MEMORIAL DAY

It's a holiday weekend and parades abound. Dickie and I drove up to Healdsburg last evening to see what was happening there. It was quite an affair. We never did get the head of the parade, but we saw plenty of flags:





There were lots of horses, too, most of them with riders, but some of them pulling a variety of coaches:




I'm not sure who this fellow was supposed to be, but he looked mysterious:




There were plenty of old cars. This one struck my fancy:




Of course, the fire department was out in force. This vehicle may be a bit ancient, but it still cuts a fine figure:




Some of the horses were quite goodlooking. Here's a pair that looked especially powerful:




These mules struck my fancy, too. I think their ears are bigger than mine:




It's always great to view the costumes. These young beauties certainly enhanced the scene:



There were a variety of smaller animals in the parade, too. These dachshunds seemed to enjoy the show:




The military was there as well. This young Navy gal took the cake:




It was a great parade. Hope you saw one, too!




THE SUMMER OF WOODSTOCK

Last year the City of Santa Rosa, home of the late Charles Schultz, the cartoonist, sponsored the erection of Snoopy statues all around the town. This summer the theme is "Woodstock" and 76 statues of that little yellow friend of Snoopy have been placed in selected areas around town. Dickie and I sought out a couple of them the other day. We hope to find the rest as the days and weeks pass. Here's what two of them looked like:







ANOTHER QUILT

Dickie and her quilting buddy, Nadine Heppell, have been working away at a couple of new quilts. Both quilts look alike. Here's what one of them looked like spread out on our livingroom floor. Nadine and Dickie have entered it in a local Santa Rosa quilt show in the month of June. You can see it there:

ON OUR DAILY WALKS

We're still out there on our walking routine as often as we're able. We travel a variety of routes. One of them takes us out to the vineyards where I took the picture of the mustard plants back at the end of March. You can look at it again by scrolling on down this blog. The vineyards look quite different now. Here'e approximately the same scene as back on March 28. As you can see, the vines are leafed out and, though you can't tell it in the picture, the grapes are growing:



Something else we still see on our daily walks along the vineyard are the woodpeckers. I caught these two ignoring the "high voltage" sign the other day:



This young green-eyed damsel in the white dress got in the way of my camera lens the other day, too:



And that's it for May!

MAY DAYS

I think I have the May Days' malaise, if there is such a thing. I know I should be making an entry in this blog of mine, but I can't seem to find anything worth saying. Sometimes, under those circumstances, it's better just not to say anything!

However, throwing caution to the winds, I'll make a stab at another blog today.

Dickie and I planted some tomatoes in a barrel in the backyard about two weeks ago now. They're coming along fine. Here's what they look like today:




Just for the fun of it, I'll put up a picture here with each new blog so you can see what green thumbs we have (or not!). They're supposed to bear fruit in about 62 days. Since we planted them on April 28, that means we could have tomatoes by June 28. We'll see!

Our climbing roses took a hit this spring. I think the frost got to them just as they were beginning to leaf out. They look like they're recovering now. The roses bloomed, as you can see in the background of the tomato picture above, but there were hardly any leaves at first. They're just beginning to leaf out again at this point.

We do have a pretty good stand of poppies in the back yard now from some seeds Dickie strewed a year or two ago. Poppies will grow anywhere in this part of the world. They multiply quickly, too. I think, if we let them, they'll take over the backyard. Here's what ours look like today:





THE MOON

I took some pictures of the moon in the early evening the other day. I like to see what kind of a picture I can get with my longest lens. This was in broad daylight. The moon is not quite full yet, but it's getting there (this coming Saturday). Here's what it looked like yesterday (May 9) at about 7:10 P.M.:





DWARF FROGS

Until recently, I had never seen a drawf frog, and I still don't know anything about them, but I did get some pictures of one last Sunday out at the ocean side. This one was hopping around on the deck of a house we were visiting in Dillon Beach. My daughter, Mary, furnished the fingers:




Speaking of dwarves, the hummingbirds that usually visit our backyard have not showed up recently. We're not sure what happened. The hummingbirds are still around. We know that. This fellow was sitting in the top of a tree we passed on our morning walk the other day:




JUST US

Guess that's enough for today. We're enjoying the beautiful spring weather. It's great to sit outside and bask in the sunshine. Here's us doing just that: