My Seabee Friend, John Waltner

Attention on deck !

Here is a photo of John Waltner and former wife Charlie (Charlotte) at their daughter's wedding in Jersey, 2012. They still look good together, don't they?

We met at Naval Air Station South Weymouth in 1967. He was a Seabee Equipment operator -- bulldozers, graders, tractor trailers, ETC.  He was in our wedding party that same year.

John was and still is known as JoJo to his friends in Joisey. Once upon a time, a long long time ago, JoJo and his fadder was walking down the street and Jo Jo said, "Hey Dad, listen to the boid." His fadder says, "It ain't no boid, it's a bird."

Jo Jo said, "It sure choips like a boid."

John & Charlie took good care of us when we ran the NYC Marathon twice -- 1978 and 1981. They announced their first pregnancy to Sandy and I in a Soho restaurant in NYC. It was an Italian restaurant where the maitre-de hugged everyone. Do you remember?

John & Charlie in the 1970s.

John & Frank Sinatra are both from Hoboken originally. John did two tours in Vietnam. And then he was married a long long time.

If you need support with ANYTHING, John is always there. Actually that seems to be a trait of all Navy Seabees. My first true friends were Seabees.

Sandy took both photos. The first one is at the Green's Harbor jetty in Marshfield. My guess is that it was taken in the seventies. Time flies.

Speaking of ..... I do not want a long church Mass or a wooden box or even an urn, but I would like to have my family presented with the Colors and a salute or two. No guns. It will scare the squirrels. I want it as an open house here at 110 where all the parties were. But I am not ready quite yet. Dress blues would seem appropriate. I would ALSO like it if Leonard Cohen makes an appearance. "Hallelujah" would be my first choice for him to sing. If Julie Christianson could back him up, all the better. I know it would be asking way too much for his Greek mandolin player to show. HEY! I don't ask for much, and this will be my very last party.

Maybe you could hire a professional mourner like Johnny Pescucci from the North End and he could cry his eyes out at my service.

In the sixties, he used to do it for five dollars. He probably gets more now. But I know that John Waltner will be there.

Thanks again for tuning in.

Ningret 2014

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We filled the Stardust Motel in Connecticut. Hey! Crystal Gayle once stayed there. No rooms available this weekend. It is an easy half hour from Ninigret, Rhode Island.

 

Again this year there were about 40 bands.

Steve Riley (Mamou Playboys), Wayne Toups, Wilson Savoy (Pine Leaf Boys), and Josh Baca from Los Texmaniacs in the accordion workshop tent were alone worth the price of admission. See if you can find Josh Baca on Google. He is the very best accordionist we have ever seen. He is 22 years old and from Albuquerque. Try making this stuff up. Someone always stands out in the festival and AGAIN this year it was Josh Baca. Toups hasn't been to New England in 20 years. He was sooo good. He as been at it for a while.

Steve mentioned that it was the 50th anniversary of school bus driver and fiddle player Dewey Balfa's performance at the Newport RI Jazz Festival. He brought Cajun music to the Yankees of New England.

Los Texmaniacs in the new Heritage, bring your chair, Tent -- also alone worth the price of admission. New CD coming out in October. The guy who produces Los Lobos’ musica is doing it. They are just ending their tour of China and Canada. YCMTSup. They do one hell of a Polish/Mexican polka. “It's a small world after all, It's a small world . . . “

Sandy's favorite, the Pine Leaf Boys from Eunice, Louisiana, were awesome as usual. Michael and I hollered to Wilson to please do "Jerry Lee's ‘Great Balls of Fire’ ," and he did, on the keyboard. WOW! Fiddle player Cory knocked everyone out with his George Jones tunes. How does that voice come from that skinny body?

We never even got down to the main stage or the main stage dance floor. Enid especially wanted to hear banjo musica and she did. Enid & Flaco want to bring their whole family next year.

The former Red Hook Dance Tent was brand new and larger, with much more seating inside. We were lucky on Sunday and had six seats inside and out of the weather.

David Greely was there and did a fiddle workshop with Tara Nevins of Donna The Buffalo. Wilson & Kevin Wimmer sat in. Greely also played with Los Texmaniacs for a while. You remember that Donna The Buffalo was originally Dawn of the Buffalo, but folks kept mispronouncing it. It is like Lola from Mango’s on Isla Mujeres, who just finally gave up when the local island Mexicans couldn't pronounce her real name, Laura.

Sarah Potenza

 Local favorite Sarah Potenza from Sarah & the Tall Boys again overfilled the Heritage Tent. The tent is to the right as soon as you enter. It was new last year and is GREAT if you just want to sit and listen. People just park their lawn chairs there, making it an auditorium. The rule is if no one is in the chair, it is yours. Last year at the main stage we sat all through Taj Mahal and Steve Earle without getting bumped. Every time someone played at the Heritage Tent it was overflowing by ten or more people deep, and around all three sides, and people dancing beyond that!

10 o'clock Sunday evening, with rain buckets pouring down, and lightning all around, we were all told to GO HOME before the Fai Do Do with the Mamou Playboys! Sandy ruined her red cowgirl boots.

Saturday was the busiest I have EVER seen it. We met people from everywhere. The dance lessons for Zydeco had 70 new people trying to learn the steps.

We had an OK time.

Yah should ah been there!

Go For Sisters

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How many times have you had a celebrity sighting?             

Who were they?

Sandy and I saw Pam Dawber of Mork & Mindy with her husband Mark Harmon of NCIS at Logan Airport years ago picking up their luggage from a flight from Paris. We heard her ask, "We are eating at Legal Seafoods?"  

Doc Severinsen came up to me at the Phoenix Airport to say hello. I was wearing the cowboy hat that I had just purchased in Tombstone. I never did figure out why that happened.

We got to know John Stewart of the Kingston Trio through our daughter Kezia, really well.

In Venice we sat across from John & Bo Derek in that famous square of Saint Marks where the classical music is played while you dine. Piazza San Marco. They were drinking $100 bottles of Don Perignon champagne. I think I was drinking a Bud Light. Every one knows Bo Derek but few know John from his cowboy movie days except me and Tom Egan.

Sandy's clients at her Alexandra's European Skin Care Salon were from Aerosmith. Last year on Isla we ran into Billie Perry, the lead guitarist Joe Perry's wife.

Sandy saw Alan Alda, Ellen Barkin and Joe Pesci on her own in Boston.

Speaking of Isla, one year Alan Cumming was relaxing in the sun on Playa Norte. He is in those Masterpiece Theatre TV shows and has been in many movies including Eyes Wide Shut. He threw away a script that he was just reading and we retrieved it. I guess that was an odd thing for us to do.

I had a fairly lengthy conversation with Chris Cooper at a Kingston, Massachusetts Hess gas station a few years ago. I asked him among other things if Lone Star was his first movie. He smiled at my dumb question. He laughed when I told him that he looked like my cousin Jack in the movie Adaptation, for which he won an Academy award and a Golden Globe. It was with Meryl Streep. He loves Meryl Streep and he said so. Seabiscuit and American Beauty and Horse Whisperer with Redford were three other memorable ones. Quite impressive, don't you think? He played a part in the greatest TV series of all time, Lonesome Dove. I should have asked him about Robert Duvall. In my cowboy boots we are the same height. Cooper looks way taller in movies. He lives with his wife Marianne Leone Cooper of Soprano's fame in Kingston, just two towns over from us.

Oh gee, I almost forgot that we went to a luncheon and book signing with Lauren Bacall.

Does writer Nathaniel Philbrick count?

Sports-wise, I sold a fence to Ken Hodge of the Bruins. Johnny Pie McKenzie was just leaving and he said something about Espo. It was in the early 70s and the Bruins were never hotter. I also had an appointment to sell a pool to the Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner.

Saturday night with Kezia and friends, we went to the Plimoth Plantation for a screening of John Sayles’ latest movie, Go For Sisters. He has done over forty movies. Have you seen any of his movies? Some notable to me were Lone Star, Casa de Los Babys, Passion Fish, Eight Men Out, and Matewan.

The reception was in the same room where our friends Lisa and Willie were married. There were round tables set up and you could order drinks. I had a feeling that I would have an opportunity to chat with John Sayles and with Chris Cooper again. How would I start the conversation?  I thought that I would start by asking Chris if he was Matt Damon. I told him when we first met. It was big for me. He didn't seem to remember it. Shocking! He was in the Bourne movies with Damon. Cooper is very laid back and shows absolutely no pretense of the movie star that he is.

How would I start a conversation with John Sayles? I read up on him and learned that he graduated from Williams College near our hometown of Adams, Massachusetts. So when I met him I told him that we had just climbed Mount Greylock and that started the ball rolling. He was really down to earth and well spoken, and hardly talked about himself. He lives in Guilford Connecticut on the Long Island Sound.

After speaking with Sayles and Cooper, no photos or autographs, I struck up a conversation with Cooper’s wife. One of the things we spoke about was the movie Lone Star, my all time favorite movie. She said, "Well, Maggie was the producer of that movie" as she introduced me to Maggie Renzi. File this under small world. Maggie went to college with John Sayles at Williams. She is from North Adams. On Google she is listed as John's partner. Kezia says that they are married. Her Mom & Dad owned a bookstore in Williamstown. She knows Jack's Hot Dogs and saw movies at The Mohawk. She has been to and loves la Isla Mujeres. I am not sure how that came up. Both Lone Star and this brand new movie have a lot of Spanish in them and were both filmed on the Mexican border. Go For Sisters in Tijuana and Mexicali. Lonestar in Laredo and Eagle Pass. She is interested in coming to Marnie’s yoga retreat this Febrero on Isla.  ycmts up! She and Cooper’s wife have had bit parts in many of Sayles’ movies. Sort of like what Alfred Hitchcock did.

“Go For Sisters” is a good movie. Three stars from the New York Times. The two principal stars are terrific unknown black women. To me the movie really takes off when Edward James Olmos comes on the screen.

You remember him from Stand and Deliver? The movie about the true story of dedicated teacher from Los Angeles. In “Go For Sisters” there is a scene where he walks into a dark dusty empty cantina and meets up with an old bartender friend in Tijuana. The bartender is non other than Hector Elizondo.

Of course you remember him from the movies Tortilla Soup, The Flamingo Kid, American Gigolo and Pretty Woman, where he was the concierge of the hotel and helped Julia Roberts with her manners and clothing. The movie audience recognized him and sighed when Hector came on the screen.

Olmos tells Elizondo to pour both of them a tequila "but not the crap that you serve your other patrons." Elizondo reaches up for the Don Julio. There are many wonderful scenes in this movie. The up-close character studies are just as fabulous as they are in Lone Star.

There was a question and answer session with John Sayles at the end of the flick. Flick is what we called movies in the Navy. He is a very tall man. Maybe six foot five. He has long arms and legs and looks as thought he could be a Navy Seal or cage fighter. Schenectady, New York is where he was born. He is an excellent speaker.

Please see “Go For Sisters” and rent “Lone Star” and call me in the morning. You could make it a two-for and rent the feel good movie “Casa de Los Babys” also. Just do it !

They’re gonna put me in the movies,

They’re gonna make a big star out of me.   

(My part would have to be that of a worn-out pool salesman. HEY! It could happen.)

We'll make a film about a man who's sad and lonely

and all I'll have to do is act naturally.

It just flew out of my brain. Many thanks to Buck Owens and Ringo Starr for the inspiration.

I have to go now. They want me on the set. Thanks for paying attention.               

-Don Roberto Tocino

Beep Beep

--> On June 17 1866, after the Civil War, one thousand men and two hundred wagons with 700 beef cattle started out from Fort Laramie Nebraska to build Fort Philip Kearney on the Bozeman Trail in what is now Wyoming. On their way, they passed by Crazy Woman Creek, which was featured in Robert Redford's movie “Jeremiah Johnson.”

“From decoys to depredations, it had taken a mere forty minutes. Eighty one Americans lay dead.”* (The Fetterman Massacre)

* Or so reported the civilian from Colonel Carrington's burial detail, who claimed to have recovered Metzger’s corpse. Carrington himself is buried in Hyde Park / Boston.

Years later, Northern Cheyenne warriors gave Metzger's misshapen bugle to a Buffalo, Wyoming store owner with a much different story. You will have to read the book.

I am reading "The Heart of Everything That Is," the untold story of Red Cloud. This book is as good as any Nathaniel Philbrick book. WOW!

If I had not been to the Fort Kearney site, or the Wagon Box Fight, or the Fetterman Massacre site, I would load the car right now and drive west. We have been to Buffalo, Wyoming, which is east of 10 Sleeps, Wyoming.

Capt. William Judd Fetterman

 

Col. Henry Carrington

One of several delegations that Red Cloud led to Washington, DC between the 1870s and the 1890s.

Red Cloud and Crazy Horse and Young Man Afraid of His Horses and American Horse and their 2,000 braves eventually won, and the fort was abandoned. No photo was ever taken of Crazy Horse.

Another Indian at the Captain Fettermen Massacre was Two Moons, who became the model for the Native American face on the buffalo nickel.

Two Moons

Also Dull Knife, and High Back Bone.  American Horse was said to have killed Fetterman with a war club.

American Horse

After the “100 in the Hand,” as the Indians called it, Fetterman Massacre, Portugee Phillps volunteered to ride to Fort Laramie with the news, and to get reinforcements and bullets. Most of the good horses were killed at the massacre. Carrington lent Phillips his horse. Phillips rode in -35 degree weather for three days, for a total of 236 grueling, freezing miles. The folks at Fort Laramie were in the middle of a Christmas dance. It was, after all, Christmas Eve. The General received the note from Fort Phil Kearny with his white dancing gloves on. When the nearly-frozen-to-death Portugee Phillips went outside to tend to Carrington’s horse, he found it on the snow-covered ground, dead.

I go to the dump at least once a week and will be glad to take your FICTION books there.

File under ycmtsup: Boatswains Mate M.J. Metzker was my company commander in Boot Camp in Illinois.

R.F. Bacon CEW2                   

This is titled “Beep Beep” because one of us beeped at the pronghorns on the hills and made them run.

This Summer in Lake George

--> Tomaso,

Sandy and I always do a historical day trip when we are on our yearly Brant Lake vacation. Saratoga Battlefields; Glens Falls, where the cave scenes took place in the movie version of "Last of The Mohicans;” Glens Falls Drive-In, where teenage personal history was made; Grant's Cottage, where he finished his book and then passed; Rogers Rangers Island; Fort William Henry; Fort Anne; Fort Ticonderoga; Bloody Pond; Montcalm's camp; Half Moon on Henry Hudson's River; Fort Carillon, our eighth president Martin Van Buren's Farmhouse; and Phillip Skylers house in Skylerville. His daughter married Alexander Hamilton.

Or the the farm in Lake George Village where Georgia O’Keeffe lived with Alfred Stieglitz before all the New Mexico stuff. She lived to be 99 years old. Last year we saw many of her original paintings at a gallery in Glens Falls, New York. I believe that the town is named after the falls . . . Maybe not.

The Mohawks held the French Jesuit missionary Issac Jagues at their village, thirty miles west of Albany, twice. The Indians called them The Black Robes. It is called Auriesville. It is where his life ended after his second arrival from France. How about meeting there?

I recently ordered you the book about his life. I also ordered one for Tom Donovan and lent my copy to Prue. It is called "Saint in the Wilderness" and is an exciting, incredible read for anyone who knows and loves the Lake George, New York area. Someone needs to make a movie of his fascinating life and faith. I am especially interested in his story, because the time it all happened was when my relative, Nicholas Bachan, arrived there by wooden ship from Saint Cloud, France, through the Saint Lawrence Seaway . . .  as a soldier. So he learned of all this fabulous history as it was happening.

On his first trip back to France via Albany and the Hudson River, Father Jagues arrives by way of an English ship and is rowed to a shore near a French village. It is winter. He is dressed in rags. He asks a local where the church is. It is Christmas Eve. The man invites him to his house after the Mass. It is only then when he reveals his name and story that his countrymen and family find out that he is alive. YCMTS up.

You might remember his tall bronze statue at the south end of the Lac du Saint Sacrement, right on the border of the Battle Ground Campground. He was the first European to see Lake George. His diary reads: July 3 in 1607. He is missing some fingers from his first capture. The Mohawks were brutal. The other seven tribes feared them. They were cannibals. When the French gave them muskets they became unbeatable.

Which once again begs the question ... Why read fiction?

Thank God for Daniel Day Lewis and Chingachgook.

Magua in the Last Of the Mohicans movie (1992) played a Huron. In real life he was a Oglala Lakota. He died in 2012.

Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota.

p.s.  I always throw in a fib or two. Did you find any?                                  

Roberto Leak in Canoe Tocino

Painkiller

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Painkiller

Use Pussers Rum. Premium aged rum from 1655. Pussers is British Royal Navy slang for a purser, a ships supply officer who doled out the custom of a daily tot of rum.

I ordered one on the British island of Tortola. Think Treasure Island and Long John Silver and young Jim Hawkins, matey. Norman Island was the real Treasure Island in Robert Louis Stevenson's famous book. The Painkiller came in this tin metal mug. Inside are all the island flags. On the outside are directions for the SECRET recipe.

Created in the tropical paradise of the British Virgin Islands, where the PAINKILLER has become the favorite tipple of sailors and landlubbers alike. Comes in three strengths: Numbers 2, 3,  & 4.

THE SECRET RECIPE

2, 3, or 4 oz Pusser's Navy Rum

4 oz pineapple juice

1 oz creme of coconut

1 oz orange juice

Serve on the rocks. Stir and grate nutmeg on top.

The 4 oz'er definitely stops the pain.

Ten girls . . . no guys

--> Wow! What a busy twenty-eight fun-filled hours for Sandy and me.

It started with our grandson’s baseball game Saturday morning in Marshfield. Then we drove to Preston, Connecticut for the Cajun/Zydeco Dance Festival. There were twelve bands.

Yes, Steve Riley was there and so was our current favorite, The Pine Leaf Boys with Wilson Savoy. People come from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland for this one. It is not as big as Ninigret at Labor Day but it is still a lot of fun.

This time we mostly visited with friends and listened, rather that danced. For the Pine Leaf Boys we sort of stood in front and listened and watched and stared. Wilson did Jerry Lee's "Whole Lotta Shakin" on his keyboard piano and totally rocked the place.

There was a long wait from the three o'clock show until nine-thirty when Steve Riley was to play his second set. We thought we wouldn't enjoy the unknowns playing in that space of time. Unknown only to us. The food is not so great at this festival and one meal was enough, so we thought we would leave early and get to our hotel near Mystic and then go to Mystic Pizza of the 1988 movie fame. Think Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor, a thin Vincent D'Onofrio and even Matt Damon as Skipper.

At 5:15 Bonsoir Catin came on at the amphitheater. They were five young women from Louisiana. They actually formed in 2005. It was their first time playing in New England. One of the guitar players I had been paying special attention to all day. She was a looker, especially in that leopard tunic that she was wearing. She seemed to know everyone behind the Rec. Stage, acknowledging band members with longs hugs and big smiles. When Bonsoir Catin appeared on stage, there she was. That made sense. I thought by the way she looked that she could have been an entertainer. When the emcee introduced the band, he paid homage to the girl in the leopard  tunic.

In 1971 a Cajun fiddler came to the Newport Jazz Festival. Friends from rural Louisiana begged him not to go North. They feared that this country music would be a laughingstock to the Yankee audience. Instead of that, school bus driver Dewey Balfa and his fiddle got a standing ovation. He brought Cajun music to New England for the very first time and it stuck. The striking girl in the band with the tunic turned out to be his daughter, Christine Balfa.

A fun movie to watch is "The Big Easy” -- 1986 with Dennis Quaid, John Goodman and Ellen Barkin. Robert Redford said that this was the first movie SOLD at his Sundance Movie Festival. There is a scene where there is a party with musicians on someone’s home porch. Dewey and Christine are in the band on that porch. The movie is a little over the top, but it does show the dancing and the Louisiana music and of course, New Orleans. On their first date, Quaid takes Ellen to Tipitinas for food and dancing. When we were there, it didn't look that good. We have been around Cajun people and have never heard anyone call any one Cher. Watch the movie and then call me. Don't e-mail me. Call me. But don't call me Cher.

Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys play in Robert Duval's "The Apostle." In "Passion Fish" Gino Delefose's Dad, John, plays wicked good Zydeco in a dance hall/bar scene. The main character in this movie, Mary McDonnell, played Kevin Costner’s love in "Dances With Wolves." Sandy and I were just getting into this Zydeco/Cajun stuff way back then.

So now the special guest comes on and it is not Steve or Wilson. It is the all-girl Cajun band from here in the Northeast. Never introduce your good-looking girlfriend to your good-looking boyfriend. When C'est Bon came on, Sandy and I thought that they were even better than the Louisiana girls. Possibly from the applause, so did the audience. Look out Steve and Wilson. Cajun music might be changing. C’est Bon is their name. It means it is good. Well, it was better than good, and so was Bonsoir Catin.

We did not expect what we heard from these five young women. They rocked the place with fiddle and accordion and guitar. They mentioned that they had a very special musical guest. I just knew that it was Wilson Savoy or Steve Riley. The Northeast Cajun band was a wonderful surprise. Why don't you Google them to see them in action.

After Bonsoir Catin, another band came on called "The Revelers." We recognized most of the band members as members of other Cajun bands – the Red Stick Ramblers, Balfa Toujours, Cedric Watson, Bijou Creole. They think of themselves as a Louisiana super group. They were red hot also. And tight! Chas Justus plays his 1958 Gibson guitar and he is in love with it. I always smile when I hear him. I am buying the CD's from all three of these bands. The Revelers will be at Ninigret in Labor Day weekend. Chuck, please hire the two female bands.

We and GPS headed out from the Strawberry Music Festival to our hotel room in Connecticut and eventually Mystic Pizza. The hotel was five miles straight ahead. The bridge was out three miles straight ahead. The restaurant at the detour was called Mystic Pizza ll. You Can't MTSUP. The pizza was great. The menu had pictures in it from the movie. The $10 salad could have easily fed four people. We got directions to the hotel, which was on a hill near Route 95. I grew up on Route 8 in Adams and truck traffic, especially with the windows open, lulls me to sleep.

Breakfast was included at the hotel. We ate on a picnic bench outside, under an awning. The weather was finally warm. The festival weather was absolutely perfect.

Sandy looks over my shoulder and says, "Isn't that your Seabee friend?" It was. I met Tom McGuire a year or so ago at the German Club in Pawtucket at a Lil Anne/Magnolia dance. He was wearing a Seabee ballcap. He wasn't wearing it backwards. He is a real Seabee, having done two tours in Vietnam. Tom's unit was so close to North Vietnam that they could see their flags flying. We chatted about the festival and what is happening to Louisiana Music. Tom loved the GIRL bands too.

Driving down, I had seen a sign at Exit 7 saying that this was the exit to see General Nathaniel Greene's house during the Revolutionary War. 

Some writers have said that Greene was George Washington's favorite general. Some say it was Henry Knox of Fort Ticonderoga cannon fame. I have read books on both generals. Maybe it was even Lafayette. Guess who Fort Knox is named after ?

Lafayette is buried in France but he is buried under Pennsylvania soil. Obviously it made a real impression on him. You know where to file this.

Greene certainly saved the troops with his supply efforts at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. We found his house in Coventry; it backed up to the Pawtuxet River. The Greene family made ships chain and anchors. 

The Pawtuxet is, of course, the same river that flows behind Rhodes on the Pawtuxet where the Mardi Gras Ball is held in Cranston every year. Many Cajun bands live in Lafayette, Louisiana. More of STUFF that you can't make up. Tom Egan walked to the dances held for the teenagers over 100 years ago. 

Tom Egan

Our final destination that weekend was Federal Hill for lunch, but on the way we pulled into a antique car show filled with dogs and tattooed people and cigarette smokers, along with some beautiful cars.

Please don't touch my car.

Anyone want a Del's or a Narragansett beer? Founded in Cranston in 1890. "Hi Neighbor, Have a ‘Gansett.

Federal Hill had all the local goombahs sitting around in their wife-beater tee shirts, talking while smoking big cigars and checking out the young good-looking women while discussing futball. Not the Patriots.

It hit 91 degrees but we were comfortable under our umbrella at Di Pasquale Square. Sarah & the Tall Boys has a great tune about Providence that mentions Del's and the Biltmore Hotel, they built downtown, Di Pasquale Square and even Narragansett Beer. Did we have dessert you ask? We did, at Pastiche Fine Desserts & Cafe. They opened in 1983.

The temperature dropped as we drove home to Marshfield, because of the cooler ocean water, to 76.

I just thought that you should know, in case some one asks you if you knew what Bob & Sandy did this past weekend.

Mas Goose Poop

A short Sunday bird outing at Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary
led by Giovanni Cerri, with Sandy y Bob.
One and a half hour duration.

turkeys again at the bird feeders

purple martins

Red wing blackbird. It is black and has red on it's wings, amarillo also. Dad called me Also.

brown headed cowbird

red bellied woodpecker, the one with a red head

swallows building nests inside the wooden buildings with open windows (blinds)

big turtles sunning on rocks

Yellow warblers a first for Sandy and me. As yellow as goldfinches but without the black colored wings.

Three eastern bluebirds, which were a first for Sandy.

an eastern king bird

baby Canada geese

bobolinks again

a red squirrel

no wood ducks this time

. . . plus an armful of very dry firewood for my outdoors, very beautiful, metal, homemade stove, under the ramada!