In the 'for whatever it's worth' category...

Let’s start off this week with an item from the “I’m kind of jealous” category...

...if you can believe what you see online (and that would be practically everything...right?)...a friend had an opportunity to meet John Prine...

...moving on...with an item from the “This is kind of sad” category...

...a kitty which we were rather close to used up the final one of its nine lives last week...since then, I’m pretty sure we’ve seen a kitty ghost taking a nap next to the space heater...

...and, how ‘bout an item from the “Wow, that was pretty spectacular” category?

...an aging, veeeerrry tall tree with some major issues that had been growing for many years in the yard of one of our neighbors came down with a beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt-it-fell THUMP on the ground last Saturday morning. 

Accomplishing such a feat is an art form for the folks who do such things. Such was the case with this tree, too. Your writer finds it pretty amazing that such a large object can be felled with the kind of graceful precision we witnessed on a chilly winter morning.

...and, finally, something from the “This was disappointing to see” category...

...one afternoon last week, yours truly decided to take the road not often taken while heading back to The Paragraph Factory after a break for lunch.

My journey on a bit of a whim was along Spanish Bluff Road, off of new U.S. Route 51 between Cobden and Anna, or Anna and Cobden, depending on which way you happen to be headed.

As the name of the road might imply, there are rocky outcroppings to be seen along Spanish Bluff Road. Such settings often are good places to find icicles, usually in, say, January, or February, but not so much in July or August.

I did manage to find a few icicles along the road. I also found some things that were, well, rather disappointing. Nine or ten garbage bags had been dumped alongside the road.

Part of me wanted to take a somewhat positive approach regarding the garbage bags. Maybe they had been placed at that location for pick up. 

Probably not.

Sadly, such sights are not all that uncommon in our little corner of the world. And I’m still not quite sure why that is. Why do people continue to dump garbage in one of the most beautiful places in creation? That’s more of a rhetorical question, folks.

Not far from the garbage bags, yours truly spotted what we’ll call an exclamation point to the road refuse: two or three old tires which had been dumped next to a culvert. Oh, well...

...enough for now...stay warm...as in really, really try to stay warm this week...