by rakeeter Chris rousted a toad out of the culvert under the 2005 driveway while trying to remove whatever was blocking it. Rebecca and Abigail brought it down to the south lane where I was working to show me. Toads are rare on SA, you see. Chris didn’t completely succeed in removing the blockage but it will now allow water to run through it where before it was completely stopped up. Continue reading “Rare Toad”
by rakeeter Our neighbors are hosting a party this evening. Kari worked all year on a committee at Olsen Park charged with planning and raising money for an Outdoor Education Day at Ceta Canyon. It was rained out or at least inhibited because of rain so Kari invited the committee people, about 12 families, to a party on SA expecting only a few to accept. She has reason to believe there will be 50 attendees counting children. I mowed her yard for her but otherwise I’m making myself scarce. Continue reading “Rainout Makeup Party”
by rakeeter There was high drama in Munich yesterday. Our flight from Hamburg where we disembarked to Munich was late getting off and there was only about an hour between flights to begin with. When we landed in Munich, there was a van waiting on the tarmac and we were whisked through customs and security to the gate with minutes to spare. Continue reading “Close Call In Munich”
by rakeeter Before dinner yesterday evening we listened to the Music Scotland Show. There were kilts, and wee lassies and good fun all around if you like bagpipe music. Bagpipes remind me of what Mark Twain said about listening to Wagner. “It puts me in mind of the night the orphan asylum burned down.”
Joyce spent the morning with her book and doing a little laundry. We were running out of undies so she visited the ship laundromat. I strolled over to the Brittanica, Queen Elizabeth’s yacht, but the crowds dissuaded me from going through it. Betsy and Bryant did, though, and had good things to say about it. In the afternoon we took a bus tour through Edinburgh. Although it’s hard to see from a bus, it is an impressive city. Lots of imposing buildings. There was a lot of traffic and a parade for one of the Edinburgh soccer teams that had won the Scotland championship the day before. We stayed clear of the parade. After touring the city, we stopped at Edinburgh Castle and spent some time going through it. It’s really a fort and in fact still houses some of the Scot military. The fort is built on top of Edenburg Rock and was never successfully attacked our guide told us. He said there had been some kind of structure there for a couple of thousand years, I think.
by rakeeter We were late getting away from Dublin due to a problem with one of the electric motors that drive the ship so we didn’t dock in Inverness until about 11 a.m. this morning. Our excursion to Dunrobin Castle was only four hours so we had time to take it in in the afternoon. Our guide said the sunny skies were the first they’d had in weeks but it was still pretty chilly with a north wind blowing off the sea. Our drive through the countryside wasn’t long and we arrived at the castle just in time to take in the bird show. The bird man had an American hawk (I couldn’t hear what kind he said), a falcon and an owl. All three performed beautifully. The hawk was fast but not nearly as fast as the falcon and we were told the owl, an English eagle owl, was the most efficient predator of the three though much slower. He’d had the owl since it was a hatchling and it is now 17 years old so they were an old team. We passed the bird keep as the trainer was collecting the owl for the show. As he walked into the open-front enclosure he asked the owl if he was ready, the owl made reply and hopped right up on the man’s outstretched arm.
As you can see from the pictures the castle was impressive. We didn’t spend much time inside. We were limited to where we could go without a ticket and Joyce and I didn’t want to buy one. We may be getting our fill of cathedrals, manor houses and castles. The drive through the country was nice, though. There were lots of green fields with sheep and tiny lambs in them, very bucolic. The town of Invergordon was nice enough but our guide told us since the aluminum plant and British navy pulled out a couple of decades ago they’ve had slow times. They depend heavily on tourism now.
Yesterday was spent at sea sailing from Dublin up and around to the east side of Scotland. Besides Inverness, we’ll stop at Edenburg and New Castle in the UK before heading off to Holland.