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Back in 1993 I visited my daughter who was studying in London for a semester and took advantage of the opportunity to do some sight-seeing.
One of the places I visited was Leeds Castle in Kent between London and Dover. Leeds Castle has been called “the loveliest castle in the world” and is situated on two islands on a lake.
It is definitely beautiful.
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Betsy and I enjoy the beach at Ocean Isle, North Carolina, for many reasons, but the sunrises we can enjoy from our room definitely ranks high on the list. I captured this image on our most recent trip to Ocean Isle Beach in early December. Upon seeing sights like this the most appropriate response is “The heavens declare the glory of God”.
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I’m of a generation that had to read Canterbury Tales in high school, and I must confess that it was not my favorite reading assignment. But I had a chance to visit Canterbury Cathedral many years ago while visiting London. I recently came across this picture that I took of the cathedral interior and was once again impressed with the beauty of the place. The original image was a slide taken in 1993.
There are many reasons we keep going back to Mt. Nebo State Park in Arkansas, but one of main reasons is the magnificent sunsets we can enjoy from ‘our’ cabin on top of the mountain. Although this picture was taken several years ago, I hope you’ll agree it makes going back very worthwhile.
This is probably the most frustrating year we’ve had for growing roses since we moved here 20 years ago. In addition to the weather — extremely high temperatures, too little rain, too much rain — we’ve had continuing problems with the deer that live in our area (where they are protected).
Deer seem to think that roses make delicious meals and they wiped out every bud on the plants in our yard twice this Spring. The things we used to keep them away in the past (Liquid Fence and other repellents) didn’t phase the hungry critters at all. We were able to move some container roses onto the deck where the deer didn’t bother them, but the roses in the yard were one big buffet table.
In desperation we connected a garden hose to a motion detector and turned it on each evening, leaving it on until morning. Once we saw a young deer walk into a flower bed; the detector picked him up, the water came on, and the deer beat a hasty retreat. We’ve also seen deer making a wide detour away from our yard, which is fine with us.
We finally have some roses in the yard in bloom! An added bonus to this method of deterrence is that the roses often have water droplets on them, like the droplets on Wildfire in the picture above.
It’s so nice to have roses in bloom!
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We’ve had a big problem with deer this year — they’ve eaten all the buds and new growth from the roses in the front yard twice so far this year. We’re just hoping they don’t come back for a third helping!
Fortunately we had some of our roses in containers on the deck and so far they have avoided becoming meals for our resident deer. The first rose to bloom this year was Fragrant Cloud, has a fragrance as wonderful as her looks.
By the way, all of our container roses are now on the deck. We don’t have much room to move around, but we’re beginning to have several roses in bloom, which we are enjoying.
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When the periwinkle in our yard starts to put on a show, we can be fairly confident that Spring has arrived. We may still have a few days of cold weather ahead, but these beautiful flowers mean better days are coming.
After several days of clouds, rain, ice, snow, more clouds and more snow, the sun came out today and the temperature got above freezing. Much of the snow was gone from the trees when I went out to the mailbox, but the trees still looked beautiful against that brilliant blue sky. January 18, 2022.
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Sometimes I’m in the right place at the right time to get what I think Is a good photograph. One such time occurred when I was in London way back in 1993. I was walking along the river Thames toward the new London Bridge as the sun was beginning to set. This is what I saw.
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Betsy was treated like a queen on Mother’s Day this year.
Her sons Mark (left) and Bert (right) along with Robin, Mark’s significant other, treated us to an adventure along Citiico Creek in the Cherokee National Forest. They provided a delicious picnic lunch, and found a perfect picnic spot along the bank of the creek.
Good food, great company, and a couple of hammocks made for an ideal day. Since Mark has a jeep we were able to go back into the “boonies” and to have the place pretty much to ourselves. It would be an understatement to say that we had a wonderful time.
Of course, when Betsy gets together with her sons, just about anything can happen — and it usually does.
But the creek was absolutely beautiful.
Senior Moments 