I was delighted to see the sun shining again this morning, and in spite of it hovering around freezing the time I was heading to office, as the hours passed, it soon turned pleasant. It sounds like tomorrow is going to be a repeat of today, and possibly even warmer which’ll be a blessing for me because I have one more window of time to get a pressing project finished.
Once I had my office duties completed and noticing it was still a bit too chilly outdoors, I decided to grab my camera and head out into the countryside, just to get some additional photos taken. I must’ve been gone for a good hour and a half with my zig-zagging up and down gravel roads as I was searching for something worthy of sharing with you all. I did manage to get seven which I felt were visually pleasing, so I’m beginning with one of them tonight. Now that nearly all the fields have been harvested, one can now get a better ‘feel’ for our gently rolling countryside.
There were several dangerously annoying episodes while I was driving, which happened to be those vile deer running across the road in front of me. There were several times where I had to come to a near complete stop, just to keep from hitting one of them. If only I could stomach the taste of deer, I’d be out there popping them off, but for some reason, even the smell of their meat sends me running in an opposite direction. There’s no doubt I have a genetically inherited distaste for them. Only once was I able to eat venison, and only because I pressure-canned pints of its meat which included two or three cloves of garlic, so likely it was the garlic that masked the taste and smell. I did end up using it in goulash, but the amount of work it took to create those pints, ended up being a one-time only happening.
I still think someone needs to open a dog and cat food factory that would create different flavored cans of deer meat. I’m sure there’d be a market for it, and especially if it were advertised as ‘Iowa grown’. A ‘reli’ of mine recently mentioned having for the first time, eaten venison when visiting our family on our big farm, and went on to say how well my mother cooked it. Well, I must’ve been hiding under the table, or far too young to remember the smell of it in the oven. Oh well, if my mother did indeed have roast venison for a Sunday dinner, during the many years I was in conversation with her, she never once mentioned having cooked it, eaten it, or liking it. The only wild meat I remember her fixing, was creamed pheasant and pan-fried squirrel, and for me, both of them were very tasty.
When I returned to the city, I changed into my work clothes and headed off to get some outdoor work done, and believe me, it couldn’t have been a more beautiful day for working while getting some much-needed deep thinking done. My goodness! Considering the number of squirrels I noticed running around, it must’ve been a perfect day for them to be out foraging. Just now thinking about it, there’s not even a quarter of the number of squirrels running around the downtown in the proximity of my office, which is one more reason I’ll continue to believe the Kirk Apartment building had squirrels living in it. They’d always be running around in the Manor parking lot, and usually end up in the area behind that apartment building, but there weren’t any big trees back there, which means they had to be hiding somewhere in or near that structure.
Just as the sun was falling lower in the afternoon sky, I managed to get everything done I wanted, and the proof of my labors, was having given myself a nice-sized blister on my hand. Yes, there are times when I forget that I’m not twenty anymore, along with never knowing when to call it quits. We’ll see how many aches and pains I have tomorrow morning.
Before heading home, I went over to my office piano and ran thru the hymns I’m to play over at St. Paul Lutheran tomorrow morning, and once comfortable with them, I went back to three challenging religious songs which I’m slowly getting fully-cracked. Truth be told, I can play all three of them, but I’m still not proficient in playing the full chords, but once that happens, I’ll be playing them at both First Congregational Church and St. Paul Lutheran. One of those three which is the most difficult, is exceptionally moving to the point where it sometimes sends chills thru me, and since I’m growing all the more musically jaded, that’s saying something.
If I manage to get up even earlier than this morning since we have to set our clocks back tonight, I may go back out into the countryside, just to see if I can get a few more good shots of North Iowa with my camera before I have to be at church. November days like today are hard to come by, so I’m gonna take every advantage of them. I absolutely love the shadows our low-hanging sun creates.
While in my deep-thinking mode today, I began recalling the two hours I spent yesterday with my old friend/client, who’s been enduring some serious hardships, and all I could think of, was how so many of us including myself, sometimes think we’ve got very heavy loads to carry, but in reality, there’s a helluva lot more people who’ve got it far worse, which should be a reminder to us all of how thankful we should be for the good things in our lives.
My thoughts were then carried back to a text-a-thon I had a number of days ago with a very self-centered, spoiled, greedy, unhinged, and potty-mouthed multi-millionaire who’d freely tell the world how bad that ‘poor soul’s’ life has been. Yes, that vile creature is living in a fake-news dream world where the past is in a continuous state of flux. Yes, there are some die-hard wanna-be victims hovering, so don’t let them land!
Tonight’s One-liner is: Those who live by crystal balls, soon learn to eat ground glass.
