Since today is Sunday and a day of rest for many of you, I thought a few miscellaneous items and a little humor might be the thing to do.  It’s a late Summer’s day on a holiday weekend that begins to prepare us for what’s coming, SNOW.

My better-half and I are looking forward to the upcoming Fryeburg Fair which we attend every year. It’s a huge gathering of every farmer and their livestock from across the country.  This year will be the first visit for her new grandson and she can’t wait to drag his little butt there to look at the pigs.  As I’ve mentioned previously my better-half has something of a pig fetish.  We’ll spend between eight and ten hours eating terribly unhealthy food, walking miles and miles through huge crowds, and attending the Pig Scramble and Woodsman contests.  I know it sounds a little lame but it really isn’t.  It’s one of the few things we both enjoy a great deal.

We’re also looking forward to taking hundreds of photographs of the Fall season whose beauty never ceases to amaze.  Actually Fall has slowly over the years become my favorite time of the year.  We’ll have the harvest season, Fall foliage, and many small local fairs to visit on most weekends. You can say what you want but small local fairs are the best. It will again be a great time for our family and friends.

My first item today is a joke I stumbled on recently. It is laugh-out-loud funny and I hope you enjoy it.

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In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant’s foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing.

The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man. Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn’t help wondering if this was the same elephant.

Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe’ s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly .

Probably wasn’t the same elephant.

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I would also like to take a few minutes to thank these new followers to this blog.  I include their links as well and I hope you give their blogs a look-see and enjoy reading them as much as I do. Thanks to them all.

Eric Carlson, Karen Ellis, dmmd1983, L-Jay Health, What Happens to Us, mr688475, growupproper, mychangeviews, Nate Ollie, adoptingjames, Rein, jasminekeclipse, projectlighttolife, Gabriel Lucatero.

HAVE A GREAT LABOR DAY WEEKEND