The Next Chapter in the Book . . .: Chapter 359

Happy Birthday to Auntie Karen!

Darla and her dad and Erik took a cruise over in the UK direction. I thought it was mainly to Ireland, but when I look at where my newest thimbles were harvested, I see they were all over the area. They were supposed to land in Paris, but a labor strike precluded stopping there. Even folks that were scheduled to leave the cruise and stay in Paris weren't allowed to go. Hence, I don't get to add another Paris thimble to my collection.

While Darla is off cruising somewhere in the North Sea, We were winding down our last days at school. Here Sergey. self-admitted Russian chop shop king, brought in his latest "flip project". There is so little of this car left, I can't even tell what it is. It was mentioned that if you could look up "Russian chop shop" in the dictionary, Sergey's car would be the graphic. He thought that sounded just about right.

Meanwhile, back in the classroom, Mikayla is wearing my sweatshirt and looking for a fork to she eat her chicken fettuccine at 8:30 in the morning. I offered her a torx head multi-tool and after an initial eye roll, dug right into her delicious smelling breakfast.

While Mikayla is eating her chicken fettuccine with a tool, (at 8:30 in the morning while wearing my sweatshirt) I was repairing the welding shop's leather "shot bag". It's a leather bag with 40# of lead shot, all the size of large grains of salt. I guess when that baby split in class it spewed shot everywhere. Apparently it is now a 38# shot bag. I'm not clear sure why there is a box of framing nails on my desk. It seems to be the repository for all things odd.

To complete an already strange day, I went to Fred Meyer and saw "Squatty Potty" on a shelf of "As Seen on TV" items. After our dinner discussion Thursday evening, I found myself giggling maniacally when I saw the Squatty Potties, and laughing outright when I saw they were on the same display as the "Polar Pooch", the "MacMagic" and the "Battle Balls". Who thinks of this stuff anyway. Check out the Squatty Potty commercial here if you have not seen it yet: https://youtu.be/YbYWhdLO43Q

After two dumpsters, two tractors, hours of work and many ibuprophen, not to mention thousands of dollars, we finally got the garbage out of our alley. Before:

After. Almost back to it's former glory as a lawn.

One last artifact we found in the dirt during our project was plastic french fries. After being in the dirt for 20+ years, they look just as fresh as those french fries under the heat lamp at 7-11!

So, we've been battling squirrels in the bird feeders and moved their feeding area over to the trees. I don't mind them coming over for water, and feel especially bad for "Stumpy" who just recently lost his/her tail in some sort of event (that did not include me, I might add). I was glad Stumpy came out to send me off to my last day of school and I was feeling bad for Stumpy and wondering how he/she was getting along when he came for his morning drink of water.

Then I saw this: Stumpy was on the bird feeder and back on my naughty squirrel list. I did notice when I chased Stumpy off the bird feeder he did not gracefully hit the ground and run for their tree. He kind of hit with a dull thud. I guess he's not used to having his rudder anymore.

The garden is doing great. Everything is getting so BIG and it's only the end of June!

The corn is really cool looking with it's varigated leaves. I didn't know corn came in this color. Maybe the ears of corn will be beautifully colored as well.

I had my first harvest this week. Two types of lettuce, onion tops and basil.

I added some pepperoncini and feta cheese to make a Greek salad. Actually the dressing made it Greek, but I like to think I had something to do with it.

Lunch from the garden: Lettuce, tuna, onion tops and garlic on a tortilla. Yum.

At the end-of-year luncheon, I received my 25 year certificate. I don't know whether I should be proud I stuck it out for 25 years or crazy because I stuck it out for 25 years.

School is out fo rthe summer and we hit the road for a Cycle Kart event in Tieton. I had no idea where Tieton is or what Cycle Karting is, but despite the above named limitations, when a car leaves around here, I can usually be found in it.

At our Squatty Potty-free potty stop, I was surprised to see there was still so much snow.

Tipsoo Lake is an easy hike right close to Highway 410 and one of the most picturesque places around Mt. Rainier. I took this picture in August when Mary Lou and I hiked it a couple of years ago.

Right now, it still looks a bit snowed in.

The cycle Karts are little teeny cars with little teeny engines in them patterned after the European race cars of the early 1900s.

Full-grown adult males with huge smiles on their faces raced these around the streets of Tieton. I was expecting a full-on race track, not straw bales in the Tieton intersections to direct the race whose pace car was their one (and only) police car/canine unit.

Tieton is trying to reinvent themselves an an artist's community and the artists have made beautiful mosaic signs for the different areas of the town. They look like something you'd see in Bellevue or Seattle.