Once again, I am reminding you that the deadline for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest is coming up. It is next Friday! So you have 9 days to get your entry together and get it to the Chamber office. By 5 PM. On July 29.

Here is a reminder of the rules and another look at the entry form:

Pay special attention to the rule about being mounted on foam board. Dry mounting works the best. My plan for cooling down the display window was shot down and it gets very hot in there. Very hot. Foam board stands up to the heat by far the best.

I hope a few of you enter some photos!

Also, there is a need for Pufferbilly Days volunteers. If you have an interest in helping out with Pufferbilly Days, contact Laura at the Boone Chamber of Commerce.

I watch you grow away from me in photographs
And memories like spies
And salt betrays my eyes again
I started losing sleep and gaining weight
And wishing I was was ten again
So I could be your friend again

Thursdays are for flowers! This is another collection of flowers from my yard. Almost all of these are pictures of gerbera that are in hanging pots in the back yard. They hand from the old clothesline, well I don’t rightly know, but the things that you run a clothesline in between, if you were so inclined.

I have a pretty healthy batch of flowers blooming in my yard right now. Sunflowers. Moonflowers. Lilies. Coneflowers. Hollyhocks. Zinnias. In addition to the potted gazanias, dahlias, marigolds, petunias, vincas, geraniums, and impatiens. Some hostas are blooming as well. And some weeds. Need to get back to hacking down them weeds!

Just a reminder that Pufferbilly Days is right around the corner. About 16 days left to get your pictures entered for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. But before we get into that, I also want to remind you that during Saturday of the Pufferbilly Days is the Pufferbilly Days Pet Show:

Bring your dog or lizard or chicken or pig or bird or snake or hamster or guinea pig or sea monkey or regular monkey or turtle or whatever animal that you have deemed worthy of being a pet. There are categories like Best Trick and Best Tail Wag for dogs. There also might be categories for cats too. But noobody ever brings a cat, cause they are embarrassed to own a cat. You could be the first. Blaze a trail!

I believe that I’ll be there to photo document the whole thing, but Kio hasn’t formally asked me to do that yet this year. I wait for a scroll with the Dettman seal to arrive any day now though.

Note that this year it is on a Saturday, instead of a Sunday. Double note, it is in a different location than it has been for the last several years. Triple note. It is in the afternoon, instead of the morning.

While you are getting your dog ready for the Pufferbilly Days Pet Show, you should also be getting your pictures ready for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest.

Here is a refresher on the rules:

Important things to note:
+ Entry Deadline: July 29, 2022 – 5 PM
+ Turn entries in at the Boone County Chamber of Commerce – 903 Story Street – Boone, Iowa
+ 3 Age Divisions: 7-12, 12-18, and 18+
+ Categories are: Nature, People, Hidden Treasures of Boone County, Trains Planes & Automobiles, and Black & White
+ Limit of 6 entries per person.
+ Picture can’t already have been entered in the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest.
+ Photos must be mounted on 11 x 14 foam board. Photos can be any size up to 11 x 14. Photos can be, but do not have to be matted. Mats will not be judged.
+ Entry tag should be affixed to the upper right hand corner of the back of the image. Apparently virtually nobody did this last year and Laura (the head of Pufferbilly Days) filled these out and attached them herself. Which I recently found out and makes me really disappointed in people’s ability to follow very simple instructions.
+ 1st, 2nd, & 3rd will be awarded in each photo class for each age division.
+ A Best in Show will be awarded to the overall best photograph (as determined by the 3 judges – I am not a judge, the only way my opinion would enter into any of this, is if we need a 2nd tie-breaker) and that Best in Show could come from any Age Division.
+ A People’s Choice Award will also be awarded. There will be directions on how to vote at the Photo Display. I will also (hopefully) create a way to tell you how to vote besides going to the display. If I have the skills to pay those bills.
+ Current plan is to put the display up on the morning of Thursday, August 4. But they will definitely be up on August 5.
+ Display will be taken down on the morning of Monday, August 8. Pictures can be picked up at the Boone County Chamber of Commerce definitely after 12 PM on that day.
+ You don’t have to be from Boone or Boone County to enter.
+ Could still use some volunteers. Let me know if you are interested in helping out. You can enter or volunteer, but not both.

Finally, if you have a place you can put a flyer or can pimp this contest on social media, let me know and I will get you what you need to pimp this contest.

Hopefully at least a few people and/or their progeny enter some pictures this year. I’m hoping for a decent amount of entries this year!

You see the smile that’s on my mouth
It’s hiding the words that don’t come out
And all of our friends who think that I’m blessed
They don’t know my head is a mess

Thursdays are for flowers, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. There are a lot of joy haters in the world. Don’t let them get you down.

Here are some flower pictures taken in my yard. The way I was taking these pictures was with a piece of equipment that was missing one part, so this was a bit of an adventure. A good kind of adventure. But would have been a better adventure if I wasn’t missing that part.

Flowers do have a tendency to break people down at their hardest parts. For example, people who hate the color pink still find pink flowers to be pretty. Or another example, an email subscriber that always skips reading my posts if they think they are about flowers, has recently taken to texting me pictures of flowers. A new addiction and I enjoy it very much.