Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

The Chocolate Dream Yesterday morning a bit before I got up I had a random, strange dream.  I was at a university and had to go to the bathroom.  I went into a building, up on maybe the 2nd or 3rd floor, down to the far end on the left where, presumably, there was a restroom.  I followed a couple through some doors and found myself in a chocolate candy store.   The couple spoke to the clerk, who then disappeared into the back, also to the left.  I sat on a stool, presumably to wait for the clerk so I could ask to use the restroom.  I watched the couple wander around, then I got up and wandered around myself.  There were actually very few confections in this store; just chunks of unwrapped chocolate lying around mostly, and some unwrapped chocolate sculptures on random shelves and displays.  The clerk finally came back and handed the couple a package wrapped in butcher paper.  Like he had had to slice their chocolate to specific cuts; some...

A couple of days ago; Monday, I believe, Bella and  I once again forsook civilization and betook ourselves off of the ridge down to the creek.  It had rained a bit over the weekend, so it was up some, rushing along.   It was even foaming in spots.  I'd always thought when writers spoke of "foaming" waters they were being artistic in their speech.  Not true When the creek gets with it and rushes and tumbles along, it DOES churn up foam in the tree roots.  Bella wasn't too sure of the creek's being up and in a hurry.  She isn't as shy of water as she used to be but it took her a couple of tries before she made it to the other side.  She'd go in up to her elbows-like, then turn back. But she finally braved it and took off.   She was quite proud of herself when she made it to the other side, the water had actually pushed her off course a foot or two.  We went upstream a couple hundred yards or so.  The...

(This post was started back in April.) A few weeks ago my sister-in-law saw that a rotten log out back of their house had been torn into; like huge chunks ripped out of it.  She was kind of nervous about it; even though we told her it was probably a woodpecker. So Gary, with his own curiosity in mind also, went off and bought a trail camera or game camera or wildlife camera or whatever you call it.  Here is what he caught ripping into the log: Yep.  What we suspected. He set the camera in the creek bottom, somewhere along the actual creek bed, I believe.  He caught this: Then I took the camera down near the river and got a whole lot of nothing. I took it back down to the river and put in a different place.  Here are a few of the pics I got. The day the deer came the camera actually caught more than 20 pics of them.  It got quite a few more of the turkeys as well.  What you can't see in the pics is that there i...