TUESDAY TRAVELS

I was in Phoenix yesterday and visited a place that Sharon of Phoenix Daily Photo has made me aware.

It is a lovely quiet garden and koi pond surrounded by trees with tumbling water, ducks and serenity.

Somewhat.

I'll have more to tell you about it tomorrow.

SHARING

. . . at a distance.

GOT LEATHER?

I paid a visit to a trade show at the Prescott Resort yesterday.

I had expected to see a lot of leather saddles and the like but what I saw were raw and dyed leather and scads of tools for working with it.

These are hand made knives for working with leather.

The maker and dealer brought them from his home in Libby, Montana.

And those are tools for stamping designs in the leather.

There were saddle forms ready to be covered with leather and these fancy spurs.

There were a few finished products at the show.

This beautiful and intricate design.

And one of the attendees was wearing a great jacket which he showed off for me.

THOSE are some fringes!

As you might imagine there were a lot of western hats on heads throughout the show.

And it's hard to tell in the above photo but the gent on the left had a moustach with two strands that hung down six inches or more from his upper lip.

The three-day show was well-attended and included workshops for those interested.

Kind of makes one realize once again that the days of the Old West are not that far in the past.

SPRINGTIME IN STONERIDGE

I always hesitate to say it at this time of year because of the area's history of March snowstorms but this year it looks like that may be beyond us.

I checked the forecast for the next 10 days and the high temperature is only expected to dip into the 60's one day.

So winter may be over.

The wild cherry trees would seem to believe that.

This is Jim and Nancy Jo's tree across the street from us.

They're from Devils Lake, North Dakota, and probably pretty glad of it.

Denny and Marty, next door to them, also have one blooming well.

So let us enjoy the beautiful weather we're having with temperatures every day in the mid 70's and maybe hope for rain (not snow) this spring.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

This is a special edition of the Friday Funnies.

Special because it's dedicated to all of you oenophiles out there.

You know.

Winos.

That one is good but I think this next one is my favorite.

All right.

Have a fine liquid weekend, Gentle Readers, and always keep laughing.

Here, kitty-kitty.

Oh, no.

Have you been into the wine?

THROWBACK THURSDAY

This is about as far back as I can go.

My older brother and I when I was very young.

GOLDY

As I have written before, we have a variety of  birds that visit our bird bath just outside my den window.

A large number of them are the simple House Finches. The male of the species (I presume) is the most colorful with his rose to bright red breast.

The females are mostly bland grey with some brown or black markings.

But the most brightly-colored birds that visit are Goldfinches (I presume), with their intensely yellow breasts and throats.

But they are also one of the most nervous of the birds and it's hard to get a photo of them.

This is the best I could do recently.

Right now the tree above the birdbath is just bare branches but when it leafs out it will be much more difficult to spot birds perching in it.

I remember one evening in Guadalajara when we were sitting on the roof of an apartment building with friends enjoying a sunset cocktail when a flight of parrots (I presume) came swooping into some nearby trees.

Our friends told us that was a daily event at sunset.

(BTW, seems like there's a lot of damn presuming going on in this post!  While I enjoy watching the birds, I obviously ain't no ornithologist!)