It was a pretty day so we went on a drive to a local park. This park has a river running through it and is home to lots of waterfowl. We were treated to an idyllic scene of an adult goose with 3 very young goslings poking around on the river bank. White ducks and Mallards were in the background enjoying the day.
Friday night is usually (for some) a date night. Well, this last Friday Sher and I decided to have a real date night. Off we went to a local bar named the West Side Pub & Grub. It used to be a semi rough place a couple of decades ago, but now it is a comfortable local bar that happens to serve great food. And we mean great food.
Early Friday night the crowd was small, maybe a dozen or so patrons. Sher ordered a frozen strawberry margarita, I opted for a Blue Moon long neck. I had heard that this place served a wonderful breaded tenderloin, and the fried spicy cheese curds we also highly recommended by our wait staff.
Shortly our food arrived. The fried cheese curds came in a miniature fryer basket, Cute. My tenderloin was HUGE. The picture tells the story, except it does not show how thick the tenderloin was. (3/8 to 1/2 inch) And so good. The fried spicy cheese curds were most delicious as well.
We found out there will be a live band next Saturday night. We’ll be back at the West Side Pub & Grub for dinner, followed by enjoying what is said to be a great live band. And our bartender explained that the restaurant locally sources all of the meat and most of the other supplies for the kitchen. That is also a very good thing.
List of available saplings
The Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources once again provided free trees for anyone who wanted to come pick them up. Last year we picked up some free trees, and have had reasonable success with them.
This year the give a way was organized at the County Fairgrounds. The variety was larger than last year’s offering and I was pleased to see Red Buds on the list. They are so pretty each year!
There was a good sized crowd as soon as it opened
This is one of the two Pecan saplings now planted
This is our Black Cherry from last year. It has grown a lot!
As was the case last year, you could get a maximum of ten trees per household. We decided that this year I’d pick up two Red Buds, two Pecans and one Shag Bark Hickory. All five are now planted, and hopefully they will all survive. We did have a couple of losses last year due to (I think) pesky rabbits. This tree give a way is a great program.
Sometimes there are birds that just stand out when you see them. Here is one:
This interesting gaze belongs to a White-crowned Sparrow. Below are a couple more images of the same bird after he flitted about a bit.
This is a direct quote from the allaboutbirds.org website “Scientists interested in movement and energetics have discovered that White-crowned Sparrows can run on a treadmill at a pace of about one-third of a mile an hour without tiring out.” I can’t imagine any self respecting bird allowing itself to be run on a treadmill.
Always looking for a new thing, we decided to try our hand at making our own suet. An internet search produced several different recipes. A quick trip to the store and we had what we needed to get started.
The simple ingredients were fairly easy to mix in the pan over medium heat. Once everything was mixed we pressed it into the aluminum pan, roughly an inch thick. After setting in the freezer for about we cut the the appropriate size cakes for the cages.
Couple of starlings going bonkers over the new suet
The results? The birds went nuts over the home made suet when we put it out. Sher and I had a ball watching all different species enjoying the new suet. It seems like the starlings especially had gotten a sugar high. They acted like like a bunch of kids who got into the candy a half hour before bedtime.
Sher enjoying good times with one of our granddaughters
Roadtirement wishes all mothers a most happy day. You are loved and appreciated! Do everything you can to make this day special for your Mom.
If you’ve been following us for a while, you know that Sher and I like to sit outside in our backyard and take in the sights and sounds of our little slice of nature. Recent additions to our bird feeding equipment have increased the number of feathered visitors.
Lucked out and got a photo of the geese just after they passed our yard
We get to share the company of couple of Canadian Geese each day. And we do mean a couple. This pair flies over our house barely clearing the trees. What is fun is how loud they are. They are always having a very loud and animated conversation, both of them honking and squawking during their whole flight. They follow the same route each day, coming from about 6 or so blocks away, and ending after they pass our house and land on the river that is about 100 yards from our yard. They never land in our yard, be we consider them part of our feathered family!
Sher spotted some small but pretty bird baths in a local store’s ad flyer. We decided that they would be a nice addition to our backyard. We thought that we’d use one of the glass receptacles as a true water filled bird bath. The second, however, for now we put bird feed in the second one as a shelf feeder.
Glass bowl bird bath
2nd bird bath as a shelf feeder
We have been thrilled with the number of different species of birds that have been gracious enough to visit our backyard.
A brash Blue Jay
Chipping Sparrow in the new feeder
Two Starlings enjoying the suet
We have so enjoyed sitting in our backyard watching the birds coming and going from the bird feeders, now scattered across our backyard. We will keep the bird and critter photos coming as we capture them.
One of our typical setups
This has been a rainy day in Central Indiana. We are back in Indiana getting ready for one of the big antique shows we try to do every year. Of course, we didn’t get to go last year. Though the Highway 40 is really a very big yard sale, we do very good selling our vintage items and bigger items that we have found in our travels.
It becomes a big clean out the garage month for us. We set up at the Dunreith Baptist Church east of Greenfield, Indiana. It is such a great place for us to set up. The pastor and his wife are very nice and helpful. They let us park the RV right behind our display, which is so nice because we don’t have to travel every night.
Highway 40, also known as Old National Highway, is a historic road and fun to travel just to see the old buildings and historic sites. This year the sale will be from June 2 to June 6th. It starts in Baltimore, MD and continues thru St. Louis, MO. It draws lots of people and some interesting characters. We enjoy doing this show.
Sher and I always enjoyed casinos either at home or while traveling. COVID-19 stopped that for over a year. Being vaccinated, we’re slowly getting back to “doing things”. After some discussion, we figured it was time to try the Indiana Grand casino near us. (Indiana Grand is a casino and thoroughbred race track, part of the Caesars’ gaming company.)
We hoped a weekday afternoon visit might avoid having to face a big crowd. That strategy worked well, as the parking lots and garage were not filled as we remembered from pre-covid days. The first change we noticed was the requirement to show your driver’ license, the information of which was recorded. The Security fellow said it was for ‘contact tracing’ if needed. Hmmm…
Masks were required, except when you are eating or drinking. The self serve coffee and soda stations have morphed into refreshment stations where an employee serves you your free coffee or soda. Bottled beer was also available for purchase.
Sher enjoyed Great Gorilla slots. By the way Gorilla was very generous this session…
The slot machines were spaced further apart than before. A set of 3 machines had only the two outside positions open. Basically, at any machine you were 6 feet away from the closest player. The blackjack table games had limited seating as well. The only place we saw folks not social distancing was at the Roulette and Craps tables.
Things are definitely different: the buffet is a thing of the past with food available at a snack bar and one restaurant. The noise level is much less. The volume on the slot machines seem to be much lower than pre-covid. With the slot spacing you don’t feel as “crowded”. Oh, and people watching isn’t nearly as much fun with everybody in masks! All in all we did feel comfortable being out in the casino. Good to have that back.
Roadtirement 