Good morning to everyone!  See?  I can keep it short.  Sometimes.  It just isn’t really that much fun doing things normally.  And I’m certainly not normal.  As many of you know, and probably wish you didn’t know, especially when you have to explain to your friends or co-workers who that strange guy is that keeps talking to you.  And you have to quickly come up with an answer like, ‘never saw that guy before in my life’.  But he talks to you every week when he comes shopping, they say.  Oh him, you say, he’s just some odd guy that thinks he knows everyone, there is something wrong with his head.  Then how come he knows your name, they ask.  Oops, gotta go, have a meeting with the manager, you say.  Hmm, can’t be that bad.  But things do happen to me.  And people would rather not be around when they do happen.  Or they might get caught up in the happening.  And, believe me, no one wants that.  Speaking of birds.  I like to feed them.   But I had a bit of a problem earlier this winter when a neighbor complained to the town about my bird feeding.  You may remember I mentioned that.  I managed to fix that problem by complying with the bylaw and raised my feeder to the 10 feet off the ground rule. Kind of odd looking, but it works.  Anyway.  The other night I heard a noise out on the deck.  Hmm, must be the raccoons back again, I thought.  Then there was some very loud banging.  Not raccoons.  Possibly one of the bears has come out of hibernation.  If any have done so, they certainly were shocked by our sudden return to winter yesterday.  Wasn’t even in the forecast.  But we received an additional 6 inches of very wet snow in the afternoon.  Actually I think it would have been closer to 8 inches but the first part melted since the temp was above freezing for a while, meaning around 36F, which is about 2 for those of you who prefer the outdated, archaic, and totally ridiculous method of measuring temperature.  Can you tell that I really don’t care for Celsius?  Or metric for that matter.  Okay, I’m crazy.  I don’t mind admitting that.  But I’m a nice sort of crazy.  Sort of.  Anyway.  That’s the reason for the continuing warm looking header pic above.  I was going to chose something different.  But I decided to stay with Hawaii.  A much better choice than what we have right now.  Though some of that new snow did melt today.  Sigh.  But it’s going to get cold again.  Meaning no melting for a few days.  Supposed to be a cold April.  Sigh.  BUT, the gulls are back!!  That’s always a plus, and a sure sign that spring is here, even if it doesn’t look like it.  I always look forward to the gulls coming back.  A lot of people wish they wouldn’t.  But I like them.  I love listening to their cries of various varieties.  But first the crows came back a couple weeks ago.  Then the eagles, though some always stay the winter.  Then the Canada geese arrived last week.  So the gulls were fourth.  Okay.  I know.  I got sidetracked.  Back to the loud banging on the deck.  It scared Muffin, so I knew it was something to check out.  I was already in bed, as was Muffin.  It was late.  Naturally.  Things like this don’t usually happen at a convenient time.  Sigh.  But, by the time I got to the window there was nothing.  Nothing.  How can nothing make so much noise?  Obviously that nothing had to be something.  But I could not see that something but saw what that something which was now nothing had done.  It had taken my bird feeder down.  And wire that I had used to hold the bird feeder pole in place (I know, sounds odd, but it worked quite well) was neatly tied up very tightly so as to make it unusable.  Hmm, doesn’t sound like the work of raccoons or bears.  More like a two legged something.  Who obviously doesn’t like the fact I feed the birds.  Fortunately I had 2 feeders, so can still use one, it’s the hard one to get at, which is probably why it is still there.  Sometimes it really is hard to believe.  Speaking of food.  No, wait.  I think I will save that one, and a couple more, for next week.  By then I hope to have a new look.  My blog that is.  Not me.  At least I am going to try something.  Which for me usually means disaster is on the way!  Muffin is telling me to get away from the machine.  She’s hungry.  Then she complains that all we ever do around here is eat and sleep.  Her Cabin Fever has been as bad as mine.  And we both still have it!!  Sigh.  Sometimes it’s hard to understand why people live around here.  Hawaii is looking better all the time.  Sigh.  Anyway, I hope you all can enjoy your week and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

Good morning everyone and yes indeed, I am back once again since my last ‘musings’ on Monday was the last one of the winter and this is spring, at least technically speaking, and I just couldn’t wait until next week to write my first ‘musings’ of spring since spring always gets me excited even though it really doesn’t quite look like spring outside thought the snow has been melting and there is bare ground showing in some sunny locations which does not include outside my place where the snow is still quite deep and white and frozen but on my deck which faces south with the sun shining brilliantly against the wall it actually felt somewhat spring like this afternoon so I braved the weather and spent some time out there and nearly froze even though I was still dressed for winter but the wind was blowing across the deck which seemed to blow away any warmth generated by the sun and to be quite honest it felt warmer out there the other day when it was still winter than it did today when it is spring but because it is spring I just needed to spend some time outside and now I wish I had stayed indoors and enjoyed the outside from inside and then I would have been able to stay warm at least and I could have joined Muffin laying in the sun where she undoubtedly  was staying very warm (this time it is Muffin, it is very hard to catch her in her cute kitty poses) and she certainly felt warm and I could tell that she didn’t exactly appreciate being awakened by my hand on her back but fortunately I have a good supply of bandages right now so I don’t mind taking chances like that once in a while but I think I’m finally starting to warm up after my foray on the deck and that was only 3 hours ago and I know you are wondering about the timing since I started this by saying good morning and I was outside this afternoon but you should know me by now that it is always good morning for me since morning is by far the best time of day and it’s okay for you to disagree with me and by the way a big ‘hello’ to my new readers this week and you are probably wondering now why you decided to join the group but stick around as it’s not always so bad, sometimes it gets worse.  Sigh.  For those who don’t know, I will be using more photos from now on and most will not be mine, but several people have been kind enough to let me use their photos and that way you will have some very nice pics to view, however, from time to time you will still be subjected to mine, like Muffin above and of course those in my gallery will be mine.  Maybe I should start a gallery of Hawaii pics.  Not a bad idea.  Speaking of Hawaii, I should have stayed their longer.(You can just hear those waves crashing onto the shore! Yes, that is from Hawaii.)  Even if I didn’t actually go there.  Maybe I should not actually go back there for a while.  And come back when it’s warmer.  Speaking of food.  If you read my last ‘musings’ you will know what I mean.  Anyway, I didn’t spill my supper today.  Yay!  But when I sat down to eat, I didn’t want to.  Sigh.  So I put it away.  But at least I didn’t spill it.  Muffin was rather disappointed.  She was sitting there waiting.  Sigh.  That ice outside is terrible.  Didn’t slip on it however.  Shouldn’t even have been out on that ice.  But I had to get my mail.  Even if there wasn’t any.  Sigh.  Wish there was a way of knowing without going out there to check for nothing.  Oh well.  I’m looking forward to real spring.  The kind without snow.  Or freezing temps.  Then maybe this CABIN FEVER will leave.  Maybe.  Not that I do much outside anyway.  But I can at least sit on the deck without freezing.  But then there is those huge  spiders.  Sigh.  Never knew spiders could get that big this far north.  Next week, something new.  Maybe.  Here’s a thought, if weather can be inclement, does that mean it can be clement?  Enjoy the remainder of your week and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.