement they could get you into the same trouble as those words you might regret - but I am thinking now mostly about more mundane opportunities, like taking that photo, like getting up to see the sun rise, like complimenting a friend, or a stranger, like telling someone you love them. I've missed chances in life, we all have. The house you should have bought, the girl/guy you let get away, the investment you missed, there are dozens of these biggies that are gone and we regret, but I am not talking about those opportunities now, I am talking about the little ones. Don't forget to tell your little grandson what a great job he did on the ball field today, to thank your wife for the special dinner she cooked, your parents for anything, friends - for being your friends. When you hear of something unusual that is going to happen take the trouble to witness it, meteor showers - ever seen one? It's worth watching - when one is announced in the paper take the opportunity to watch. The space station going over - get up and watch it. Is the sun going to come up tomorrow? Take the opportunity one day to check and make sure that it does! Your grandchildren's graduation, ballgame, science project, school play, first . . . whatever, don't miss the opportunity because it doesn't come back.

More adventures from The Lake.

Last night we had another full moon, it was big and beautiful, hanging in the sky above our small and beautiful Lake.
I awoke at about 5 o'clock this morning and looking out at The Lake through the 10 floor to ceiling windows of our bedroom I saw a huge red moon hanging just above the trees across The Lake. A ribbon of red lay on the water all the way up to our bulkhead. I got up quickly, slipped on my shoes, got Ed's camera (Our English friends Margaret & Ed are staying with us for 3 weeks - Ed is an extraordinary photographer and has a much better camera than I do!) and stepped out onto our deck which is barely 100 feet from The Lake. I quickly snapped a couple of photos. While I was standing there admiring this lovely sight I heard some splashing and thought that it must be my neighbor getting his boat out to do some early morning fishing. But the splashing sounds increased, it sounded like waves, which I knew it wasn't because The Lake was quite still, could it be someone swimming? Surely not, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked across the lawn and down to our pier. As I approached the water the splashing sound got louder and I could hear it coming from several places. Even in the near darkness I could see the water churning on both sides of the pier as well as in front of my neighbors properties. I stepped onto the pier and almost fell over as the silence, apart from the splashing, was torn apart by a crashing and banging sound from right under my feet. By now it was apparent to me that the churning and splashing sounds were fish. But the huge apparition that rose up from under my feet could not be a fish surely? No, it was a Great Blue Heron that must have been feeding under the pier and had been disturbed by my feet over his head. He struggled noisily out from under there with wings flapping against the decking, poles and water and as soon as he was clear, rose gracefully into the air with a few hoarse squawks and flew off. Meanwhile, the water all around me was churning with the sights and sounds of huge fish. They were so big that their backs were out of the water at times, they were bumping into the bulkhead and the pilings of the pier. I estimated them to be between 2 and 3 feet long although over by my neighbors beach the disturbance was so great that they could have been bigger, or maybe there were just more of them. After watching for a few minutes I went into the house, woke up my friend Ed, told him to get his shoes on and follow me. Together we watched fascinated for another 10 minutes until the mosquitoes discovered us and we decided to go back to bed. Instead of going to bed I brewed my first coffee of the day and wrote my blog to tell you about this new adventure from my lovely Lake.
Added later - Oh, by the way, they are Carp and vary in lenghth from one foot to four feet - there are hundreds of them! We have all been watching them thrashing aorund in two's, three's and yes, even foursomes!! They come right in to the edge, so close you could literally touch them, if they weren't so fast.
Enjoy life, I do, Love David.

Favorite cities.

How could I possibly have forgotten Copenhagen? And having mentioned Copenhagen - one of my very favorite cities because that is where I proposed to Julia - it follows that I should also mention Stockholm, what a lovely city that is, and of course Oslo, Helsinki, Vienna, Bratislava and almost any city in Switzerland. Returning to the US I have to mention San Antonio. Are there any more recommendations?

Drama on The Lake.

I awoke at 5.30 this morning to the sound of a mosquito buzzing around my head. Looking out the windows at The Lake I saw the most amazing sight - pink water! The entire lake was the most beautiful shade of pink. I got up and looked out at my most favorite view (Except for julia). Harry The Heron was stationed strategically by the pier searching the water for an early breakfast morsel. There, he got one. Suddenly, I saw and heard the most terrifying sight and sound on The lake - the male swan. He was running across the water, his neck stretched straight out in front of him and his huge 7 or 8 foot span wings smashing into the water on either side of him. He was in attack mode! And what was he attacking? Two Canada Geese that he apparently perceived as a threat to his future family and who were at least a quarter of a mile from his mate and their nest. He continued across the water closing the distance to the two Geese fast, when he got about 50 feet away from them the Geese took off and flew away. The swan stopped and settled onto the water, his work done, for the moment. Other "threats" would arise throughout the day and he would be ready to face them all. It is remarkable to me that the Geese, Ducks and other birds return after his scary behaviour. But return they do, only to be seen off again and again.

When a Man is Tired of London -

- a Man is Tired of Life. I think Samuel Johnson said that. He said a lot of great stuff, I'm going to have to read some more of him. What made me think of that? Well we have some English friends staying with us for a few weeks.
I really don't see how anyone could ever get tired of London, if you've never been there I would suggest a visit. A year would be a good start! Think I'm kidding? I'm not, a year there would only be a start.
I think London is the greatest city in the world. Now that may be because I know London better than any other city, having been there more times than any other city. (Not counting Baltimore - who is not even in the running - and that shows that it is not simply familiarity that makes a city great.) Thinking about it, I've been to quite a few cities around the world, some great and some not so great. Why don't I list some of my candidates for great cities of the world and then you list yours? After London would come Sydney, Australia, The City of Paris was nice - but when I think about that it makes me realize that the people also have to figure into the equation, and because of that Paris drops well down on the scale, Washington DC is OK but not what I would call great, New York definitely makes the cut, as do Bejing and Shanghai, I liked Vancouver and Ottawa too. There are a lot of small cities that fit, and there are a lot of cities that I have visited but not stayed long enough to form an opinion. I think generally big cities fit the old adage "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there". Using that adage, the only big cities that I can think of offhand that I don't think I'd mind living in are London, Sydney, Vancouver and possibly New York. I don't know any others well enough.
What is your take ? Do you have a list?
David.

There's still life left in the old man yet.

Yes I am still here, and feeling fine, right outside my windows nature paints a picture. And what a picture, there for me to feast my eyes on is the Bluest Lake you can imagine, under the Bluest sky.
In spite of having lived here for 10 months now we have not, until yesterday, bought a boat. It's a long story and one that I won't bore you with now, but it involves a builder who stole a considereable sum of money from us, bad timing with building the house - the economy that leaves us with no buyer for our previous house, even though we have cut it's price almost in half - and on and on - - - . But yesterday we finally broke down and bought not one, but two, bright yellow Kayaks, from Dicks, dear Dicks, they had a 50% off sale on some of their Kayaks, Wow, thats almost half price isn't it? Our friends Margaret and Edward are coming to visit us from England for 3 weeks and it just doesn't seem fair to have this beautiful Lake to explore and no boat to explore with! Dicks also had folding chairs at two for $12. As luck would have it one of our chairs broke yesterday, while watching the grandsons playing baseball (They won - again!), so we decided to invest in some chairs. No doubt Margaret & Ed will be coming to watch some top class American baseball - our grandsons are 8 and 9 years old - so we went all out and got two chairs for them to use and as we needed another one and one was $9.99 we decided to go for broke and get the two for $12.00! Now we are all set to sit.
I went out in one of the Kayaks this morning and it worked just fine, the first time that I have seen the house from so far out on the Lake, except this winter when the Lake froze over and we were able to not only walk all over the Lake but also build a fire on it! A nice big fire that did not burn through the ice. In fact a lot of people built fires, and rode their bikes, and skated, and played ice hockey.
Well it's time to prepare for our visitors, bye for now, or as we used to say in England - just practising for our visitors - "Ta ta for now."

David, XXX

Blue.

Blue. No, not Old Blue Eyes, although I am old and I do have blue eyes. (A beautiful young girl with beautiful brown eyes once told me that I had 'the most beautiful blue eyes') No, I am referring to Blue skies, Blue water, Blue birds and Blue flowers. I arrived home at 5 o'clock today and as usual went straight to the windows to look out at The Lake. And what did I see? I saw the most amazing Blue water reflecting the Bluest sky you ever could imagine and in the big green maple tree were no less than 5 BlueJays. I went outside, to enjoy it all the more and walked across, well not exactly a carpet, but through quite a lot of tiny Blue flowers. Blue is my favorite color - except when there are a lot of Yellow flowers! I was about to say that there are no yellow skies, yellow water and yellow birds, but I had no sooner thought it than I realized that there are indeed yellow birds. We see then flitting aorund here quite often, they are finches, the American Goldfinch to be precise. And a lot of birds have yellow legs too. Trees, well in the fall there are more yellow trees than you can count. That just leaves yellow water. Sounds gross doesn't it, reminds me of the old saying "Never eat yellow snow!" Hmm yellow water, got it, this morning I saw pink water, the pink morning sky was reflected in The Lake, so it follows that when we get a yellow sky reflected in The Lake I'll have my yellow water, and sure enough we had one of the most wonderful sunsets ever (Each one is more wonderful than the last, and when you get old you'll notice it more and more too. The older you get the more you realize the fewer of them there will be. So that helps to sharpen your senses and helps you notice them.) It was a golden sky and the water was a golden color, but I'll take it, gold is yellow right? Yellow gold. Golden yellow hair. Golden skin.
But I digress, as my Golden Girl tells me quite often. Maybe that is why I like Yellow, or Gold so much, because of My Golden Girl Julia, that is what I used to call her when she had golden hair, gold, suntanned skin and her favorite colors to wear were golds, yellows, tans, coppers, browns, all the colors of Fall. Or the Colors of Julia. Now I am Silver, but Julia is still My Gold.
Anyway, The Lake and everything around it was Blue today.
Let me just emphasize here that does not include my mood, which is good - whatever color that is!
Love and kisses to everyone today, Teach Tolerance. David XXX

Selfless behaviour.

- in the animal world. I would have pooh poohed this story if someone had told it to me, but I have just witnessed this selfless act with my own eyes, played out right before me, just yards away from where I sit and observe the Birds of The Lake.
First let me set up the scenario.
This beautiful, approximately 50 acre Lake, with it's miniature Bays and Inlets, an Outlet to The Chesapeake Bay and yes its very own Island, sits just 100 feet from our bedroom windows. The ten, floor to ceiling windows give an unparalleled view of The Lake and its inhabitants. My beautiful wife Julia and I spend many happy hours watching the Lake and it's denizens.
Two of those denizens are a pair of nesting Mute Swans, their nest, resembling a huge volcano of twigs, grasses, leaves, branches and other debris, sits magnificently on the Island, with the female positioned beautifully on her eggs. Meanwhile, the very aggressive Mr Swan patrols The Lake searching for dangers. These perils to his future issue, are apparently everywhere on The Lake, because he can be seen at almost any time pursuing such risky hazards as a pair of ducks, Bill the canoeist, Herb in his Kayak, a pair of Canada Geese with their own three Goslings to take care of and, not to my mind, but apparently to his mind, other Lake occupants that jeopardize his offspring.
Today it is raining, a nice soft much needed rain for the seeds that I have just planted, not good weather for working in the garden, but The Lake's water birds see no discomfit in it, in fact they revel in it. There are a plethora of birds out there today, from a very bedraggled looking Harry The Heron, to a trio of male Mallards (No doubt their mates are seated on their future offspring too) and four Canada Geese.
The drama that is taking place right now before our astonished eyes involves the Canada Geese. Our neighbors lawn slopes gently down to The Lakes edge, giving easy access to their grass by all the Birds of The Lake and enjoyed most often by the Canada Geese. There are two pairs of Geese on The Lake right now, one pair as I mentioned earlier has 3 delightful babies, the other pair are "childless", but the pair without babies seem to stay fairly close to the Geese with the babes. All seven geese - the four adults and the three Goslings - are on the lawn right now, the two groups separated by maybe 50 feet. They are all plodding around, poking their beaks into weeds and under logs and nibbling at the grass, the parents watching their progeny carefully and seemingly proudly. Suddenly, they start to honk, all heads are up and looking out at The Lake. Following their anxious gazes we see the male Swan approaching. The geese honk louder and get closer to the little balls of feathers who still don't sense any danger. The Swan moves relentlessly closer, I get my shoes ready in case I have to intervene on behalf of the helpless chicks. The Swan has reached the shoreline, I've never seen him come up onto the land to chase the Geese before and he doesn't this time either. Instead, he stands uncomfortably close, in the shallow water, alternately preening himself and eating the underwater weeds. When he moves closer to land the Geese become even more agitated and the childless pair take the initiative and move towards the Swan, putting themselves between the family and the Swan. Now this is no silly little gesture, because the Swan killed one of the Geese last year and one of this pair has a badly twisted leg that it hops about on, possibly the result of another run in with the attacking Swan. Suddenly one of the Geese goes into the water, not attacking the Swan - he wouldn't stand a chance - but seemingly to draw him away from the others. The Swan takes the bait and terrifyingly begins to chase the foolishly brave Goose. And it is terrifying, if I were smaller than the Swan I cannot imagine putting myself at the receiving end of his anger. And believe me, he is angry, the Goose swims away from the Swan as fast as he can, the Swan swims after him, the Goose swims faster, the Swan starts flapping his wings and running across the water. The six or seven foot wingspan of the Swan is scary even to me (I think I would run if he chased me!) but the sound of the wings and the huge feet crashing against the water, the loud grunting, and the long neck extended way out is dreadful indeed. Finally, with the Swan getting too close the Goose takes off, the Swan takes off too and continues the chase, but the Goose no doubt helped by his fear, gains on the Swan and eventually the Swan lands on the water, now well away from the baby geese. He does not head back that way, not for now anyway. In my mind this was an act of heroism in the animal world.

Enjoy your day, love, David XXX

To read more of my stories about The Lake, and other things, please go to my Blog at www.davidthesilverfox.blogspot.com

Puddles

Every path has a puddle. Into every life some rain must fall. But this is ridiculous, We're walking around in waders and rain gear all the time! And wearing a lifejacket. When will it end?

The Night Herons are back.

Yes the Night Herons that we saw on our pier yesterday were back this evening, two of them, Julia thinks it is a male and a female, but I'm not sure, it was getting dark so I couldn't see them very clearly. I hope to see them tomorrow before it gets too dark. I'll let you know.

Tax Changes.

My understanding of the proposed Obama tax changes are that 91% of us will pay less taxes, 1% will pay more taxes - but that is only the people making over $250,000 a year, and they will only go back to what they were paying before the Bush Administration cut their taxes. (Why did he cut their taxes and not ours?) The other 8% will be paying the same.
This is good because I will be paying less! Even better is that the Obama Administration intends going after those who are evading taxes. (Not avoiding - evading.) Avoiding is legal, even encouraged - it is OK to change things around in your financial life to avoid taxes. It is evading taxes that is frowned upon. There are a lot of people who have set up tax havens in places like The Cayman Islands for the express purpose of evading taxes. This is cheating. Or to put it another way, it is stealing. Stealing from you and me, because if they don't pay the taxes they should be paying, you and I have to pay more to make up for what they are not paying. This I don't like. A lot of people may say "Right on" or "Way to go", hold onto your money, don't give it to Uncle Sam. But they might not say the same thing if they realized that same person has his hand in their pocket - you are paying more taxes because he is paying less! How do you feel about that? Especially as most of these tax cheats are making millions. You, maybe like me are struggling along on $50,000 a year while John Smith is making $4,000,000 a year and because he doesn't want to pay taxes you have to pay more! Does that seem fair to you? It certainly doesn't to me! Tell me what you think. Do you think he should pay less because he is rich? Remember a few years ago some people were saying "Greed is good", well we are not saying it now, greed has almost destroyed us. (I think rich people should pay more taxes not less. The chances are if you are making millions you are making them at the expense of others. A lot of people work hard for $20 an hour, how can someone work a thousand times harder than that? Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfey for example each make around $120 million a year, do you think they work 3,000 times harder than the guy who makes $20 an hour? Yep that's right $120,000,000 a year is about $60,000 an hour. I'm sure they pay their taxes, but there are others out there that make similar amounts and pay hardly any taxes, so you pay them for them! Even Warren Buffet says that the rich should pay more taxes! He said that he legally pays less taxes than his secretary! He also said that it is wrong, but if he is legally able to do that - well. I think he makes up for it by giving huge amounts to charity - he recently gave $31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation! But there are other greedy ones out there who are shielding their wealth in tax havens while you pay their taxes. As you can probably tell I'm upset about that and hope that Obama can get them to pay Their Fair Share. Don't you?

Sunshine.

Sunshine, that would be my daughter Sarah, and also my wife Julia. Sarah also means Princess. So on those days that the sun does not shine I have my wife and daughter, so every one of my days is full of sunshine! What more could any guy want? Life is good.

Update on the Harry/Julia Controversy.

I am informed by My Julia that the Heron is called Harry not Julia, she is my one and only Julia. I don't think that she wants to be supplanted by a Heron. So it shall be, the Heron is hereby relegated to his former name of Harry thus it shall always be.

QED.

New Bird on the Block.

We were enjoying our new deck last evening, the sun was doing its wonderful evening thing as it sank slowly into the trees on the other side of The Lake. The sky was turning its usual mix of golds and yellows, ho hum, prior to turning to red and then purple and every other imaginable as well as unimaginable color. When all of a sudden a new bird landed on the pier. We watched, fascinated, there were already a plethora of birds on, in and around The Lake, but this was definitely a new one. He looked a bit like a Heron, but not the Great Blue Heron, with it's long legs, neck and bill. Instead this guy was smaller, chunkier, with shorter legs and a fatter neck, but still very heronesque looking. a quick trip to our Bird Bible - Birds of North America - revealed it to be a Black Crowned Night Heron. Scientific name, Nycticorax nycticorax, and confirmed our observation that he had a heavy body, short thick neck and short legs. (Well short for a Heron I guess, they still looked pretty long to me, not quite Betty Grable legs maybe, but quite presentable) his size was listed as 20" long with a 44" wingspan, quite a bit smaller than the 38" tall and 70" wingspan of the Great Blue, but again a very respectable size for a bird. By the time we got back from the book and trained our binoculars back on our new visitor, he had been joined by another Black Crowned Night Heron. Yes there were now two on our pier, in our 10 months here we had not to our knowledge seen even one before. These both appeared to be female, but who knows there might be a male out there somewhere. We can only hope.
I have always found size, in birds, to be interesting. Here at The Lake we have birds that range in size from the tiny Wren to the Great Blue Heron, the Swan and the Bald Eagle, quite a range of sizes, but out there in the rest of the World, bird sizes range even more, from the Bee Hummingbird at about 2" long and less than 1/10 of an ounce to the Wandering Albatross at 25 pounds or more and an 11 foot wingspan. If we were to go back thousands or millions of years we would have found even bigger birds, but maybe not smaller.
Today promises to be another beautiful day on The Lake, already the sun has lit up the trees on the other side with its unearthly morning rays and Harry the Heron has found his place on our pier. His stance is one of eerie beauty, he (she? Because with the long neck, long legs and beautifully slim body Harry is certainly more evocative of a female.) reminds me of someone, and I am trying to remember who. I'm running some long legged, long necked film stars through my mind but can come up with none more beautiful than my very own Julia. So should I rename Harry, Julia? Would she be flattered? I hope so and I think so. Julia it is. Well Julia just took off and flew to one of her favorite hunting grounds for breakfast about 200 feet to the left of the pier. Some unfortunate minnow or sunfish is about to become breakfast for Julia.
Meanwhile back at Sunset Cottage it is time for me to take my Julia her morning cup of tea, after which she will serve me up a nice breakfast, not a Minnow or Sunfish I hope.
Have a wonderful day,

Love David XXX

That Would Be Me.

Husband of Julia, Father of Sarah, Grandfather of Bradley, Zachary and Jonny, Son of Percy and Joan, Brother of Mary, Brother-in-law of Tony, Uncle of Lucy and David, wow I don't even know how the say the rest - Great Uncle, Grandson etc. Friend of ...gosh how could I name them all? What a lucky son of a gun I am!

David.

Bias.

We all have it, and if you don't think you do, well lets face it, you are biased.
One of Murphy's laws states that, "Enough research will confirm your theory." OK. so I made that up. But it works for me.
You , or I, might give more weight to some evidence, or ignore other evidence, if we are embarrassed about it, or if we are stubborn, or for religious reasons, or superstitions, or traditions, or different views of the world or some other ideology. Or maybe you just don't like to admit making a mistake. I've met people like that! And so have you, we all have.
I might have a bias based on geography - I'm from the UK. "The UK can do, and never did do, any wrong."
We will point out any details that support our theory and ignore any that are contrary to it.
It's hard to be impartial. My Grandfather was on jury duty once, I'd hate to have had him on my jury, he said, "I could see as soon as they brought him in that he was guilty."
Tolstoy cleverly said, "The most difficult subjects can be explained to even to most slow witted man if he has not formed any idea on that already, but the simplest thing cannot be explained to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already without a shadow of a doubt what is laid before him."
I think we have a "gatekeeper" in our minds, this gatekeeper lets in beliefs and facts that we already agree with and shuts out those we don't.
An example - Hostile Media, you hear about it all the time, you expect the media to be hostile to your view, and it is, no matter what side you are on, if anything differs to your views, they are hostile.
A Republican will be biased toward a Conservative view, a Democrat will be be biased toward a Liberal view. And never the twain shall meet.
Or how about the placebo effect, if you have a smart doctor who acts as though the treatment he is giving you will work, it probably will. On the other hand if your doctor says "Try this, it might work, if it doesn't we'll try something else." Guess what, it likely won't work!
Bias, unfortunately we have to live with it, it is in all of us. Some more than others, it goes without saying that we should try to reduce those biases, and at least TRY to listen to the other persons point of view. Well that's my opinion anyway!
David, I love you anyway. XXX (But then I'm biased because you are lovable - because you read my blog)

Back to "If a man is tired of The Lake he is tired of life."

I have talked about the weather of The Lake including the sunsets going from yellow to gold to red to purple. I have also touched on the wildlife - mostly the birds, from the Eagle and the Ospreys to the Geese, the Swans and the various Ducks. Now I'd like to just mention another aspect of The Lake that makes it unforgettable and impossible to tire of, the fish. But first, Ratty the Muskrat gets a mention. Ratty comes out of The Lake from time to time, and when he is out he likes to wander around on the lawn near the water, chewing and poking around in the grass. He looks like a little Beaver and is in fact in the same family. It is a pleasure indeed to watch him. (Or her?) But back to the fish, I guess a list of the fish that I have caught in The Lake would be the first order of business, and here it is, the most common is the White Perch, but I have also caught Yellow Perch, Catfish, Carp, Sunnies, Minnows and even a Bluefish once. A new fish has just appeared on the scene - The Shad, I'm pretty sure that they are Shad, I have looked them up on the Internet and they look just like the pictures, so I'm pretty sure they are Shad. As The Shad is almost extinct on the East Coast I have put them all back (I have caught three so far) so maybe they will make a comeback, we can only hope. the only other catch from The Lake that I can think of now and one of the most important, is The Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab! Yum!

Happy Mothers Day, Love David XXX

Rain.

Yep, it rained again today, I think that is either the 10th or 11th straight day with rain. Did the Earth turn on it's axis? Have we changed positions with the UK? We just had someone here from the UK, she said that the weather in the UK has been great this year, day after day of sun, and it has rained every day since she has been here (for a week and a half.) She goes back in a week and says she can't wait to get back to warm days and sunshine!
Something is wrong somewhere, Global Cooling, Global Warming, Global Repositioning?

Confused Dave

Guns

Wow, surely you are not going to critisize guns are you?
Am I?
Well, I just saw this story that said that over 250 CHILDREN have been shot in Chicago this year. That is just children and just Chicago and just this year!!!
Tell me again why it is so important for there to be so many guns?
And why do children have to have them?
I know "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," and all that BS! But it would be a heck of a lot harder to kill people if there wern't so many guns. It would be especially hard for kids to kill other kids without a gun to do it. I know, I know, it's our right. What does it matter if a few kids die, as long as we can have our guns?

Terrorists

This post may be disliked by some, but it is not intended as a criticism, more like an observation.
Terrorists are financed in large part by Americans and Europeans. Huh? Yes terrorists are financed by illegal drug production & sales and as the US probably buys more illegal drugs than anyone - terrorists are financed in large part by Americans, much of it by teenagers. The drug money buys weapons and pays the terrorists. This amounts to substantial financial support.
The same thing goes - to a greater or lesser extent - for anyone who uses oil! And by our unwillingness to be in any way inconvenienced in the slightest. That's all of us. That is because oil revenues support regimes that hate us, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria and to a lesser extent Russia. The only thing we can do to mitigate this danger is use less oil.
So when you decide to buy that bigger house or bigger car or make an unecessary trip or leave the engine running or turn the heat up or turn the A/C down, remember the extra gun or ammunition or bomb that extra oil revenue will buy the terrorist who has someone we love in their sights!
Yes, it's nasty, but think about it, it's also true isn't it? I'm not the nasty one here, just because I'm saying something you don't like - they are - and it IS in our power to cut them off from at least some of their revenue.

The now Unpopular Dave. (But think again about what I said, it is true, and it is possible for us to hit them where it can stop them, in their bank accounts.)

I Love You, David XXX

Bumper Stickers.

Bumper Stickers, remember them? I saw one the other day and realized that they are virtually extinct! When was the last time you saw a bumper sticker? Some people used to have their bumpers virtually covered with stickers. Now it is a rarity to see one.

When a man is tired of London - - -

Yesterday, I gave a description of 24 hours weather on the Lake. Today I would like to tell you why "When a man is tired of The Lake he is tired of life." This time I will tell you about the wildlife - and I don't mean parties! I saw Harry The Heron on our pier with a HUGE fish in his beak. I mean it was huge, I don't know how he was even holding it and there was obviously no way that he was going to be able to eat it. After a while he took off, the fish was so heavy that he could hardly fly, just barely keeping himself above the water. He landed a couple of hundred feet away in the shallow water and stood there for a while. And stood, and stood. I was watching with another man and we disscussed what was going on in his mind. First, it was very apparent to us that he would be unable to swallow such a huge fish, we decided that having caught it he was reluctant to let it go, maybe he was waiting for it to die when he would TRY to eat it. Eventually he did try, and tried and tried, and then Wow, he swallowed it, he really did, we could see it in his throat, his whole throat was bulging out, he just stood there looking real stupid and real funny with this huge throat. slowly it went down and then it was gone, he had swallowed the whole thing! We could not believe it even though we had seen it with our own eyes.
Next, there are the little Diver Ducks, the cutest little things. Then there are the Osprey, the Sea Gulls, the Canada Geese - who have just yesterday had three little babies! We saw them proudly watching three little balls of fluff bouncing around on the lawn. And of course don't forget the Swans, I guess we'll soon have little Goslings. Then there is the Alligator - no just kidding, no Alligators.
Untill tomorrow, David.

An Amazing Moon . . .

I was going to tell you about this amazing sight, but then I got to thinking about the weather and sights of the last 24 hours or so. You may have heard that saying of Samuel Johnson, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." Well I could say the same thing about The Lake. Yesterday dawned dark, cloudy and brooding. Today the sun is already up and bright, it is obviously going to be a beautiful day. Yesterday it rained, and what a rain, we had 3 inches of rain within a couple of hours, at times I could not see the Lake, sometimes it was so loud it was almost deafening, all the time it was at least distracting. Our bedroom looks out over the Lake, we have ten floor to ceiling windows, it is better than living in front of a huge movie screen. As I sat there I had intended reading a book, but instead I could not take my eyes off of the Lake. The rain was pelting down, and then it was softer, there were patterns on the water surface, then there would be a load roar as a heavy squall would dump itself onto the surface of the water and then against the windows. Then the sun came out.
Earlier - just before the rain started I had put down some grass seed on some bald areas of the "lawn" and covered it with straw. When I went out to check after the rain I could not find a single seed, and most of the straw had washed away too! Then it rained again. Then the sun came out again. At the end of the day Sunset Cottage lived up to its name with another wonderful sunset. By now the Lake was like a sheet of glass.
Then came what I had intended telling you about when I started, The Moon. I awoke at 3.30am and the Lake was lit up almost like day with a huge very bright full moon, there was a "pathway" of silver right across the Lake up to our pier. I went and got our camera, but it is one of those digital things and all I could get was a little dot of white and a thin line of white, nothing. Sometimes the new digital age doesn't live up to its reputation. Oh for my old camera, I could have taken some wonderful shots. I fell asleep and then woke up again at 4.30am, now the moon was very low, just a few degrees above the Lake. It was huge and red and this time there was a red "pathway" across the Lake. I watched fascinated as it dropped further and became a very very large red ball, then I fell asleep again.
Now I have to get going or I am going to be late for work. I just wanted to tell you about that.
Bye Love David XXX

A little fun thing -

When Julia and I went up the Empire State Building in New York, New York, I took a couple of sheets of paper with me and folded up a few paper airplanes. They flew rather well! Sometimes I wonder if they are still up there riding the updrafts.

More rain

This is Maryland, for the first three months of this year we had the least amount of rain in 138 years! Officially and undoubtedly a drought. Well today we are officially out of the drought. And there can be absolutely no doubt about this at all. I had to work outside to get some stuff done yesterday and got soaked. If anyone comes to visit us on The Lake today I think I will have to hand out Life Vests! And that won't be for going out on The Lake, it will just be for walking around in our yard! It has been raining almost non stop for 3 days now and the forecast is for rain on and off for the next 15 days - unheard of -is this the US or the UK?