Suprises on the Front Porch

These past 4 months I've had some pretty spectactular things show up on my front porch. There's nothing like the feeling of coming home and being like "WHAT'S THAT!!" when seeing a box sitting on the porch. Here are, in order, things I've had show up at my house.

Exhibit 1: The Star Wars Gang. I think this sat on my porch at least 3 days UNDER A RUG and one day I was backing out of the drive and thought, "What is that lump under the rug". Yes, a McDonald's toy and a threatening note from the Star Wars Gang. Only cross country kids still call me "Dieff" (nickname from my maiden name) so I was kind of curious if I'd ever really figure out who did this. If you can't read the note, it says "We'll be back with TP and the rest of the Star Wars Gang". To make a long story short, it was some fellow teachers pulling a prank on me. Hilarious how that finally came to light.



Exhibit 2: The racoon (I think) skull. Gotta love geocaching friends. I picked this up on a caching spree in the woods last fall and left it near the parking lot where we were caching. My friend George picked it up when I wasn't looking, and put it in his trunk for "later use". That later use was him wrapping it like a Christmas present from Santa and leaving it on my porch. GREAT JOKE!!




Exhibit 3: Seven jars of the most awesome home-made salsa you will ever taste straight in from the west coast!! My friend Neal from Oregon knows I love the stuff and just randomly sent me some out of the blue. I almost cried. He is amazing and great and super; a typical "pumpkin friend". Meaning, although we correspond a lot, I know him through giant pumpkins and have only even met him in real life twice.

Exhibit 4: Saved the best for last. This pumpkin friend Adam lives in Washington state, is in college in Idaho, and had to give up growing a few summers for internships. He may be headed to New Mexico for grad school next year. Since he didn't want to let this seed go to waste "sitting in a shoebox", he sent it to me to grow. A 998 PUKOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To all you that don't know pumpkins, that seed grew the current world record 1689 Jutras and countless others over 1000. It goes for $400 or more at seed auctions. And Adam sent it to me with a note of "thanks for being a good friend". HOLY FRICKIN COW!

So that's what I love so much about front porches. Practical jokes, kindness, and random neighbor's pets (peacocks mainly) can show up on any given day! I'm thankful for them all!