Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 5:30 a.m. in "The City."

Well, another day has come and gone here in GH. When you are retired, one day can be pretty much like the last. In short, enjoyable, because you don't have any place to be and all day to get there.

But I digress. The current temperature here in GH is 53° under cloudy skies. No rain is in the forecast, and it will be 60° later today. The sun will rise later @ 6:09 a.m. and set @ 9:16 p.m. Oddly, the furnace kicked on overnight due to the low temperatures here in the manse.

A Special Weather Statement was issued by the NWS @ 5:04 a.m. for Ottawa County, MI. The NWS is warning of scattered T-storms along a line in southern and lower Michigan from Muskegon to Lansing. Heavy downpours, cloud to ground lightning, and perhaps some small hail are possible until 7:15 a.m., with the storm moving @ 30 mph! We shall see.

As is often the case, we got up late, had a small luncheon and then walked the fur-children for several blocks. Ginger could have kept going, but STWD ran out of gas by the time we got back to the PE. Best of all, it was the second day in a row where the car stayed in the garage. Our carbon footprint is so tiny that we are not even a blip on the cosmic scale of such things.

Mary worked in the kitchen, with my able assistance, making a new vegan recipe for potato salad that we got from the PBS TV show, The Jazzy Vegetarian. I was up early yesterday, what's new, when I espied the listing for the show as I was moving from one channel to another. So, I watched and found this recipe which I forwarded to Mary from the The Jazzy Vegetarian website. For vegans and for that matter, anyone who desires to eat healthier, this is a great site.

The potato salad recipe required lots of chopping, lots of planning, and lots of careful measuring, all things that Mary loves in the kitchen. The main ingredient was of course, potatoes, but there was also celery, vegan mayo, spices, and garbanzo beans for protein. Me, I washed the potatoes, peeled the carrots, and washed the dishes afterwards. When served with vegan hot-dogs, dinner was terrific and I pronounce this recipe a keeper. Here is a pic of Mary's efforts, taken by our Senior Staff Photographer herself.

 

Tastes even better than it looks!

Earlier in the day, I was reading and Mary caught a glimpse of a squirrel on our deck, contentedly munching on some sort of nut. She took several pix, but here is one that I like.

Do not disturb!

When I was out with the fur-children, not early as I previously mentioned, I took some pix of the "Hobbit Forest" that came with our mulch this spring, along with several pix of various flowers that are blooming or getting ready to bloom in the Vast Gardens of the PE. In fact, I took some of the Irises that Steph and Adam gave us several years ago. This is the first time that any of them have formed buds. Along with industrial pix, I also like to take pix of natures bounty.

The Hobbit Forest.

First bloom on the Irises from Steph and Adam

A flower from the original Irises that came with the manse.

The first bloom in Mary's rose garden.

A bloom on one of the not yet planted roses.

 A bud on the poppies that grow in our garden. They too came with the manse.

This bud on the original Irises looked interesting.

Wow, that went on a lot longer than I had planned, so I think I'll abbreviate or truncate the balance of this blog for the sake of brevity.

Cubs win, over the Astros, 2 - 1. Cubs set Home Run record by hitting 50 in one-month, the first time the team has ever achieved that feat. Cubs off today, but travel to St. Louis to face the Cards for a three-game set beginning Friday night @ 8:15 p.m. EDT.

My beloved Red Sox are floundering, as they lost a slug-fest to the Indians, 9 - 14. The Sox are once again in action tonight in NYC, as the face the Yankees @ 7:05 p.m.

The Tigers are still not a good team, but they defeated an even worse team, the Orioles, 4 - 2 yesterday. The Tigers are off today too, before traveling to Atlanta to meet the Braves @ 7:20 p.m. Friday.

The West Michigan White Caps split a pair with the Tin Caps yesterday, 10 - 1, and 0 - 1 to remain in contention for one of the worst teams in memory. The Caps and the Tin Caps play again tonight @ 7:05 p.m.

I'll be going to a lecture @ the Tri-Cities History Museum tonight, entitled The Year the Music Died. Lecturer Jon VanderPloeg will discuss the music of 1959; Elvis was in the army, Little Richard brought his mojo to the ministry, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, Chuck Berry went to prison, and Jerry Lee Lewis was found to have married his 13 year old cousin. Rock and Roll seemed dead, and the music industry soon invented teen idols like Fabian, Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, and Bobby Vee.

Ricky Nelson kept rockin’, maintaining the music’s faint heartbeat. We were saved in the 60’s by the second coming of rock and roll – The British Invasion, starting in 1960 with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, who were “Shakin’ All Over.” The early British Invasion was merely a repackaging of American blues and R & B, with a British accent. Thank goodness for the Brits, whose last invasion had included the burning of the White House.

Otherwise, I plan to color, paint, play music, and read, not necessarily in any particular order, and I may not get to everything on my agenda. Ciao.