I know. I'm AWOL.

 Yes, I know it's been a long time since I posted the last chapter of the Africa. Journals.    I have most of the photos ready and am just waiting for an opportune time to complete them with one last post.   That means a very rainy day when I am confined to the house.

This is a quickly assembled post and there might be typos and auto-correct blunders in it.   I'll fix them later.

In the meantime, I've been busy cleaning up litter along the Seward Highway.   So far, 5-1/2 miles.   I've also found three golf balls and a shredded dollar bill.

I've also been giddy about the migratory birds returning to Alaska.   Here are a few photos.

This is an American dipper, formerly called a water ouzel, which is a much cooler name.   It has a billful of bugs and is flying to the nest.   Hard to believe they have hatchlings already.   It is my favorite Alaska bird.,

I took a photo of this Barrow's goldeneye for ID purposes.    It was really a long way away but when I saw the reflections in the water of the nearby shoreline brush, I settled down and made a picture.

The red-necked grebes have a nest that is close enough to the highway that I can see it while driving past.    This day, I saw an egg in it that looked as large as a gold ball.   These are small birds to lay such huge eggs.

Here are the two grebes with two eggs.    They are such good parents.   Each grebe takes turns incubating the eggs and tending to the young.   I love watching them.

I have also had a prolonged episode of carpet shampooing.    My old carpet machine was giving me fits.   It works, but leaves the carpet with a brownish tinge.    I bought bottled water, thinking is was my well water.   That helped, but not much.

No, my carpet wasn't this dirty.   The photo shows the tinge the old carpet machine left and the lighter spot is after cleaning it with a new machine.

I discovered the brushes weren't turning, so I ordered a new belt and removed 18 screws to change the belt when it arrived after two weeks.    After I re-assembled it, I only had one screw leftover.   Not much improvement.

So, I made a quick 200 mile trip to the nearest Home Depot and bought a new machine.

BINGO!

Dining room furniture and the Dreadmill (aka treadmill) moved into the living room so I can clean the DR.    The LR is done and dry.

More furniture moved.

CLeaning in process.   See the brown "old cleaned spot?"

I was so pleased with the results, I cleaned every ACRE of carpet in the whole house

Coming up, another activity to keep me busy.   I have several cords of firewood to split, load, and stack.

I actually like doing this chore.

Keep checking in.   I'll be back someday.