Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 2:30 a.m. in "The City."

I was outside with Ginger around 1:30 a.m. as she did her nightly duty. Plus, as I looked into the clear sky, I was able to view several planets that included: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune. Later this morning, after 4:00 a.m., I may also be able to see Uranus. No jokes, please.

The current temperature is a brisk 53° under those aforementioned clear skies. We have no significant rain in the forecast from the NWS until Friday's 40% chance when the temperature is forecast to peak @ 77°. The 80s have now been pushed back until Sunday. We'll bounce around in the upper 70s and lower 80s for the next 10 days or so, and the rain is an iffy situation. A shame, because I'll have to water my newly planted grass seed and the gardens on the vast PE. The sun will rise today @ 6:06 a.m. and set later @ 9:21 p.m.

Yesterday was a great day on/at the PE. I didn't go riding, instead, I did some gardening and planting, but not too much. Like Marshall, our old next door neighbor, I do a little each day to preserve my yak. Since I am retired, no hurry. Mary and I made some chocolate-chip shortbread cookies for the meeting of our History Book Club. They taste fine and look good, but the recipe I/we used was not very explicit, so I sent it to the circular file. While I was outside, Mary made a great lunch of mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes and my world famous Italian vegan meatballs. I liked it. Dinner was more of the gravy over rice along with some of my world famous vegan sausages. I liked that too.

When I was outside with the fur-children yesterday morning, I noticed that the flowers that are planted in the vast gardens of the PE had a special look. So I encouraged Mary to get out our camera and take some pictures with the macro lens. Here are some of those in no particular order.

A closeup of the flowers on our "Major Wheeler Honeysuckle Vine."

Our "Major Wheeler Honeysuckle Vine", at a distance

The bucket of flowers on my water pump along with some surrounding flora.

Mary's Tree Man in the garden.

 

 

 

 

Gerbera Daisies, the impetus for my camera suggestion to Mary. The small white flowers in the picture are actually flowers on the horseradish that we have growing in pots and also in the gardens around the pots and near the water pump.  Any growth outside the pots is typical horseradish, once it is planted, it grows wildly without a container to restrain it.

We made a stop @ JWs later in the afternoon before dinner and before I retired to the media room and Mary to the La-Z-Boy downstairs to watch a movie.

Today is the day for our History Book Club meeting @ 3:00 p.m., and also a special event at the Loutit Library later this evening. Two Irish bands will be playing starting @ 6:00 p.m. Our local Irish favorites, Uneven Ground, will open for a nationally known Irish band, One for the Foxes. The band, Uneven Ground, features Tim Staudacher on mandolin/guitar, Courtney Hutson on fiddle and vocals, Larry Halverson, on flute, tin whistle, and bodhran, and Dave Closz on guitar and vocals. One for the Foxes, features Tadhg O Meachair, Joanna Hyde, and Dave Curley on accordion and bodhran, fiddle, and guitar respectively. I've included a sample of  musical work from each band below. Enjoy.

Uneven Ground https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1AzgeX3txI

One for the Foxes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XwJMnlRC5U

Ciao.