Retirement is Exhausting!

What a busy week and the weekend was even busier! I’ve been officially retired since Saturday and I’ve done a 28km bike ride, drove an hour and half each way for a BBQ and walk around Springbank Park with my daughter, husband and their 2 year old son and yesterday we hiked around Point Pelee – so far I’m finding retirement exhausting!

Can’t remember the last time I didn’t make it down to do any work in the “lower studio” (aka the basement) but nothing got finished or started this week. So, no Art Journal Tuesday entry for me this week, no cards made or scrapbooking done.

On Saturday I posted a picture of a very odd insect. Brady from the Rondeau Visitor’s Centre emailed me to say that the proper name of this insect is “Common Walking Stick”. Hmmm I’ll go along with Walking Stick but “common”? I don’t think so. Perhaps to the “Bugologist” (sorry cannot for the life of me remember what someone who studies bugs is really called – or for that matter, why they would want to study them so Bugologist will do) who named it may have seen enough for them to be common, but I sure haven’t. At any rate, it is a very cool insect to see.

Yesterday we had a great day at Point Pelee. We shared our shady picnic table with a lady from Sarnia, Ann/Anne? who was there alone. We meet the nicest people in the parks. We both had the same camera and love to photograph birds so we thoroughly enjoyed chatting with her. We covered a lot of other subjects in a short time too.

We took the train to the “Point” and hiked around and thru looking for some migrating warblers. Ann/Anne said she saw the Wilson Warbler and a couple others there earlier. Well, they didn’t stick around for us. Nothing – except several types of hawk flying overhead. While we were on the beach I took Joe’s picture leaning against a fallen tree branch and then he took mine. He is NOT a photographer in any way, shape or form. He just doesn't get it. Here’s the picture he took of me. Can you tell what’s wrong with it?

  

Yup, I have people sticking out of the top of my head. I only took a quick look at it when he took it and with the sun so bright, it was hard to see. We could tell I was in focus (which is not always the case) so I didn’t have him re-take it. He didn’t get the problem when I showed it to him. I pointed it out to him that I had people sticking out of my head and he just said – “So, take them out. You know how to do that”. Yeah, I can but it’s not easy.

A lady walking by was kind enough to take our picture together. She did a great job.

He cannot take his sunglasses off or he squints and ruins the picture.

We hiked thru another bush there and not far in we saw a beautiful young fawn. So small we were surprised it was not still with it's mother. I did get one not too bad of shot of it - too many leaves and trees for the camera to focus on to be really good.

After that long walk thru the bush we decided to have a coffee and snack before heading home. Joe came up with the brilliant idea that we should ride the train back to The Point and have it by the water. As we got off the train and walking towards the beach I said to him, “Ah, we should have brought the folding chairs to sit on”. ….he hates sitting on the sand. He just shrugged and said “Yeah we should have but let’s face it, we never operate on all 8 cylinders”. Ok, for you non-car people, a car has cylinders, either 4, 6, or 8. If one is not working properly, the vehicle does not run smoothly. We seldom run smoothly!

So, we’re sitting on a fallen skinny log (hard on the butt but better then sand), balancing our container of cherries and coffee and I look up and yell out “Bald eagle! Bald eagle”. We were watching the eagle come towards us and then Joe looks down and says “Where’s your camera?” Camera? Camera? Yeah, camera. I set everything down, grabbed the camera which was slung behind my back only to see it turn and fly back along the beach in the opposite direction..never to return. He is cracking up with laughter at me. “You missed it! What kind of a photographer are you?” I look at him and say “Stunned”!  This cracks him up even more. Ok, so we seldom accomplish much, but we sure have fun!

Hope your weekend was filled with love and laughter too!