Item #1: Playing with Food
Mother said “Don’t play with your food.”
Apparently this message did not make it north, because the Canadians have a grand time with pumpkins.
This is both an old and a recent story.
In 2013, there was a 1463 pound pumpkin dropped from a 40 foot crane to raise money for the Eganville, Ontario Food Bank and Farmer’s Market.
125 miles north of Lake Ontario
This year, 200+ miles north of Montana, in Saskatoon, gigantic pumpkins were dropped to raise money for the Firefighters Pediatric Fund. Now they have a car involved.
Nice color
Item #2: Science jokes 
Item #3: Fast Horses
This was sent to us by a couple of field trial friends. In those old days, we often saw an unaccustomed rider on a poorly trained horse. The outcome was not always pretty or funny.
We all agree: We should have always had a sign like this at the field trials.
Another idea (borrowed from some company’s ad):
We wish for you an exciting time
with memorable experiences, but
a trip to an emergency room
is not one of them.
I’ve used this a few times when we go over the welcome and safety talk on Washington Trails work trips.
Item #4: What took them so long
This is a nice story about the Perth Zoo in Western Australia.
Nancy is from Atlanta and, after we met, she
took me to the Atlanta Zoo – or Zoo Atlanta, as it is called. The Zoo’s web site has a history the indicates how the place went from “Worst to World Class”: here
I met Willie B.
They have their history in 4 parts:
1889-1950 – The Early Days
1950-1984 – A Zoo Growing Up and the Arrival of Willie B.
1984-1999 – Turnaround: From Worse to World Class
1999-present – Pandas to Present
This is Perth Zoo’s 120 anniversary. It opened in 1898.
Zoo Atlanta was started in its Grant Park in 1889, just 9 years earlier.
Item #5: A place to practice
Finley Ford in Illawarra
About 10 years ago our not-so-close (400 yards) neighbors agreed to become foster parents for a couple or 3 children. One of them began learning to play drums. After the bus dropped him off about 4 PM, the sound of drums filled the air on the Naneum Fan. There are intervening woods, so we can’t see the house, but the trees don’t stop the sound. Oh well, I like drums, see Buddy Rich
Well, that is preface to this story: On the side of the road
Item #6: This lady also plays in remote places
Oceanographer Amy MacFadyen
Amy is the wife of a son of our friends Marilyn and Hal. Marilyn was the nerve center of the Geography Department during much of our time at CWU.
And that, for this week, is the not so nasty news.
John