At my local convenience store today.
The hitching post and buggy parking spots have been there for a while and are often used (sometimes just to leave a deposit as evidenced), the electric car charger is new and as far as I know, unused.
A few captions spring to my somewhat biased mind:
Sublime or ridiculous
Charging or discharging
Bullsh!t or horsesh!t
Nonsense or horsesense
Five Men, Five Medals and a Gun,
The Gun
In the small town of Chepstow where I grew up there is of course a cenotaph, it’s fairly typical, a large obelisk on a square granite plinth bearing the names, listed in alphabetical order with rank and service identified.
Yes, I know it’s rotten awful late but I have been busy with boat stuff, getting ready for Spring takes longer every year.
As for the pictures all three were good but I will always give extra points for wildlife shots (very hard to get a good shot of wild things, young kids and babies included). So between Janus and Ara as finalists, sorry OZ that boar on the hoof may have made it.
Raptors are favorites of mine (you may have noticed) so I will give Araminta the edge this time, the hawk was very special and that kind of opportunity comes along so rarely it makes it that much harder to take advantage and frame the scene.
Well done Ara, worthy of National Geographic.
It was going to be Spring but there is no sign of that around here, not much food for the wildlife either after a long hard Winter. Even a dead catfish washed up by the ice eater looks pretty good to the hungry.
But approach with caution, it could be a trick…
Closing March 31, 2015 somewhere about 36 N 75 W.
It’s true, doesn’t matter if it is lumbago, rheumatism, arthritis, sciatica or a bout of the gout this is guaranteed to cure the lot in two days.
Firewood, cut it, split it, stack it on the woodpile.
There are three trees worth here, a Hickory, an Oak and a Maple, all hardwoods, probably totaling about three cords when cut and stacked, seasoned it should weigh about six tons, wet as it is it probably weighs twice that. The big stuff with the dark heartwood is the hickory. Bitternut is the variety that grows around here and it is very heavy wood, and one of the best in terms of heat content for firewood.
Continue reading “The Wattage Two Day Cure for all Ailments”
Cold here today, -20 C at 7am when I went to breakfast. Not often we get that kind of cold and it sounds like it might be around for a while. Creek is frozen right to the middle and the only open water is where the ice eater is working around the pilings.
I heard this story when I was a lad from my father and grandfather; no mention of it was ever made in school.
The geezer in the muddy boots is Dr. Orville Ward Owen a medical doctor from Detroit, the date is May 1911, the place is close to the low tide mark of the River Wye in the shadow of the walls of Chepstow Castle.
What led the man to this place was never explained to me back then, although what he sought was well known to my relatives, and their view was that he was wasting his time and money. He made several visits, one lasting longer than six months. In all twelve or fourteen shafts were driven into the river bottom, some deeper than twenty feet. All he found were some heavy timbers that were the remains of a Roman landing stage, these were not what he was looking for.
Continue reading “Mud, Mystery, Murder, Manuscripts and Madness.”
Nice? I thought so, not my picture, taken by the organizer of the “Downrigging Weekend” in Chestertown, Maryland, an annual event for wooden boats and tall ships. I like the remains of the morning mist drifting off to the right. Continue reading “Maritime Picture for the Weekend”
Well that was then and now it’s well past the closing time, but better late than not at all, so here goes.
All entries responsive to the theme (including Janus with one both late and illegal from Hong Kong) and some with a slightly different take on it. I particularly liked Soutie’s notices (the changing world of announcements could be a subject with almost as much scope as butchered movie titles).
But the prize this month goes to Pseu, a couple of great photos, taken close to home. We tend to forget how much our immediate surroundings also change over time, just look out the window and try to recall how it was when you moved in all those years ago.
Congratulations Pseu. Good Job.
Well that’s what I’m telling people.
It happened two Sundays back about eleven in the morning.
I was working on the boat, tearing out and replacing old waste water piping. Most of the pipe is in the bilge, not the healthiest spot in which to spend time, and I was lying on the galley floor reaching into the void to thread some more pipe when I must have kicked the companionway steps. The steps are a heavy wooden four step flight that mount into clips on the bulkhead and have pegs that drop into holes in the deck. Having done what was needed below I needed to climb the steps into the main cabin.
Thinking only of the next job I was off up the steps, well I got to the top when they let go, sliding down the bulkhead and onto the galley floor. My left leg caught the left mounting clip, opening up an seven-inch gash from ankle to mid calf. It felt as if I had been hit in the leg with a hammer, and my first thought was “I’m going to have quite a bruise there”. Then I saw the extent of the damage, kind of like a busted watermelon. I took off my dirty gloves and pushed the wound shut with both hands to see if it was something I could fix with a few band-aids or some electricians tape, but it was clearly beyond that. I took off my t-shirt and tied it around the leg and started off the boat, up the dock and into the house in a kind of Quasimodo hobble. Nobody home of course, and as far as I could see, nobody on the creek.
(There are pictures coming up, if you do not wish to see them STOP NOW.)
Continue reading “Shark Attack, with pictures. Not for the squeamish.”
Boadicea's Chariot 
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