Nice Night for an Evening & Posts of the Week

What a nice night for an evening.

~ Steven Wright

There's a peaceful feeling about a late summer afternoon, as it gently ushers us into the evening. The sunlight transforms from intense, to golden and from flirty to coy. All of the images below were taken at the dinner hour or beyond. Walk with me and enjoy them, will you?


Wild roses bloomed at Frank's place for the first time that I've ever noticed. I think they were a pleasant surprise to him, also.






This is one of the usual roses we see in bloom, each summer. For some reason, I like how it looks so bright and extended in the foreground as if it's about to catch that ball in the background.






Filtered sunlight illuminates the wild phlox in the field.






It's a shame that you can't smell them. Their scent is intoxicating early in the season.






As the sun begins its descent in the sky, the outlined leaves seem to absorb its warmth with back lit beauty.






The birds bring the final meal of the day to their young.






The moon climbs the sky to watch over the earth.






And all is well with the world.

❀ ❀ ❀

Happy Eventide.

It's pretty obvious that the Posts of the Week are no longer weekly at this point - nor do they appear on what used to be my Wednesday schedule. I do believe I will get back to that habit once I'm settled in my new place but that's going to take a while. I've not even put my old place on the market yet.

We take possession of our new home on Wednesday. Until I'm there for good, I'll be doing some back and forth traveling between each place. For now, Frank and I will be up there for a couple of weeks. My computer is staying back in the old place so my blog visits will be less than regular for a while. I will try to schedule some posts before I go. I'll probably have Frank's laptop to use occasionally - that's if our internet connection is set up there as planned.

So if you don't hear from me for a bit (aside from my scheduled posts), you'll know why.

And now, without further delay, here are the Posts of the Week. The icon below is yours for the taking if if your blog post is named as a POTW.

***
READERS' CHOICE

Recommended by: Joeh
The Story of Leviticus
by Gia
at Mayor Gia

Recommended by: TexWisGirl
That Time of Year
by Rae
at Gram's Cracker Crumbs

***

PHINE PHOTOGRAPHY

Wait for it
by Sandy
at Writing in Faith

Rain Hawk
by Andy
at Eye Candy

Letter B
by Sue
at Photowannabe

The Greatest of These
by Jackie
at Teacher's Pet


***

A GOOD READ

Urban Diary
by A Cuban in London
at Un Cubano en Londres


***

CREATIVE FUN

Where Clouds Come From
by Kerry
at Ed and Reub

***

Please drop by their blogs for a visit and leave a kind comment if you have the time. Also, please feel free to add your own choices (for any blog except this one) for a specific blog post in the comments section below, where others can see them.

Thank you

Frogs and Dragons and Six Years Today

❀ ❀ ❀

I went into a French restaurant and asked the waiter, 'Have you got frog's legs?' 

He said, 'Yes' 

So I said, 'Well hop into the kitchen and get me a cheese sandwich.'

~ Tommy Cooper

This little guy wasn't doing much hopping around. But he did pose nicely for me while I snapped a few photos.





Have you kissed any frogs lately?





A different frog on a different day.





A wee nudge to get those hopping legs in gear.





It's not easy being green ~ Kermit

❀ ❀ ❀

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

~ J. R. R. Tolkien 

My friend, Carol Anne and I were walking through my local park one day. There was a small crowd gathered at one point along the path, and though we couldn't see the object of their attention at first, curiosity got the better of my camera lens and before I knew it, I was snapping photos of a young bearded dragon named Stella.






She was as lovely as a member of her species could possibly be and quite tame. She let me pet her scaly head and back before her person felt it was time to dress her...






Who knew that Stella was a biker babe?






Dressed alike, the two of them were just born to be wild.

❀ ❀ ❀

If you're still with me, I'd like to thank you very much. In fact I'd like to thank you for exactly six years of stopping by and visiting my little corner of the blogosphere. It's all of you wonderful people who make it such a fun endeavor. I treasure each and every one of your kind, supportive and warm words. Thank you.

On to year seven!

Sing a Rainbow

Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue,

I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too.

Listen with your ears, listen with your eyes, and sing everything you see,

Now you can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing along with me.

~ Arthur Hamilton

Red




and yellow




and pink




and green,




purple




and orange




and blue,




I can sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow too.




Listen with your ears,




listen with your eyes,




and sing everything you see,




Now you can sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow,
sing along with me.

Chipmunkey Business

THE CHIPMUNK

My friends all know that I am shy,

But the chipmunk is twice as shy as I.

He moves with flickering indecision

Like stripes across the television.

He's like the shadow of a cloud,

Or Emily Dickinson read aloud.

Yet his ultimate purpose is obvious, very:

To get back to his chipmonastery.

Ogden Nash

Birds, squirrels and chipmunks never go hungry around Frank's place. The chippers are especially bold and all of them make their way onto the deck for munchies. One of them hops right onto the table to help him or herself to the peanuts that we bring out out in a cup to toss around the yard. They're such quick and clever little critters. I'll let this one talk for him or herself.


Hey! Where can a guy find some peanuts around here?





Hmmm, some evidence of their existence.





That darn blue jay always finds them before I do.





Hey you! Get away from my stash!






OMG! I have hit the jackpot!






Oh joy. Oh bliss! Oh nom nom nom.





I'll bet you think this is much too big for my little mouth, don't you? Just watch me.





A little tuck here.






A little tuck there.






Here a tuck.





There a tuck.





Efmmmpphrymmhere a chumpk murphk.






What? I'm just enjoying a balanced diet

Chipmunks are among the cutest creatures on the planet. You couldn't deny that, could you?

Here's a quick video showing some of that peanut-tucking. I'm sorry for the shaky image. I found it difficult to keep the little cutie in focus. It was only about a foot in front of me.


Chipper video


More photos coming up sometime soon.

Putting Out Fires

Everyone who has a Google account, (and that's most of us who have Blogger as our blogging platform) has had that annoying helpful warning to immediately reveal our mobile phone numbers to Google lest something dire happen and we need to recover our account. I have resisted doing that every time - opting instead to seek out the teeny-tiny link which says to ignore their demand suggestion and continue on to do what I had intended to do before being so rudely interrupted.

Earlier one evening, I had been multi-tasking - that is - reading and commenting on blogs and replying to emails as they arrived. After leaving several comments on different blogs, Google suddenly decided to ask me for my password. It accepted my usual string of letters and numbers and then told me that my account was no longer accessible.

What?

What followed after that was explained by me to my blogging buddy Linda in a response email at a ridiculously sleepless hour of the morning. We both knew it was going to end up in a blog post. Here it is, almost exactly as I typed it to her:

Why am I still up? Because somewhere between my last set of responses to you and these two, Google decided to shut me down. It seems there was "suspicious activity" on my account and to "protect" me, they disabled everything Google, including Gmail and my blog. It was GONE!

They held my blog hostage, forcing me to give my cell phone number in order to recover it, and yet when I did, I never received the text giving me the promised verification code.

"Go to sleep" Frank told me in a text "it'll be back."

Oh he of minimal technological understanding "It won't come back unless I have a verification code and they haven't sent it."

"Go to sleep"

"It's my BLOG!"

"Goodnight!"

Auto correct would not allow me to use the curse words I texted to him in response - I must have been mistaken. I was not.

I decided to go through the process of giving them my cell number again and hope for the text with my verification code for step two of the recovery process.

Nothing.

I fell asleep for about an hour and then fell wide awake and checked my cell phone. There was the message with my 6 digit recovery code. So of course I tried to access it on the phone. I entered the number...

Invalid code.

Those same words that auto correct wouldn't allow me to type to Frank came to mind once again.

I decided to get up and go to the desktop to try again. Suddenly I had a new page of information which vaguely referenced my secondary email address - and by that, I mean that it presented it to me with asterisks and just enough real letters so that I could recognize it as my address. It told me to go there for an email with further instruction. I felt like I was on a reality television show. Would I arrive in my other email box and win the golden egg or would I find instead the decrepit old goat and cart behind door number three?

I found a link and clicked it. It led me back to the page asking for my cell phone number. Again.

Arrggghhh!

So again, I entered my cell phone number and this time, immediately got a text message with the same code I was sent earlier. I entered it and this time they allowed me to change my password. And my Gmail and blog came back to life.

I hate (insert a derivative of the word that auto correct wouldn't allow me to use) Google.

And just as I typed that last sentence, there was a spontaneous flash of lightning (I kid you not). Google has far too much power.

It thinks it's God.

❀ ❀ ❀

So that fire was thankfully extinguished before too long. Below are some photos of another small fire which was also quickly put out.


On my way back from a walk, and just a few houses away from Frank's place, I glanced to my left and noticed smoke drifting across the field. I knew that the chances of it getting out of control was small on this particular day - there had been a lot of rain that week. Still, I wondered what caused it and if anyone else was aware of it.





Within seconds, I saw a small group of people - one who told me she had phoned the fire department, and a man who made his way across the field to see what he could do about extinguishing it. He had a branch with him and began poking at the source, trying to tamp the burning twigs and leaves so that they would expire faster.






A moment later, a couple of other men appeared and and were soon joined by two young boys. They were engaged in deep discussion. The man in green, to whom the boys confessed that they started the fire explained that they came out of hiding, admitted it readily and felt badly for the potential damage they had caused. Like most young ones, they hadn't considered the possible consequences and had not been looking to cause any harm. They were good kids.





A fire truck arrived and the boys were gently escorted to report their story to one of the crew.





A couple of firefighters made their way down the slope and across the field with an extinguisher and a broom.





Together, they promptly put out the rest of the small fire while others watched.





The crew member who spoke with the kids, always had a kindly smile on his face. He hadn't forgotten that he'd been a boy once.





He also made sure they understood that had it been dryer and windier, the fire could have easily caused a lot of damage.





I imagine that names and phone numbers were recorded, parents were contacted and lessons were well learned.

❀ ❀ ❀

I apologize for my less than regular visits. This summer is proving to be extremely busy for me. I thank all of you who still stop by in spite of my infrequent pop ins.

More photos coming up... eventually.