O Canada Day: Best Wishes to Our Friends to the North

Oh Canada Day, Texas style.

The folks down the street apparently have mixed marriage. They fly the Stars and Stripes and the Maple Leaf year around. I thought I would knock on their door and wish one of them a Happy O Canada Day. Alas, no one was home.

I was hoping one of them could help me get a better score on the online Canada Quiz that I saw the other day. I was surprised to learn that the answer to any question about Canada is always either "Quebec", "Moose", "Beaver", "Ice Hockey", "Winter Olympics" and "eh?"

Occasionally there is a trick question, when the correct answer is "All of the above."
I hear they are pretty laid back up there. Apparently they just got around to selecting a national anthem in 1980. Quebec probably wanted something in French, and that bit of stickiness must have slowed the process down about a half a century or so.

Doesn't the Red and White take on a whole new flavor when red is done in western bandanna style?
Yee HAW!

Now if you have read my blog for any period of time at all, you will know that around here we like to celebrate.
Texas celebrates anything and everything. There is even an official "Oatmeal" day, a "Fire Ant Day" and "Juneteenth", the day in June when the Texas slaves learned that by law they had been set free two years earlier, only the slave owners just kept that to themselves.
Since no one could remember exactly what day that happened, the slaves just called the holiday "Juneteenth", because it happened in June.

In the next town over they celebrate Independence Day on July 3rd. The reason they do this is because on America's Bicentennial celebration back in 1976, they bought a ton of fireworks, but forgot until almost the last minute to hire a person who had the license to shoot them off. By then, everyone was already taken. What to do...what to do...
One quick thinking person suggested that maybe all the firework shooters might be available on July 3rd instead. And lo and behold, they were! So the firework show was held the night before the big day, and has continued to be so even to this very day.

Well, Bernie and I love fireworks a lot. It was illegal to shoot fireworks in San Diego, so our very first 4th of July we bought a big ol' sack of fireworks and drove them straight on home.
We had a wonderful time blowing the stuff up, and accidental hitting our neighbor's pine tree and roof with rockets.
Lucky it had been raining earlier; I don't know what we would have done if a pine tree across the street had exploded a blazing inferno thanks to us new folks.

We were also SO lucky we bought the bag of fireworks while the local constable was off getting coffee and a donut. Turns out that where we live happens to be inside of Harris County and it is ILLEGAL to own fireworks inside of Harris County. The fireworks shack is just on the other side of the unmarked county line. Had we been caught, the fine would have been $500. Whoa.

But...we have a little secret.
We still have a few contraband firework items left in our stash.
In honor of our friends to the North, we decided that today would be the perfect day to shoot one off.

Yes indeed, we shot off the ever popular "Hen Laying Egg" pyrotectic device.
Once the hen's tail is lit, sparks fly, and usually volleys of pastel colored fireballs erupt from her rear.

Isn't that wonderful?

So here's to you, Canada, and to you especially Terry and Lovella!

Enjoy!

(To see the hen in action, click on the word "enjoy" above.)