The Old Man Looking Over Your Shoulder

https://1drv.ms/f/c/7b31336ab0b98506/EjqRkupQQFJFh6Lk_m-OF0sBR1prIr5h1h_4NOEVUBljlA?e=XsedW7

Sitting on the couch listening to the deck door rattle in the wind last night, I thought I would post a couple of photos. Right now I am sitting on that same couch listening to the Bill Charlap station on Pandora and the wind is quiet.

Last Tuesday I went looking for a photo or maybe just a chance to escape the endless news.  I drove the gravel. The gravel here is packed with snow and polished…

The Trip to Sica Hollow & Underwear

For those that do not know, Sica Hollow is in northeast South Dakota near Sisseton.  It is a State Park in the South Dakota system of parks.  I have been told to go there by a number of people, told to go when the season turns the leaves.  I watched the trees around Watertown and the weather.  The forecast was to turn cold, windy, snowy, and I was afraid there may be no leaves left so I choose…

#1.  An apology for being gone for so long.  Whether it be winter, spring, summer, or fall we can all find reasons for not doing things.  We are busy except when we choose not to be and I will tell you I have been busy this summer.  That said, I don’t think that should be my excuse.  Maybe I just had nothing to say..

#2.  As I sit here tonight the winds are blowing and the rain is moving back…

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Yesterday I posted photos from around the apartment building I live in.  Today, after the snow was almost over and the wind had shifted from the Northeast to the Northwest, I couldn’t stand sitting any more.  I had told myself that I wouldn’t shovel my deck, the same deck I had shoveled all winter but I lied.  So in my winter coat and knee high boots I ventured onto the deck. The snow was the deepest the furthest from the sliding door 8 inches at the door and 4 feet at the railing.  If they had plowed the lot I would not have shoveled but I beat them.

After I had finished I watched people work at cleaning the parking with the front end loader and decided to grab the camera once again and venture out to see how bad it was.  I added those new photos to the OneDrive album from yesterday.  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AgaFubBqMzF7gYVLLIxLETIDjvwo5Q The snow was heavy with the bottom slushy and turning to ice.  The photos show the path through I watched them dig with a lot of slipping tires.  The photo with 31 (vertically) on its right side is probably the biggest drift I saw.  I am 5 10 tall and the 3 is the same level as my eyeball.  Sitting out on the East-West street was a snowblower. It is was on the street and didn’t move for over 2 hours.  Just seemed strange.

As I write, the deck has only a few spots of snow that I missed six hours ago but the rest is dry.  The snow blower that was in the street is gone.  The clouds are breaking up but it is still mostly overcast.  Tomorrow, if we are lucky, the city will plow the East-West street, the sun will shine, and things will be better, not normal but better

April and Another Storm

My Deck

It is another winter storm that has hit the land. Where I live there was green grass beginning to show before it was covered once again by snow. I have heard some parts of the country have had hail and ice but that hasn’t happened here yet. The snow with thunder is interesting. There hasn’t been much of that but one blast of thunder shook the floor. Since I have no where I have to be, I…

Regular Season Hockey Turns into Baseball

The regular season for hockey is almost done but the post season to the Stanley Cup will last almost until June.  The 2019-2020 baseball season has begun and will last until hockey starts again.  My evenings will be full of games year around but it seems I never really watch very many as my eyes are in my computer screen while my ears are tuned to the words.  Baseball is easier to do this with as…

At  least that is the way it seems.  I spent most of the morning watching Stuart Varney on Fox Business watching the market go down then left here to do my normal Monday things that could all wait until Tuesday or after. Some people think me strange as, being an apartment dweller and the complex taking care of the snow, I still shovel in front of my garage.  It seems like I have been shoveling all my life as I got to do the sidewalks for my dad and mom’s house and my house and at the gas station where I once worked.  And remember, the shoveling isn’t done until you see the cement.  So they come through here with the plow then I do the cleanup at least in front of my garage and when I’m done you see the cement.  Sometimes after the wind or a light dusting I use my push broom.  After I get it clean the wind helps keep it that way.  Someday I will stop but right now it is clean.

So I go for a little drive, buy my lottery tickets which if you didn’t know is a losers game, and stop at the grocer for forty eight dollars in Marie Callender frozen meals and pop.  Now back at the third floor apartment the sun is shining through the deck doors and you can hear the wind.  From where I sit you can’t see the drifting snow and the visibility is good but not in the country.  I drove on the edge of town, north, south, and east, and my guess is you won’t see a quarter mile.  The snow that has drifted seems never to stop and the piles and fingers are hard.  The city has been in a constant cleanup battle and seem to only stay close to even with the new piles.  I don’t feel sorry for the people living by the lakes or in the country as that was their choice but I do understand that this winter has been much harder on them than me and my little pile to shovel in front of my garage.  As you drive around town you notice that the corners are now all blind corners as you can’t see around or over the piles of snow, not until your nose is in the intersection.  The parking lots have lost considerable space as the snow has been plowed and piled and they have lost their stripes as no blacktop can be seen.  I drove past my grandson’s school and on its south side windows are hidden from sight by the drifting.  I bet three fourths of the sidewalks in town have never been shoveled or people have just given up.

But, in the Walmart the swimsuits and summer tops are on display in ladies wear.  There were short sleeve shirts to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with green things to put in your hair.  Major league baseball is about to begin it’s regular season. In 24 days, the Minnesota Twins will play their opener in Minneapolis in an open air stadium.  When it warms I’m afraid it will warm too fast and there will be flooding, just another hardship.

Right now it is three degrees F with a west wind at twenty four to 34 miles per hour and the forecast of four to eight inches of snow this weekend.  It’s been a long cold winter. Remember, it could be worse…. it could be worse….

Open Lanes at the Gun Range

It is hard to take a photo of the wind.  You can take a photo of what the wind has done, or if in video form the swaying of the trees, but you never actually get a photo of the wind.

I was out the other day deciding to run by the gun range to see what was happening.  Watertown, SD has built, in conjunction with the Game Fish and Parks of South Dakota, a very nice gun range. There are 25, 100,…

An abandoned Methodist church in Monowi, Neb., April 28, 2011 (Rick Wilking/Reuters)

These are my renditions

https://m-dale.pixels.com/featured/let-the-angels-sing-m-dale.html  this is for the b/w from 5 of 2014

The Polar Vortex But It Is Still Cold

Another day older and the days and years keep marching by with a purpose to an end I won’t talk to waits for us all.  The Polar Vortex, who will forget it for a couple more months and the stories that it carries with it. Here is a screenshot from the national weather service for my location showing what was to come.

Now it is a week later with the temperature, from a quick look on my weather…