The Plus Side of Rain

While The Fuzz and His Sweetie have been happy with the weather during their stay on the island, it might have been a little disappointing to folks who only had the weekends available.

That was when most of the rain occurred.

The streets were pretty much deserted.

But once the rain had passed The Fuzz was back out for his morning stroll.

And rain does have it's plus side.

There were some remnants of the rain in puddles on the ground.

The Fuzz hasn't given up on his quest to photograph the Moon yet.

Here he found a reflection of it in this rain water.

In fact those puddles were a great photo opportunity.

And here's a look at this Topsail Beach Icon.

 

Tomorrow is the end of the month, and the end of this stay at the beach.

The "off season" certainly has it's good points.

Maybe The Fuzz will be back again next year.

That would be nice.

Two Towers

Actually this post has nothing to do with the Lord of the Rings or anything of that sort.
But still, towers.

When we got here to Topsail Beach there were a couple of these towers, right next to each other.
So...

One evening The Fuzz was out and about, and chanced to meet some of the town workers.

He remarked that there had been a lot of activity lately in the area behind the fire department/town hall.

This was also the location of these 2 towers.

They told him that they were preparing to remove one of them.

It seems that tower "B" was only temporary, which explains the apparent redundancy.

In fact a crew was coming to work on it in the morning.

The Fuzz chatted a bit and it was pretty much agreed that none of them had any desire to climb up there themselves.

The Fuzz didn't think much more about it.

The next morning, while The Fuzz was out for his morning walk, he saw a crane arriving.

Then as he and His Sweetie were on their way out for a trip over to the Big City, they saw this out of the window.

Then, she drew his attention to the fact that there was a man on top of the tower!

Now this was something one does not see every day.

(Unless I suppose one is in the business)

Naturally at this point The Fuzz grabbed his camera and went out looking for a better vantage point.

And then he realized the man on the top was not alone. 

There was a second guy below him, halfway up.

He worked his way up and around.

And hung up his bucket of tools...

Then went up to join his partner.

It was a long way up.
As interesting as this was, The Fuzz and His Sweetie did have a sort of schedule for the day...

And these guys seemed to have things in hand.
So they left them to their work.

By the time they got back that evening, Tower "B" was gone.

The next morning the crew was out there bright and early finishing up the job.

But this time they got to stay on the ground.

They were even taking up the base that was under the tower...

Loading it up...

And carrying it off.
Later, The Fuzz watched as the crew headed  on out of town.

 
  

  

Night Shot

The Fuzz has been attempting to make a picture of the Moon for a while.

He has not been satisfied with the results.

Take this one for example.

In a way it's not so bad.

But this was taken over the pier in the afternoon!

So the other night, when the moon was full, he made another attempt.

His Sweetie had wanted to have a look from the beach where there wouldn't be so much light pollution from the town.  So The Fuzz went along and brought his camera.

And again, things just didn't work out.

But he did get this nice pix of the pier in the moonlight.

And if you are inclined toward silly poems...

Here's a link to a recycled one.

Or just keep reading

⇓

A Trend ?

While here on the island, The Fuzz and His Sweetie had made a deal on bicycle rentals for their stay.

And as The Fuzz was feelin' a bit restless, and the day was so pretty, he decided to ride up toward the end of the island.

Actually, not quite the end- but the end of the road in this case.

There's a little beach there on the sound side for folks to enjoy.

While he was sitting on the bench watching some fisherpersons...

He saw these guys over across the water.

He figured they were doing a bit of fishing.

Then his attention was drawn away to other things.

It's no surprise to both regular followers of Kinda Fuzzy that The Fuzz has a thing for attempting to photograph birdies.

And here were a few.

But he wasn't quite sure what they were.

So he tried to zoom in just a bit more.

It wasn't until he booted up the computer that he could finally make them out.

Meanwhile on the other side...

The "fishermen" had landed.

And then he noticed the tripod.

Looks like the "Fishermen" were not fishing-

Or men!

Apparently, The Fuzz was not the only one loose with a camera this morning. 

Could this be a trend?

 

Another Fine Morning

Well, it's another fine morning out here on Topsail Island.

The Fuzz made it out for his usual Morning Beach Walk.

It has been a little colder these last few mornings, but that's fine.  After all, it is still March.

Later he and His Sweetie are planning to go over to the Big City to take in a movie and have dinner.

And so...

It looks like that's pretty much all for this post.

Schwan (23 The matter of...)

Yeah, what about these guys?

Well here we go...

In "The matter of..."

✣

23 The matter of...

And lastly, there is the matter of the Princess Lillian, and Rolf, the Ranger.

After the Battle of the Gate, as it came to be known, Fredrik had kept Rolf occupied in organizing the care of the wounded, and later the release of the Morlanian prisoners.

Then, on their return to Waterton, Fredrik had been concerned with making Elise comfortable and welcome in her new home, in the castle.  And there was the care of the wounded Princess as well.  Rolf saw little of him.

Elise had to get used to a whole new way of life- to being waited on- rather than serving.  Lillian had taken her under her wing and was doing her best to help with the transition.  They spent much time together planning for her Official Wedding.

The result was that Rolf found little for himself to do.  He seemed to be merely in the way now, and felt out of place at the castle.  He went to stay with his Mother in the town.

But he was not happy.  He would lay awake at night puzzling over Lily's words to him at the battle- "You've won me fairly…"  What had she meant by them?  He convinced himself that he had only done his duty in protecting the Princess.  Any of the Kings men would have done the same.

Although he knew he would be welcome, he kept his distance from the Royal Family- they needed their time together.  Yet he was restless.  He just wanted to get away from it all.  Rolf decided to ask the King to send him back to the Rangers, on the southern border.

Fredrik listened to him with concern.  He realized that he had been neglecting his friend.  And  it was not only his own feelings that he was thinking of.

"I'm afraid that is out of the question, Rolf."  As Rolf looked at him in surprise, he continued, "I need you here."

"Fredrik, there is nothing…" Rolf began, only to be interrupted by the King.

"I have already appointed you as Lieutenant to the Captain of the Castle Guards.  You will be his successor when he retires from the post."

(This was not entirely true, but it had been Fredrik's intention for some time now)

This was a great honor, but not one that Rolf desired at this point.  But he could not refuse the King.

"You will report to him in the morning."

This had been the end of the discussion.

✠

Rolf was well received by the Captain of the Guards.  He had succeeded Rolf's father at the post, and was glad to see Rolf following him in this important position.

Oddly, Rolf found that one of his first duties would be to escort Princess Lillian in her boat on the lake.  He took the oars as she sat in the stern facing him.

She broke the silence.

"Freddy usually brings me, but he is so busy these days."  When Rolf didn't reply, she continued.  "I would come by myself, but I can't manage the oars yet," she said indicating the sling on her arm.

"I trust Your Highness is healing well."

"My name is Lily," she replied angrily.  "Why have you stayed away?"

Rolf stopped rowing.

"I just… thought…" he began, but was at a loss for words.

"You think too much!" she said leaning toward him.  "Why won't you just be you?"

She put her hand on his knee.  Her touch electrified him.

"But you are…" he began, but she cut him off.

"Forget what we are and be who we are!  You, and me, two people in a boat, on this lake- this beautiful lake- this beautiful morning."

"Do you think I care about this?" she said, pointing at the castle.  "Or where I was born?  I could be happy anywhere with… if…"

"But what would Fredrik think if I… if you…"

"Fredrik?" she asked with a laugh.  "What did Fredrik do?  Who was Elise?  Why won't you wake up?"

And then he did; And broke.  And at last they embraced with tears of joy.

High above, on the castle wall, Fredrik and Elise watched, and then turned away.

Well, that's it folks.

Hope you got a bit of enjoyment out of it.

The Fuzz apologizes if he has dragged this out too long.

But with this format, it seemed like a good idea- at least to him.

And this time it is really...

The End

Things What Goes Up

The Fuzz may be a long way from his Home in the Woods these days, but Topsail Island is still part of The Old North State.

And even if some yankees might want to dispute the matter North Carolina is...

"First in Flight"

It even says so on our tags!

And those two Yankee Boys went to a lot of trouble just to get here so they could work on their little project.

And while Topsail is not Kitty Hawk, there are still plenty of things flying around out here.

Like these guys.

And they are good at it.

But just off the northern end of the island are the Marines at Camp Lejeune.

And they are pretty good at this flying stuff too.

You see their choppers all the time.

Sometimes you can even get a look at these odd fellows.

The V-22 Osprey.

In fact there's all kinda stuff up there these days.

A few days ago around sunset,  The Fuzz's Sweetie called him to the window.

What now?

Looks like flying can be a bit simpler than what the Marines were doing.

Kinda looks like fun!

And then he flew off into the sunset.

See...

The Fuzz did manage to sneek in a pix of the sunset after all!

And then a couple of mornings ago, whilst Our Fuzz was out for his morning...

This strange thing.

There was a guy out there flying this Drone...

...First one The Fuzz has ever seen.

Looks like high tech has hit the beach.

 Well be that as it may...

The Fuzz still likes to watch these guys.

They make it look so easy.