Month: April 2009

Rainbow is the color of choice for this True Colors Thursday. Rainbow, to me, can mean a plethora of colors.  They don’t have to be the brightest colors, just a range of colors.  So for my first photo for this week’s True Colors I give you:

A Rainbow of Greyhounds! All reporting for their monthly heartworm preventative.

Wrapping paper with a Rainbow of Colors.

A Rainbow of Balls In Motion

Rainbow colors of a handmade music box doll.

Last but certainly not least is a True Rainbow during a spring storm.

This ABC Wednesday brings us the letter ‘O’ and I will start of with a photo of a friendly little Opossum.

Also an Owl who occasionally hangs out…maybe looking for an Opossum for its lunch. (Yikes!)

A scene from an apple Orchard

A bright Orange bird at Busch Gardens, Florida

A Greyhound Outside

More Greyhounds looking Outside from an Open door.

I give you Rust, which is the color of choice for this week’s True Colors Thursday.

Cat Feet On Rust Rug

 

Rust Colored Pipestone At Pipestone National Park

 

Leaves of Fall – Camden State Park, MN

 

True Rust of an old Railroad bridge spanning high over a trail at Camden State Park, MN.

Rust Painted Walls

 

A Greyhound With Rust Spots

 

Rust Colored Greyhound

For Alphabet Wednesday I will start the letter ‘N’ off with a photo of a bird’s Nest, though oddly placed, I think it is lovely in design. 

 

Next a lovely collection of Noses.

Greyhound Noses

 

Big People Noses

  

A Nose Profile

A Little Person’s Nose

A little person’s Nose smeared with chocolate cookie.

 

Goat Nose.

Cat Nose

 

My Nose

True Colors Thursday brings us to the color Lime!

Baby looks good in his Lime bib while playing with his Lime toys. 

A shiny bow!

A funny greeting card….

The color of new spring growth.

Kicking off ABC Wednesday – ‘M’ is Minnesota, my home state.

The photo below is of the Twin Cities: Minneapolis/St. Paul.

The Mississippi River flows through Minnesota, look at the photo below and this is the Mighty Mississippi  River at a not so ‘Mighty’ spot.

But then Minnesota has a lot of waterfalls – the following on is Minnehaha Falls.

And the next one is Minneopa Falls which is actually a double waterfall.

 

The photos that follow are photos taken while driving from Minnesota to Florida.

The Mountains of Tennessee (please pardon the reflection of the windshield)

Coming back down  through the Mountains they feel it necessary to provide Runaway Truck Ramps

For some reason I found this Motorcyclist’s Jacket fascinating. It declared him an ‘Iron Pig’.

 

We also saw a Mega-Cross.

And then of course I’d also like to celebrate Monty who is one of my kitties, turning 20 years old this  Month!

Love this photo! Thanks to Kathy Lazenby for letting me post it for you all to see.
Enjoy the lovely weekend!

This True Colors Thursday we are in Black and White.  I offer up this photo which is 34 years old as a beginning.

A Happy Couple Wed In Black and White.

 

A Very White Landscape.

A Black and White Sign Posted By A Lake.

 

A Black Nose on a White Face. (Scooter)

 

 

A White Greyhound Looking Out a Window Into The Black of Night. (Renner)

A Black Greyhound. (Cyber)

 

 

 

 

 

A White Greyhound In a Black Shadow. (Renner)

 

Last but not least, a Black and White Greyhound. (Scooter)

For this ABC Wednesday Let me get the most important three ‘L’s in right off the top and those would be special people in my life Larry, Lucy and Lyle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This being Larry.

                  This being Lucy.

This being Lyle.

All people I Love.

The item being aimed at you is a Launcher, which Lyle is also holding and for some reason keeps finding its way into our 4th of July Lunch and celebration each year. It shoots Nerf rockets …usually at unsuspecting people in our party.

One of my favorite ‘L’s occurs during what I consider the best season of the year.

And that is……

  Leaves changing color in the Fall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both photos above were taken at Savannah Portage in Minnesota.

Leaves on a hike at Nerstrand Big Woods in Minnesota. 

Renner Lying in the Leaves to rest after the hike at Nerstrand.

One last ‘L’ I would Like to Let you Look at are more Lilies in my garden (the bright orange instead of the scarlet ones this time.)

I just can’t help celebrating each time something new comes my way in the gluten free shopping place!

And Simply Great when a company takes a mainstream item and makes an issue out of being Gluten Free. So hoping this trend continues to catch on making like easier for those of us who must adhere to the Gluten Free diet in order to stay well. This particular cereal should be just about everywhere in the U.S. by June 2009.

Thank you General Mills!

This ABC Wednesday brings us to the letter ‘K’ which makes me think of Kitties, Kiddies, Kites and Kitchen. First are my two nearly twenty year old Kitties. 

This is Vinni my Siamese Kitty, sleeping with one of my Greyhounds, Tyler. Unfortunately Tyler is no longer with us but Vinni keeps on snuggling up with what every Greyhound has space available.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Grey Tabby Dilute shown below is my Kitty Monti. Named after Monty Python’s Flying Circus as we are Monty Python fans.  I believe he is just done taunting Grand Greyhound Ruby who so Kindly puts up with his antics.

And of course there are Kiddies, of which mine are grown, but still fly Kites. I will put them all together in the next photos where my Kitty is watching my Kiddies (and OH) fly mini-Kites in the back yard just after the snow has melted and warmer temperatures begin luring everyone outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And last, but not least, representing the letter ‘K’ this week would be my Kitchen. It is due for a new paint job but I probably won’t get around to it for a while yet.

So there you go, though I Know if I’d thought it out better I probably could have come up with better things. These are few things that are Kind of a big part of my life.

 

Dear Mother Nature,

What have you done with Spring?

I didn’t really want to write about us being gone while we were gone and away from the house, but we will be back home in a few hours so I thought I’d mention that we have been rumbling around the states for the last couple of weeks in our RV with our greyhounds.

We went to my parents house as my Mom has finished her radiation treatments, only to find my Dad with two injured feet, one of which had broken bones. So it was good we went and *I* think the timing was fine, but my Dad didn’t. He had 3 people after him then to take proper care of himself…which left him basically no choice. With that many people after you, you almost have nothing else you can do but comply.

We also spent a couple of days at Fort Wilderness while we were down there and the rest of the time, except for the first 2 nights, the rig was parked out at Griffin State Park. This is a very nice park, a photo of the road we were camped on is below.

Going down was lovely weather, but then one of our Greyhounds, the eldest, Blew started having problems, so he had emergency vet appointment first thing in the morning when we got there. The vet put him on some meds and he is much better. They had x- rayed his leg, as it was swollen twice the size it should have been and bone cancer was suspected – but not so, he has beautiful bones, no sign of cancer so we were pleased. The medication really helped and he has been doing very well since.

I continued my classes on-line, while I was there so it was not a ‘work free’ experience. I stayed up quite a few nights until after 1 am doing school work.

Coming home has been anything but free and easy. Storms had broken out from south to north in the mid-portion of the country.

Tumultuous Skies of Tennessee

The brunt of the poor weather was in Tennessee where we were headed through to get to Paducah, Kentucky to bed down for the night. Stopped for gas outside of Clarksville and tornado sirens were going off. Got the dogs out for a quick walk in a sprinkling of rain and winds that were picking up by the minute. Finished gassing up and we were off toward Clarksville, not knowing what else to do but head onward in the direction of home. Considering the storm just kind of kicked up violently all around us we just kept moving hoping to move out of it.

However, it was not to be the case as just a few miles south of Clarksville we were caught in a mini tornado that sent rain, wind and small tree branches swirling around us as it rocked the RV and made it hard to see. It was actually very terrifying, we were pretty much all over the road and creeping along. Then it was gone and still heavy rain and wind prevailed. The wind remained heavy as we drove down the road passed Clarksville and on toward Paducah. There were several tornados moving through the area and one of them hit pay dirt as it picked up an empty semi ahead of us and threw it on its side.

Traffic stopped completely in all lanes as we all waited for the tow trucks to come and remove the semi from the road. It was a scary bit of time as we sat feeling rather trapped in the jammed up traffic, the RV rocking, at times violently, with the strong gusts of wind. We saw storm chasers zoom by us on the side of the road as they chased the elusive funnels. Finally we were underway again and the wind did not give up on pushing us all over the road for the next hour or so until we got to our over-night spot. It was dark and we were continuously concerned about being tossed over on our side, which added to the worry of just keeping it on the road. We did make it of course, but were pretty shaken up in the process.

This morning we found the weather much the same with not only rain, but snow as well. Though the winds have still been pretty hefty and the temps have dropped considerably from when we left to travel south from Minnesota, they have not been as frightening as yesterday evening. The winds have been heaving us around all day so far (we are about 4 hours from home at this point) and we understand that we will just be beating a snow storm into Minnesota (comes tomorrow – Monday), so we are thankful for that. It will be so good to be home again.

 

I will dedicate Scarlet Thursday to a cardinal we have named Hank. This beautiful Scarlet creature flew into my deck door windows and sat stunned in the snow by the steps. It was a harsh minus 30 wind chill and  I feared he would not survive. I kept vigil over him and finally held him in my gloved hands next to me keep him warm until he suddenly flew from my hands into a near by bush. I continued watching over him, keeping predators away, until he flitted off high up into the trees. We like to think Hank still comes back to visit us whenever we see a cardinal at the pond or feeder.

 

Another beautiful Scarlet I see only in the spring  and early summer are the Day Lilies in our garden.

 

However, nothing radiates  serenity like a beautiful Scarlet sunrise.