Oh, the Joys of Small Town Livin'

One of my favorite things about living near a small town happens twice a year here. (The third thing is the 4th of July fireworks. See my pix on this page from it). The Main Street parades. Uniquely small town, and getting harder to find. I had to take pix of the county fair to share this year.

The royalty (in a pickup, of course!)

Tractors of all sizes













Horses


















Politicians (not worth wasting a picture on)




Shriners in their ridiculous cars

This year we even had bagpipers out of Canada



A couple of floats





Where else is it okay to throw candy on the street at kids- and have kids collect it with their parent’s encouragement??!! We call Colville our favorite C+ town (you’d have to see the hill overlooking the town to get that reference. On parade days, I’d give it a B.

Now here is what really cracks us up about our town float. There is a new slogan, ‘Discover our Good Nature’ for Colville. There are banners hung on the streets with the slogan and symbols for the seasons (snowflake, sun, leaf, and a flower). So when we first saw this float, there were 3 girls on it. One dressed for winter, one for fall, and one for summer. What happened to the fourth season? Was she too expensive? Did she go missing? Remember the first parade Santa in the Miracle on 34th St.? This now has appeared twice in parades, both times with only 3 seasons. We think there should even be a 5th season around here- mud season.

There also appears to be a volcano in the back of the float. Maybe it erupted on Spring? Personally, I have never seen any volcanoes in the area. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

This mystery is part of the reason for Colville’s overall grade of C+.

And How!

Those of you who know of South Park will appreciate this sign. How unfortunate for Mr. Hankey!

Time to buy School Supplies

There is a certain amount of dread coming over me as I think about school starting in 2 weeks. Dropping enrollment, poverty, struggling families. Then I read my cyber friend's blog about her daughter starting her school year (an 8 year old). It reminded me of the joys to come.

I swear that teaching keeps me young (some say, too young). We are doing a big unit this fall on the unique history of Onion Creek. It is an amazing thing to be a part of. We are spiraling through the classes (all 3 in this tiny school). I start with life today, the next older class does OC of the 1970's (we had a hippy invasion, forever changing the valley), and ending with the oldest class studying pioneers in the area. We are at our best when we work together. I truly love what I do.

Let the year begin!

Ain’t Nature Inventive?

I keep pickin’ these cursed things out of my fuzzy rug, also known as Antonio. Every day, he comes in with a new load, nicely implanted in his fur. I am so tired of the little buggers.

They are only an inch long, so hard to photograph. The way I think they work is that the long end is like a needle, threading itself into the aforementioned hairy cat. Then the spirals begin to further advance the needle, making it secure in the really damn hairy cat. There are also a couple of guide wires to focus the energy of the insertion device into the fur of a really damn hairy dirty cat. The final end of this seed pod is scratchy and sticks, a bit like Velcro. At this point he enters the house and jumps on me, his damn dirty hair remover.

The kicker: I am allergic to cats! But he is sooo cute.