Before I talk about the neat things I saw today, I want to vent a bit about my personal battle with bed sheets. Changing the sheets on a queen sized bed has always been a struggle for me, but the skinny passageway around my bed in the rig enhances the battle. I’ve generally had to be frugal in my life, and sometimes that has been my downfall. I’ve always purchased on sale sheets in the twenty to thirty dollar range. I choose only those sheets with deep pockets since I have a foam topper on my mattress. Well, deep pockets in a cheap set of sheets doesn’t really mean deep in my opinion, hence the battle to stretch them to fit.
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine suggested I buy a set of sheets that were more than 500 count threading (whatever that means). So I did, and paid somewhere around $100 for them. They turned out to have sufficiently deep pockets and were very silky to sleep on. I’ve had my cheap sheets for over seven years. Then the other night as I was asleep and rolling over, I heard a loud rrrrip!! My foot had gone through the bottom sheet. It wasn’t a huge tear, so I tried to ignore it. Then last night my foot got stuck in the tear, got entangled in some threads, and was a bear to extract.
So today, I put the other sheets on, and the battle returned. With fitted bottom sheets I know you’re supposed to pick a corner to put on and then put on the corner diagonal from it. Why is it I always pick the wrong first corner, get to the diagonal, and figure out I have to rotate the sheet around? I didn’t have that problem with the expensive sheets because it was more obvious which way the sheet was supposed to go. I finally got it done, but it took me over a half hour to make the dang bed. So now my dilemma is, do I buy another set of expensive sheets that don’t last very long, or go with a set of cheap sheets and continue the battle? This is probably more than anyone ever wanted to read about bed sheets, but that’s how it is while I wait for the fridge to get fixed.
Maybe some of you remember when I took this picture of one of the ponds on the refuge back in early August.
Well this is what it looks like six weeks later. The grasses have done their thing, and the deciduous trees are starting to come into color.
I headed out this morning for Detroit Lakes for a couple of errands, but took some time on the refuge first to enjoy the blue skies and colorful foliage. I started out driving along county road 26 that bisects the refuge. The speed limit is 40 mph, but I drove much slower to soak up the beauty. Yesterday’s rain meant that the gravel road wasn’t dusty at all.
As I got to the Chippewa Picnic Area, I stopped to have a look at the waterfowl in the Otter Tail River.
Among the Canada geese was an adult trumpeter swan with its two young.
Being inquisitive youngsters, they made their way toward me to see what was up.
They only approached so far, and mom was starting to get a little nervous in the background so I moved on.
My main reason for going to Detroit Lakes was to purchase some more bird seed since I’ll be here at least another week or so. The little birds had been letting my know their displeasure with the empty bird feeders. 
I liked this view of Pine Lake this morning. While I was out and about, I got to thinking what I would do if I was incredibly rich. I decided I’d probably continue to volunteer at National Wildlife Refuges, but I’d hire someone to drive my rig and change my sheets!
Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later, Judy
