Let’s talk about Priest River

Reading the difficulties Priest River Animal Rescue is having over setting a date for their annual dinner auction makes me shake my head.

With so few “events” going on here, it seems like it would be a little less troublesome to pick a date.

After checking with the Times to see if anyone else was advertising an event on September 26, PRAR chose that as their date for the auction.

Help the rescued critters

They made flyers, printed tickets, and even sold a few…

Then, this past week they learned that the Chamber of Commerce had decided to move the date for Octoberfest to September 26.

Ummm… I always thought Octoberfest was held in October some time, but guess I was wrong.

Anyway, the latest is that the PRAR event is now moved to October 17.

I’m sure volunteers will be around soliciting merchandise for the auction, so if you have a business and want to get some publicity while supporting the animals, be thinking about what you’d like to donate.

Individuals are welcome to donate as well, so don’t be shy… the lost, abandoned, and abused pets in our area need every bit of help you can offer.

Trees in front of Priest River Junior High School - Uprooted!

The Thunder / lightning / wind storm that hit Priest River this week did enough damage in a couple of hours to keep crews busy cleaning up for days.

The trees in front of Priest River Junior High look pretty sad now…

But what seemed really strange was how bone dry the roots appeared to be. The close up of that huge root snapped in two showed no moisture at all, and the soil just a couple of feet down also appeared bone dry.

One has to wonder if the dry conditions led to the roots breaking in the strong winds during the storm.

So strange for a year that started out as rainy as this one did. And since the grass is green, I assume that the lawn had been watered regularly.

Huge tree root - snapped in two like a matchstick.

I didn’t make it all over town to get a lot of photos, but saw at least one house with a badly damaged roof and a couple of yards with trees across the lawns.

One story I heard was of a mobile home that was sliced in two, barely missing a child.

The good news in that sentence is the word “missing!” Losing a house is tragic, but it could have been so very much worse.

Apparently this storm hit in isolated spots all over Bonner County – some say we had small tornados, but I’ve heard no official word on that.

If you have a “storm story” I hope you’ll add it to our comments!

Wow. That was some storm last night. The crashing and booming must have lasted for at least 3 hours.

We were fortunate here. All that happened is that I now have to re-stack this woodpile! Guess all the shaking was more than it could take.

In town, trees fell on homes, causing a ton of expensive damage. I have to wonder if the insurance companies will cover it, or if they’ll call it an Act of God and say “Sorry.”

Let’s all hope for the best on that one.

Tomorrow I’ll go back to town with my camera and bring you more photos. Meanwhile, I’m glad there are no reports of injury.

If you have stories or photos of what happened at your house, please share!

Today’s e-mail brought a message that I thought was disturbing. See what you think about it.

Ed McMahon died this week.
He was a great entertainer, but prior to his stage accomplishments
he was a distinguished Marine Corps fighter pilot in
WWII earning six Air Medals and attaining the rank of
Colonel. He was discharged in 1946 and was later
promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the CA
Air National Guard.

Farrah Fawcett died this week after a long career in
Hollywood as an actress.  After she was
diagnosed with cancer, she became an activist for cancer
treatment and devoted her last remaining years encouraging
people to seek treatment.  She documented her plight on film
and used it to encourage others to stay positive and upbeat
despite their diagnosis and suffering.

Michael Jackson died this week.  He was perhaps one of the
greatest singers of modern time.  He will also be remembered
for his eccentric lifestyle that included sleeping with a
chimpanzee, living in a carnival-like atmosphere at
Neverland, his fascination with Peter Pan, and his numerous masks and costumes.  He also admitted to finding pleasure sleeping with young boys and paying out millions of dollars in settlements to the families of these boys despite being acquitted by a court on one                         allegation of sexual molestation.

QUESTION – Which of the above did
the House of Representatives declare a moment of
silence for today?  (Hint – It wasn’t the first two.)

QUESTION – Which of the above family received a
personal note of condolence from President Obama?
(Hint – It wasn’t the first two.)

The little monsters are everywhere!

Today I walked outside and stirred up a huge cloud of them, so by the time I went back inside I was picking them out of my hair.

Later I could feel someone “walking around” under my shirt, but couldn’t find it to get it gone. It wasn’t until a half hour later, when I was on the telephone with a copywriting client, that it decided to jump out from the neckline of my shirt. Then I had to explain to my client why I dropped the phone.

He probably wondered what kind of backwoods gal he was working with!

I went on line and found out that grasshoppers live for about 6 weeks – and since they’ve been here for a week now, it looks like we’ll be putting up with them for a while. And then, of course, they’re busy laying more eggs, so… Maybe until frost?

None of us have ever seen this many grasshoppers before. So my question is this: Where did these creatures come from, and why are there so many?

Anybody know the answer?

Priest River country duplex for sale

Are you looking for an investment property?

The long-term tenants in one side of my son’s duplex have now moved to a nursing home, so it’s time to do some cosmetic work in their unit… and he doesn’t have the time.

If you have time and talent, you can earn some fast sweat equity on this one – and still have a little cash flow from the rental income.

Go here to learn more.

Remember the lightning and thunder storm last Saturday night?

We were just sitting down to eat when the lightning hit close by – and it caused a light bulb over our dining area to blow up! So much for that food – full of glass! Next we found that it had burned up a GFI breaker in the downstairs bathroom. Did you know that when they get zapped they make a loud buzzing noise?

I didn’t know it had killed a telephone until the next day. The phone rang, the answering message came on, and when my caller tried to leave a message all they left was static. I’ll never know who that was.

We thought we had seen the last of it until last night when I tried to turn the sprinkler system on. (I know, plenty of rain, but I have some flowers that are sheltered.)

Now we’re searching for a “Pump control relay.” Seems they don’t make that particular part any more – our system is outdated.

We still got off better than our neighbors – their TV blew out. I could live with that, but my husband would perish without his daily dose of Fox news. My neighbors made it clear to Thursday without television because that was the soonest the new one could be delivered.

We all thought it odd that random things in the house were affected. 3 or 4 breakers popped off and the power surge affected 2 things downstairs, one upstairs, and one out in the garage.

When the same kind of storm rolled through night before last, I unplugged the TV and computer… woiuldn’t have minded being able to “unplug” the whole house, because running around looking for repair/replacement parts isn’t my favorite activity!

So… how about you? Did any of these storms commit random acts of violence on your electrical appliances?

Do you home school your children?

Did you know that Bonner County has a support group for homeschool parents and their children?

I didn’t, but I saw a notice at the Priest River Library and followed up with a visit to their website.

I sure wish something like this had existed when I started home schooling my kids – but that was a long time ago and it wasn’t a popular thing to do back then. I had a heck of a time trying to find out what curriculum I needed to follow – nobody could tell me, not even the teachers who were friendly toward the idea. They all said things like “It depends.”

I finally signed up with Calvert Schools in Maryland and got all the books sent in the mail. But now I see that the Bonner County Homeschool Group has curriculum posted on their site. They also have a link to the laws regarding home schooling, so that doesn’t have to be the confusing question that I faced.

You’ll find plenty of “good stuff” there – like links to more resources for parents and a schedule of their regular “Kid’s Day” get-togethers. Home schooling parents and kids no longer have to feel isolated.

If you teach your kids at home, check this out!

Baby Canadian Geese

When a couple of youngsters came to Bordertown Feed carrying a newly hatched Canadian Goose, Jack told them he couldn’t take it – to take it back to the nest.

The kids said they couldn’t, because the mother goose was dead. He’s not sure how they knew that, but before long, they showed up with a box full of eggs, some with tiny black beaks trying to poke through.

He couldn’t let them die for lack of care, so Jack took the babies and will release them just as soon as they’re old enough to find food and fend for themselves. Meanwhile, visiting them is fun… such cute and curious little creatures.