UP EARLY

I'm not usually up before sunrise in the morning.

But when I am and when it creates such beauty, I have to take a photo.

This was only a few days ago.

ROCKIN' ROBIN

Yesterday morning I was startled to see a robin come to my bird bath.

It seemed like the wrong time of year for him with temperatures in the low 40's.

I thought they usually were here in the Spring.

And then, all of a sudden, there was an entire flock of robins.

At one time, there must have been 7 or 8 in the tree just above the bird bath and they scrapped to see who could use it.

SWMBO said they must have just stopped in as they were migrating to Mexico for the winter.

This guy above first drank, then got into the water and sat looking around and then began a thorough bath.

His vigorous splashing had water flying everywhere.

At the same time the yard filled with what seemed like dozens of tiny birds pecking for seeds on the ground and ravaging the sage brush.

I didn't get photos of them but I think from my guide to Arizona birds that they were bushtits.

All in all it was a bird-lover's heaven for a little while.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

Well, good morning, Gentle Readers.

How are we all this morning?

Really?

Well, let me try to cheer you up.

Ohhhh-kayyyy, are we all feeling a bit better now?

I hope so and I also hope you will go out of your way to enjoy this early December weekend.

Stay home, avoid the crowds, maybe work on those Christmas cards you haven't already mailed, eat something sweet, maybe even play a game with a loved one.

Or a member of your family.

Above all . . . ENJOY LIFE!

(It beats the alternative.)

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(Ahhhh, nice to see somebody takes my advice!)

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Three generations of the Taylors on vacation at Camp Lake, Minnesota.

August 1st, 1946.

Back row left to right first is my Uncle Zenas, a WWII veteran and, by this time, a long-time California resident, hence the stylin' striped shirt.

Then my dad with his shirt buttoned to the cuffs but at least with an open neck.

Mom, looking vacation stylish.

My great-aunt Eliza, dressed and hatted formally, as I always remember her.  

She lived in Los Angeles but I don't think she ever lost her 19th Century upbringing in Minnesota.

And the patriarch, my grandfather, Berthold Wayne Taylor, better known as B.W.

He's the only one wearing a necktie, perhaps befitting him as the senior member of this clan.

In the front row are the only two current survivors, though my brother Wayne and I are both in our elder years now.

You'd never known from the sober expressions on those faces that this was a vacation and supposedly a happy time, would you?

'Course it could have been because this may have been the final day of fun and frolic and we were preparing for the nearly 500 mile drive back to home in North Dakota.

Probably 7 people in one car would have been a bit much for anyone to look to with a sense of glee.

BASKING

The Black Buddha is wiser than most.

He knows to sit in a ray of sun on these cool wintery days.

He sat there without twitching while SWMBO took numerous photographs.

Until he came out of his meditation to look at what was disturbing it.

"Oh, there she is with that damned camera again."

SUN'S BACK

Yes, today is better with the sunshine back even though the temperature is still a bit crisp out there.

But yesterday was a different day.

Bits of snow and occasionally rain sprinkled my area from these portentous skies.

But nothing stuck and today is a sunny day.

Yay!

SNOW DAY

If you peer intently at this photograph you can see a few white spots.

The photograph was taken earlier today and those white spots are snow falling from our Arizona sky.

Keep in mind that we live at just over 5,100 feet so our weather is quite a bit different than that of Phoenix or Tucson or Yuma.

Regardless of that, the temperature was in the low 40's so none of the snow stuck here.

But winter appears to have crashed into us as the high temperature will be in the 40's every day for the foreseeable future.

And to someone accustomed to our normally balmy weather, that's downright chilly.

We're retired so barring the trips to doctor's visits and grocery stores, we can simply hunker down and stay warm in our home.

The BRD and her Beau Jack have another solution.

They're heading for Cabo San Lucas in a few days for a week in the sun.

It's 83 there right now.

LEAF ME ALONE!

(Catalyst is acting a little weird today)

IT'S BEGINNING . . . .

. . . . to look a lot like Christmas,

everywhere you go.

This homeowner in our development has a big evergreeen tree in his front yard and he has it decorated for the Yule.

It looks a big odd there, surrounded as it is by the other non-Christmas vegetation around his house.

But it was a nice discovery as we took a drive yesterday.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

Oh joy!

It's the hap-hap-happiest day of the week.

It's Friday!

And you know what that means.

No, no, no, stop planning your tours of the shopping meccas for Black Friday.

It's time for the Friday Funnies!

But first, this warning.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and ate too much.

All right, that's enough merriment for awhile.

Until we meet again, please accept my wish that you have a wonderful weekend of Thanksgiving leftovers and always  (you can finish it, can't you?)  remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(uh-oh, he got there first.)

A FOWL DAY

TURKEY(?) DAY

For "foodies" tomorrow is one of the most important days of the year.

It's supposed to be a day for giving thanks for any and every thing good in your life.

But it has evolved into a day to overeat, usually of turkey and a variety of foods that accompany it.

Dressing (cooked outside of the turkey) and/or stuffing (cooked inside of the turkey), sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, various vegetable dishes, cranberries in a variety of forms, olives, onions, cheese, crackers, bread, rolls, and on and on.

Dessert?  Always pie.  Pumpkin pie is the traditional one.  But sometimes sweet potatoe pie, apple, cherry, blueberry, pecan (in the American south mainly), maybe peach, or whatever.

Or cheesecake.

We're doing our traditional, non-traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner.

We haven't done a full turkey for years, decades maybe.

Since turkey breasts became available in supermarkets, that has been our turkey dinner of choice.

But tomorrow, SWMBO is preparing Spatchcocked (butterflied) Chicken instead of turkey.

We discovered that dish in the past year and we both like it, probably better than turkey.

Alongside the turkey, er, chicken the accompanying dishes will be the same as if we actually had the turkey.

We will be only the two of us.

The BRD has been overwhelmed this year as she and her Beau Jack move into a new home so they will dine separately from us whenever they get the time.

Thanksgiving can be a day fraught with peril, as members of one's extended family get together with all of their disparate views on the news of the day.

Arguments can develop, feelings can be hurt.

Which makes our feasting day this year all the easier.

And it has another value.

SWMBO is making a pumpkin pie today or tomorrow but she made an apple pie yesterday.

And since we are just the two of us, we didn't have to wait for the big day.

We cut it and had the first pieces last night!

Happy Thanksgiving, Gentle Readers.

TUESDAY TRAVELS

In 1987 we visited our longtime friends, Tom and Lana Cochrun, in Indianapolis a few months before we headed south.

Way south.

I was presented with this homemade birthday card some time later.

 

While parts of that saga are not true, we did indeed move to Mexico and spent a mostly happy 4-1/2 years in the Guadalajara area.

A RAINY DAY IN ARIZONA

In spite of the picture of dusty hot dry Arizona you may have from all those old western movies, we do actually get rain here.

Today is one of those days.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

Ah Gentle Readers you have come through for the old Catalyst once again, providing him with lots of good content for these weekly shenanigans.

Thank you all but especially this week to my buddy Timmer, who sent a plethora of today's contributions plus more for later.

I just wish when he writes to tell me about his hired leaf gatherer, John, that he wouldn't call me Dear.

Be that as it may, let us proceed.

All right, Gentle Readers, that's enough for this week.

Now listen up.

I want you to go out there and have yourselves a scrumptious weekend and always remember to keep laughing.

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

SEASONAL TRANSITION

As autumn becomes late autumn and heads toward winter, the temperature and the leaves drop.

What was once a beautiful sight . . .

. . . becomes a mess and a chore.

SWMBO and I spent yesterday morning raking and gathering the leaves from our red maple tree.

They are beautiful when freshly fallen.

But all that raking and bagging I could do without.

We filled five large bags and it did make a difference.

But the wind has come up and we know we'll have more work to do before the season ends.

There are other trees of a different variety and they all shed their leaves on their own schedule.

When I was a kid we used to enjoy raking and piling the leaves in the street just off the curb and then burning them.

The smoky fires left a smell in the air that lingers in my mind as a memory of a simpler era.

We're not allowed to burn leaves now so they fill bags which in turn fill dumpsters which in their turn are hauled away by the garbage trucks.

And the wind blows and the leaves fall and the transitions continue.