Spring Is Popping Up Something New

Well two weeks ago I, Sweet William The Scot, had temperatures in the 60 degrees and all the wonderful flower buds started to open.  Then last week the temperature fell into teens and all the flowers were frosted and turned ugly brown like the magnolia tree above.  No beautiful magnolias, forsythia, white blossom trees all are brown and the daffodils are mush this year.

But instead of flowers popping out we have these signs popping up all over my community.

They say LOVE your neighbor.  No matter where you are from, we are glad you are our neighbor.

Your Black, Brown, Immigrant,

Disabled, Religously Different, LGBTQ, Fully Human Neighbor.

They are blooming like flowers.

Maybe because Lee got assaulted in December by a man who was against women's right to vote and women working, but we are feeling these signs more.

Maybe it is because of the hatred that has reared its ugly head with our last political election.

Ugly groups have risen and efforts are being made to speak out against them small like the signs and large like the Women's March on Washington and in other cities like my Nati City, a Sanctuary City.

We had a Ku Klux Klan sign left on our car.  Lee shredded the dam thing.

Last week us in America got to hear what cuts might be made in our government budget.

A lot of those cuts are aimed at the poor, weak and elderly.

We have a sign blooming in our yard!

And to be honest we don't LOVE all our neighbors but we tolerate (allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference. 

For Lee it is the woman who always yelled "Love You More" to her now ex husband or the woman who still has the Sarah Palin sign in her yard.  But hey whatever floats their boat.

Yep and for me it is that darn cat next door he gets on my nerves. 

But we are not having tweet storms in the night against anyone (if we have something to say we have the facts to back us up) nor kicking the crap out of them like what was done to Lee.  My Lee is having a hard time adjusting to all this hatred but I am helping her.

"See ya!"

Thanks for being a friend

Traveling down the road and aback again

Your heart is true and your a friend of mine

Signing Off

Sweet William The Scot

EF1 ~ Tornado

The weather siren sits on the school not more than four blocks from me.  But did the siren go off ~ no the darn thing was silent. 

Lee says she does not believe people when they say the weather is not changing.  While she was growing up she only remembers one tornado but since we have been blogging we have had three tornados. 

Yep in the wee hours on Wednesday the 1st Lee and I, Sweet William The Scot, was having a nice snooze when we were awoken by the front of our house rattling and being pelted by hail.

We did not hear a freight train sound but rather what sounded like someone wadding up bubble paper into a ball but louder like a thousand times decimals drowned in sound.

What we heard was trees cracking like match sticks.

First they said it was straight line winds that had hit going by at 82 miles an hour.

I walk this corner.

Then the weather authorities took a look at the radar and they saw what was circular winds had just sat down on my community.  Then puff it was gone.

Why we never had time to make it to our basement.

There is a house behind and under those tall cedars!

We got in the car as soon as it was getting light to assess the damage.  An this is why our electricity was off for a day. There were a whole row of electric poles that looked like this one.  At least it was a warm day.

It is strange how one side of the street can be a total disaster and the other side just a little mess. 

We had debris to clean up but our house held together and we suffered no major damage.

The weather authorities said the winds got to over a 100 miles an hour and that we had sustained a EF1 tornado.  An EF 1 has winds of 86-110 mph.

I'm going to sleep with one eye open and one ear up from now on.

Or maybe I will just have one more green beer then I won't care.

Thanks for being a friend

Traveling down the road and back again

Your heart is true and your a friend of mine

Signing Off

Sweet William The Scot

More Mini Vacation

I, Sweet William The Scot, seldom break a sit and stay command.  Lee has not had to worry I would take off while she takes my picture.  But while she was taking my picture at the cannon in the last post I took off like a banshee and before Lee could even scream the DOWN command I was where I wanted to be.

See my eyes showed me there was a Reader Student in front of the library who needed me.  I love reader students.  But when I jumped up on her lap did I get fooled.  I sniffed and sniffed why she just did not smell right.  But oh well I did what I am suppose to do I sat down next to her for her to read to me.

Lee did not scold me for I love doing the work so much.  It was late afternoon so Lee and I just sat and everyone who came out of the library petted me.

The 1870's were probably the peak of Ripley's heyday.

Right across from the Ohio Historical Marker we found a nice home cooking restaurant where we ate.

We were able to sit on the lower porch to the right of the blue door. 

They had two specials of the day and Lee ordered the flaky chicken pot pie.  Lee always carries in our tote a plastic toss away container for Wills to eat leftovers in but on this day the waitress asked if she could bring Wills something.  She brought him a small bowl of the other special which was roast beef over mashed potatoes and he inhaled his food to fast for a picture.

We could see our car across the street and watch the barges and boats go by on the Ohio River.

Wills was interested in watching the people with a dog go by.  Wills just stayed in his chair being a good boy.  Will's bum is sitting on my sweater at the table.

We noticed that people were taking pictures of the tree next to our car and when we went back to the car we saw that this was a Witness Tree.

This Cottonwood Populus Deltoides has been sitting here for more than a century as a witness to river history and many seasons of change.

It gave us pause to think.

Would you like to stay here for the night?

Thanks for being a friend
Traveling down the road and back again
Your heart is true and your a friend of mine
Signing Off
Sweet William The Scot

Psssss ~ We had an EF1 tornado here in the wee hours of Wednesday morning last week.  I will show you the pictures next week.  We have been working hard cleaning up.
I still have one more post on our mini vacation.