Weekly Chat, Sunday December 13, 2009

Garry ,Auntie, Paul, thanks for sympathising about my fall. I was lucky having my daughter to see to my cuts and bruises and give me a big hug. I had no broken bones. You really are a caring bunch of friends.

Auntie, my injuries were nothing like your's. You must have been in sheer agony. Have you completely recovered?

Thanks for all the photographs. They are all visible now.     

Evening/morning all: Back from running around all day and trying to catch up where I left off last evening before I realized the site had gone down.   Anyway.  Heron: The perfume in the plastic bucket idea was good. In our family, I've given the kids (teenage grandkids) packages of socks with dollars of different denomination stuffed into them - the look on their faces as they add up the booty is great!  Lindybird: Brilliant delaying tactics on your parents' part. I used to love Beano and Dandy. Dan Dare too.  Alan: Thanks for helpful info re tags gone wrong. Enjoy your days of freedom. Thanks for great eagle pix!  OG: Two years ago, I was in the UK for my niece's b'day and my sister gave her some of those glam kitchen gloves - they were black with pink boa feathers!  I haven't seen them over here.  :-(   What a lot of feeders you have!  Margobird:  We used to do the up-to-London-to-see-the-lights bit when I lived there. Don't like crowds either. Good grief! How old is Tommy Steele now?!  Gary: You only went "through" Nordy's? Brenda: Orange ice lolly is the secret behind the famous British stiff upper lip.  Auntie: Ouch!!  Also like "no bad weather. only wrong clothes." notion, but what do we know, living in California!

Have to clean up for mulled wine and mince pie gathering at house of good friend (from Scotland). The first time I made mulled wine, I left the lid off the pan and all the alcohol evaporated.  Warmish with high clouds here today. We're well ahead of our typical rainfall so at this rate will have spectacular spring wildflowers come April/May.  Back to catch up again later.  Enjoyed all the posts from all over. Take care all.

Alan Petrie Thanks for the note about OMAHD - we had the Sky+ recorder set and watched 2 progs tonight.  Dogs show no interest, though Fly's dad used to trial.

Brenda H I remember Phil Drabble on the series.  My favourite, though, was Eric Halsall.  Do you remember how he used to say "Points are going, points are going" when things went wrong?

This is Fly on her holiday near Loch Garten.  She has now hurt another leg - chasing a ball!  Metacam and limited exercise in stoe.

Patricicat, poor Fly:( But lovely picture:)

AQ, enjoyed the Aussie 12 days of christmas. Very different to the version I know:)

Annette, have a nice evening and yes, I passed through "Nordy's" , wasn't tempted but did end up in Harry and Davids!!

Hello

AQ:  Brilliant re-wording of the 12 days of Christmas.

Annette:  Hope you have a great evening.

Patriciat: That's a beautiful picture.  Fly looks such a friendly dog.


Paul.

Hi, everyone! Haven't posted for a while because I have been really busy and highly distracted. :-(

Alan: Thank you for the earthquake information. We had a moderate earthquake some time ago, and since that time I have been absolutely fascinated by the science of earthquakes. Ours was interesting to experience, because I could feel the earth rolling, and the walls of our old house popped and cracked loudly. I had to catch our TV to keep it from falling off the stand. I could hear a big roaring sound in the woods as the trees moved and bent. We had no major damage; it was just a profound experience. I still had my big boxer dog then, and he jumped up, whimpered frantically, and rushed outside right before the earthquake. He could sense that it was going to happen.

Here's the site for this side of the pond: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/

You can click the regional maps at the bottom of the page to see the activity in your area.

aquilareen: I loved the Aussie version of Twelve Days of Christmas! :-)

Patriciat: My Dad and I have just agreed that we want Fly to come to live with us. She is fabulous. :-)

Annette: Mulled wine sounds lovely. I rarely drink alcohol, but I particularly like mulled apple cider with a little spiced rum.

I will be back later to catch up with all the blogs. Sleep well, all those in the UK.

Evening all: Sooooo tired. Mulled wine and mince pie event enjoyable; trifle and cookies also on offer but thank heaven there was quiche and other savory snacks before the sugar onslaught. Still, two hours of mulled wine, cheesey bites and sweets doesn't make for a well-balanced meal. Will probably be rummaging around in the fridge later looking for something more substantial.  AQ: Aussie Twelve days of Christmas a definite cultural learning experience.  Patriciat: Lovely Fly; dogs are marvellous. Met a very nice one at the mulled wine event.  Diane: Good to see you. Hope all your distractions are manageable. Lots of anecdotal tales about animals sensing earthquakes before they actually start - speculation is that it's a disturbance in the electrical field (or something like that).  Fascinating science.  OK. Off to bed early tonight. Take care all.

Good Night/Day to everyone, I'm back now too. My goodness you people have been busy in just the last couple of days!  =O)   It's so nice we all get along so well and share interesting facts and such with each other. Cold here this evening, only -12c with wind chill at -20c but we lost most of our snow due to rains all day Moonday.

I'll have to update myself on the blog but it sounds like Miss Mallachie will be keeping us in some suspense again and I do hope she is faring well. There has been some sad news relating to the Whooping Crane migration:

In a Press Release received shortly before 7:00pm CST this evening, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced the cause of death of 217*. The seven year old Whooping crane, matriarch of the First Family, was shot.  She was the dam of Wild601, the first Whooping crane to be hatched in the wild in Eastern North American in more than a century.

The shooting occurred near the town of Cayuga in Vermillion County, Indiana sometime between November 28th, when she was last recorded by trackers, and December 1st when her carcass was found.

"This is likely the most important bird in the entire Eastern Migratory Population," said Operation Migration CEO, Joe Duff. "We are all saddened by the loss and troubled by the motive behind the act." http://www.operationmigration.org/USFWS_whoopingcrane.pdf

And from the field journal:

"This afternoon we received a copy of the News Release that was sent out December 11th by the Juneau County Sherriff's Office regarding the break-in, vandalism, and theft at our hangar in Necedah. "

I couldn't send over the press release but here is a link to an article from the Toronto Star which inexplicably has a side of the page ad for Crane, Goose and Duck Hunting! Unbelievable!

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/736982--why-would-vandals-attack-whooping-crane-shelter?bn=1

Oh dear. Page seems to have gone wonky again (reverse order of blog/response). Maybe it'll be okay when I hit post. But anyway, great to see you back Caerann - but what awful news about that whooping crane.