Good Morning!
On this day in 1492 King Henry VII of England invaded France.
In 1836 Charles Darwin returned to England after 5 years of acquiring knowledge around the world about fauna, flora, wildlife and geology. He used the information to develop his “theory of evolution,” which he unveiled in his 1859 book entitled The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
In 1876 The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas opened. It was the state’s first venture into public higher education. The school was formally dedicated 2 days later by Texas Gov. Richard Coke.
In 1908 Addie Joss of Cleveland pitched the fourth perfect game in major league baseball history.
And in 1920 the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates played the only triple-header in baseball history. The Reds won 2 of the 3 games.
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Quote of the Day
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
Groucho Marx
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Today is Don McLean’s birthday.
And it’s Mike Rutherford’s too. From Eagle Rock
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Good morning everyone.
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Morning all. I’m making progress on writing thank you notes. I made my self a rule that I can’t get on the computer until I write one note. That’s not too bad. I’ve written 7 notes today. Now to find someone flying to the US who can take mail. Costs way to much to mail anything here.
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So what is today’s bird, Aj? a woodpecker?
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I think it’s a kingfisher type of bird. He was definitely fishing, he was in and out of the water a couple times. He was really fast too. He was really far away so I didn’t get a good look at him until I got home and could see it on a bigger screen.
Yesterday’s was some type of woodpecker, I’m just not sure which type. Even with the bird book I couldn’t decide which. 🙂
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Oh, and Good Morning!
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Good Morning Everyone. Evening Jo. I posted one of those “how many Southern phrases you know” on my facebook page. One of our regulars here got 15/16 correct! My influence is felt 😉
I am just feeling so proud.
Jo, I believe you and I are connected on facebook as well, but I didn’t get a newsletter from you.
Time to start working
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Good morning! The sky was a beautiful color as we drove to the office.
My next assignment is to write a how-to article. I need to pray over what God would want me to share on that one. I think I would have a greater selection of subjects if it was a how-to-not-do-something article. 🙂
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I don’t want to jump the gun again but was just wondering if those results were in yet. We were thinking of getting a new car and the boys are leaning toward a maserati….
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Mumsee, every boy wants a Maserati.
A Ford would suit your purposes better.
🙂
And keep them alive longer.
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Well, they have a seventy nine Nissan and an eighty four Honda so I am not too worried. Nor do I still believe the check is in the mail for my victory in the football league. Sorry, we were not supposed to discuss football with you, Chas. How is your pet rock?
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Pet rock is doing fine for his age.
Not much change lately.
That is a good thing.
I’m OK too, BTW.
😉
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Go mumsee.
Feeling frustrated, our company prides itself on being digital ‘first’ and yet so often our linked videos and other elements get left off the online versions of our stories (happened today on my coyote piece). Online eds are good about fixing it once they know (I just emailed them), but with all the heads-up notes attached to the story in advance, it always surprises me how much just either gets ignored or dropped. Arrrgh. Then again, we’re ridiculously understaffed …
Part of my story included the how to’s for hazing a coyote (and a kind of funny video was supposed to be linked to it, but I’ve already mentioned that frustration …. ).
I got Jo’s newsletter but haven’t read it yet, it arrived late last night. Kim, send her a FB msg with your email.
Who remembers Heckle & Jeckle?
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Morning ya’ll 🙂 Hold yer horses and Settle down threw me Kim…my dear southern belle friend in SC always said “settle dowwwn”…
No snow overnight, but lots of freezing fog and ice on the steps this morning…neighbor is coming over for coffee…I have to go head her off before she slips on the porch steps!! Have a blessed day! ❤
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I remember Heckle and Jeckle 😀 One of the first videos my father purchased for us was a compilation of several cartoons. In those early years, we generally got one movie for our birthdays and maybe one or two at Christmas; and there being only four of us, it took a while to build up a collection, so they were well watched. I remember us quoting the lines from that Heckle and Jeckle cartoon many times.
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I remember Heckle and Jeckle as well.
Mumsee- Remember that you have to wait until all the games are done before winning, and you didn’t win last week. Also, there is no physical/tangible prize, only bragging rights and an “Attaboy/girl” form Chas.
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No maserati for the boys? They will be heartbroken….
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Yay mumsee! Go-go-go-go
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The bird is a male belted kingfisher. Had it been a female, there would have been a reddish, narrower band below the blue band on the chest. Kingfishers are one of only a few birds in which the female is the more colorful. (Offhand I can’t think of any others, though I think I have heard of at least one other.) It is a lot of fun to watch them fish, especially when you can see they have caught something. I think I’ve only seen that once.
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My guess on yesterday’s was a female red-winged blackbird, but it was the wrong angle to be easily identifiable and I didn’t get out a bird book to double-check markings. But the photo of blackbirds the day before might be what made me think that, anyway, so I didn’t state my conjecture.
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There were a lot of blackbirds and orioles around the pond, so it could be. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the females before.
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the square black striped tail?
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For anyone interested, here is a link to a short,short writing contest, 150 words based on a picture prompt. I remember last time that Peter entered. I saw that another man has an entry this time. I got my entry posted. http://evamarieeversonssouthernvoice.blogspot.com/2014/09/october-writing-contest.html?showComment=1412276182663#c654948519866754548
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There are two versions of the saying God takes care of fools and (insert babies or drunks).
On the house I was buying:
One of the agents in my office wrote a contract on it for one of her buyers. They had a home inspection done and there is moisture in in the base boards in the hall. There is a shower behind that wall. If I had bought the house we would have already closed on it. If there is a burst pipe, it would have been my problem. Now it is still the seller’s problem.
Truly, I wasn’t disappointed about that deal falling apart, I was upset about having to leave the house I was in.
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As of this afternoon, I have seen every species of woodpecker found in Indiana from my kitchen window, all but one of them in the sycamore tree we use to hang most of the bird feeders. I have photographed all but the pileated from that window. (The pileated I was more interested in making sure my husband saw it, as he’d never seen the species before.) This afternoon we had a juvenile yellow-bellied sapsucker in that tree (my husband was gone, so he didn’t see it). It didn’t feed, it just landed and stayed there for about a minute, and then it flew away. We have had downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, and red-headed woodpeckers come to our sunflower feeders. We have had all of those but the red-headed come to our suet, and we have also had hairy woodpeckers and northern flickers come to the suet. We had a pileated land in the tree behind the garage, and I didn’t get a picture of it. (I still haven’t gotten a photo of that species anywhere except one really poor one a year ago.)
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For those who stumble on Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, they’ve put out a study guide which I’ve ordered: https://dhp.org/tp574.html
Here’s a sample of the first couple pages to give you a feel for what it does: http://bit.ly/dailycompanionsample
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Cheryl, I seem to recall that on one of our vacations to Hilton Head, while we hiked in the nature preserve, that my husband pointed out a pileated up in a tree. I think it was a really big woodpecker. We get smaller ones here. Probably our most impressive birds here are owls and hawks. We can at times hear the owls at night, and sometimes we see crows buzzing and cawing at hawks.
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Catching up from a couple days being behind.
Donna – The other night you wrote that hopefully YF will mature & grow out of her sense of moral superiority. She will turn 27 in a couple days. Since graduating college four & a half years ago, she has not had even one job.
I sincerely believe that this girl needs a job! She needs to be exposed to “everyday people”, & see that there are conservatives & pro-lifers, & others with whom she disagrees, who are still decent people. She needs to see that women aren’t being treated like cattle (something she has said) & “POC” (People of Color), as she refers to non-white minorities, are not all treated like sub-humans (another thing she has said). She needs to see that people are not completely defined by their political & social views. (Although, let’s face it, some are.)
I hate to think or say this, because it sounds vindictive, but I think she needs to be knocked down a peg or two, to be humbled. BUT, I say this because it would ultimately be good for her.
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Cheryl – In the discussion on fall yesterday, you mentioned that you were not built for cold weather (I think that’s the phrase you used). My Emily also feels the cold much more than any of us, she always has. There are times when I’m warm, but she feels cold. And yet, she loves shoveling & playing in the snow in the winter.
She says she just makes sure she bundles up. Then when she comes inside, she warms up with some hot cocoa.
Lee & I are so very blessed by her willingness & desire to do most of the shoveling & snow-blowing, & are happy that she enjoys it so much.
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Karen, I actually can “handle” cold weather better than I ever thought I could. For example, when I worked in Chicago I was the last person in my office to add one or two pieces of winter attire, maybe gloves and earmuffs. (I was the first to put on a jacket, however, I think.) But while some people find it invigorating, I just cannot like it at all. To me cold is simply unpleasant like smelling something stinky or eating something gross. It isn’t pleasant or invigorating, it’s harsh. And that makes me dread it and avoid going out in it, even when I actually can handle it. I don’t get the mail in the winter months, for example; others in the family (usually my husband) take care of that.
The only exception: in Chicago if I was on my way to some “wintry” event, like a play of “The Christmas Carol,” then a light snowfall and 20-degree weather seemed just right to get in the mood as I walked to the theater. But usually I find snow pretty as long as I’m inside, but I don’t like anything under 50 degrees at all. (In Phoenix, the years I was in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, it never got down to freezing one time. We kids used to show each other whenever there was a skin of ice on the dog’s outside water dish–it was noteworthy. So if it was rare that it even got down to freezing overnight, it would have been quite rare that it was lower than 40 when we got up, or lower than 50 for a high. That was my first 22 years of life, with just brief forays into colder climates after I was a teenager. The first time I saw snow in Phoenix, I was 20 years old. I’d seen it other places by then, but it had never snowed in my hometown in my first two decades of life!)
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Emily has been born & raised in Connecticut, & yet still has trouble with the cold.
My friend, Marlene, another born-&-bred New Englander, absolutely hates the cold. She wears layers of turtlenecks & sweatshirts while I’m in one long-sleeved layer. In summer, when I have the AC on because I can’t stand the heat & humidity, she’s glorying in the heat.
Speaking of which, this summer there were times I was upstairs to get Forrest dressed or ready for bed or something, & it was so hot, I didn’t know how Emily could stand it. And yet, she thought my air-conditioned downstairs was too cold. 🙂
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Karen (7:23), yeah, we all seem to need humbling. 🙂 Especially when we’re young, I think, but I suspect it’s a lifelong lesson that’s pretty much always good for us.
We have people in the office who are always hot. We have people in the office who are always cold. We have people in the office who are just right.
Interesting how everyone has their own thermostats. I have a friend who LOVES hot-hot (especially humid) weather, which I despise.
I think I’d have a harder time adjusting to Midwest summers than the winters. But I’d probably complain about both given time. 😉
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I never did get used to the cold winters we have had everywhere I’ve ever lived. And for a lot of years now, I’ve been quite uncomfortable in turtlenecks — the very thing, besides outerwear, that helps me keep a bit warmer — because they make my neck ache. But sometimes when it is so cold I can hardly stand it, I’ll wear a turtleneck and put up with temporary pain. Most of the time, though, I choose being a little chilly over putting up with an achy neck.
And now today…it rains, and rains, and rains…
…and I vacuum, and vacuum, and vacuum. Water on the bottom step between our basement and attached garage. Again. The rain is supposed to quit around 11:30 pm, then there may be another hour or two (or more?) where it will probably still be seeping in. Ugh.
Wish there were some way to send all this rain we’ve had in recent weeks to California…
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Jo, you did a wonderful job on your newsletter!
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6 Arrows, have you tried cowl necks or maybe a scarf over a regular neckline? I agree that some turtlenecks can feel like chokers.
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Janice, cowl necks, scarves, even shirts with a collar bother. But I have trouble with other joints and bones, too (achy knees when wearing pantyhose or sitting in tight jeans; elbows and the bones of my forearms when wearing tight long-sleeved shirts; foot bones with tight socks, and shin bones with socks that go above my ankles). I am very small-boned, and it doesn’t take much pressure to feel uncomfortable. But the neck is the worst.
I would be much better suited to a climate where I didn’t have to wear so much for most of the year. But then I would probably complain about the heat!
At least I’m in the season of life I am — those hot flashes last winter when it was 20 below zero were rather welcome. 😉
(If there were any men lurking on here just now, they have surely left the room after that last sentence.) 😀
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🙂 Truly, they are just thankful they don’t have to go through childbirth, hot flashes, etc.
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But there is a reason God has placed me right where I am, and with Him we can bloom where we are planted. 🙂
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Rain is just a very light mist now, and is not seeping in much anymore. I might even get to bed before 11:00!
Good night, all.
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rain … rain … rain ….
Sigh.
We are under another red flag fire alert with hot, desert winds sweeping in from the east toward the coast.
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rain and thunder here, but wait a hour and we may have sunshine, but no heat. Sorry, Donna.
Thanks, Janice. I crop and move every photo til I get what I want.
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