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IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

It must be getting close to "tourist season" (I wish I could get a "seasonal" permit to shoot some of them) as the roads are beginning to fill with packs of loud motorcycles as well as RV's and rubbernecking sightseers who insist on driving at half the speed limit. On the weekends, we have to wait for long periods for traffic to pass before we can get on to Highway 101. The other day, I thought I was about to meet my Maker. I was getting ready to pull out of my friend's driveway which is on 101 near Rockaway Beach. I wanted to turn right so I looked to the right (don't see anyone), looked to my left (no cars) and then - by chance - I looked to the right again as I was pulling out and THERE IS A CAR - passing another car right where I'm going to turn! If I had pulled out without looking twice, I am sure I would have been in a terrible car accident. The passing car was in a "no-passing" zone, and I never expect to see anyone doing that. I'm sure glad I double-checked this time! It is kind of scary out there!

Last Saturday, I got up and met a bunch of the girls from the Garden Club at Fred Meyer to take advantage of their fuchsia sale. You buy the fuchsias and they will pot them! Such a deal. We each got three baskets (the maximum) so we could grow them for our garden sale May 12th. I have six of the baskets (along with my five) hanging in my greenhouse until the sale. The fuchsia baskets are always a favorite at the sale. We arrived at Freddies at 7:00 a.m. when they opened and were back home by 8:30 a.m. which worked out for all of us. I got back home in plenty of time to fix a nice breakfast, because Dave was sleeping in after a late drive and a short night.

Between rain showers this week, I managed to spend a couple hours at Alder Creek Farm transplanting plants for the Garden Club's sale on Monday. We have been busy getting plants ready for the sale which will be on Mother's Day weekend. Two of us showed up for the work party on Wednesday to work in the Waterfront Park between rain showers and Thursday I helped supervise a bunch of middle school kids who were doing community service work by pulling weeds and grass in the Upper Park. They worked for a good 4 hours cleaning out the play area and around the driveway. I also spent a lot of time washing pots and transplanting plants that I have been nursing along on my own in the greenhouse for the garden sale. I managed to pull up the remainder of the hardy fuchsias and planted the Escolonia in their place too this week.

Dave has been too busy to do much of anything other than work. As I said, he had a late broadcast last Friday, and by the time he got home at 2 AM, he was exhausted, so he canceled his Saturday board meeting trip to Seattle. Instead, he slept for something like 20 of the next 30 hours! He wrapped up the season with the final game this last Wednesday, so the crazy schedule that made up the "strike-shortened" season is over for us. He also had a city council meeting on Tuesday and a Budget Committee meeting last night, and I'm hoping things will slow down a bit now.

The wildlife has been keeping us entertained. My favorites, the Goldfinches are back and we have been watching a family of sparrows nesting in one of the birdhouses. We even saw the herd of elk over on the island the other day, the first time they've ventured this far out this spring.

The weatherman has predicted a great weekend so I hope to do a little more yard work. We will be delivering the Kubota tractor and some boards that we had left over from our church project to Silverton sometime over the weekend. Leslie and Jay want to move some dirt around with the tractor and then build some raised beds for a garden.

This is kind of short and sweet because we didn't get around to taking any pictures this time. We think about it after the fact and then it is too late. Oh well, last week's little piggies will have to do for this week too!