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IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

After a quiet and restful weekend, we hit the ground running on Monday and we finally caught our breath by today.

Monday morning we got our annual flu shots (ouch) and my arm still hurts and in the afternoon we attended a volunteer appreciation event for the Chamber of Commerce. Since Dave worked as a host all summer long and I filled in as an alternate, we were invited to the recognition reception at the Nehalem Bay Winery. We have a new chamber manager now who is taking over for Deanna Hendricks who wanted to retire after many years. She has done a great job but was ready to pass the baton on to the next person. The chamber has also moved to a new location from Wheeler to Nehalem which is a more centrally located spot. Anyway, after cookies and other treats, we were given our choice of gift envelopes from various chamber members. Dave received a $50 coupon from the Nehalem Bay Grill and I got a free haircut from Tracy (who cuts my hair anyway) so we were excited about our gifts.

Three days this week I volunteered at the Alder Creek Farm where all the school children (K-5th) came to the farm on a field trip. The kids had planted pumpkin seeds last spring and now it was time to choose a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, learn about the community garden at the farm and look for specially decorated rocks in the dirt pile. They also enjoyed the resident ducks that help with the insects and slugs in the garden and watched the herd of elk that were grazing nearby. It was a lot of fun but after a couple of hours, I was ready to come home. It makes me appreciate teachers that much more. Those kids wear me out.

We did have a little excitement around here. There have been plenty of fishermen out in the bay catching lots of fish and one of the boats got too close to the pilings in front of the Kahrs' place and got stuck on a sawed-off piling. They had a couple of boats try to pull them off but with no luck. The tide was going (making the boat tilt even more) out and it was getting dark so they were running out of time too. Luckily, one more boat came to their rescue and it was able to pry them away off the piling. They were really lucky that it hadn't punctured the bottom of their boat. The whole process took about 45 minutes to get them free.

I spent Thursday working at the OSU extension office for the last time and I should now have all my payback hours that I need in return for the Master Gardener class I took last winter. This time of year, most of the gardens are finished and there are not many questions to be answered. I worked on a couple of bug questions on Thursday. Someone had brought in a spider to be identified and a tiny fly which turned out to be nothing more than a fruit fly. The spider was dead but it still looked pretty scary under the microscope and it still gave me the creeps. Since word has gotten out that I am a Master Gardener, I am approached all the time with questions from people asking me to identify everything from plants to bugs. I try to take care of everyone's problems, but many times I have to look up the answers myself. I guess that's why we have the volumes of reference books! Speaking of gardens, we had a few nice days this week and I was able to get my own garden put to bed for the winter. The cabbage worms managed to chew holes in most of my kale so I pulled it all out. The worms will just have to go elsewhere for their meals from now on.

We got a phone call from our six-year old granddaughter Jaysa the other day. She was so excited because she lost her other front tooth. I can't keep track of how many that is this year...guess she will be keeping the tooth fairy pretty busy for awhile. We're going to teach her the words to the old "All I Want for Christmas...." song!

Our oldest daughter, Lara celebrated her forty-something birthday on Thursday. It seems just like yesterday when she was born. We will all get together on Sunday for a brunch to celebrate the occasion. Happy Birthday Lara! Speaking of Lara, she got a treat earlier this week when she met one of her favorite Trail Blazers. Terry Porter was at her bank and he posed for a photo with her. She was able to tell him that - as a teenager - she was part of the audio crew working the games when back he played for the team. She and Leslie handled floor effects microphones for us and since they were right at floor level, they were run over by the players A LOT! I'm sure he said something like "nice running into you again" when she saw him this week!