A Day in the Life

Today was the day the two restrooms were set at the Mantua Trail project. I was supposed to be there bright and early to get pictures. I was there bright enough, but not early enough to watch the first crapper placed. Luckily, they had two of them. Two flatbed semis were carrying the pieces. One had two concrete poopie catchers and the second one had the whole concrete bathroom. Interesting.

I followed behind them in my little Jeep, watching how they eased around some of the tighter corners. When they reached the second gate, the truck with the poopie catchers wiggled and squiggled through the gate posts. The second truck wiggled and squiggled. It went back and forward. It tried sneaking and creeping. Nothing worked. While they were doing all this, I sat in the earliest morning sunlight and looked around me. It was pretty boring.

Then I noticed something interesting. I rolled down my filthy passenger side window to get a better look.



The baby teasels got old! With the morning sun bright behind them, they looked like they were surrounded in light. The sun shone on the spider webs between this little bunch and it looked neat.




The sun shone behind a larger group of the teasels looking cooler and cooler. The truck was not making any progress at this point to get through the gate and make the curve at the same time. No problem. Teasels are good entertainment.



Just about the time they brought in a little skid loader and knocked the gate posts over, I leaned way over to the passenger window and got a picture of the sun shining on the whole teasel family reunion. They were dancing and swaying and having a good old time.

The posts went over, the truck went through, the poopie containers and building were put up, and I went back to town. I had another assignment.

It was pretty nervy of me, but the guys were cutting down trees again. These trees were just around the corner from home. I missed the first one, got pictures of the second, and went back to work.

The third tree has had a huge burl on it for about a million years. A burl is basically a tree wart. I've been watching it for the 18 years we've lived here. I always wonder about burls, if you could carve a bowl out of them like that Hawiian one on the Antiques Road Show. Well, before they cut down the second tree, they lopped off the burl. It was gone before I could even get a look at it. That was18 years shot right in the arse!


What was left after the burlectomy was fascinating. It doesn't look like it would have made much of a bowl, but I still wish I'd had a chance to get a look at it. They chopped the second tree down. I got pictures of it going over and yellow leaves fluffing up in the air as it toppled. Then I went back to work.

At about 10 minutes to lunch, I got another call to come back with the camera. Boss wasn't happy about it, so I waited for lunch and did it on my own time. The third tree was 90% hollow (it seems they all are lately) but not hollow at all. It was a 20 foot high bee hive!



By the time I got there, they had opened it up pretty good. The bees were working away like mad still. They were flying around, but not aggressive in the least. A lot of them landed on me while I was taking pictures, and I never got stung.



There was new hive and old hive and bees! The honey was dripping out all over the ground. Mitch Cochran was there, but he said there really wasn't anything he could do about moving the bees.



This is a slice of the trunk the guys cut out, going the long way. Click on it and you can see the bees working like nothing ever happened.



This chunk of trunk was FULL of new honeycomb, soft and drippy with honey. Naturally Scott had to dig a stick into it.



Not bad, huh? We'd drawn a crowd by then. People were coming from all over the neighborhood to see what everyone was getting goofy about.



Lots of honeycomb, huh?



This part didn't have any honey or bees in it. It was the same kind of dirt we saw in the tree trunk at the old house by the park. I just thought it looked really cool.




What photo op would be complete without the ham? It was a very entertaining day, and now I'm tired.

Good night.