RIP Never Never Land. End of a local landmark.

This story was in our local newspaper this morning.
No storybook ending for Never Never Land | Local News - The News Tribune

It made me kind of sad. This little piece of our history was clever and cute in its day and I will miss knowing it is there. They have made the area a little family picnic area, but all of us "oldies but goodies" and many of our children can remember the fun of walking through and seeing the nursery rhymes come alive. Back in the day there were little speakers at each of the stops along the way that you could play to hear the associated nursery rhyme. Old school by today's standards, but still fun and interesting in those days before cell phones, computers and instant access to everything.



Here are some pics from my last stroll through Never Never Land. I think it was 2001, but it might have been 2002. I don't have the exif information on these pictures because they were from my first digital camera.

Spencer in the Gingerbread House. (Hansel and Gretel)



Tony on the shoe from "There was an old woman, who lived in a shoe..."



Jeren in the Gingerbread House. (Hansel and Gretel)



Johnny, Jeren, Mikaila and Spencer at the well from Jack and Jill. Jack and Jill had long since been placed in storage to prevent the vandalism that was constantly being perpetuated on the storybook characters.

A walk in the parking lot.

I had to take my son, David, to the doctor yesterday morning because his eye was swollen, red and irritated. He has no insurance so we went to the medical center by Fred Meyer's on 72nd. I had my camera along because I try to ALWAYS have my camera along. I told him that I would take a photo walk while I waited for him. He did not like that idea because he felt that the neighborhood around there had really deteriorated in recent years, and so, he admonished me. I do know that area has deteriorated a lot, but my plan was to walk IN the parking lot so I told him that. He looked around from the car and said, "Oh. I don't see anything to take pictures of out there." I said, "Don't worry. I will find things and the walk will be good for me. I'll stay right here in the parking lot between here and Fred Meyer." He was OK with that and went in to see the doctor. I got out and took my walk. Here are some of the results. Amazing what you can find in a parking lot.












This was not staged. They were really sitting there just like that.


















Obviously, I played with this one.


And this one.


But this was just growing out of the top of a trimmed hedge like a rebel.

Saskatchewan: It All Started With a Cream Separator...Final episode!

This will be my last installment in this series about Joe Lackmanec's farm and the great stuff he has collected over the years. Such a nice man and with a great sense of humor and his own style of display. I'm glad to have been there when he was home and talk to him a bit about his stuff. Talking to him is how I found out that it all started with a cream separator, but I forgot to ask him to point out which item was the cream separator. I looked up cream separators online so at least I know what one looks like and noticed there are more than one. I'm thinking the one in this picture is the one he started with, though, because he mentioned that, after his uncle gave it to him, he cemented it down. This one looks like it is bolted to the cement under it. It is right behind the seat to the honing wheel, the white thing with two brown spouts coming out of the top section.


You can see it in this picture, too, if you look very carefully.



I also wondered if it could be this one, because it is closer to the house. You can barely see it here behind the Pepsi container. I didn't realize what it was when I took the picture. I also didn't realize that the Pepsi container was holding Vodka bottles. The man has a great sense of humor.


I do, however, distinctly remember him saying he took it out in the yard and cemented it down. It doesn't really matter. I just wish I had thought to ask him and also thought to take pictures of that actual cream separator. My few remaining pictures all follow, starting with some other farm equipment and then some miscellaneous stuff.


A nice plow.


I'm not sure what this is, but it must be some kind of tiller.


A couple of the saw blade clocks.





Longhorns and insulators.


He made birdhouses out of lots of things.


I love that he put "prohibited" before "littering".


These tulip flower bed borders were everywhere. I really like them and wouldn't mind finding some of these to use.

October

I so want to do the October blog, but can I really handle 61 days of blogging with all I have to do right now? Plus, I would have to pre-write for the days that I will be gone to the ocean. I guess not. I will save my energy for November. I should have a lot more free time by then because I'm hoping to finish up most of my project stuff on that week off minus the four nights and three days at the ocean. Nine minus three leaves six whole days. We will see how much I can do. It sure helps having the boys here.

Saskatchewan: It All Started With a Cream Separator...Part 6

The fence and finding the geo-cache.



Mr. Lackmanec told us that he had one group of kids there for five days looking for the geo-cache. They finally found it and he shared with Angie which side of the driveway to look. This at least narrowed it down. I can certainly understand how it took the first group five days to find it. Here are some pictures of the fence and Angela looking for (and finding) the geo-cache. You can make the pictures larger by clicking on them.

This is one long fence as you can see. In this picture Chris is coming out of the driveway to come over to where I am taking pictures. The driveway is approximately halfway.



Hubcaps, wagon wheels, insulators, cattle yokes all make up this fence, along with many other things like hard hats, tools and bikes. There are many birdhouses, too, both the wooden kind and the ones he has made out of other things, like the hard hats.


A closer look.











Angie making her way along the fence to look behind hub-caps.


Getting ready to peek behind it.


Yay! She found the geo-cache!