Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 26 November 2017

HAPPY NEW WEEK!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

I don't have a picture this week, but I thought I'd include these two links for anyone who wants to look at them. 

(1) This is aerial video photography of the autumn foliage at Turkey Run State Park, which is just down the road from my house. The water is Sugar Creek. The video is 2 1/2 minutes, but the nicest footage is shown at about 1 minute 45 seconds in the video.  

(2) This is aerial video photography of the autumn foliage at Shades State Park, which is only a few minutes from me. The Shades is very, very special to me because that's where my grandfather was a Park Forest Ranger. I spent a lot of time there when I was young, as did my Mom when she was little. The bridge is the Deer's Mill Covered Bridge, which was built in 1829 over Sugar Creek. The photographic drone even goes inside the bridge. Swallows and other birds nest in the rocky canyon cliffs. The video is 3 minutes. 

Here are some videos showing the outside and inside of some of the other bridges near my house. (No one is obligated to look at them.) Every year, over a million people come to my area in October to attend the Covered Bridge Festival. These videos were taken this month, right after the end of the festival.

Jackson Covered Bridge, built in 1861 during the Civil War. In the 1800s, at times of high water, people launched flat boats at this point on Sugar Creek to float goods over to the Wabash River, where they travelled to the Ohio River and then to the mighty Mississippi River and on to the markets in New Orleans. Video is 2 minutes.

West Union Covered Bridge, built in 1876. This bridge and its earlier versions were used by stage coaches on their way to Lafayette in NW Indiana during frontier times. The famous Wabash and Erie Canal was east of this bridge. Video is 2 minutes. 

Cox Ford Covered Bridge, on the west side of Turkey Run State Park over Sugar Creek. Video is 2 1/2 minutes.

The Narrows Covered Bridge , in Turkey Run State Park over Sugar Creek. It's one of the most photographed covered bridges in the nation. The local Native American tribes and settlers from several countries had various names for Sugar Creek, but they all knew the Sugar Creek valley for its maple trees, the source of maple sugar. Video is 2 minutes.

  • Good  Morning,  All.  Dry here at last - and should be, over the next few days. I was beginning to get webbed feet!

    Lynette - As Annette says, your food preparations sound yummy.

    Annette - Much excitement, and major coverage here, of the royal engagement. In the main, people are glad for them and wish them well - personally, I would not want a relative of mine to have to contemplate such a restrictive life, but they look well suited to each other and very much in love. I'm sure they'll have a happy life together and the Royal family will be enriched by the new younger members, now that the Queen and P. Philip are becoming unable to do so much due to their age. Harry is lucky to have found someone to share his life with, as it's not a "normal" existence, being royal, even these days.

    Edit:  It's the fetching beard, Annette!! - very fashionable here now, a lot of men are sprouting them. (I like it!)

  • Today's pic:

    I may have put this one on before, as it looks familiar, but arn't they cute?!

  • Good morning - flying visit as son in law is here doing garden jobs and I mustn't neglect him1

    LINDY - trust that you had a lovely weekend with your eldest. Loved the 'take me to your leader'!

    DIANE - have yet to look at links, will probably do so when in bed this evening - thank you.

    AQ - had to look up 'skink'. Did I understand correctly that they can reproduce on their own? Sorry, brain dead, can't remember the proper term...

    GEORGE - So good to see you on here. Like you, I think that I lead a very boring life but I so enjoy reading about what others are up to. Christmas Day here will probably be just my middle daughter and I as her two are off to see their Dad. Boxing day, as usual, will be a free for all, here. Eldest daughter's sis in law, from Kazakhstan, will join us, her husband will be working away from home.

    Better go - needed downstairs!

  • Look what we had in the neighbourhood today:

    Click on her to see more.

    Our herring gulls are red listed birds.  Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.

  • The site is funny - just now I saw my post to CLARE, now it has vanished.

  • I just wrote on Clare's post about the woodies. The Site has been strange lately.

  • I'm stupid. I replied to CLARE's post on the actual page, not on our page. If I had brains, I'd be dangerous!!It wasn't lost, just hiding!

  • Definitely not 'lost', Heather - a classic case of 'misplaced', I think  :)

    Lindy:  Don't know whether your OH got his game of golf this morning.  We played nine holes - I have never walked through brown rice pudding, but I imagine it was a bit like most of the course!  And it's only November ... oh dear.

  • Heather B said:
    AQ - had to look up 'skink'. Did I understand correctly that they can reproduce on their own? Sorry, brain dead, can't remember the proper term...

    Heather - I don’t think so. What is interesting is that when attacked they drop their tail off, leaving it wriggling while they escape. Then they grow another. See here. Hence there nickname “drop-tail lizard”. We haven’t seen ours. I hope he squeezed his way out under the front door and is not lurking somewhere like my knitting bag.

    Nanny day and expecting 38 C. <big sigh>