Zephyr

 Zephyr is a soft, peaceful breeze. And I thought it had to be an imaginary animal.

For many of you, we will not meet again until the next A to Z. I wish you that easy peaceful breeze to clear your mind and untangle the worries we all tote around. 

Irish Blessing

May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields.

See you next year for A to Z. I plan to spend May making it to all the blogs I missed. 

Yesterday

 The Paul McCartney song Yesterday is one of the most covered songs with 1600 different artists according to https://www.thisdayinmusic.com/liner-notes/yesterday/ I briefly looked on youtube for a female cover of the song and was a bit overwhelmed with the number of results I got. So I am posting a 2015 remastered version of the song.  

Amazing that a 23 year old man could write such a poignant song. Paul McCartney dreamed the tune and was concerned that he had subconsciously plagiarized another artist. He hadn't. The original working lyrics was "Scrambled Eggs, Oh my baby how I love your legs."

Technically this blog post is about the day before yesterday. On Saturday, we went to the Strawberry Festival in Reynold's GA. We ate expensive fair food. They really had some new and different items for sale. It was a very dog friendly festival. People had very pretty dogs and some had some cute clothes on. I would have bought a few items but I did not want to lug anything around. 

I wasn't too conscientious about taking pictures in that I had not considered this blog post. We were going to the Weiner dog races. Some dogs understood the rules. Even those stopped to do a little playing and introducing themselves to other contestants before madly running to win the race. One trial involved four dogs who met in the middle for a little how do you do with one another before one decided to run to it's owner. Another dog was very jaunty marking the signs as he strolled across the track. He decided to let everyone admire his winning style. 

Next year I plan to bring one of my dogs. I don't know if they will win but I will make them a good costume so we can win that contest. Maybe. Who cares. It was a lot of fun to watch.

We left the weiner dog races to take a helicopter ride. And yes I was scared sitting in the front seat. I found a place to hold on so I would not grab a control in my effort to feel attached to whirligig. But the view was amazing. The helicopter team was from Blue Ridge GA. The pilot and I had one thing in common. We are native Georgians. So many have moved to our state. 

Afterwards we bought Strawberries, some ice cream and vidalia onions of all things. The line was long and we watched people picking strawberries. The plants close to us were very well picked. There were several pretty chairs and backgrounds for people to take pictures to remember the event. We were both tired and glad to get in the car to go home. 

Xanadu

 I can hear Olivia Newton-John with the Electric Light Orchestra singing Xanadu as I read the word. It turns out there was a movie that was made with Olivia Newton-John titled Xanadu. 

Xanadu represents paradise or a place of contentment and perfection. 

My front yard is my Xanadu. I've had part of field in front of my house mowed. I've got a mess of volunteer Peach trees and they are loaded.  Walking between the trees, I feel a peace. 

I looked up Paradise on Google. The results were interesting. I'd expound but POV affects how you see different terms. Funny how we all have connotations that would be offensive to someone else. 

Some were oxymorons.

I think of my brother's quote, "Whatever floats your boat.".  I don't know if I believe in heaven per se. I remember a friend saying when he was a kid he thought heaven with streets of Gold sounded like a terrifying place. 

With age, you can have pretty lofty opinions much like being a teenager. One opinion I have is that your disadvantages are your advantages. There are only somethings you can only understand by being in that position of discrimination. Mind you, I am not interested in learning anything more in life. I just know the hard parts in life have seasoned me. 

I'm grateful for what I do have. I am humble enough to know I have a lot of advantages. And if the car cranks when I get in it; I've got a good car. 

Olivia Newton-John singing Xanadu

I'd share a picture

But how can you take a picture of a soft breeze

The scent of flowers blooming and hay being mowed.

Sunlight dappled on the ground by fluffy clouds moving above

The crunch of the grass beneath your shoes

A bird skiffing across the ground to capture a bug

The sound of bees buzzing

Your body being tired from coaxing a garden to life

A dog follows you unbothered by the gnats

Stepping out of the shade into the golden glow of the evening sun

The smell of rain coming.

Wildflowers

Fleabain

False Foxglove

Mullein which was imported to North America for medicinal purposes.

Mullein up close

Passion flower

Spiderwort

I asked an aunt if she had any pets. She said she only owned what the man upstairs sent to visit. There were many, many birds who visited her garden. In the evening she often saw a rabbit or two.

This year, I am planting some serious flowers, marigolds, zinnias, sunflowers in my vegetable garden. I like zinnias. Sunflowers are beautiful. You can eat the seed but I leave them for the birds. Marigolds are pretty little yellow and orange flowers on a plant that wards off insects. I am planting Marigolds around my tomatoes big time. Sunflowers act as a nice little heat shield to prolong the life of my tomatoes. I don't think anything can get squash and cucumber though the heat of summer will end them by June. 

I plant enough for the animals. But the deer can be ever so greedy.

This year, I had peach blossoms galore. The peach trees I have are all volunteers which were probably planted by the deer. Those trees are loaded. I am going to knock some fruit off one tree in hopes of getting a few peaches of a decent size.

Usually I enjoy the flowers that the man upstairs send. I prefer the native varieties. I understand the honeysuckle of my youth is actually the very invasive Japanese honeysuckle. Japanese honeysuckle can easily grow sixty feet up into a tree. The plentiful dark blue berries are apparently tasty fruit the birds eat and distribute.

Native honeysuckle are the ubiquitous trumpet flower that blooms profusely all summer. 

There is a similar vine to the trumpet flower but you get little tiny white flowers and then luscious little berries. But don't eat them. A few will not hurt you but the oxalic acid they contain is poisonous to humans but not to birds. A pepper vine can grow so heavy and thick they will pull a tree down. I allowed a vine to grow up in a volunteer persimmon tree. The vine broke the tree and the tree is apparently dead. 

My Cat Cheshire on the roof amidst Sycamore leaves emerging on a nearby tree.

Dandelions

Invasive Privet in full bloom

Japanese Honeysuckle growing on Privet.

Privet can be very pretty and has a lovely smell. It is a shame it is so invasive.

 

Vicarious

 Vicarious means to live through someone else's life, a movie scene, story.

Vicarious is also the name brand to one Artificial Intelligence company. 

We've all heard the meme where someone says that they want artificial intelligence to do the drudgery type work not the art and literature they long to create. There are rules to literature and language that AI can easily learn and repeat. I haven't read enough AI to have an opinion of it's value. I know that it can process an incredible amount of information.

I see AI like when they broke up the phone monopoly in the United States. It was not that great. We all complained.. Then because we had so many phone companies; it enabled mobile phones to be cheaper and more available. I suspect AI will enhance our lives. I don't know that I will live long enough to witness it. We are really on the cusp of social media's maturing. Social Media has a long way to go. 

I remember in the early 90s, I was not going to bother with a computer. I took a college course and needed to use a computer. I bought a computer. I found myself on the internet via America Online. I tried other companies because there was a toy like dimension to exploring the internet.. I had no business to do on the computer. I cautiously entered chat rooms where the depth of conversation rarely went deeper than I am cooking a frozen pizza.  

One big problem with social media is that it has an algorithm going that encourages you to stay too long. And it is all about making money. Sort of like there are no clocks and that sound that permeates at a casino to keep people playing longer. And it is changing society. 

Today I was told that a young journeyman plumber was told to empty the water lines using the outside faucets. The master plumber wondered why it was taking him a while so he went down stairs to check on the journeyman. And today's lesson was you can release water on the grass, on the pavement, on the shrubbery. You do not have to catch it in a bucket. Experience is only learned through reality. 

The inclination to participate in an online conversation versus looking at your surroundings or making small talk with the company you keep.is a challenge. 

I've started leaving my phone in the car when we go to a restaurant. 

Every evening of my life, I have sat down and read. Vicarious is how I spent my evenings. And yes, I carry a book in my purse at all times. I'm always reading at least two books. One book will usually win out and be read more. 

 

Unusual or Ubiquitous

 Fish or Fowl

Apples and Oranges

I am at a blank

With nothing to say

So I will share a few pictures.

Brilliant Sky in the evening, rural Peach County, GA USA

Saint Marys River, Saint Simons Island, Georgia, USA

Flock of migrating redwing blackbirds in a Sorgham Field, Peach County, GA USA

Tornadoes: Everything you should know about Tornadoes but really did not care.

 So I am posting pictures from several years back of damage done by wind shears that were close to being a tornado. We have tornados in the spring when our climate is changing from winter to summer. It is when a cold front comes rumbling through. There are sections of the lower midwest which are known as "tornado alley" in that they get quite a few tornados. We get tornados but not as many as these folks get. Nonetheless, the ones we get can be quite damaging and life threatening. 

One tornado ripped through an area called Sandy Point in the county next to me. The only person thrown from his house was a man who was very drunk at the time. He had no injuries. He was just tossed from his house to the woods behind his home.

I had a neighbor call me about the tornado in Fort Valley. I was on my cellphone walking my dogs and told her there was no tornados, no rain, somebody was mixed up. There was a tornado about four miles as the crow flies. It completely demolished a bank and only the vault was left standing. That system just whizzed beside the calm overcast sky over my home.

Another nearby tornado blew a woman's home off it's foundation. I understand she broke her ankles which I am sure was very painful. She sat in her bathtub during the storm for safety. The bathtub was tossed with the home. I noticed she did not rebuild. 

As you can tell a lot of damage occurs from the felling of large trees due to high winds and saturated soils.