Skies over Alberta, but there's still snow

Photos by Richard Schear, March 9, 2011

We had a little bit of melting yesterday, but didn't get the "chinook" (a warm wind from the west) that they had out past Calgary the night before.
With a chinook, the temperature here in Alberta can go up even at night. We used to have an indoor-outdoor thermometer, and could watch the temperature rising at midnight. What a phenomenon for a person who spent most of her life in British Columbia!
We must have had a bit of a chinook early this morning, along with a spot of rain, because a lot of melting has taken place, and we'll have to go out to the back yard to do a spot of work before Dick takes Lindy on her rabbit, deer and sky-watch walk this evening.

Posted for Skywatch Friday, the blue, grey, pink, orange, many-colored,

any-colored meme hosted by Klaus, Wren, Sylvia, Sandy and Fishing Guy every week.

To see what color the skies are in other parts of the world, please click

HERE!

Thursday Theme Song, good golly...

GOOD GOLLY, MISS COLLIE

Good golly, Miss Collie, you sure like to bark,

Good golly, Miss Collie, you sure like to bark,

When you’re barkin’ and a-howlin’

You can’t hear your owner call.

From the early, early mornin’

  ’til the early, early night,

You can hear Miss Collie barkin’

  like to give me a fright.

Good golly, Miss Collie, you sure like to bark,

When you’re barkin’ and a-yowlin’

You can’t hear your owner call.

This You Tube clip features Little Richard’s original 1956 recording of his greatest hit, Good Golly, Miss Molly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPmaVT-P5Ds&feature=related

In my opinion, this version typifies 1950s rock’n’roll in a way few others can.

However, the song has also been performed by Jerry Lee Lewis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Doo Wop group 'The Valiants', and others, including this performance by Little Richard himself along with Tom Jones, seen here on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdX9m1C2dQE&playnext=1&list=PL62BC5CABAD3FB9EF

I’d like to thank my good friends Deb and Randy Stuber for the use of these wonderful photos of their girls: their two lovely show Collies, renowned for their beauty and not  for barking as my parody implies. No dogs were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Posted for Hootin' Anni's musical meme, Thursday Theme Song.

To see what other songs and pictures captured the imaginations of bloggers, please click

HERE!

H is for cousin Harry, a hero

I remember my mother's uncle, my Great-Uncle Henry. He was a doctor, and I was very proud of the fact that he delivered me. Probably, when I was small, I thought it was one of the more important things Uncle Henry had done. I never knew, because nobody ever told me, that Uncle Henry was the father of a hero.
For some reason, no one ever talked about Mother's cousin Harry, who "died in the war" as we used to say of anyone who perished in World War II. Mom had a cousin, Jack, on her mother's side, who had "died in the war" and we knew about him. However, although we had met most of Mother's cousins from her father's side, and knew many of them, no one, not even Mom, ever told us about Harry.
H.H. MacKenzie Jr. was a Canadian pilot who was shot down over France in 1944. I believe it was grief that kept the family from talking about him to the younger generation. I don't think they ever really forgot about him. And I know there are people in France who never forgot him at all.
There are wonderful people in France who are still looking for the wreckage of Canadian planes they know were shot down in WW II. They had friends or relatives who saw the planes go down, so they knew the approximate area, and so they keep looking.
A couple of years ago, some of the wreckage from Harry MacKenzie's plane was found by a group of these intrepid searchers. They cleaned up the parts, traced the plane through the serial number on the engine, found out who had flown it, and then got in touch with my MacKenzie relatives in British Columbia.
On June 26 this year, the mayor of the French town of Sacy-le-Grand is going to name a street "Rue MacKenzie" after Cousin Harry. All of my mother's surviving MacKenzie cousins have been invited. Some of them are going to France to attend the ceremony, which will include representation from the Canadian Embassy and the French Air Force. Mom's cousin Ian told me about it, and asked if I would like to attend as well. I would like that, very much, and I will try to go. The cousin I never heard about has become my hero. He is buried in Beauvais, France, north of Paris. He was 24.

Posted for the letter H in ABC Wednesday,
Mrs. Nesbitt's alphabetical meme hosted each week
by her talented team.

To see what others made of the letter H this week, please click HERE!

My world hasn't always been snowy

                                                                                                                                            Photos by Kay Davies

These pictures were taken in autumn last year, before we even thought about having snow. There were still a few blooms on my honeysuckle (top) and green leaves on the trees, although a lot of leaves had fallen by then. Now autumn seems like the good old days!

Posted for My World Tuesday, hosted each week by terrific team of
Klaus, Wren, Sandy, Sylvia, Louise and Fishing Guy. Thanks, team!

To see other worlds in other parts of the planet, please click HERE!

Microfiction Monday: bold-as-brass lie

In the brass-bound folder, the frame held a lie. Her mother always said it was Grandfather, but it was a stranger. Photo DNA doesn't lie.

(137 characters)

Each Sunday, Susan at Stony River brings us Microfiction Monday (it's already Monday somewhere). She provides a photo and, if that photo inspires us to write something, we have 140 characters or less in which to do so, including spaces and punctuation (the length, they tell me, of a Tweet). To help people who overwrite, which I do, Design 215 has a character-counter here.

To see how this photo inspired others, please click HERE!

(Note: Susan is suffering from an ice-storm-imposed lack of power, so I'm posting this now and linking it up later. -- K)

Yellow doesn't get much mellower than this

Dick enjoyed this hammock at the Miconia Hotel on San Cristobal when we visited the Galapagos Islands in 2006, but he had trouble getting himself out of it later.      (Photo by Kay Davies)

Posted for Mellow Yellow Monday, hosted every week by

Drowsey Monkey. Thanks, Drowsey!

To see other mellow yellows from around the world, please click

HERE!

Winter weather, autumn weather, shadows with Lindy

                                                                                      Photos by Richard Schear

I can't see much difference between this shot and the previous one,
but Dick insists it's better of Lindy's shadow. 

Ahh, sunshine. Not long before the snow started,
we were having a lovely, warm, sunny autumn. Now it's all so long ago.
Here we have shadows of a fence, Dick, Lindy, and a post.

Posted for
Shadow Shot Sunday,

hosted weekly by Tracy

from Hey Harriet!
Thanks, Tracy!

To see other shadows from around the world, please click

HERE!

Lindy shows how she concentrates

Here, Lindy is concentrating on a field where she often sees deer, but none appeared.

Here she sees one deer, but it has also seen her.

Here a rabbit looks at Lindy as she concentrates on pulling her leash away from her dad,
but he hangs on, so she can't go after the rabbit. Poor Lindy!

Posted for Pet Pride, the meme where people show off their pets. Pet Pride is hosted every weekend by Bozo and his family in Mumbai. This week, Bozo has asked for tips to help him catch a bird. Lindy doesn't have any tips, but wishes she did have some successful ideas to report.

To see other pets as their doting owners see them, please click HERE!

Costa Rican camera critters can be colorful

                                                           Photos by Richard Schear and Kay Davies

Posted for Camera Critters no. 152.

The Camera Critters meme is hosted every week by Misty Dawn. Thanks, Misty.

To see what critters were caught by the lenses of other cameras, please click

HERE!

Changing light and different reflections

                                                                                                                                                        Photos by Kay Davies

I wasn't at Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick, for very long before the light changed dramatically. The water of the Bay of Fundy changed color (except where it reflected the rocks) and even the land in the near distance changed. I wasn't there long enough to see the famous Bay of Fundy tide, but I enjoyed visiting the rocks and their reflections as part of my train trip to Canada's east coast last year.

Posted for Weekend Reflections, hosted each week by

James of Newtown Daily Photo. Thanks, James!

To see other reflections caught by other cameras, please click

HERE!

Seeing skies and things with Captain Andy of Kauai

Photos by Kay Davies    

We saw beautiful skies, we saw a school of dolphins, and we saw some flying objects. Is the object in the first photo the same as the one in the second or third? Or is it something else entirely? We might never know.
Nevertheless, it was an interesting morning aboard one of the catamarans from Captain Andy on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, in December. Dick had fun snorkeling, we both enjoyed a delicious breakfast and later an equally delectable lunch, and I even succumbed to a little nap, lulled to sleep by the boat's soothing motion on the smooth blue sea.

Posted for the Skywatch Friday meme, hosted every week by

Klaus, Wren, Sylvia, Sandy and Fishing Guy. Thanks, team!

To see other skies from around the world, please click

HERE!

Choo choo, here comes Thursday Theme Song

CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO

- lyrics by Mack Gordon, music by Harry Warren

• featuring Glenn Miller and his Orchestra
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIQq1j1-AQU&feature=fvst

- video from the movie “Sun Valley Serenade” starring John Payne, Lynn Bari, Milton Berle, Sonja Henie, and Joan Davis 

- vocal by Tex Beneke, and The Modernaires

- dancing by the Nicholas Brothers, and Dorothy Dandridge

(You're going to love this video, watch the second part, it's fantastic! I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid, and it was an old movie then, but I loved it.)

Pardon me, boy

Is that the Chattanooga choo choo?

Track twenty-nine

Boy, you can give me a shine

I can afford

To board the Chattanooga choo choo

I've got my fare

And just a trifle to spare

You leave the Pennsylvania Station 'bout a quarter to four

Read a magazine and then you're in Baltimore

Dinner in the diner

Nothing could be finer

Than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina

(Hams and Eggs photographed by me in Spain, 2008. Poster from Wikipedia.)

Posted for Hootin' Anni's musical meme

Thursday Theme Song 

(It's a very fun meme, you should try it.)

To listen to other songs from other places,

please click

HERE!

G is for Green, a color we don't see right now

Photos by Richard Schear and Kay Davies                            

Whether it's green green grass; green leaves on wildflowers in the coulee where Dick and Lindy go for walks; green weeds in the town where we live; or green shrubs in our back yard, we haven't seen much of this color for a long, long time. It's been one of the snowiest winters southeastern Alberta has seen in quite a few years, too, and we miss the color green - we miss it a lot!

Posted for Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday, hosted weekly

by her team of talented photographers and alphabetizers.

To see the color green from other parts of the planet, please click

HERE!