Walk pictures! But first...

...it's time for that announcement I promised.  It is not one I want to make, but have debated it out and come to an inescapable conclusion...

(Geez, WTH is he going to do to himself???)

Okay, nothing that earth shaking to all of you... but a big deal to me.

Last Friday was the END of Time Machine, vol. 2.

This hurts to say, because, as I have always said, it is a labor of love.  Emphasis on the labor.

I have enjoyed raising it from a barely noticed post to a "radio show without the radio" over the past few years.  It is my pride and joy, irrespective of the "ratings" it got.

But I have come to a point where 6 hours spread over two nights is just not feasible.  Energy wise, time wise.  Scrappy's coming to hate typing night.  I'm coming to hate research night.  Not the neat stories, but the constant website to website work of it all.   I'd love to keep doing it if I were retired, but none of you have forked over that lottery ticket, so this is it.

Rising from the ashes will be a Time Machine vol. 3 that I hope will be more of a "two hours-one night" thing.  It will have four main every week features- the top ten, obviously; The song I didn't know of the week- there have been a lot of those, some good, some stinkers, and I will put up a video of one each week; Something to do with top 40 or hot 100 debuts, I still haven't quite worked that out;  and "you peaked", featuring songs that hit their high water mark that week, but more like the old Almost But Not Quite, with only certain of them making the grade.

In addition, I will run a revolving feature, with one of the following:  the 45 @ 45; six degrees; World hop, aka what's at the top of the worldwide charts; wheel of fortune, where a random song from a random week and year of the Martin Era gets their story told; and perhaps variations on my favorite of the week (or my favorite number ones of that week throughout the Martin Era).

I'm hoping to maybe work in the birthday songs- perhaps only those turning 50.  We'll see.

The first week- this one- will have as its feature my report on the 50 tracks international list I promised last time.

I hope TM will still be able to thrive truncated like this.  I hope something good comes of it.  Time will tell.


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Okay, so here's Saturday's walk in brief, because someone would like a Tuesday walk:

One thing we'd never done was walk that grassy meadow off the back trail- where we used to get all those great deer pics.  Here we go!

Someone's long-ago dinner... this isn't looking good.

Stony Run turns into a mini-flood plain back here.  Swamp to one side, briers to the next...

"...on the trail of the lonesome pine..."

There's where we SHOULD be...

...and that's what we had to cross to get there.  "Easy for jou, deefeecult for me..."

Meanwhile back at the river...

Scrappy takes a dip...

...Daddy takes a nap.

My favorite spot... view of Reed Island, and the dam warning sign

And back to the swamp, AKA turtle beach.

And Daffodils!

Apparently I took some Sunday, too, but I forget what they were.  Let's have a look...

Oh, yeah, the squirrel...

...and a trip to The Spot!  Erosion seems to be edging it towards the creek.

That next step's a doozy!

Isn't he adorable?

Everything between the last ridge and the creek is water.  Never seen so much of it there...

The end of South Canal, near Coliseum Blvd.

In the weeds again...

Surveying the bridgework on Coliseum.  For all that noise, they should be making SOME progress...

Why this pic?  Well, I had decided to use the construction porta-pot.  Just as I came up, a ground hog sprang from amongst all that turquoise metal, running towards the u-stor unit beside it.  Scrappy was perusing the other side of the unit, and the groundhog was under it faster than I could switch hands with the camera- or Scrappy could be bothered to look up as it passed within ten feet of him.  Seconds later, Scrappy stumbled onto what happened, but by then I was... "occupied".

And more turtles.