Wee Whimsicals

When speaking in a meeting, the faces in the back row are what usually come into focus.  The vision unfailingly lands in that general vicinity.  Not so, for a certain special meeting in Ontario.  Look up, and what does one see.  HUGE RED ANTS.  8 Inches long, 3 inches wide.  A whole colony of them.  They were on a lady's dress.  She was sitting in the front row.  It was the pattern, of all things.  Babies crying, people arriving late, the speaker failing...none of these distractions tend to erase my thoughts.  In fact, they don't even enter my consciousness.  As it turns out,a dress full of red ants does the trick. They draw up a big, blank I've been reading in whoah that can't be it is what in tarnation why would you...  Turns out it was a dress from Anthropology; on sale for $104. wondrous
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Speaking of bugs, there are lots of fun little slogans used in FL to combat the bug problems.  Toyota trucks run around with advertisments such as...  "Night Night Termite" "No bugs left behind" "Sometimes this job really bites" "Where others fear to tread" "

A bedtime ditty from some local kids to the tune of "Oh Say Can You See"

Oh say can you see

Any bedbugs on me,

If you do, take a few

Cuz I got them from you...

A tented home in Orange County.  You exterminate this way when structural damage starts occuring.

FL acccounts for 1/3 of the nation's pest control market.  The things you never knew you'd think about!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dale and I were traveling together for a day or two during the recent rounds.  One day was spent visiting a number of older friends.  For some strange reason, everybody was talking about the "special meeting tomorrow."  I'd patiently correct the older folks that the meeting was in fact, not tomorrow, but the NEXT day.  That it was, in fact, on WEDnesday not TUEsday.  Oh, thank you, they would say.  Dale would nod his head, yes, yes.  As we traveled on to the supper potluck that night, Dale suddenly stated, "the meeting IS tomorrow!"  I kept true to my factual explanation, stating that this meeting was in fact on WEDneday, not TUEsday.  (Some FL midweek mtgs are held on Tue, you see)  We pulled over, got out a "hard copy" calender, made sure the year was right, and sure enough, the meeting WAS tomorrow. Tomorrow WAS Wednesday.  Today WASN'T Monday.  Oops.  That's the worst day-of-the-week doozy I've committed so far.  Dale claims that he agreed with me because of my self-assuredness and his not-suredness.  They decided that if the special meeting was extra small this year, it would be all my fault. 
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As I mentioned in my last post, Julie Clites and I traveled quite a bit together on the rounds.  Special EATING rounds, we usually call them.  Not this time!  We had soup (such as vegetable) for 4 meals in a row.  Salad was the accompaniment.  We believe that the friends looked at their list, saw two young sisters were coming, and drew the conclusion that they were light eaters.  Hungry? Yep!  We'd get into the car to go to the next place, and decide what to go find to eat next!  harhar, who would have thought?  It was good soup.
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Uncle Barry and Aunt Audrey spent last night and today with us at the Tingley's.  We had a special time visiting and being together.  Aunt Audrey shared a few memories and stories of the family, traveling all the way back to our Great-Great-Great Grandfather!  She also mentioned that the Boyd name is Irish - kinda fun to realize; I always thought that it was English.

As of 3 hours ago, Ruth and I are back together in our field!  Jane and I really enjoyed our time together, even if we did scurry around like we only had one week left of our life.  Gospel meetings were Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.  Some exciting things happening there.  We climbed some citrus trees and froze 19 gallons of grapefruit for preps.  Scrumptious!
 We saw some wildlife in the Tingley's backyard that I'd never heard of before!   Nutria.  They look like giant (Beagle sized) guinea pigs, except for a long rat-like tail.  They're semi aquatic and herbivores.  Their life span is only 3 years. Their two front teeth are bright orange.  They aren't very camera shy... 



Nutria