The "More of This & That" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Clearing all the photos from my iPhoto file.  Had about 11 thousand photos and it seemed to be slowing the program done a bit.  Put family photos on one CD, yearbook photos I took for the two school yearbooks I do on another CD.  photos from a recent trip to the Bahamas on another CD and most of the rest I deleted.  There were a few that I thought I would share with you before I hit the trash can with them.  So check out what isn't enough to write a story about, but still good enough to be saved from the trash can for a final viewing.

Pretty flower photo to get rid of the winter blues.  Took this of one of my wife's  Orchid plants.  She has three in bloom right now.

Wrote a story last spring about a female Cardinal that kept flying into our windows at the rear of our house.  Starts as soon as the sun rises and lasts throughout the day.  She evidently sees her image in the glass and is protecting her area. First photo shows her in the middle of the frame as she takes off, heading toward the rear door.

Here she is just about to strike the window. 

Feet raised as she hit the window.

Then, she flies back to the feeder for her next plan of attack.   

Don't you get sick of all the "Sticky Ads" that are now on the front page of the paper?

This is a business directly in front of my house when I lived on N. Queen St. in the late 40s to early 60s.  Played "off the wall" on this parking lot after the cars were gone.  Directly under the middle sign we would draw a strike zone with chalk, then one of us would pitch to another who would try to hit the tennis ball across the road into another parking lot.  One day the police showed up and said we had broken the windows that are boarded up and stuck the three of us in the cruiser and took us home to talk to our parents.  I know you think we probably did break the windows, but we DIDN'T.  You have my word on that.  They covered the windows with boards which remain until this day.  

Looked out one evening last week and there was this rather large "bandit" eating cat food.  I grabbed my camera and got low on the door and started banging on the window.  He kept eating with both feet and then, after getting annoyed with me ……...

…..stared at me and heading in my direction.  Then he …….

….. got right in my face.  Blurry because he was too close for my camera to focus.  Looked at me and then wandered off into the night.

Another backyard visitor the other day.  When this Hawk landed next to the bird feeder, all wildlife split!  Beautiful bird and wouldn't you know it …… I was setting my camera for an action shot when he lifted off ….. before I was ready to take the photo.  

 Final short story …… As Carol and I were returning from our grandson's youth basketball game we passed the local Kellogg Cereal Plant.  Huge place that employes many from our area and is surrounded with a tall chain-link fence with barbed wire on top of it.  Said to Carol, "Wonder why they have to have the barbed wire on top of the fence?"  To that she quickly replied, "Probably to keep all the cereal killers out!"  It as another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.