For JZ, With Apology if She's Seen It Before (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by River at Drifting Through Life.    

This week's words/prompts are:

a saying I heard a lot when I was very young, but not so much now, 

1. "wrap your teeth around that"

and/or:

1. treehouse

2. ferry

3. statue

4. step

She stepped out of the back door and rang the dinner bell, knowing what came next.  Whooping and jumping, the boy came tearing out of the TREEHOUSE in the manner she just knew was calculated to make her heart stop.  Someday there would be another broken bone, but as the first one didn't slow him, she knew not much would.

While the boy tore up the path to the house, she looked to the horse barn.  He and the girl should have heard and come out by now, but instead she saw them STEP out from behind it, and she knew something was afoot.  All in good time, she thought to herself.  None of them can keep secrets for long.

He, the boy, and the girl came rattling up to the porch and like a traffic director, she shuffled them to the sink for handwashing first.  As they passed the oven, he turned on the light to see what was in there.

"Pie!" he exclaimed.  "Are those the first berries of the season?"

"The ones you and the children picked yesterday," she responded with a smile.

A loud "Wahoo!" came out of three mouths, and he said, "As my uncle used to say, 'wait'll you WRAP YOUR TEETH AROUND THAT'!"

Sitting at the table, talk turned to this and that, and she started musing about when the St. Francis STATUE she'd ordered for her garden was going to come in.  At that, she caught a glance between him and the girl, as if they were suppressing smiles.

"Okay, you two, what's up?" she asked.  He was a great husband and dad, but a terrible secret keeper, and the girl took after him in that.

"Oh, not much," he tried to play nonchalant, but failed excellently.  "Just that while I was at work in town today, Mr. Peters stopped by with a message for you.  He said that a very heavy package was put on the FERRY to cross the bay tomorrow morning.  He was asking if we could pick it up ourselves from the landing, as he wasn't feeling up to hauling something that heavy himself."

"Wonderful!" she exclaimed.  "That means I can dig the hole for the base in the morning and you can pick it up while you're in the area and bring it home tomorrow afternoon."

"You don't have to dig the hole!" the girl chimed in with glee.  "We did that for you this evening, in the exact spot you wanted.  All we have to do tomorrow is drop it in."

"So that's what you two are up to," she said with a smile.  "Well, I'll thank you with that pie I baked, and, a bonus, I hid some ice cream in the bottom of the big chest freezer so we can make it a la mode!"

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Today is:

Birthday of SPB Yang di-Pertuan Agong -- Malaysia (in this elective monarchy, the current king's birthday is usually celebrated on the first Saturday in June, regardless of his actual birth date; moved to September this year so as not to intersect with Ramadan)

Blessed Father Jacques Leval Day -- Mauritius (physician turned priest who lived among and ministered to the poorest of the poor in Mauritius; people of all faiths make a pilgrimage to his tomb today)

Bonza Bottler Day

Chrysanthemum Day or Kiku no Sekku -- Japan

Community Day -- EX, O, Spain

Day of the Victims of Holocaust and of Racial Violence -- Slovakia

Farmers and Threshermens Jubilee -- New Centerville, PA, US (steam engines, threshing the old fashioned ways, and fun; through Sunday)

Festivity of Our Lady of Aranzazu -- Oñati, Basque

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Awareness Day -- spreading the word about the very preventable problem of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders   

Independence Day -- Tajikistan(1991)

Liberation Ceremony -- Petange, Luxembourg

Milk-Bathing Festival -- Fairy Calendar

National Day -- North Korea(1948)

National Sports Day -- Indonesia

National Steak Au Poivre Day

St. Peter Claver's Day (Patron of African missions, inter-racial justice, race relations; Colombia; Lake Charles, LA; Shreveport, LA; Witbank, South Africa; against slavery)

Synaxis of Ss. Joachim and Anna -- Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches

Teddy Bear Day -- internet generated, but since it's so much fun to have one, celebrate your old friend

Wakes Monday -- Abbots Bromley, England

Wienerschnitzel Day

Wonderful Weirdos Day -- we all have a few in our lives, they remind us to be true to ourselves, so thank them today; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

Anniversaries Today:

California becomes the 31th US State, 1850

Birthdays Today:

Michelle Williams, 1980

Michael Buble, 1975

Goran Visnjic, 1972

Rachel Hunter, 1969

Adam Sandler, 1966

Hugh Grant, 1960

Mario Batall, 1960

Angela Cartwright, 1952

Michael Keaton, 1951

Tom Wopat, 1951

Joe Theisman, 1949

Billy Preston, 1946

Otis Redding, 1941

Sylvia Miles, 1934

Cliff Robertson, 1925

James Hilton, 1900

Colonel Harland Sanders, 1890

Alf Landon, 1887

Leo Tolstoy, 1828

William Bligh, 1754

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Welcome Back, Kotter"(TV), 1975

"Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids"(TV), 1972

Imagine(Lennon album release), 1971

Today in History:

William I, The Conqueror, dies in a horseriding accident, 1087

The New England colonies declare war on the Wampanoag Tribe, 1675

The first steam engine arrives in the US colonies, 1753

The first recorded black to graduate from a US college, Alexander Lucius Twilight, receives a BA from Middlebury College, 1817

Charles Durant, the first US aeronaut, flies a balloon from Castle Garden, NYC to Perth Amboy, NJ, 1830

The first plate glass photograph is taken by John Herschel, 1839

California becomes the 31st state and the territories of New Mexico and Utah are created, 1850

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works is finalized, 1886

Orville Wright makes the first one hour plane flight, 1908

J. Verdrines becomes the first person to fly at over 100mph, 1912

First actual case of a computer bug being found: a moth lodges in a relay of a Harvard Mark II computer at Harvard University, 1947

Hurricane Betsy makes its second landfall near New Orleans, Louisiana, becoming the first hurricane to do over $1billion in actual unadjusted damages, 1965

The four-day Attica Prison riot begins, 1971

The Palestine Liberation Organization officially recognizes Israel as a legitimate state, 1993

At exactly 01:46:40 UTC, the Unix billenium is reached, marking the beginning of the use of 10-digit Unix timestamps, 2001

The "Ophel Treasure", about 1,400 years old, is discovered near the foot of Temple Mount in Jerusalem, 2013

Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain's longest-reigning monarch at 63 years and seven months, beating the previous record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, 2015

Egyptian archaeologists announce the discovery of the 3,500-year-old tomb of a goldsmith and his family in Draa Abul-Naga, Egypt, 2017

In what could be world's most important modern literary discovery, Jason Scott-Warren finds poet John Milton's own copy of Shakespeare's First Folio of 1623 complete with Milton's own notes and annotations in a Philadelphia library, 2019