I write the words to share what my eyes see and my heart feels
As I begin writing this as the rain is pitter pattering on the Sun-Bird Room roof, it is in contrast with what the inset picture shows on a much clearer and warmer day indicated with the background. The picture subjects and recollection of the day displays its splendor.
This past weekend I had the pleasure of playing golf at Wellsville Country Club in the Jason Dunham Memorial Golf tournament. My playing partners were Chase Robbins (other middle pink shirt), his father Gary Robbins on my other flank, and Laura Wilhelm, Chase’s soon to be bride.
We had a great time, did well with a 2nd place finish in the “Mixed Division,” and are very appreciative of the Jason Dunham staff organizers including Justin Lambert, Wellsville Country Club and its staff, and all of those who participated. I would also add a shout out to the “Chef” and the kitchen staff as they hustled around to fix me a take-out meal as I had to leave immediately after the conclusion of the tourney. This will not be the last of these tourneys and I look forward to playing in many more.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I absolutely love the “Scramble” format and it is especially appropriate for me as my golf game is not average, unless you consider that I am between awesome and awful and the average of the two turns out to be in the middle. I can dub tee, or fairway shots with the best of the “dubbers.” I can also pull off an occasional exceptional shot as well as a pro golfer can, as I managed to do again in this tourney. One hole in particular was very meaningful as Chase, which he usually does, made a great drive about 85 (or so) yards away from “the pin.” I made a “chip shot” to about 5 feet from the cup, then drained the putt for a “birdie.”
One thing that helps my game is having the pre-requisite “short memory.” This means that once a shot has been taken, it is in the past. If it’s a poor shot, erase it from your memory and play the next shot. I’m pretty good at doing that. A great shot is remembered but even that is pushed back into your memory bank as it does not affect your next shot. I say that figuratively as a previous shot may have put you into a precarious position for the next shot, but we still leave it in the past.
I did not take up the game of golf until I reached my 40’s so I still have a lot of catching up, or making up, to offset that. Two more tourneys are already in the forecast as I will play my two all- time favorite Belfast Lions Golf tournament this coming weekend, and the Mickey Donahue Irish Scramble in a couple of weeks. As a shout out to a couple of other courses, the Belfast Lions tourney is at Allegheny Hills in Rushford and the Mickey Donahue is at the Bath Country Club.
As I sit here watching and hearing the raindrops I still can see our migrant birds coming and going from the feeders. Especially notable are the Hummingbirds including one named Chaser.
I have given this small but aggressive Hummer the name of “Chaser,” because he chases ALL other hummingbirds away, as they try to land on the feeder just above and next to his perch ring. He sits on that ring for hours and is doing so even as I write this. I just tried to take his picture but as I get closer to the window, he “spooks” and flies off. I’m not sure why he’s doing that today as I’ve not had any trouble approaching that window previously. Must be he now thinks I’m just another critter predator. Before today all other hummingbirds have been somewhat accepting and will co-exist sharing the feeder with him.
Unlike area professional hobbyist/photographer Dan Jordan, I seldom can recognize or recall “All Creatures Large or Small.” I will come back to that title in a bit, but Dan can recognize and identify nearly all of his creature subjects, and has given names to most. He can distinguish between each one with ease. At least one creature not discernible to either of us, gender wise, is the Tufted Titmouse. There doesn’t seem to be any significant identification difference between the males and the females. He could most likely tell them apart as one would have a feature, like an errant feather or something, that would allow him to distinguish them. I can recognize Chaser as he hangs around for hours at a time. One thing I do notice about him though is that his red neck coloring appearance is often not visible as he is usually in the shade or has his neck tucked in.
The phrase “All Creatures Great and Small” originates from the hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful” by Cecil Frances Alexander. The hymn’s chorus, which includes the line “All creatures great and small,” expresses a sentiment of appreciation for God’s creation, encompassing both large and small beings according to Word on Fire. The hymn was published in 1848. The phrase was later popularized by James Herriot‘s book series and subsequent television show, both titled “All Creatures Great and Small”.
There! We’ve learned something new again. That would be my creation of creatures created for us all. OK to release a Grammar Groan now. So I will as well.
Once again, the phraseology of certain word combinations came to mind recently as I heard someone use one of the phrases and they hadn’t heeded my sage advice to “clearly enunciate” certain word pairs carefully. I’ll share a few of my own frequently used terms, and they would be; The masses; Let’s not, or It’s not; Let us pray; She Sells Seashells… difficult to pronounce. Other words that are difficult to enunciate would include Wednesday, February, and Vegetables, plus Care Less.
I just took a break from this writing to go in search of my favorite early summer vegetables, which is easier to write than say. I think, hands down, that fresh garden cucumbers are at the top of my favorites list. There’s a little garden vegetable stand on Cty. Rte. 31 between Scio and Friendship just a little East of the school bus turn-a-round. It happens to sell cucumbers that are essentially seedless, and out of this world delicious. As of last year, the proprietress calls me The Cucumber Man. And I guess I am. So far this year I have bought cucumbers, and some varieties of squash at this, and three other, garden roadside stands.
Another of my “must stop” fresh vegetable places would include Bob’s Market, which used to be owned and farmed by Bill Simons. You can find this by heading south out of Wellsville on Rte. 19 just past the cemetery. Follow Bob’s on Facebook and pssss…. the sweet corn is ready!!!
The Orioles have been gone a couple of weeks now, but the abundance of Red Breasted Grosbeaks is still in mid-proliferation. The females greatly outnumber the males, but I expect that may be because some the males have already left to re-migrate South. The males typically will lead the way and prepare for the arrival of the females with their job being that of building their new home for fall and winter.
Earlier this week I had to travel to Rochester for a Dr. appointment. Prior to departing I reached out on Facebook asking if anyone knew if the construction on Cty. Rte. 15 was completed or still in progress. I didn’t receive any replies and headed out in that direction despite Garmin trying to take me over a route that goes through Angelica and/or via Rte. 36. When I attempted my turn onto 15 there was a roadblock fence with a sign signifying its closure. The bridge replacement is not yet completed. I then began a turn-a-round, but a large red pickup truck pulled up next to me. The driver rolled his window down and stuck his head out to talk to me. He said he presumed that I was intending to travel north on the old state road, and that he would show me the best detour route around that construction if I followed him. I said OK, so he headed out toward Angelica, and I followed. He took me down the road a couple of miles, I did recognize Peavey Road, which I was familiar with as it was an often-seen route coming out of Angelica headed over the hill toward Amity. A short distance further He stopped and pointed to a road, the name of which I don’t recall. It turned left and he advised that the road would take me back to the familiarly traveled, Short Tract Road. The overall trip to Rochester still only took just a little over 1-1/2 hours.
I’ll taper off (which could sound like “tape her off”) with couple of sound bite type comments.
The loudest birds in our menagerie would include the Tit Mouse, which I call hammerheads and Carolina Wrens, which ounce for ounce are by far the loudest. The Blue Jays are the most raucous. The Doves will make you drift into slumber with their soft and gentle “coo-coo-coo”
Today’s continual rain since early this morning is also kind of soothing as it continues to pitter-patter on the roof as I sit here writing/typing in the Sun-Bird Room.
The WGRZ online News link, which also pops up, intrudes into your data space with offers to block your Adblockers. It offers an app to block the blockers of the Adblockers…or something like that.
The “First Cut” of hay harvesting is pretty much wrapped up by the wrapping up of the hay into huge rolls and dotting the fields with apparently oversized marshmallows. They may remain throughout the rest of summer, fall and winter and maybe even longer than that.
Well, I can see Chaser sitting out there on his post ring bobbing up and down watching me and waiting for other intruders that he can chase away. So, I’ll remove myself from his distraction
If you have any questions, cares, comments or concerns please feel free to reach out to me at im.wiserdad@gmail.com. I’ll keep on writing as long as you keep on wreading.
