FIRST RULE(S) FOR EATING ICE CREAM...

...on a hot Summer day

BECOME ONE WITH THE BAR ~~ ESPECIALLY THE CHOCOLATE PART...

 SAVOR IT...

 EAT IT VERRRRRY SLOWLY IN LITTLE TINY BITES...

 AND REMEMBER

IT WILL LAST LONGER IF YOU DON'T SHARE IT WITH YOUR SISTER!

YUM!

JUST FIDDLIN' AROUND IN WEISER

  A day in the life of David Lin
a competitor in the Small Fry Rounds (ages 5 - 8) at the Weiser, Idaho National Oldtime Fiddlers Festival.

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This is David's Lilliputian violin.
In the third week of June in Weiser, ID though, it becomes a FIDDLE!

David just turned five and is the youngest of four boys in the Lin family, from Kentucky, all accomplished fiddlers, who come to Weiser to compete.  This is David's first competition.

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PRACTICE-CONCENTRATE-PRACTICE!

TAKE A BREAK

PLAY WITH PLAYFUL DOG!

COMPETE (with not one, but TWO accompanists) at his service

 The audience could view

DAVID ON THE OVERHEAD, ALMOST SWALLOWED WHOLE
BY HIS LUCKY BLACK CLINT BLACK HAT

 "I DID GOOD, DIDN'T I?" 

HANG OUT WITH BROTHER AFTERWARDS

CRASH IN DAD'S LAP!

At Tuesday night's ceremonies, David received special recognition and a prize for the YOUNGEST festival contestant.
WELL DONE, DAVID!

GET HIGH ON MOUNTAINS!

You can have your Tetons, your Rockies, your Cascades, your Sawtooths...

But the Sierras make my heart sing!

Especially along Kit Carson Pass and..

...Especially in shoulder seasons!

And I hope your Summertime is full of memorable adventures!

'PECKER PANTRY

In Park Sierra, Coarsegold, CA, there are more Acorn Woodpeckers than people, squirrels and golf carts combined.  They peck and peck and drill and peck and store acorns EVERYWHERE:  woodsheds, utility poles, benches, awnings, radiators -- just about anywhere they can poke their little beaks!  This oak tree is a favorite of the ubiquitous  red-headed 'Peckers, and one of their most visible acorn pantries. The tree has so many holes and had actually become such a hazard that some limbs have had to be removed.  Here's what one limb looked like last Fall.

Some branches have been drilled so frequently, so thoroughly, and by so many 'Pecker generations that you can see daylight right through them!  

MADE IN THE USA

At least most of our fresh food is still grown "locally."

 Peas?  Beans?

Whatever -- they are just getting started in sunny Western Idaho.  Yum!

MY HEROES!

Here it Comes!

There it Goes!

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When you see a fire engine, they are mostly seen whizzing right on by as you slow down and pull over to the curb -- to the rescue, right?  It's a rare occasion, for me anyway, to see the insides of one up close and personal.  More dials and gauges than on the dashboard of my Lazy Daze, f'sure!  And spotless, shiny and mirror bright.

When you think of a fireman doing his/her "job," maybe what you visualize is someone in  knee-high galoshes and a rubber suit, hose in hand, spraying water on something burning.

This engine was called to the scene of a drifting dock, stacked to the rafters with rentable kayaks, that had lost its mooring and knocked into other boats in a Morro Bay marina as the tsunami roared in, not like a lion. 

Maybe this wasn't a call to a life-threatening situation, but just imagine the skill, training and mastery involved in manipulating those gauges, operating those dials, and engineering a dock rescue!  These guys deserve pay raises, not cuts.