Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation, and perhaps, across the world. It is just after 6:30 a.m. in "The City."

The current temperature is 48º under cloudy/rainy skies. Winds of 12 mph make it feel like 43°. Today's high-temperature forecast calls for 55º under mostly cloudy skies with a 70% chance for Thundershowers.

The sun rose this morning @ 6:21 a.m. and it will set later @ 9:01 p.m.

Today's rainy conditions will preclude any additional chores in the vast gardens or in the back forty.

I'm glad I got my outdoor chores done yesterday.

Once I was done with my outdoor chores, which included a little weed-whacking, a rose bush transplantation, along with the installation of my new Therm Pro™ Weather Station sensors, we sat on the deck and did some reading as the fur-children enjoyed the outdoors. I finally got to don a T-shirt, but no shorts, yet.

I have two sensors, one on the back deck and one on the front porch, that give the temperature, the barometric pressure, the relative humidity, and the indoor temperature. There is always a slight variation between the front porch and the back deck.

Indoors, I made some vegan Italian meatballs, I have it on good authority that they are great, and a vegan pepperoni, which became part of our dinner pizza as seen below.

Mary's homemade dough, vegan cheese, black olives for me, mushrooms for all, the aforementioned vegan pepperoni and voila, a terrific cast-iron pan pizza!

We received sad news in our email feed yesterday. Our plans to attend the sixth annual Harbor Springs Festival of the Book were dashed with the announcement by the festival organizers that this year's festival, scheduled for September 25 - 27, was canceled over concerns that the Coronavirus Epidemic posed too many risks for the authors, the attendees, and other vendors. We looked forward to this event for our annual fall trip. SIGH!

It's too bad and so sad that the gun-toting fools who descended on the Michigan state capitol in Lansing can't figure out that the danger applies to everyone and that the sight of an AR-15 a Confederate flag, which is out place here in MI, and red MAGA hats, doesn't scare a virus nor protect them

Those same fools, or their clones, plan to rally at the Grand Haven State Park this weekend to protest the closing of the park and the parking lots. The Supreme Court of WI ruled yesterday that the bars and restaurants and other businesses in WI could open, immediately!

Speaking of the Coronavirus Epidemic, we also received news that the annual Michigan Irish Music Festival in nearby Muskegon, had also been canceled due to those same concerns. This year's festival did not conflict with the aforementioned Harbor Springs Festival of the Book, so we had plans to attend both this year. Now we have to cancel all of our lodging reservations, not to mention the boarding reservations we made for the fur-children. Once again, SIGH!

I heard the southbound train run on the RSTL yesterday @ 9:30 a.m., but I visually witnessed the northbound run of MMRR EMD GP 38-2 locomotives 2025 and 2019  @ 12:57 p.m. Those locomotives were towing fully-loaded cars that consisted of 11 CHCs, five DWTCs, and one lone DBTC.

One more bit of sad and bittersweet news came yesterday too. The weekly Living Room Concerts presented for the last several weeks by singer/songwriter Wayne Faust will be over as of this Friday. He will be off to his regular gigs in Colorado and Missouri next month. However, he hopes to be able to do some concerts around the holidays, if he can. 

Today, we have to empty the garage-based Green Pantry from our shopping excursion last Tuesday, and then we are off to my delayed visit to the podiatrist, the veterinarian to pick up some dental chunks for the fur-children, and perhaps a stop at JWs Two for some barbecue sauce and vegan wine, sand sulfites.

Otherwise, I have some indoor chores to accomplish and more reading and editing to do. Ciao.