There is the phrase “Winter of our Discontent” … well this has been a “Summer of Discontent” … for me anyway. Among the other miscellaneous and sundry weather issues and things going wrong, the latest was Monday, when the hot water tank went wonky and had to be replaced. Since mid-June, it has been a series of mishaps, from the garage door, to the computer disk failure and my smashed finger that have happened this Summer. We’ve been incredibly busy at work and I’ve been staying later and later to try to keep up. On top of it, my heart was hurting for many weeks because I was missing my favorite furry pal, Parker, on the perimeter path. I tried not to glance at the hawks circling overhead – but his absence was felt. But then he turned up again – climbing on my shoe and wanting to attack the bag of peanuts that is in the mesh bag on my fanny pack. A ray of sunshine in a month of mishaps. Welcome back kid … you were missed!!
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
Well now there’s a bit of good news to enjoy. Great photos, but of course your model is all that and a bag of nuts.
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Yes, it was the best thing that has happened in a while Ally. He really is a cute little guy – a lot of personality and I love “all that and a bag of nuts.” 🙂
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Marvelous! Welcome back, Parker!
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It was great to see my fuzzy friend after most of this month with him as a “no show” – I hope he sticks around – a guaranteed smile every morning!
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Maybe Parker was away on vacation…..where ever squirrels go on vacation?
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It was almost a month since I last saw him and he came bouncing over … made me feel better, I’ll tell you that. Maybe he spent vacation in a different ‘hood – they have construction around the corner from the Park and the street is pretty torn up.
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Yea he probably went somewhere for a peaceful country vacation! Or maybe he has a cottage somewhere?
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He was visiting his country cousins like those geese at Memorial Day. Hope your weather for Civic Day holiday will be good – they say cool weather another few days, but no rain til next week and the heat returns – ugh!
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It’s been very pleasant weather, so I hope it stays awhile. Very nice to be outdoors in it.
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Yes I’ve loved it also – long walks before coming back to a long work day. I think next week will taper off somewhat … by then we are back in the sauna. I did a post this morning and no more until I catch up this week … I am five days behind in Reader currently and have to work this weekend, not a lot of hours but juggling my time to make the most of good weather for walking, work and catch up on WordPress. Hope it continues nice weather for your long holiday.
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I hope we are not going to have a whole “Year of Our Discontent”. I have a copy of John Steinbecks’ “Winter of our Discontent” in the basement somewhere, as I meant to re-read it someday and always thought it was a catchy title, although I can’t remember anything of the story.
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Wow – I never knew that John Steinbeck wrote a novel by that name – our school system was so lousy in high school because we lost our millage in this City and we had only four classes per day – no college prep classes, no drama, band, sports, clubs … kids who wanted scholarships were disappointed as nothing came back until our final year. When I went to college, I realized we had never read any of the classics – I only knew the reference to the title as a Shakespeare line in one of this plays. I really enjoyed Steinbecks “The Grapes of Wrath”.
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I didn’t know it was a line in Shakespeare? Linda, I just thought I would alert you to a new WP problem, harvesting of entire blogs by a domain called tygpress.com. I have seen a few references to this site which has been stealing blogs, on other peoples posts, and it appears my site has been harvested too. Which would explain the big discrepancy between my stats, my visitors and views are way off. When I posted my Beach blog yesterday, and then checked back later, I had 59 visitors, but only 14 views? I contacted a HE, and he denied any knowledge, but it appears my blog has been harvested too. Here’s a link to a blog explaining it. https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/79388113/posts/2365355648
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Wow – I didn’t hear about that at all Joni – thank you for the link, I will check it out when I hunker down and begin to catch up in Reader – I’ve only been to Reader once and saw how far behind I was (not been in Reader to read since last Sunday) … I feel badly as I send a “National Calendar” blog post that I get daily to a UK blogger – for some reason she cannot sign up even though she is a WP blogger – I’m even behind sending it to her. I did not want to take a blogging break as I have a lot of pictures to share – some sorted into future posts, a lot unsorted as of now. So I knew I would be scrambling – did the two short posts, yesterday’s was longer, no posts this weekend. Thanks for the info – I wish you could get an answer as to yours; I will look at my stats/views after reading this.
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Apparently a blog called Jo Hawk the Writer first noticed it, and also a blogger named The Haunted Wordsmith, who was so upset she deleted her whole blog, but then she was self-publishing fiction I think. From what I read, you have to go to the domain site GoDaddy or Ocean someting and fill out a form of some kind to object, but if this tygpress site is self-hosted apparently they can’t do anything anyway, and WordPress is aware but can’t/won’t do anything either, so I’m not going to fill out any form, as aren’t I just giving them more info to hack/manipulate? They harvested my whole blog, but when I click on my links, it does take the viewer back to my WP site, so that explains why I am getting more views from outside WP. I remember some blog site from Singapore reposting a few of my blogs last year, but they at least sent me a link acknowledging it. It’s hard to believe the Happiness Engineer the other night wasn’t aware of this “harvesting” issue, but I wonder how many other times this goes on and we just don’t know about it! I need to get caught up on REader tonight too. Hope you got some walking in this weekend.
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I don’t like that at all – and I don’t get what happens with the SPAM either – sometimes I have 15-20 SPAMS and the next day there are none – it doesn’t make sense to me at all, I didn’t get caught up in Reader and still two days behind – the alarm then the storm tonight made me behind and likely I’ll work late Monday night as I did not end up working this weekend as I thought I would. I did have a “me weekend” but looking around the house, I should have devoted some part to other tasks. Next weekend for sure.
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So glad he came back. Regulars are always missed.
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Yes she are Kate – there is a lot of personality in that squirrel.
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Aw, so happy to see Parker and you reunited! Way to say goodbye to July and start off a refreshing new beginning to August! xx
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It was beautiful this morning – I was going to do a quick post but I left work later and am so far behind in Reader … maybe in the morning, but with the nice weather (we’re getting heat back next week), I’m been trying to up my miles.
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YAY – do the miles! Enjoy the weather – you deserve to take care of yourself!!
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Thanks Shelley – I am grateful for the good weather – did another 5 1/2 miles this morning. A little warmer this weekend but not much humidity. Perfect!
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YAY! Sounds wonderful!!! I’m so happy for you. 🙂
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I had the best day Shelley, even if I came home with a sunburn … walked nearly 7 miles and it was hot for a good part of it. I went to Grosse Ile (island) and could not find a place to park to walk (grrr) … all private property. A fellow walker lives there and kept saying he say deer every morning – so went where he told me but saw two bucks while I was driving … couldn’t stop to take a picture and couldn’t pull over. They are all big houses and don’t want trespassing … so it was a driving tour a different part of Lake Erie Metropark because I went back for the lotuses and walked that rocky shoreline – such a shame, so much of it is flooded right onto the pathway, but I tried a different route where I’ve never gone … there was a swampy area behind bushes, and two fawn were there. One kept ducking behind the bushes and I got about 6-8 shots of the other one, two with not red eye but blue eye (strange) … and another groundhog and more butterflies. In fact I thought of you as I discovered a huge patch of wildflowers with butterflies and bees … at least no mud or sogginess there. I will bet I took 100 wildflower pics … not exaggerating.
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Ooo…I can’t wait to see how you choose what photos to use. So fun that you did get to see the fawns and that you got 7 miles in!! Way to go!
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I couldn’t wait and decided to use them and will save all the flowers to weed through and make a flower post only (whenever that will be as I have taken more photos today) … got another 6 miles in today. Working on my goal in earnest as it is August now.
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so glad to read that Parker is back. I know you were missing him. What a bright spot in your summer! I bet you spoiled him with treats.
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Oh yes, I did miss him as he is so lively and then this morning it was so nice and cool, so I took some Nutter Butters and he was in the parking lot so I gave him some. He has hurt his one rear leg and was holding it in the air, but I didn’t see anything cut or bleeding so maybe he just landed on it funny. I spoiled him silly. I got done with my walk and he was still munching down.
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I wonder why he was MIA. Too bad you can’t ask him! 🙂
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I wonder too – he has a problem with his foot and wrote about it this morning (been busy so trying to get a few posts in in the early a.m. before a walk) … not serious but I wonder if the injury hampered him being on the ground? I didn’t notice it last week, unless he has a doppelganger?
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Miss Linda………………………………………hooray for Mr. Parker!
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It made my day Ann Marie – saw him again yesterday and just wrote about him – he’s been hurt somehow, but not anything serious, just favoring his foot a little. I didn’t see any wound or bleeding, perhaps he landed the wrong way. He still had an appetite for treats though. 🙂
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so nice he popped on over to say hello! He brings sunshine in your summer of discontent!
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He sure does Wayne – like your eagle friends, he always puts a smile on my face. He begs shamelessly and I don’t even wait for him to do that, I lavish him with treats. He has me wrapped around his paw. 🙂
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its wonderful to reach out to our furry friends! If we each had some contact like that I’m sure we’d respect Nature more!
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Yes, such joy in just interacting with our respective feathered and furry friends. They show no fear because they have learned to trust us through the years.
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The title made me smile. I’m so glad to see parker again. Hello there 🙂 It must’ve been awesome for you to see….
I like the idea of just writing short posts and whenever you’ve time you can write longer ones. We all love to see your posts
Love, light and glitter
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I thought of you. Someone emailed me ‘hello twinkler – or is it glitter-er’. Made me think of you.
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Thank you for thinking of me from afar Ellie … 🙂
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Thanks Eliza – I did take your suggestion to heart instead of doing nothing, but I did today’s post so I can take a writing break and do some reading of posts this weekend. I am grateful for the nice weather this week and through the weekend – that makes all the difference in the world. Love, light and glitter back at you!
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Let’s hope your luck changes and only good things come your way. ❤. I am glad you got to see Parker.
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Thanks Zena – it has been a month of mishaps, that’s for sure – thanks for your well wishes.
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Glad Parker’s back! 🙂
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Me too Clare – I was worried about him – he is a little bright spot at the Park and I was worried something had happened – we have a lot of Cooper’s Hawks around – this park is in a residential district so that is surprising, but I guess they are nesting in telephone poles and in our City’s community forum on Facebook, they write and show pictures of hawks training their young how to hunt – I hope I never see this. My neighbor said he saw a hawk get a squirrel in the backyard … he is a hunter so had no pity on the squirrel … me, well I’d have had a meltdown if I saw it.
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YAYYY! Welcome back, Parker!!! This makes me so happy!
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Me too Mackenzie – I missed that little nipper!
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