Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 6:00 a.m. in "The City", where the current temperature under cloudy-skies is 27°, but with a 12 mph wind out of the northwest, it feels like 16°! That 27° will be our overnight low before we rise to today's high-temperature of 29° under partly-cloudy skies followed by an overnight low of 22°.

We'll be seeing those thirty-degree high-temperatures until Sunday when the high is forecast by the NWS to reach a balmy 43°. For those of us who did not manage to escape to sunnier climes, that should be the harbinger of things to come, that is unless you factor in the high-temperature forecast by that same NWS of 38° for Sunday 3/24. 

My DTWS is showing a barometric pressure of 29.56" of Hg and falling, while the NWS in GR is showing 30.22" of Hg and rising. Our proximity to the shores of the "Big Lake" alters our forecast just a tiny amount. The sun will rise later this morning @ 7:05 a.m. and set tonight @ 6:45 p.m.

We still have a Small Craft Advisory in effect from St. Joseph to Manistee until 1:00 p.m. today, with wind speeds of 15 to 20 knots and wave heights possibly reaching five feet. In other words, an average day on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Mary drove me to my orthopedist's appointment in Muskegon yesterday morning for my second radiofrequency ablation on my lower yak. I am once again counting on many more months of relief.

I came home a bit tired, but that didn't stop me from reading the Grand Haven Tribune and the USA Today and completing their respective crossword puzzles. While I was doing that, Mary finished her latest cross-stitch project, an elephant in the savannah. I'll include a picture when she has it mounted and framed. I think her work turned out great. Can it be called work when it is a labor of love? Just asking for a friend.

At any rate, by the time the afternoon had worn on and we'd watched another two episodes of Suits, and Mary had done some ear reading and that previously mentioned cross-stitching, it was time to feed our fur-children and take some very local pix here at the manse. I had hoped to get some pix while we were out for that appointment, but I'd forgotten how woozy I get following that aforementioned procedure. So, I opted for some pix much closer to home. I like many of them, some more than others, so I'll present them in no particular order.

I'd espied these leaves on our front sidewalk while looking out the front door, so I just had to get a pic of them.

Which led me to taking a pic of this lonely leaf on the melting snow in our parkway garden.

And one of these dried asparagus ferns in the planter on our front porch.

And this closeup of our Green Man in our vast gardens in back. Or is it a Tree Man?

And finally, this longe-range shot of the various yard-art and planters awaiting spring.

At any rate, spring will soon be here. Once we get past the danger of frost, our gardens will be returning to life, just like Persephone. the ancient goddess os spring growth, portended when she returned from her time in Hades for one-half of the year.

Today, not much is on tap and that's fine with me. I have more of my latest nonfiction book, Unthinkabke, by Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland to read too. In this book, he discusses the death at age 25 of his son, Tommy, and also the recent and current political climate in D.C.

Otherwise, Mary has plans for more cross-stitching and more ear-reading, while I have more puzzle solving and more reading of my own to do. Ciao.