Visiting family

A few months ago I bought my first tablet.  It has been quite a learning curve for me to learn how to use it.  I have learned that I must just try things to learn.  All that 

said, this will be my first blog post with the tablet.

Grandson, Bryce, received a kit from his other grandfather.  We are visiting him in CA now and he asked G to help him put it together.  They have spent at least two hours on it already and are only half done. 

Rain will not stop

We really would like to mow our lawn and maybe plant a few things in the garden or flower beds.  But the rain will not stop.  We are lucky to not get the 4 inches that a neighboring town did.  I did get the herb garden planted.  It seems to be thriving.  So G and I spent some time in the basement sorting and organizing. My next step is to get the items in boxes for the thrift store.

On Mother's Day G and I went on a motorcycle ride. We stopped to see the Yard Art that a friend has. They hauled this  bull from a neighboring state. Can't you just imagine driving down the freeway and seeing this in a trailer ahead of you.

G was gave me a gift of something I really wanted.   It is what I call "Black Gold".  It is well rotted horse manure and sawdust.  A friend loaded and delivered it.  He was stuck at his place and ours because it was so muddy.

Party Weekend

On Friday, G and I were invited to a Great Gatsby Party. It was held at a Country Club, with a three piece jazz group providing the dinner and dance music.  G did not have a bow tie, so he googled how to make one and was able to make it from a regular tie he had.  This party was certainly a special gift from our friends.

 

On Saturday we attended an annual picnic hosted by a friend who goes by the name of BSA Bert because he has BSA motorcycles.   I will post pictures so you can see the contrast of the two parties. I would add that one of the couples who attended the first party came in a Jaguar, and you can see the mode of transportation for the attendees of the second.  

G in W Va, me in Ohio

G has not gone on a dirt bike ride for about a year.  Street rides, yes.  He and about 20 other riders have gone to West Virginia to ride on the Hatfield-McCoy trails. He said it has taken a bit to get used to riding on the dirt trails again. They are staying at a school house made over into accommodations. In the past they would rent a house and do their own cooking.  Here they go out for all their meals.  It was a lot easier to do the packing, that is for sure.  It looks like it will be cool, in the 60's if that, but no rain.  They will be there for four days, so I am trying to get  caught up on things I want to do at home.

Today I put out the Hummingbird feeder, put out a live trap to try to catch a ground hog, and have been digging out my overgrown iris bed.  I give them away through Free Cycle, an online group where you just give away things that would normally end up in the trash.  I also did things like reading posting of my friend on Facebook.

More fun activities

Since G has officially retired (guess I should throw a party), he has started looking through the mountains of things he has in his office, the basement, and even the rest of the house.  I have to keep telling myself this is progress, although it always looks worse at the start.  He pulls out stacks of boxes from where ever they were hiding and starts sorting.  It takes days so everything is spread out during that time. I am not complaining, however.  It has motivated me to do some of the same.  Things that have left the property lately are an old refrigerator that was not working properly, two boxes of books, and several boxes for the thrift shop.

One of the benefits of this process is the accessibly to things you really like to use.  I am printing and framing two photos to exhibit with my photography club.  I could actually find the frames!

Here are the two I chose.

The first was taken in South Dakota when we rode motorcycles there at the Sturgis Rally. The snail I just happened to see when walking in our woods.

A third choice was  sunset at Georgian Bay in Ontario. Sadly we are limit to two photos.

Lots of Culture

A week ago, our culture immersion began.





A local group, the Black River Comedy Club gave a production of "Westward, Ho".  The group has been writing and producing a comedy production for many years.  The members of the cast are local residents.  They put their heart and soul into it, but sometimes the laughter comes when your neighbor forgets his parts.  (He probably will be laughing as he looks to the prompter).  The star of the show this year was a boy in elementary school who played the parts of two people by just exchanging hats for each one.  He was told at 7 pm the night of the performance that the other person was ill.  Since he had a part of one of the two people he had been at the practices and knew the parts of both.

Next was a concert brought to the area by a non profit, ORMACO which brings culture and arts to rural areas.  We are good friends with the parents of the Executive Director so try to attend a lot of the concerts.  We never are disappointed. The group this time was Le Vent du Nord from Quebec, Canada.  All singing was in French, but we thoroughly enjoyed it even though we do not know French. You can listen to some of their preforming on YouTube.  One link is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2kyFmsi8RY

A few days later we attended a lecture at Baldwin Wallace College by historian and author, Stephen Prothero.  His talk was about his most recent book, The American Bible: How Our Words Unite, Divide, and Define a Nation.       He has been on numerous television and radio programs as well as being a contributor to NY Times. Washington Post and many other papers.  He former book was God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter.   

Last Night we saw the play "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie".  I'll let you look up that on your own. But will say we again enjoyed it.

Tonight is attending a performance of  Beethoven and Rossini by the Akron Symphony Orchestra and tomorrow is see Shakespeare's "As You Like it".

Blurry eyed from looking at computer all day.

I am submitting two pictures to an exhibit by my photo club.  As I starting sorting through pictures, I could not find pictures from 2005 to 2010. My guess is that when our last computer died and son got us a new one, these pictures were not transferred over to the new one.  Fortunately, I have backups on dvds.  But it was not an easy job to get them copied into the external hard drive where my photos now live.  It was an all day job.  Some moved as directed, but others had to be moved one days worth at a time.  I still have six months worth that are giving me trouble.  As usual, I think if I were my son or daughter I could figure out a fast way to do things.  But I at least figure out  my way to get them done.  The next big project is to sort my pictures from G's.  Should have done that from the beginning but did not.  This is to lead to the end result of us sorting our photos so we just have the good ones and a smaller number so we can actually show them to people.  It does feel good to get the job started however.