Christmas Deer

On Christmas morning, Kaye looked out and notice some deer in the back yard.

It's not uncommon to see one or two at a time back there. We have some apple trees and cherry trees that they like to browse upon.

We counted six in this group. They are also rather large. Our winter started late and I guess that gave them extra time to fatten up prior to the cold and snow nipping the vegetation in the bud (so to speak).

No antlers.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We did.

My quartet, Unusual Suspects, competed in the fall competition of the Barbershop Harmony Society. We are part of the SenecaLand District, so we had to go to Rochester. We did well. We are a novice quartet (at least 2 members of the quartet have never competed). There were 23 competing quartets from the area and four of them were novice quartets. We won the novice category and came in 15th of 23 overall. We were pretty happy with that. Our Tenor (left) is Tim Casler, our Lead (center back) is Dave Hubalek, our Baritone (center front) is Barney Johnson, and I am the bass.

A Ridiculous Cat

I think that we can all agree. Pierre is just about the most ridiculous cat that ever was. I know that I can't imagine any cat out-ridiculousing him. That is too a word.

Moving Dirt

We got a couple of free dump truck loads of dirt today. The county is digging ditches and needs to get rid of the dirt. It certainly isn't topsoil grade, but I can use it to fill in low spots. I'll get rid of the sticks, rocks, and trash in it later.
Unfortunately, they dumped it several yards from where I wanted it. It is going to take me a full day just to move it to where I want it.

Once I get it where I want it, I just need to spread it.

My tractor is small. The bucket holds 5.3 cubic feet. A bigger machine would come in handy for this job, but it would be harder on the lawn when mowing.

I'll be working on this for a while.

Letting the tractor do the work.

Cherries

Well, the cherries are ripe. We have several Cherry trees on our property. I don't know what kind they are. There are several varieties that grow in this area. There are Bing cherries, Pin cherries, and a couple of others that I can't recall the names of.
There are thousands of them on my trees, but I can't reach many of them. Most of the ones that are reachable from the ground have been eaten by deer and turkeys, and who knows what all. Do coyoties eat cherries?

I've eaten these and they are very good. I imagine that they would be very good in a pie.

MMMMMMMMmmmmmm.

A Democrat in our backyard

Sometimes these Democrats sneak into our backyard. They sneak around trying to steal our ideas.
You can tell that they are Democrats by the way they walk. You know, really jerky and puffed up.

Then they steal something off of the ground.

They are pretty camera-shy, though. They know that the things they do won't stand up to a good hard look.

The Snake Handlers

Pierre found a snake in the yard the other day. He was very afraid of it, so he called Punjabe to get rid of it. He was beside himself with fright.

"Please, Punjabe. Save me from this terrible monster".

"What? This little thing? Give me a break, Pierre. It's just a Giant Python".

Punjabe quietly whispered to the snake what would happen to it if it didn't vacate the premises.

The snake decided to challange Punjabe and try to hold its ground. Rarely has such a terrible monster made such a bad decision.

The battle that ensued was monumental. Our hero, her sculpted musclature bulging, was gracious in her victory and let the snake escape with minimal injuries. Pierre may never recover from his traumatic experience.

Our Trip to Oquaga Creek State Park

We rented a cottage at Oquaga Creek State Park for a few days. It is downstate almost to PA. It was really neat. We all agree that this was the best short vacation that we've taken in a while.

This is the view off of our back deck towards our picnic area and fire pit.

She might not blush any more, but she's still my bride. I think I'll keep her.

We had a fire going for most of the afternoons that we were there. A camping must, a fire is.

Big Daddy and Mitchell throwing up a rooster tail in the canoe.
You can go a lot faster if you do this. It's a delicate technique that you might not want to attempt without proper training.

The three bubbas in the canoe. We didn't realize that you were only allowed to have two people in it. Until they came out in the motorboat and fussed at the boys.

Some bad hombres if ever I saw some. Come to think of it, I may never have seen any.....

The park was next to a town called Masonville. You know we had to take some pics.

The cottage from the front. It is a pretty cool design. That curved buttress that you can see exposed in the front is repeated every 8 feet or so. They support the structure and the second floor is hung from them. I guess you'd have to see it to understand what I am trying to describe. It made for a really roomy cottage, though.

She can't hold me back. Or down. She tries to, but she can't.

All in all, a great trip.

Here are the boys inventing a new game called "Catch the Soccer ball with the fireplace tongs."



Here is Morgan helping to clean up just before we left.

A "Sixties" party and The Latest from the Ponderosa

Tye-dyeing some T-shirts

Hula-hoop contest (OCee won).

Twister contest

Some weird guy

Ocee's art work

The status of the deck.

Nuff said

Lookin good.

Peace Out!!

Pirates of the Ontario

The Barbershop Chorus that I sing with had its yearly show the other night. This year, It was a spoof on "Pirates of the Caribbean". It was called "Pirates of the Ontario".
Much fun was had by all. The guy in the red shirt is supposed to be Gilligan.

There's the Skipper, behind and to the left of me.