Company for the long weekend... and such a nice day!

This is a long weekend in the states.. Memorial Day.. and we're so pleased that Cam, Cassie, and their kids as well as Annie, Gregg, bowser (Sarge) came up to spend the weekend... The weather was perfect today and we headed up the north shore.. hiked a bit at Gooseberry State Park.. the water is high and the falls are so strong and pretty..

Finished the day at Pallisades lookout before heading home after a great sunny day.

Life is Good...

Chester Bowl...

So difficult to believe that you can be hiking over rugged terrain with huge trees and several waterfalls nearby.. and still be only about 6 blocks from downtown Duluth...

Jewels and I decided late yesterday evening to take our first hike/walk of the year around the Chester Bowl and although the buds are just starting to emerge on the trees, the high waters of Chester Creek enhanced our stroll and we both returned home in a calm and at ease state of mind.. a good hike will do that to you..

In fact, it was soooo nice that I decided to do it again on a sunny Duluth morning and of course, I took my camera along...

Life is Good.

I must get myself a better camera...

Today, Julie noticed an oriole flitting around the feeders by the garden and said I shud put out a dish with orange bits or grape jelly to try attract him.  Soooo, I got a dish and put some of both into it and about 15 minutes later, Mr Oriole landed on the deck and had a bit of a feast.

I was able to get a few fotos but something with a better zoom lens would have been nice...

The fun part was that while I was eating breakfast, I thought I saw a Bluejay in the trees by the deck - perhaps casing out the fruit... and when I looked back onto the deck, I saw 2 humming birds on that feeder (our first Hummingbirds of the season)!

Yes, Life is quite Good.

Raining....

Missing my girls......

I love them so much....

Life is Good!

Just some stuff...

The last (I hope) little snow squalls slid in off the lake the other day.... no accumulation but one of the nicer rainbows I've seen for some time..

I think this was Ma Nature's last feeble attempt to create some winter havoc.  The weekend has been wonderful and is supposed to gradually get warmer over the next week.  Nice enough today to dig up the back garden, stop by a few green houses, and then out to Scott's cabin for a wonderful prime rib courtesy a le chef Robert.

So Jewels got to relax in the sun and work on a knitting project.. Scott had his hands full entertaining Mom and Dad so he had to find a place to set the popcorn bowl.. and a nice shot of the blue of the lake and the ... is that green??

We had a nice day.. just relaxing and enjoying the sun..

Life is Good!

Spring time in Duluth...

So, contrary to all the wonderful things that "Duluthians" ?? have to say about their beautiful little city, there are a few things that an unbiased observer may have to say about this little burg.

The first observation is that mother nature has a problem of letting go.. and as a result, almost every second day we have snow flurries that can accumulate to a couple of inches fairly quickly.

On the bright side, we can always collect sap from the maple trees, build a warm fire to burn down the sap and keep warm at the same time...

The ice on the lake also helps to ease the job of getting the dock into the pond for the coming season.  The ice will go away one day soon... won't it???

The fruit of our labour... 1 gallon yield from 40 gallons of tree sap.. the most delicious maple syrup in the upper mid-west.

And just to reconfirm that there is still ice on the lakes.. even mighty Superior was around 65% covered with ice when these photos were taken a week ago...

Oh well.. still cold and calling for snow flurries this afternoon... but several golf courses are open and soon we will be bitch'in about the mosquitoes...

Life is Good....