A mixed bag

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat were both mine this week.

Lois had a bad virus pop up on her computer this week and she had been having problems with her wireless connection speed for years.

The virus problem finally caused me to spend some time at her house working with her computer & the company that provides her antivirus software.  In trying to have this company remote into her PC, this connection speed problem really raised its ugly head.  Finally after much gnashing of teeth, I figured out a way to move her modem / router closer to her PC to help with the speed.  Yay, much rejoicing.  The SecureIT Plus folks were then able to successfully clean up her PC.  Yay, much rejoicing.  When I came home on Thursday night I was feeling pretty darn proud of myself.

On Friday I had taken a drive to Grantsburg to buy cheese at Burnett Dairy Co-op, and to take some wild flower pictures at Crex Meadows Wildlife Area.  Then I headed home via Luck.  When I called Lois to tell her I was going to stop in, she gave me the bad news.  One day later, & something had gone haywire with her connection speed again.  The agony of computer problems. 

So now, I am searching for the answer and will head back over to Luck again today (Saturday) for another go at it.  For sure I know I can give her excellent speed by hard wiring her desktop machine to the modem, it is the wireless part that is a puzzlement.

#@%!#*&!! 

If you know what I mean.

~~~~~

While at Crex Meadows I had a close encounter with a what I believe is a queen snake.

I was just about to get down on one knee to get closer to a purple colored wild flower, when something alerted me to look closer.  I still don't know what it was that I saw that made me stop and examine the area.

Laying here just inches from where I was about to put my camera lens, was this creature.

Snakes are not my favorite, and that is putting it mildly,  and my heart definitely skipped a beat thinking I might have been startled right out of my mind if I had gotten down as close as I was planning and then saw the snake in the grass.

I have no idea if this snake is harmless in terms of its bite, but it nearly scared the life out of me.

Trying to identify this guy, maybe it is a Blue Racer, hoping my nephew Kris has some idea.

You can see more of the body in this picture, this is not a small snake, and I also don' think it appreciated my presence.

Further along in my drive through Crex Meadows, I was just putzing along, looking along the sides of the road for flowers to photograph, watching out not to run over any turtles as there were quite of few of them on the roads, when I looked up to see 2 sandhill cranes just walking down the road.    

They made me think of some creatures in the StarWars movies.
I think they were called Eopie in the movie 

My pictures were taken quickly, through the windshield, but it was a sight.

Watching them take flight was almost comical.

They flew on up the road a bit, then landed and continued their walk down the county lane.

I turned left so as to not disturb their day any further.

~~~~~

I did take a few wild flower pictures as well, afterall that was the goal.

I didn't have much success but the wild iris were abundant.

I believe this is a wild iris and is the best shot of the day.