Keith from CA

Keith, You must have a very nice garden of Iris. Love the rust colored one you have for a avatar now, although the dark purple is very nice also. I will agree the dark Iris are the best, except I do like white ones, and the two tone purple and white. My least favorite are two tone except above mentioned colors. I saw this week a nice color combination medium yellow and medium blue/purple. Would never have thought of putting the two colors together.
Hope you enjoy your trip and be safe trip.

Hope you are having a wonderful trip. Music lovely as always and a beautiful flower too x

Weigh in report for week 19 ... ouch. Getting on the scale was a rude awakening after a wonderful trip, I gained 9 pounds ... just had way too much fun at the food trough on the cruise. I suspected it was going to happen, but didn't think it was going to be this bad. Oh well, got to turn it back around now.

This might help.. run 50,000 miles, drink 40 million gallons of water, climb 100 trees (big ones!), eat cardboard and that is this mornings schedule.. there it will be off in a jiff xx Its only a side step, sort of a did I really want to go away and eat salad, salad and oh salad, of course not.. Hope it was a good hols, it won't take long to get back on that elusive track xx

Hey Keith - see what happens when you leave for a while, I just change everything!

You will be back on track before you know, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying the food on the cruise, we only live once! Keep up the good work!

Waiting for pictures from the cruise.

Keith, just popped in to check out your holiday snaps, thanks for sharing them,it looks like you had a wonderful time. I love seeing all the holiday photo's from everyone. Its like taking a very short vacation myself.

Great photos Keith, thank you for sharing.
I am fascinated with the locks and how they work. there are some along the murray river here in australia.
feel like I have just been on the cruise too.
your garden is also fantastic .. . must keep you very busy.

What a great paddle wheel boat, Keith! Another good song would be one from Credence Clearwater Revival ...

Big wheel keep on turnin',
Proud Mary keep on burnin',
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river.

Hi Keith - I looked at your vacation pictures this morning and they are breathe-taking! What beautiful scenery you had. I also like your cruise ship. It looks like a nice size! What a trip that must have been. Thank you for sharing your pictures with us. I also like all the beautiful plants/flowers in your yard. It was a lot of fun to look at your pictures!

Angie, rosemary, Judy and Debby, thanks for all the kind words about my trip photos. Sort of like the captive audience slide shows many of you have probably had to sit through, it was hard to decide what pictures were worth uploading without putting too many.

Judy, Credence sure has the right boat going on, but the tone doesn't quite fit the mood I was in most of the trip.

Hi Keith; just a quick hello before I go to work

Hi Keith - glad you enjoyed your trip. It's something that I would like to do.

My avatar is a burl bowl - not your burl though.

Keith, I havn't retired yet, 1st June is my last day at work but I will be on leave until 24 January next year. Technically that will be my retirement date although I finish work on the 1st. After I move to Tassie I will be off the site for quite a while - months at least, until I get my house built and get organised and of course there's fishin' to be done, too!

Your holiday photos are just great..

Weigh in report for week 20, I lost 6 of the 9 pounds I'd gained on the trip, so, I'm definitely back going in the right direction. Apparently all those gourmet chefs care more about what tastes good than about what's healthy.

Hi Keith. Popped in to see your latest photos. That paddle-wheel boat looks like it was a fun thing to be on. Do the jet boats stop often so you can walk around and see the gorge, or is it just one pre-set stop? Curious as I would like to do that trip. Cheers!

Hello Keith ,i love your garden ,beautiful colours

Your yard is amazing, and just in time for the Garden Show! I'm going to set my chair over here by the flowers ... could you please bring me an iced tea and some cookies?

Keith ,thanks you , i am fine,and my family ,things are not good till now ,the fight is in the north of Lebanon , i live in Beirut ,but still we had two explosions in Beirut which affected the peace in the country , the police found two persons preparing for a third one ,i hope they know whom they are .thanks again for feeling with us .

Hello, Keith! Thanks for calling and bringing the Redwood Burl - I love natural woods, of all colours and designs and ov course, we don't have this tree here.
Paddle boats! They are GRAND! There was one old one on the West of Scotland, the Waverley, used to come up the sea lochs from Glasgow. Imagine Highland scenery, complete with mountains, lochs and sunsets, an old paddle boat with string quartet playing and bar serving... The Waverley made so much money on her 'final' voyage, that she was refurbished - and lasted until her next 'final' trip 5 years later. Repeat performance with a trad jazz band!!! Sooo romantic to see!

Forgot the smilies,,, this is seeing the Waverley against the backdrop of sunset, lochs and mountains,

Oh that takes me back, I've loved classical guitar since my college days. Still have my Julian Bream album but no phonograph to play it on. Got to see Andre Segovia live at Royce Hall at UCLA. Was 3rd row back in the center!

Hi Keith,
Your yard is fantastic, the mix of colors is great. You must spend a lot of time keeping everything looking that good.
Looks like you had a fun trip. I would like to go on such a trip, I am fascinated with the locks and how they work.
Keith seems like you are back on track with the weight loss. Keep up the good work.

Hi Keith, What a wonderful way to enjoy the music as I breathe in the beauty of your garden...Nice way to end my birthday. Thanks for the comments. My head must be at least two sizes larger with all of the great things I have heard recently still need to lose a few more pounds and I can't afford for any thing to get bigger...lol Peace and good night!

Hi Keith! I haven't had much time for visiting personal pages lately, but I'm slowly working my way around. Enjoyed seeing your river trip photos & your beautiful yard! I love those two gorgeous iridescent & pale pink roses & the dark purple irises the best. Glad to see your dog featured on your new avatar. Seems like we have many beloved pets among our comments now!! Ebony is a joy to us. Our home is complete again now after the emptiness we felt after Mucnchie died. 'A home without a dog is like a garden without flowers.'

Simon's muzzle looks pretty gray - how old is he? Who takes care of him when you're gone?
I'll have to tell Rob that line about a ''kiss without a moustache'' - he'll like that one! It's a good thing I don't have high blood pressure because I love salt, lots of it, on EVERYTHING, especially on the rim of a margarita!

Hi again! Thanks for dropping in I love to have visitors. The thing is, The Waverley made so much money on her 'Final Voayage' that there was enough to completely overhaul her and she kept going for another 5 years; when she had another 'Final Voayage' - with the same results. She had been an ordinary passenger boat, but now found a new life in being open for hire. It is a very romantic 3-4 hour RETURN journey from the centre of the modern docks in Glasgow to romantic, timeless highland scenerey. All in all she had about 4 Final Voyages. Now it is Waverley II or Daughter of Waverley! Boats are the quickest way of getting about in West Scotland.

Thank you Keith for your gift of the redwood burl,I have been viewing your photos your garden is beautiful also got a giggle from the statue photo's. I have to get some photo's of my other daughter to add to rest will get there soon.Cheers

Keith, havn't had much time to visit these last few weeks, so glad I dropped in today thou; Love the youtube, just amazing.
Thanks, and I will try to drop by more often.
Have a great day.

Your garden is truly beautiful Keith. Thank you for the tour accompanied by the lute playing...very peaceful. x

Thanks for stopping by my place . If SaraLyn and I can't figure out how to put photos on flickr, I will get back to you for some directions.

Hi Keith
Your garden is beautiful. I just wish mine could look half as good. We tried to get something going last year by planting a huge number of camelias in early October but by Christmas 4 of them had died and by the end of January another 25 had died leaving only around 8. We thought we had planted them early enough so that they would be established by the time the hot summer came around but we were obviously mistaken. We are going to try another type of plant in the next couple of weeks - hopefully six months will be enough time to establish!

Keith, Thanks for visiting my new page and for the welcome redwood burl gift. I especially like your flickr flower pictures. Where in Calif. do you live? I used to live in So. Calif. (near Pasadena and Huntington Beach, then moved north to Paso Robles and finally moved up here. I hope you come back and visit soon.

Thanks for the compliments on our garden. We have volunteered to be in a local garden show as a fund raiser for Hospice. We are working hard to spruce it up and get it just so for the day of the show this coming Sunday.

Weigh in report for week 21, I lost 2 pounds this week, so I've only got one more pound to loose to get back to my weight before the river cruise. I feel like I've lost my momentum a little bit ... can't seem to make myself exercise every day, am slipping a little in my healthy eating habits. Keeping it up week after week is getting harder as time goes on.

Keith,
Just dropping in to take a walkabout around your wonderful yard and enjoy your music. Thanks for the time of day. I just came in from my small yard - I have some peonies that bloomed this weekend and my daisies are starting to bloom. Have a nice night. Mary

Hi Keith, yes it does get hot in the summer in in Paso Robles. Most of Mike's family live in Santa Rosa and Ukiah. We live just outside of Hoquiam, WA which is about 1 hour west of Olympia and 20 minutes east of the ocean.

Keith, do you live near Ukiah?

Hi Keith, Yes, my hubby went to or through Willits often when he lived in Ukiah. I've been to Ukiah only a couple of times but we were living in Paso Robles at the time, so we didn't make it up that far.