The Bistro in Wentworth Village South Yorkshire UK

My dear friend and business mentor, Norma Rist... standing outside of the Wentworth Village Bistro.

Wentworth Village near Rotherham South Yorkshire UK

A beautiful little, quaint English town!

Welcome SPRING!!

Yesterday I noticed the crocus I have planted near the driveway are in bloom. Yahoo!!

I tried to snap a photo this morning, but it was too early and they were still hiding their faces against the dew.

I'll try to get a photo up later today!

Lucky Love & Jeany Jean

Lots of icy snow

SNOW... and how!

Cold Crisp and Clear in NE Ohio

It was a beautiful day on Friday... and the weekend was pretty good too. Cold, crisp and clear. This photo was taken during my lunch walk on Friday near the parking garage in Hudson. I couldn't get over how beautifully blue the sky was.

It's too cold to let the dogs out for very long, so they've been hanging out in the family room, sleeping on the old sofas. Well, Jean gets the love seat and Lucky gets the couch. I turned around and was very surprised that they were sharing a couch, and Jean, with her head on the pillow, looked so relaxed!

Good-bye Hot Wheels, You were a Very Sweet Kitty

Hot Wheels came to our house November, 1993 and died on February 3, 2007. Because she was already a cat, not a kitten, when she came, I think she was either 14 years old or a little older when she passed away.
The first time we took her to the vet he noticed that many of her front teeth were missing, so we always suspected she was maybe kicked by a horse... She came wandering into our yard from the direction of the horse riding stable not a 1/2 a mile away. She only had one tooth left when I last looked... little snaggle puss.

Hot Wheels got her name because she showed up during the funeral of Tum-Tum, an orange cat that was maybe 2 months old. She seemed to be meowing good-bye to him, but seemed really enjoy all the attention from us as we mourned our little kitten. Tum-Tum, like all of our other cats, got hit by a car when he crossed the road. Hot Wheels lived up to her name and always made it across. She used to make me very nervous when I would see her in the cow field across the street. Somehow she was car savvy. Always ran AT me when I drove up the drive way, but then ran to the side. Unnerving!

She endured the ribbon I stuck on her on Christmas morning... and posing on the logs for a better picture!

She was a real hunter and loved being outside! Still a hunter, even in her old age!

She loved to hang out in the garden with me and often accompanied me while I weeded.


I will miss you Hot Wheels! This photo was taken just three days before she died of old age, in the house, in her sleep.

Outside Yours Truly in Downtown Hudson OH

I was meeting a friend at Yours Truly on Monday, but he was running late. Sitting over near the windows on the south side of the restaurant was so quiet, peaceful and fun to watch the sunrise. Yours Truly is one of my favorite restaurants to meet people. It's friendly. The food is very good. Service is great. And it's very pleasant, even if the person you're meeting is late.

It's been crisp and clear for a day or so. Yesterday was a cold, overcast, blustery day. The kind of day that when you leave your car parked for 45 minutes, you have to clear all the windows again because of all the blowing snow.

I'm looking forward to more crystal clear days.

Blue skies and cold

Icicles...brrr

We've had some nice low temperatures and the gutters are holding icicles now. Melt. Freeze. Melt. Freeze. Snow a little more. Now it's feeling like January!

Winter Wonderland! WOW!!

Now that's what I call SNOW!!

SNOW... for a day... now rain

It snowed the other morning. I was at work so I snapped this photo from my office window.

I was so excited to see snow, I went for a walk at lunch time down the sidewalks with my head back... tempted to put my tongue out to catch snowflakes... but I haven't been too crazy about doing that since the acid rain thing got publicized.

It just seemed so magically to have snowflakes swirling around. There's nothing I like better than the change of seasons. I was looking forward to going skiing at the nearby slopes this weekend, but alas. It got warm again and now we are back to rain and damp.

I've heard next week will have some low temperatures, so I can hope for snow again.

The Playful Pets

Jean.
Lucky.
Hot Wheels.

Christmas is over... back to "normal"

We put away the lights. And planted the Christmas tree. Put away all the santa memorabilia. Updated the Christmas card list.

Back to "normal."

Whatever that is.

An Extremely Wet and Warm Winter

Lucky is peeking out from the Greenhouse, while Jean looks at him waiting for the next round of tag-you're-it!

Notice how green everything is! The vegetable gardens and flower nursery are begging to get planted. Maybe we'll do a "hoop, there it is" with a mini tarp covering to get hte plants going early this year.

Then watch. We'll get a big late April blizzard! ha ha.

Flickr tool -- a cool collage

This is a neat little bit of code that I popped into this blog that picks up all the public photos at Flickr and makes it into a strip... or a collage like the one on the right. Pretty neat!

www.flickr.com More of cmcbrown's photos

Tiny Kale

Kale near the front door. I should have planted it earlier, because it's still pretty small. There are 2 of them and I think I planted them around Thanksgiving. Next year... think October 1st!!

Christmas Pets... Lucky, Hot Wheels & Jean

Deer, deer, deer. Oh Dear!

This is outside the passenger window on the road that runs behind our house. I used a flash, so all these deer must be more like 40 feet away, not 10 feet. But it felt like they were sitting in the seat next to me. Yesterday Keith and I saw about 30 deer right across the street from this field. Guess it's because we've had such a very mild winter.