Another week has started. I hope it's a good one for you all.

I've been recuperating from a fall. Not a fall when walking or gardening; I didn't trip over Pippin. Last week I was in a deep sleep, enjoying an innocuous dream (my Dad was driving me and one brother to a restaurant for dinner). and I literally fell out of bed (that's a first for me), hitting a chair which deflected me into the solid wood bed frame. Ouch! I thought I had cracked a rib or two, but fortunately escaped that. But I've been pretty sore - even breathing hurt. But it could have been worse, and I'll get over it.

So I haven't been on my usual walks, meaning no new photos. Below is a a shot of sunrise over the wetlands, taken maybe 15 years ago and just reworked.

I did get started again with watercolors and posted the first sketch (just a value sketch to work on the darks and lights, plus get some much-needed practice with my brush strokes) in the Other Art thread.

TTFN, my friends.

   

Requested by MFIB, what does my new guitar sound like. It has lots of sounds depending on how I dial it in on the modeling amplifier, but here is a clip of me playing over a backing track that was found on line.

https://app.box.com/s/nnaw19adm6g3qp1b2byum801weyre40v

I miss the idea of a youtube thread, so I'll chuck this in here.
 This lake is an hour's drive for me. We have had a couple of wetter years for a change.
Pelicans on Lake Brewster.

Good Saturday, Morning......rainy and windy here....
I took a photo of my yard yesterday....seems I let the buttercups have a free hand......funny, bees are not that interested in the buttercups. 

   

So right now we should be in Ohio camping for the next couple of weeks or so. But it is not to be. Left home Monday pulling our travel trailer with a state park in Tennessee as our first stop. About a half mile from the campground I stopped at a gas station to fill up. After filling up, there was a car in the next late fairly close, and I as I was pulling out and keeping an eye on that car on the right, I strayed too close to the left and the front tire of the travel trailer hit the steel gas pump protector and did some major damage. Bent the axle, destroyed the leaf spring and lots of cosmetic damage. Managed to limp on in to the campground riding basically on the brake drum. Spent all day Tuesday trying to find a rig capable of transporting my TT to a repair shop. Bottom line - trailer is at a repair shop in Knoxville, TN (5 hours away), the rest of the trip is cancelled (all campsites cancelled along with associated cancellation fees ) and waiting to hear from the Insurance adjuster. Adjuster is supposed to go to the repair shop today to have a look. Also, it will probably be in the shop for months (parts hard to get these days), so this camping season is effed for sure. All it takes is one second of inattention.

The only photo I took, other than of the damage to the trailer, was a reflection in the lake with my cellphone. Didn't even take any of my other cameras out of the case. We had registered for the "Biggest Week in American Birding" in Ohio as well as had tickets to get on a boat to take photos on Lake Erie so I will check today to see if I can get refunds for those. If not then that is more $$ lost. Now I need to quit thinking about it because it is making me feel bad again. Monday night and most of the day Tuesday were very stressful. Took forever to get a company to tow the trailer so we had to spend an extra night in the campground, but were lucky enough to be able to book the same site we were in so didn't have to move.  When the truck got there to transport my camper, I had to hook up the camper and back it on to the flat bed. That was fun (not). Here are a couple of photos. First one shows the bent axle and destroyed leaf spring. Next is where I blocked it up to try to get it a little bit more level because we spent 2 nights there. Next 2 is it loaded on the flat bed.

To make things more complex, we were packed for 3 weeks, with a full fridge, etc so we had to buy a cooler and ice to empty the fridge, plus find room for that plus all the other food, clothes, and anything else of any value that we needed to get out of the trailer.

Anyway, we got the trailer to the RV repair shop and drove on back home yesterday. Now we wait to hear from the insurance company. The repairs will probably take months due to availability of parts, unless the insurance company totals the camper. I don't really expect that to happen but you never know. So DW and I are not happy campers right now.

I hope everyone else had a better start to the week.

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Yesterday I wrote that I put in around 5 miles of walking the previous day. Most of that was to a florist to order an arrangement for my wife to be delivered today - our 50th anniversary. Considering that my wife has put up with me for half a century, $100 - $200 on flowers doesn't come close to an adequate thank you.

While walking back, I detoured to a local park for some photos. It was rather overcast, and no peilcans, egrets, or herons were there, but I did get a shot of a graceful jacaranda...

   

Wishing you all a good day.

About 4:30 AM here and I've been awake for hours, so I figured I'd make myself useful by starting the Daily.

I did a lot of walking yesterday (nearly 5 miles) and got a few photos worth processing. This flower (sorry - I don't have an identification) caught my eye because of the clean colors. The photo turned out quite nice, so it needed very little processing...

   

Good day, friends.

Most of the photos I've taken the past two days have been unacceptably soft, so I took one of those out-of-focus shots and played around with it in FotoSketcher...

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Just because there isn't a thread yet.......at 10PM

This month's challenge is RED.
Thank you, Michael, for the suggestion.