kissalostsoul

Some time back, I asked fellow bloggers if they ever went back to read their own previous posts.  Many folks said they did, but a few said they never reread what they’ve written.  I’m amongst those that do go back at times to read what I’ve posted.  I had a problem last night that made me glad I can go back to reread old posts. Along about 10:00 last night, I finally decided to wash up the dirty dishes from the day.  As I turned on the faucet for hot water, there was a small bang, and no water at all came out of the faucet.  I could get plenty of cold water, but not a drop of hot water.  That rang a bell in my head to a similar experience I had in June of 2010. So, back to the computer I went to check out my posts from then, and sure enough the diagnosis was a blown check valve.  At that time, I had to search half of Idaho to find a new check valve, and when I did I bought two of them just in case.  Well I’m sure glad I did that because today ...

Since I’ll be working the next several days, I needed to take care of some errands and grocery shopping today.  Considering that I slept in this morning, and didn’t get up at the crack of dawn, it was 10:00 by the time Emma and I headed out for a drive on the refuge.  I figured I’d take her on a little outing before I headed into Nags Head.  If I had been a little more ambitious and left a little earlier, we might have been able to see some bears along the way.  As it was, we only saw one bear and it was way out in the middle of a corn field. Turkey vultures don’t get up very early in the morning either.  There was some little dead animal in the road that it was brunching on. Soon afterwards, it took flight to look for something more substantial to eat.  At this point I decided to take a drive to one of my favorite places on the refuge… Milltail Creek. Near the end of the road is a parking area and kayak launch along the bank of the creek. ...

I charged the battery and got the new camera ready to go for its first outing.  There was one setting I wasn’t able to figure out yet, and it became obvious to me after perusing today’s pics. There were no bears about this morning as I made my way to work, but I did spot the group of three youngsters in the same cornfield that I found them in a couple of days ago when I was driving home tonight. I never could get all three of them together in one frame, but at least they didn’t run off as soon as I arrived.  These bears were quite a long distance from the road, but maybe you can see how they were picking through the harvested corn field to find some tasty morsels. Because the bears were so far off, the camera focused on the general area rather than the individual bear that I wanted it to focus on.  I remedied this situation in my old camera by adjusting the focus point on the setting I use with the telephoto lens.  I need to change the settings from nine ...

If you read my post from last night, you know that I was a little down in the dumps about the problems with my telephoto lens.  For the last several years I’ve been wishing that I had a second camera body so that each of my lenses had their own camera, and I wouldn’t have to keep switching the lenses back and forth.  Well, after thinking about it overnight, I decided there really wasn’t any reason why I couldn’t purchase that second camera.  So this morning I was off on a 100 mile journey to Virginia Beach to get to the nearest Best Buy. I ended up purchasing a new Canon Rebel T3 and a new telephoto lens.  The Rebel was on sale, and I got half off on the lens for buying it at the same time.  That put the cost of the lens less than what I paid for a used one two years ago, and I’m sure it was less than it would have cost to have the old telephoto repaired. Now I won’t have to worry so much about getting dust and debris in the camera workings because of ha...

After working at the Gateway VC yesterday, I decided to take one of the back roads home to the rig.  It was nearing 5:00, so a good time to try to see some more bears.  I was not disappointed as far as seeing bears is concerned; I spotted five of them.  What I was disappointed in was the fact that my 75-300mm telephoto lens stopped working.  Aw shucks! I couldn’t take any pictures using it, the camera started making an unusual pulsing motor type sound, and all I got was an error message.  Had I been able to use the telephoto lens, you would have seen this bear with a full ear of corn in its mouth a lot more clearly.  There was also an opportunity to get a wonderful shot of a mama bear and one of her cubs, but it was not to be.  Aw shucks! As I drove the perimeter route today to fill the pamphlet boxes, I noticed that the goldenrod was in full bloom everywhere I went.  Since I was limited to my regular lens today, the rest of the photos t...

Farmers lease a sizeable share of the refuge to grow crops.  The deal is that they leave a portion of the plantings for wildlife use.  The big trucks have been rolling down the roads, and the John Deere equipment has begun to harvest the corn.  The soybeans aren’t quite ready yet.  At sometime during the week, the sunflower crop was also harvested. Now we won’t be seeing the bears coming out of the corn fields.  Some of them have switched over to the beans.  You have to look at just the right moment to see them.  This bear is standing up on his hind legs, and  when he drops down, you won’t be able to see him.  It’s kind of like one of those arcade games where you don’t know when an animal is going to pop up to hit with your mallet, and you have to guess where the bear will pop up next. As I made the perimeter trip to fill pamphlet boxes yesterday, I found quite a few wildflowers at the peak of their bloom...

My plan for today was to take care of several errands that needed being done.  After dropping my Netflix disc off at the post office, I set off to tackle my tribulation of the day at Walgreens.  I needed the pain medication prescription for my hip refilled.  I had ordered the refill on line yesterday morning and it was to be ready this morning, but when I got the confirmation email that it was ready I noticed that there were only 30 pills in the refill.  The prescription reads, “take one to two tablets by mouth daily”, and the original prescription contained 60 tablets.  I tried one tablet a day, but that didn’t work so I’ve been taking two tablets each day to get some relief. When I told the pharmacist that I needed 60 tablets for a one month supply, she told me they couldn’t do that.  It seems the prescription must say take 2 tablets daily or the insurance company won’t pay for it.  I also wouldn’t be allowed to refill the prescription until a mont...