Calling ornithologists!

I've looked up all the Georgia woodpeckers and this one doesn't fit the bill (ha ha) for red-headed, southern pileated, downy, ivory billed or red bellied woodpecker. Is it, could it be, a Red Cockaded Woodpecker? I ask because they are endangered. Any help is appreciated. These are in my yard in Madison County GA, slightly out of the noted range.

"Corner View" Spring in my yard

Jane at Spain Daily has a weekly theme upon which we all write from our corner of the world. It is called Corner View and this week's theme is "Spring." Please be sure to check out her entry and the links to all the others!

Today was our first full-blown sunny AND warm day. And what a blessing that it occurred on a vacation day. It was 76 degrees with no humidity and full, warm sun. The flowers in the yard are picking up steam and the riot of color is a delight to the eyes. So is the sun on my face as I hang laundry.

These guys are in the front yard. A cluster of white daffodils with sunny yellow centers make just the right combination for stylishness.

Forsythia blooming. I pass this bush when I walk from the garage to the clothesline. It's a lovely yard with a lot to see from the ground to the treetops.

My neighbor was out and about too, cleaning up her yard. The dogwoods are in bloom, as well as the cherry trees and the Bradford pears.

What a great day. I had a wonderful breakfast, blogged and wrote, hung laundry on my line on a quiet street with kids riding their bikes by and by, played with my cats, and bird-watched. How relaxing.

Well, it's been a good 234 years

 RIP USA

"Corner View" : Front Door

Jane at Spain Daily has a weekly theme upon which we all write from our corner of the world. It is called Corner View and this week's theme is "Front Door." Please be sure to check out her entry and the links to all the others!

This front door near the Italian Livorno is one of my favorites. I discovered this in a town whose name I share, "Prata." I don't think there is any connection becase my family is from near to Naples, but the coincidence was a happy one. So was this front door, with its lace curtains and cunningly placed cane, awaiting its owner to come forth for his evening passeggiata.

This is the Hopetown Lighthouse. In the Bahamas, there is less of the American attitude of personal governance. For example, you can simply walk in to the lighthouse with no fanfare or papers being shown, donate into a slotted box, and climb the steps to the top. There is no guardrail keeping you 'safe', there is no posted notice about liability. If you fall off, well, you win the Darwin Award.

Those are the only two doors I'm using for this Corner View from afar. These next few are from my own location. Comer is an old town in Georgia and its economic circumstance is declining. The cotton is gone and the manufacturing has dwindled and we're hanging on. This door is hanging on with ivy.

Arists live here...lol. They bought the buildings on this block and re-habbed the interior and made an art gallery and pottery place. They live upstairs. Our town has many creative people in it.

A genteel reminder of the now-distant past. Though the club is still going with tremendous women keeping the tradition alive, the building's heyday was in the early part of the 1900s.

My favorite front door of all. Not so much the church, my church, though I love it. But it is just a building. The door is Jesus.

Corner View: Miniature Worlds

Jane at Spain Daily has a weekly theme in which we write on our point of view from our corner of the world. Be sure to click on over to her blog and read the other corner views! This week's theme is "Miniature worlds."

When I moved to Georgia from wintry Maine one thing I was looking froward to the most was walking barefoot in the grass. I love the luxurious feeling of the grass under my feet. The act is emblematic of wild abandon, thumbing one's nose at winter so to speak. That bit of self-indulgence, reveling in sensuous grass, is a summer-time only thing in Maine, which is all too short. I was looking forward to a longer time barefootin' it in Georgia.

I got the longer summer, for sure, and a lengthy spring and a gentle fall too, but the running over the lawn in bare feet and twirling like Julie Andrews atop the Alps ain't gonna happen. Why? My enemy, the fire ant!

Oh, my, is that a bald spot on my lawn? Mental note: get grass seed.

Peering closer, I see that it is the tip of the iceberg, a small segment of a vast underground miniature world. The fire ant mound, indicator of the hell beneath and lo, there are the hellish beasts emerging to torment the barefoot wanderer now.

Peering even closer, looking at each blade of grass, one can see many ants traversing each tiny blade, going about their work but ready to BITE the BIG TOE at first moment! The miniature world of the fire ant is immense, unseen, and if you are a big toe, hell itself!

Kids say the darndest things

Me and a 2nd grade boy at school today, looking at a reference book. It looks like he is on speaking terms with the tooth fairy.

Is that a robot?
Yes, the caption says it is the world's most intelligent robot.
Can it do anything?
The caption says it can do just about anything.
Can it give me new teeth?

Me and a second grade girl at the library today.

This is a good book, you should try reading it.
What do I get if I read it?
You get the wonderful knowledge that's inside it.
Aw, man. I already know knowledge. I want a prize.

Corner VIew: Coffee Companion

Jane over at Spain Daily has a weekly theme on which we all write or offer pictures of our corner of the world. Be sure to visit her site and click on hers and the other participants' entries for this week's theme: Coffee Companion.

I drink coffee only in the morning. It is a blessed event. The steam rising from the amber colored liquid, the first sip, the favorite mug, the quietude. I am not the same person without my coffee fix. It could be said also that I am not a sane person without my coffee. I also am an internet-a-holic. I spend quite a bit of time online, writing my blogs, researching projects for people, promoting my photographs, catching up on news, studying different versions of the bible. I took to the internet like a duck to water and never looked back. No recalcitrant Luddite am I. I sail on, surfing that net!

Therefore it can be said that the most wonderful part of my day is just after the coffee is finished perking and the laptop is finished booting...my coffee companion is:

 

THE INTERNET!!!!!!

How's YOUR income doing?

If you are like most people, not too good. This latest statistical analysis from the Bureau of Economic Analysis illustrates a bleak reality. Here it is in a picture:

 

Here is another picture to go along with that: