Change of the watch

I've mentioned the road super retires the end of the year. Last January it was a bad joke; this December it's about three days away.

If you haven't followed those last several years, the road super is Tim, the poster child for conservation. Tim who guarded a sunflower in the crack of the township drive from the Memorial Day parade.

Tim who nursed several volunteer pumpkins in the gravel bin for the entire summer. When a full grown pumpkin disappeared, Tim put the rest in his "pumpkin protection program," until he could display them for the kids on Beggar's Night.

Tim with all the snapdragons growing last summer, in the gravel bin.

The weather has been so mild that all the snapdragons continue to grow out there, lush, green little bushes. I took my camera back after lunch to take a picture. I found:

The new road super, who's training with Tim this month, was in the building. I nailed him. Before lunch, he explained, he took a truck load of gravel to fill a washout on Major Road. 

A snapdragon, toes up. We'll see what we get next summer. I also have a new road super to educate.

Tim showed me his first pay stub, from thirty three years ago. He had a delightful story. His first job was on the road department in the village, Peninsula. One day at lunch time the super handed him a pink slip. No more job.

Tim was a volunteer fireman back then, too, and stopped at the fire station, which at the time was in our town hall. He saw Ed Hodges, the township road super, in the yard and told him he had just been laid off down the road, in the village. Ed told him to come back after lunch, he was now hired in the township.

"So," Tim added, "for my entire working career I have been unemployed for exactly half an hour, and that was unpaid lunch time."

Some pictures when I came home. From the world's coolest rain gauge, an inch of rain yesterday. Hence the washout on Major Road.

And, the garden thinks it's spring. There may be hell to pay next summer, but I am loving this weather.