another beautiful day...

 loved this one of Tusker above.  such a handsome pup.

 yesterday i got a wee bit older.  Birthdays are land mines, like holidays.  you feel emotional when you don't need to..when the truth is it's really just another day.  i just did a loop in Kincaid.  not only was it my Birthday it was Memorial Day.  seems even odder to celebrate a Birthday on a day that is meant to also remember our fallen.  in the end, probably best to just hand it over to those who have lost their lives in service to our nation.  men, women and animals. 

 my friends daughter, MO came by to paint a flower mural on the back fence.  will need another painting session or two to finish it up no doubt, but i like to art things up, make them unique...I've done quite a bit of deck and fence painting....also started on the shed as well. 

 today i took the dogs to South fork trail in Eagle River.  we took a bit of Blossom as well.  she always enjoyed that trail.  the anti-cairners will be pissed and may even ruthlessly knock over my little memorial.  i guess that is what they do...although, i do laugh as one who hates the cairns that others make for unknown reasons admitted she also makes cairns at times...but those are to mark her trail...so clearly that is valuable.  always amazing to me.

 i have gotten some pots filled with flowers.  that is big up here and the garden person i had out last year was all, just plant pots, don't bother with trying to work on all these flower beds.  I've taken that advice to heart.  this is much easier.  we have short summers, I'd rather be out on the trails.  this time of year, May has become a time i really power out the yard stuff, the outdoor projects, then the rest of the summer i can play outside and do light maintenance until the fall comes and it all starts over again. 

 it was really beautiful out there.  we only went to just past the bridge, so that works out to about 5 miles.  doing much more than that, i do like to have someone with me i guess.  talking helps the miles pass more quickly. easier to focus on your aches when you are alone.

 the pups had a great time.  not much for crowds now that the holiday weekend is done.

 the artist!

 Ivy is still a fan of the new chair.  I'm really quite surprised that Tusker has not discovered the chair yet.  he's out on the deck right now.  i just checked on him as he was barking a wee bit. 

 I've done a bit more of the stencils but haven't gotten immersed into the shed painting or the railing for up front. still want to put at least a coat of stain on the wood that i can get to on the front of the house, that will just be plain stain though. that wood is looking rough and my neighbor replaced all hers.  i thanked her and joked that now mine looks like crap...haha. 

 had to put my artist in a cage of sorts, protect her from curious puppies.  i need to go pick up that temporary fencing stuff.  I'll feel better if it's up.  hopefully, the pups will not try to break through it. i suspect the fence guy will come while I'm in Homer kayaking.  hopefully all goes well, no escaped pups. 

 such a difference in color in the walks.  in the city we are all green, as you go up in the mountains though, there are still snow patches and the plants are just starting to bud up.

 this is a "fiddlehead".  it's what ferns do as they are growing.  i guess these fiddleheads are tasty if you fry them in butter.  i have never tried it...i think i always imagine loads of little bugs residing in there.  not a fan of eating bugs.  I'd do it in a pinch but i avoid it on a day to day basis.

 need to clean and pack and prep for the kayak trek...done so many I'm generally pretty quick but that first summer trip always takes some extra time.

 stopped by Lowe's. my deck table had flipped during a wind storm.  the glass had shattered like car glass does.  it was a mess. i had put the glassless table out front but nobody snagged it despite the free sign.  so i opted to repurpose it.  found some remnant bits of pressed board, got it cut to size and then found stick on linoleum.  it didn't really work out perfectly but it should work for a garden table.  I've decided after the fence is in I'll try to put pavers down in the space next to the shed...i can put the table there and use it for garden stuff, or art stuff i guess if i want to do that outside.

 i also finally put a hook on the shed door and hammered in some loose nails in the shed and fence.  so handy!

 there was a bit of a breeze so doing the stencils was not as easy as it should be.

 really this is all being done to avoid planning the big project inside..tomorrow i really need to start getting down to that. 

 people evolve, but not all of them.  some never seem to.  I'm always amazed at how some folks just never really change from who they were and what they believed.

 a moose crosses the trail ahead of me.  good timing.

 the rest are from today's walk.

 a certain actress, last name Bar, made a racist comment on her twitter feed...really what is it about twitter.  can people not control themselves in 140 characters or less.  she couldn't and now the repercussions are falling like rain. 

 i was never a fan.  i think I've seen a handful of the old shows, never saw the new ones.  her voice was always annoying to me.  then her little National Anthem stunt where she grabbed her crotch.  just gross.  when did this woman become popular with radical conservative types? baffling.  but then i have never understood the appeal of the current iitoo.  he's always been boorish. i really just don't get it.  they are angry at guys kneeling quietly during anthem but they look away at what she did during her National Anthem moment.

 so a lot of folks lose their jobs today because she can't control herself in 140 characters.

 feel a bit badly for them, but then again, it's not like this is new behavior.  it's not like she changed.  it's her. 

 racism is alive in our nation.  people are more emboldened to be arseholes because our current iitoo is an arse to folks.  he is racist.  they hate the whole political correct thing until it is about racism.  racism does hurt us all.  financially as well.  we'd be better off if we lifted up rather than tear down. we'd be better off if we dropped the stereotyping and spoke to the people themselves. we are all a lot more alike than we are different really.

 my Mom had some tendencies towards racism.  we all do really.  you hope each generation we improve, but in our nation we simply fought about it and then stuffed it under the rug like it never happened. the feelings didn't go away they just got wadded up, eventually, those feelings have begun to explode, all it took was someone to give them a place to explore in peace....

 of course, this is how things do go, which is why so many of us keep trying to sound the alarm.  after reading books about the Holocaust and about the killings in Rwanda.  the thing that struck me is that we are surrounding by people who would love to do terrible things but fear of getting in trouble prevents it.  all they need is for someone in power to give them the okay to be terrible people.  it's set up so well for that.  play the victim, blame the others, destroy the others.

 history does repeat itself.  the scenario is different, the faces are different but the hate, the fear, the deaths are not really so different.

 I'm sure my Mom believed her feelings towards others was not like the generation before her and that may have been true.  we all need to improve on how we treat those we share our nation with, our world.  stereotypes are there and they can be tough to battle back on.  facts help though. 

 wish people would speak to each other before just calling the police.  the police are trained to respond to Emergencies.  perhaps we need to have another non 9-1-1 line for minor disputes/concerns.  leave the police to handle the bigger emergencies..you know stuff that isn't 2 black guys sitting in a coffee house or 3 black people leaving a house with luggage (they had rented the house and were waiting for their ride back to the airport), or a woman who'd been studying hard that was napping in a public place.

 we need to treat immigrants and refugees well.  most or many of them have suffered great tragedies in their lives.  many are actually highly educated.  have met many tech, who was a trained nurse or even Dr in their former nation.  i recall when i was doing my testing to pass my boards seeing several fellow test takers looking stressed studying with a translation book right by their study books.  their family depended on them passing this test and supporting them. 

 the misnomer is that only the worst cross over our borders.  more often than not that just isn't the case.  in many ways those who are the worst off have no means to even attempt to escape. 

 the photos do not capture the beauty of the sky out there today.

 the dogs are looking beat. 

 i am looking forward to a good rest.

 not sure what the weather is doing tomorrow but i could use a rain day which will force me inside to do packing/cleaning and prepping for remodel later. 

 there were these few flowers already out. 

 soon flowers will be popping up everywhere.

 omg, apparently, iitoo is trying to save face and get the NKor meeting to happen.  when i heard that i laughed to myself thinking he's going to come back and tweet, "nobody knew how complicated things were in NK" then of course, he'll say only he can fix it.  really he just wants to build the first Trump tower NK complete with a gold club.  that is his real plan...a tower in every non-shithole nation.

 there are these steps and then the trail starts to get more muddy. 

 will have to make the trek back further later this summer when there is green on the trees. 

 so a relaxing weekend was had by all. some friends were having a bbq so i got an invite and they had prezzies and a cake for me. thanks!

 singleton life can come with a bit of a lowering of expectations surrounding holidays.  i do tend to find it's best to just treat those days like the Monday, Tuesday or Whatever day that they are.

 in general i think it's good to try to limit your expectations in life...then you will just be pleasantly surprised when things go great. a movie i saw years ago, "leaving Normal"  these women end up on a road trip to AK.  one is talking to someone she met up here and he asks "why does your friend hate it here" and she says, "i guess it wasn't what she expected", then he asks "why do you love it?" she just says, "i don't know, maybe because i didn't expect anything".  it's this reminder to try and keep expectations at a minimal...i find they tend to lead to disappointment if you keep them too high.

 i do expect the pups to be adorable and they are!

thankful for: A. the gift of another year lived.  B.  the sacrifices made by countrymen and women who did not get to have that next Birthday.  C.  hope