My Morning Walk

Just about every morning I take a walk. It's a great way to start the day and to enjoy the peaceful country life.

Today on my morning walk I took my camera along and took some pictures. It was cloudy out so the sky isn't all that interesting.

This is our neighbor's beautiful yard. I love spring and the colors of the azaleas.


I may not travel to Rome, Paris or London nor will my camera capture shots of the Pacific Northwest, but I can honestly say that God placed me in one of the most beautiful states in America. I point my camera here and this is what I get.



Or I point it over there and this is what I get.


Go a little bit further to the right, and I get this.


Walk in the opposite direction and this is what is facing me.


Even the weeds provide beautiful colors to look at and enjoy.


But then the inevitable happens and my serene nature walk gets disrupted. It gets disrupted by something that craves my attention and so we have this.


A dog. My dog. I have to take her with me on my morning walks. If I don't she'll sulk the rest of the day.

She runs at top speeds, faster than the speed of light and then stops suddenly to do this.


She digs furiously in the ground.


And then she eats it.

Ok, back to nature. A little further down the road is a field of wild flowers (weeds) with trees and a garage for farm equipment.


A tree showing off its spring colors.


More trees dripping with Spanish Moss. I'm told that you don't want to touch the Spanish Moss because it has little biting bugs in it.


But, hey, I'm a Yankee and even though I've been here over 20 years, I still enjoy looking at it ... bugs or no bugs. There's something just so southern about it and ...

Uh oh. Guess I'm not paying her much attention because this is what's coming at me.


Here she is again running like she's the fastest dog in the world.

Beware of the dog ...


"My name might be Buffy but I'm mean and bad! You heard of 'Don't mess with Texas?' I'm telling you don't mess with Buffy!"

And then she'll eat the dirt she digs up ... again.


Back to nature. I love trees. Trees are one of the things I enjoy photographing most. They're full of character.


There's a lot of texture to them and they point in so many different directions. It's almost as if they can't make up their minds.


As I come up for air after being filled with the awe of trees, I wonder where my dog went. She usually stops when I do but this time she didn't.

Oh, there she is.


She's got her head deep in the brush sniffing and eating at something.


I'm not sure I want to know. However, I'll probably find out later when she pukes it up. Dogs! She'll eat dirt, roll around in other dogs "stuff," and drink dirty ditch water. But heaven forbid if you accidentally drop dog chow into the portion of the dish that holds her drinking water. She looks at you disgusted and you can almost hear her say, "You don't actually expect me to drink that, do you?" Forgive me, your Majesty.

As I turn for home I go down my favorite part of our dirt highway.


I call it "The Tunnel" because the trees cover this part of the road.


Then there's more spring color. And a parting shot of some flowers coming up through the leaves.


I love living in the country. Even with all the distractions.

The Three Amigos

These three boys have been friends for a long time. I hope they remain friends forever.



The First Game

Yesterday was the first day of Little League. Yesterday was Joe's first game of the season. It started out rather ominous. We'd been expecting rain since last Thursday and it didn't come until Saturday ... of course.


The rain came between games so that none of them were called. It would have been disappointing if the first game of the season was rained out!

Joseph's best buddy spent the night. If they were girls I would be calling them BFF (best friends forever) but I don't think boys use that saying. If they knew I did, they'd probably hate me forever.


I told Joe that if his friend was going to spend the night that he would have to be in bed by 10:00 p.m. because he had a game in the morning.

I made them brownies at 11:00 p.m. I guess that makes me an enabler.


They were still up at 3:00 a.m. and I didn't know if Joe would have a good game or not.


His friend thinks I'm weird. He didn't want to look at me when I was taking his picture. I think he's seen too much of me walking around the house in my fuzzy purple slippers and shudders every time he looks at my feet.


Look at the faces on these boys. Pregame contemplation and possibly a butterfly or two fluttering at the walls of their stomachs. As my husband reminds me, baseball is a mental game just as much as it is physical.


The catcher is pulling on his equipment. Catchers have a lot of equipment to pull on. I don't think I could do it. I have a hard enough time getting ready to go on a date with my husband.

Ok Len, you can quit laughing.


This is our team in the field. We are the Maryland Terrapins. We thought we were going to be Michigan Wolverines. It's kind of hard for 12 year old boys to adjust at being "turtles" instead of Wolverines.

But they managed.

Here's a Terp at bat.



Here's my baby! This was his first at bat of the season and you could tell he was a bit anxious. He probably would have struck out but the umpire called the catcher for interference and Joe was able to take first base.

He ended up scoring a run.

And he hit the next time he was at bat which happened to be in the same inning.

Yep, it was one of those games. The first inning took almost an hour to play and the score was 13-0.

In the first inning.

That gave me a chance to get some shots of other things going on in the park.

Oh, lookie here. Folk that I know and love. Aren't they a gorgeous family?


Their little girl was playing softball and I got to see her get a hit and score a run. Unfortunately the pictures that I got of her were really out of focus. I have to stick my camera lens through the holes on the fence to get unobstructed shots and a little boy was shaking the fence so all the pictures that I got of her were blurry.


And then Len was trying to talk to me just as their little girl was scoring a run so my next pictures of her were even more blurry.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Look at this little girl. She is just too cute for words and as friendly as can be.


You just can't resist getting a picture of something this cute!

Joe was playing first yesterday. He did see a little bit of action.


Not a whole lot, though.


You see the outfielder in the picture above? This is what he was doing ...


He was watching the grass grow.

(See Len! I told you I had a purpose for taking a picture of the grass!)

It's nice to see them coming off the field with smiles.


I guess it's pretty easy to smile when you win 20-0 on the first day of the season.


Here's to a great season. I have a feeling we're going to have to sit through some nail biters though! They can't all be 20-0 games.

Play This Game

Go ahead and play!

You can find out about this game by going to Toys for Your Blog.




Quote for the Day

I wish our politicians had as much sense as Yogi Berra!


"If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer."

The Scrimmage

Joe's baseball team had a scrimmage the other night and these are some pictures that I took. I've still got a long way to go before Sport's Illustrated will call.


This was Joe's first at bat and he struck out. His next time up he got a double with an RBI.

These next shots are of him playing first. I asked him a couple practices ago if he would enjoy playing a certain position. His reply to me was that he didn't care where he played just so he got to play.


This is the first year that base runners are allowed to lead off. I think it makes for so much better playing. It's about time the the county PALS joined the 21st century!



Still trying to keep the base runner where he should be.


But then ...


Oh well!


Did you notice that Joe's trying to make a fashion statement? He's playing with his shirt on backwards. Sure, he can play baseball, but dressing himself is another matter.







Watching Joe play ball is one of my favorite things to do!