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
To lift a log, placing rigging in the air is necessary. An extension ladder is used to place “tree huggers” – tough fabric bands. 
On this end, the callers and the operator can see the movement of the tree. The idea here is to keep the log above the sill but giving slack so the operator on the far side can pull the log across the creek.
There has been an operator change. This is a learning experience for about half the crew of volunteers. The experienced show the inexperienced, and then step aside.
Trees grow in the forest and on the hillside where they want, and not always in the location needed. The rigging doesn’t usually bring the log to exactly where it is wanted. Here, a volunteer watches the log come across, then steps into position to nudge it to the desired resting place on the sill.
While the log moving and placing is underway, other things are happening.
The rock wall is taking shape. Note the rock carrier (of heavy canvas straps) at the feet of the worker with suspenders. Several of the rocks required 6 folks to carry them as much as 100+ feet along the trail to this spot. A guess is the largest weighed over 300 pounds.
Lunch time. I captured most of them. I think 2 (+me) are missing.
You will have to go back to the beginning to recognize that a lot of things have been removed. Lots of rocks have been added. The main structural parts of the 2-log bridge are in place. Many more hours will be spent putting up a railing and building approaches.
Belinda (photographer) Cron took photos on about 6 cameras. The rest of us, all 2,500 pounds, show trust of our work.
The trail comes downhill on the far side – shown by orange dots – and crosses to the near side on a well aged bridge. The orange arrow points to a fallen tree, used as a support. Being late September, after a dry summer, the stream is low – just a few inches deep. Stream bed is just 18 inches below the log.
The concept is to replace the old bridge (left) with a 2-log flat walking surface, with a handrail on the up-stream side. The new structure will be about 6 feet above the stream bed. The design will accommodate those riding bicycles.
Looks like lunch time. Note the pile of rocks. Gatherers are taking a break in the background. The four folks in the foreground are well on the way to having the near-side platform dug.
Orange dots show the location of the trail. Note the right-most dot is at the place where someone in a blue shirt is hiking.
On the near side, the Gabion is ready for filling. Rocks need to be larger than the holes. The edges are held together with a metal spiral, much like that used on some note books.
The gabion is a foundation but not the best thing to connect the logs to. Wood sills do this job. These could have been formed from trees. The County Parks folks chose cut-in-a-mill sills.
Two trees were cut on the slope in the distance. They were brought off the hill and the bark removed. In spring, inner bark (phloem) is soft and wet. This can be peeled easily, but does vary. In fall, the bark holds more tightly and the thick outer material requires more work to get it off. Thick, old, bark from close to the ground is no fun at all.
Over several hours there were crew changes, as we went off to do some other things.
The three green lines indicate cuts across the top of the log. Deciding what the top is, and marking how deep the cuts will be, is time consuming, but not physically demanding.
Getting the top off requires work. There are several techniques.
We have just retrieved tools from a cache up the slope. The folks lined up pass a tool down to the next, and the next; a human chain or brigade. Important equipment in the foreground are grip hoists and wire rope (cable).
Starting our trip to the Chef’s Extravaganza for Quincy’s Farmers’ Awareness Day, 2018: (top down) – Start of fire in the median of I-90 on way over, that grew rapidly to a 100-acre fire, closing two lanes of I-90. Arrived at White Heron Cellars and Mariposa vineyard’s tasting room to visit with owner/Vigneron, Cameron Fries, and three of his pruners with family. 
Here’s a photo (right) from over Ellensburg from a former student, Casey Stedman, now a pilot. He posted on Facebook, and tagged me! Cool. I had many of the ROTC and Aviation students in my mapping classes, and it’s nice when they keep in touch. He’s now flying for the Air Force, as a Training Officer at the Association of Spaceflight Professionals. He describes himself as a “Military Officer & Aviator-Aspiring Space Explorer.” 
Hen and chicks in a 6” pot. We gave a dozen of these and still have many more, some in 12 inch containers with 50 to 80 chicks. 
Beginning onion-mushrooms; after an hour; with beef broth and several spices added to a crockpot for warming.
Then, a few of my choice from the day’s work:
The day’s work was removing several very old puncheon** bridges. The stacked planks on the lower right have been taken off a previous damaged bridge. The planks will be removed later, maybe next year. [** piece of broad, heavy, roughly dressed timber with one face finished flat. Not sawn/milled]
LeeAnne Blue Hat CL talks with crew; a picturesquely framed view of the scene.
Top shows John and Jay, ACLs, deciding on rock moving project.
Near the center of the dead-end pavement the height above sea level is 3 feet. The houses are a foot higher.
The curmudgeon part of me notes these two phrases from the reports:
I clipped off the bottom part because it is fill with strangers in colorful hiking clothes.
We are traveling today to:
Locally we have Killdeer, a related bird.
Tia Vargas of Idaho Falls adopted Boomer into her family after rescuing and carrying the lost and injured dog down Table Rock Trail. Tia looks like she might weigh 120 pounds soaking wet. Okay, maybe 150 pounds. Boomer, described as a “pup” weighs 55 pounds.
I was headed home today and 4 miles south of home (we are between the trees and the hills on the right side of the canyon), I stopped to take a photo of these small lens-shaped clouds.