The Hearse, the Dog, the Mob and everything.*

A woman walking down the street was delayed by a passing funeral procession which was so unusual that she started paying attention. There were 2 hearses

 

 

followed by a woman walking with a large dog on a leash, which were followed by what had to be several hundred women.

 

 

The woman was so intrigued that she let good manners take the backseat and approached the woman with the dog.

"Please, what is going on here?" she asked. 

The Widow responded: "In the first hearse is the body of my husband. He was attacked by a dog and killed.

In the second hearse is the body of my mother-in-law, who was on the scene and tried to protect her son, of course, but the dog turned on her and killed her as well."

The woman thought about this for a moment and then asked "May I please borrow your dog?"

The Widow replied: "Get in line."

* A take-off of the book title: The Girl, the Goldwatch & Everything by John D. McDonald. 

I knew it had to be something like that.

“Well, you see, Norm, it’s like this: a herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”

Cliff Clavin to Norm Peterson, one day in Cheers.

Fuchsia's on the deck

This year, instead of one lone hanging fuchsia basket wilting on the front porch where the scorching hot sun hits all afternoon, making it impossible to keep it hydrated, we're putting several on the deck in the back.  The back yard is full of big Douglas Firs and butts up to the green belt, also full of big trees.  There's some sun but mostly not, so hopefully the fuchsias will do better.  Here are the ones we're trying out this year.  Photos taken July 3rd, 2012.

Bicentennial w/ Lysimachia in the center; one fuchsia on each end of planter;

purchased at Molbak's in Woodenville.

Pink Marshmallow, one in each corner of the planter.

We bought these on our Bellingham road trip in April.

Blackie and Voodoo, also from the Bellingham trip.

Can't remember the nursery name, but it was full of little fuchsia starts.

This is Dark Eyes w/ Duranta 'Gold Edge' in the middle, also from Molbak's in June.

It's got a few buds but no blooms yet.

This unnamed fuchsia came from Bartell on the corner of 148th and 99 in Edmonds.

It was in full bloom when we got it.

More blooms next week.

Road Trip to Wenatchee, part 2

The way to Wenatchee: into the mountains on Highway 2 going east out of Monroe, Goldbar and Sultan.  It's pretty country and the mountains aren't scary on the inside lanes going east; it's a different feeling going west because we're on the outside lanes of the freeway, the 'cliff side', where the mountain falls away and it's a very, very long way down.

By 10:00am we were mid-road-trip, past Leavenworth and heading for Cashmere, the town not the goat.

This is our favorite fruit/vegetable stand east of Leavenworth, Smallwood's Harvest.  We didn't stop because we were running a bit behind schedule for our 11:am w/ Betty, plus we were still full from breakfast.

The Wenatchee River runs along Highway 2 on the east side of the mountains.  It's a short trip from Seattle to white-water rafting and camping, neither of which we do but it's there is we want to.

Peggy was driving and I was taking pictures out the window. 

Here we have an example of Law Enforcement in action.

And here is an even bigger example.

You just don't see that every day.  My guess is the trucker was doing better than 45mph.  

We arrived in the parking lot of the Wenatchee Walmart (as close to actually going to Walmart that we ever get) and met up with Betty.  Betty was mighty surprised to see the new car!

We swapped wheels ~ Betty took the Koa

and we took Bruce, a wheel owned by Jerri in Monroe and that Betty had been repairing.

Jerri came to collect it shortly after we returned.

We sat down for a nice visit and then headed home, but not before visiting  Ohme Gardens.

They have a nice but limited supply of plants for sale; their focus is The Garden Itself; the plants they sell are all on display in the natural setting and all the plants are native.  We bought a couple variegated Silene for the stone retaining wall by our drainage ditch. 

The goal is for a variety of ground-cover-draping-type plants to cover this: 

 July 2010

July 2011

July 2012

We think the plan is working.  The wall looks much better.

I got to drive Peggy's new van part of the way home (the scary bit going down the mountain in the outside lane) and by 3:pm we were finally hungry for lunch, so we stopped in Monroe.  We were home by 4:30.

And that was our Thursday.  Taking a day off for a short road trip is so much fun!

Dear Dave,

**If you're easily brought to tears at the thought of 'innocent' animals being slaughtered (hopefully), please skip this entry.***

Forget about rushing right over and bringing traps for the fracking moles.

 Nobody should have to be nice to anything that ugly.

We've taken matters into our own hands:

Plus, as we were standing at the Mole/Gopher display at Lowe's, two other groups of people were also contemplating what to do about their moles, all of us having them for the first time ever and in over 20 years.  We all decided that any method to just drive them out of the yard simply makes them another neighbor's problem and what is the point of that?  (We agreed it would be great to meet back at the Mole/Gopher display next Sunday afternoon for a 'success v miserable failure' review...)

So last evening we spent 45 minutes punching holes in hills, dropping in a few 'peanuts' and covering the hole back up.  That's 1.5 HOURS of our co-lives that we'll never get back. 

We could have been spinning.  

It's the Tour de Fleece, for dog's sake!

Thank you,

Bothtwins