The Paint Inspector

Yesterday, an inspector came by to look over my paint job. Haley found me standing on a folding ladder in my backyard, cutting around the windows and door trim. She hopped onto the second support arm of the ladder and watched me work. Haley is, of course, one of the two Golden Comet pullets we purchased last spring.

Haley

Bennett

                                                         

Bennett, is nowhere near as curious as is Haley. Haley follows me around the backyard, pecks at bugs, and watches my every move. She just likes to hang out, and sitting on my ladder and watching me paint the house is her new favorite past time.

When she isn’t watching me paint, she is joining the rest of the birds in the shade of my neighbor’s pumpkin patch, which has grown up and over the fence and into our back yard. I knew they were enjoying the shade and all the squash bugs they could eat, but a closer investigation showed that there was more going on beneath the thick canopy of green leaves.

They were having pumpkin for lunch!

"Where's the Wreath?" #1

This is Dillons. It is the only grocery store near our house. Well, it was the only grocery store near our house. Wal*mart opened a supercenter a wee 1/4 mile west of Dillons.

In order to combat the potential loss of customers to the evil empire from Bentonville, Arkansas, Dillons opened a gas station. If you purchase about a bazillion dollars worth of groceries at Dillons they'll knock off a dime on each gallon of gas you purchase from their gas station.

I'm not buying any more groceries from them than I normally would, but if they want to save me a buck or two on a tank of gas, I'll take it.

The kids like Dillons because each year they display a large, painted, tin jack-o-lantern.

It’s a Halloween thing. It sits near the large pile of pumpkins that they sell.

Pumpkins are getting expensive.

Notice the sign over the pumpkins, the one that claims that the store has “2100 new everyday low prices?” They never claimed that before the evil empire from Bentonville, Arkansas, invaded Leavenworth, Kansas. In fact, Dillons' prices were so high that we drove 25 minutes south to Bonner Springs, Kansas, to buy less expensive groceries at, you guessed it, the evil empire from Bentonville.

Capitalism. Go figure.

Either way, since Dillons has race car shopping carts, the kids love shopping there.

So, where’s the wreath?

Send your best guess to writearby@gmail.com

P.S.  Please accept my apologies.  I inadvertently aggravated my contestants by finding a humorous way to answer the most frequently asked question, "What time will you post your daily picture?"   I thought 10 AM CST would be a fair time for a country with four major time zones, although we actually have nine!  I will set my blog to post at 3:00 AM CDT each day of the contest.    Set your alarms or stay up late accordingly.