Cloverdale Weather and "You in a Pew".

Sunday's Weather for Cloverdale and the Shire.

We will enjoy periods of sun with darkening clouds in the late afternoon. Temperatures remain reminiscence of Fall, not unexpected and a preface of Autumn's arrival next week. Wind will be lightly gusting from the northeast and gone all together by tomorrow.

Today's Songs of Praise comes to us from the Congregation of St. Michael Anglican in Tamworth on Tide. Cloverdale's Council of Churches encourage you to take time for God. The village's churches remind you of this year's membership drive, "You in a Pew". Help fill our places of worship with song and prayer, making Cloverdale truly "A Community of Christ".

Mr. Tosca Works the Graveyard Shift. Milo Doesn't Seem to Understand

The Tosca's live outside Cloverdale on Highway 1. They are new to Cloverdale having immigrated to the Confederacy one year ago. They are the exhausted parents of Milo, one very hyperactive child. Milo loves to run, jump and shout his way through the day with little regard for his father's sleeping. You see, Mr. Tosca is working the grave yard shift at Cloverdale's Electrical Substation while the normal graveyard manager takes time off for a medical condition. Mrs. Tosca tries her best to keep Milo subdued while her husband sleeps but, without super human powers, she can't track Milo every minute of the day.

Yesterday Mrs. Tosca left Milo to her husband's care while she left for an hour to help a friend. He had to wake up early to watch the boy. He wasn't happy. When she returned she found Milo restrained on the couch with husband beside him reading the paper. Milo wasn't panicked.

"How could you tie and gag our son?" she questioned.
"It was either that or put him up for adoption on the roadside," he replied.

The matter was dropped. Mrs. Tosca will not be leaving Milo with his father until his time on the graveyard shift ends.

Lily Beth and Cloverdale's Curiosity Shop.

Lily Beth Locket is waiting for Cloverdale's only taxi outside the village's Curiosity Shop on the High Street. The Curiosity Shop is one step above the Salvation Army's Thrift Store in the quality of their gently and lovingly used merchandise.

Lily Beth has the Saturday Morning shift. She wakes at 6:00 A.M. and walks the two miles to the shop, stopping along the way to admire the neighborhood's flower gardens. Lily is partial to roses and can't pass a bush without a quick sniff. Lily calls for the taxi on rainy days but getting Mr. Pringle to leave his house on a Saturday norming to pick her up before 8:00 A.M. can be difficult, especially if he had a late night ferrying the tipsy home from the villages two pubs the night before.

The Curiosity Shop buys most of its merchandise from local charity shops and resells them for a small profit. The shop also carries home made crafts on consignment. The shop gets a part of the profits if the item is sold. It's a shop where everyone comes out the better just for stopping by.

Lily Beth has a Saturday routine which she unconsciously follows without exception. Making a pot of coffee is the first thing she does after arriving at the shop. While the coffee percolates, she searches the shelves for newly arrived merchandise. She is looking for anything of quality and interest. She keeps a notebook in her purse with lists of items her friends, family and other interested parties would be interested in buying. Lily Beth calls the interested party if she finds a match. The item is then set aside. Lily Beth charges a small finders fee if her client purchases the item. The shop's owners are unaware of Lily Beth's side business.

"Why would they care?" she answered when I questioned her about her arrangement last Saturday morning. "They're getting the asking price. My clients don't get a discount. It's all fair and honest."

"It doesn't seem quite fair for the shop's other regular customers," I responded.

"Here love, have a Sticky Bun." Lily Beth offered me one of her two pastries. Yes, a small price to pay for my silence, but who can resist a Wonderland Bakery sticky bun?

"My finder fee keeps me in cakes," Lily Beth said with a smile, referring to her one weakness - Wonderland Bakery's Famous Sticky Buns. "And there are plenty more of them for you whenever you stop by on a Saturday morning," she added with a wink.

After her search about the shop, Lily Beth sits on the shop's back porch and enjoys her sticky bun and coffee. At 9:00 A.M. she puts on a record to fill the void with music and opens the shop for customers. Her shift ends at 1:00 P.M. At 1:10 P.M. she is out on the pavement waiting for Mr. Pringle. The rest of the day is spent with her friends, her cats and her garden.

Teddy DeWit, Cloverdale's Youngest Wizard.

Teddy DiWit secretly practices wizardry on Petunia Lane in Cloverdale and has done so ever since his robes and wand arrived for his birthday six months ago. He knows its against the rules for under aged wizards to practice magic, but knowing Cloverdale is far away from the Ministry of Magic, Teddy is just the kind of boy who is willing to take the risk.

On any given day anyone walking or driving down Petunia Lane could very well find Teddy outside waving his wand and practicing his spells. Teddy isn't shy and gladly demonstrates proper wand waving motions to anyone with an interest - except for the village constable, who he knows will notify the Ministry, and his Baptist Pastor who lives at the end of the lane in a nicely restored thatched roof cottage.

"Teddy, you know very well there is no such thing as magic," the Pastor told him one late Thursday afternoon just before supper as he walked home after a church function. Teddy was practicing his favorite magic, levitating a white feather off a tree stump in the front yard. He had become so good at this type of magic that the feather would sometimes blow away with him standing nearby doing nothing but watching, wand still in its holster.

"We are Christians Teddy and Christians don't pretend to do magic," the Pastor continued his lesson on what Christians do and don't do. "And I think you should stop drawing that lightening bolt on your forehead. You're not Harry Potter." Teddy held his hand over the false scar, looked down at the grass and waited for the Pastor to lose interest and move along. At that moment the feather lifted off the stump and blew half way across the yard.

"I did that," Teddy spoke with confidence.

"No Teddy, the wind blew the feather off the stump," the Pastor replied in a corrective tone.

"Magic," Teddy said.

"The wind," the Pastor replied.

"Magic."

"The wind." The Pastor's voice was showing impatience. Teddy reached for his wand thinking he might have to use a disarming spell to protect himself. The Pastor realized arguing with a boy as stubborn as Teddy wasn't worth his time. "The wind," he said again as he cleared his throat and turned to continue his walk down Petunia Lane.

"Magic," Teddy muttered under his breath just after the Pastor was out of ear shot.

People living on Petunia Lane know to be careful of Teddy DiWit when he's outside in full Harry Potter costume. One day Teddy nearly took out a passing teenager's eye with his knotted hickory wand. The teen insulted his Hogwart's house and laughed at his robe and scar.

Teddy's Latin is crude and his magic clearly absent but the injuries he conjures with his wand / sword teaches Cloverdale's muggles to tread lightly and respectfully when they happen upon him.

Miss Bitterroot's Honey

Miss Bitterroot with her Famous Honey

The coming of Spring means honey to the Bitterroot family of 34 Forest Green Close, Cloverdale. The Bitterroots have produced the finest honey in shire for the past twenty years and plan to continue as long as Clover is found in Clovershire.

Last year Miss Eliza Bitterroot took over the family business from her Grandfather Elroy. His failing health and recent curious reaction to bee stings gave him ample reasons to retire and travel with Mildred, his sweetheart for the past fifty years.

Elroy said of his grandaughter, "I leave the business is very capable hands. Young hands yes, but very capable."

Proving her grandfather right, Miss Bitterroot delivered a fine batch of honey to the shops last season and plans to do so again this year.

"You can always rely on the sweetest honey from Bitterroot bees." Miss Bitterroot said in an interview last Saturday with a reporter from the Confederacy Times who happened to be at the Piggly Wiggly covering the free food samples offered to exiting shoppers. Everyone standing around her agreed as they waited patiently for their free sample of Bitterroot Honey on toast.

"Here Here!" shouted Molly Totter, former foods teacher at the Comprehensive School and now resident of the Nearly There Home for the Elderly and Confused as she stood waiting at the back of the line. "I wouldn't put anything other than Bitterroot Honey on my toast. I bought another jar just now while I was doing my shopping." "

Molly Totter doesn't have the patience to stand in a long line, having taught school for nearly forty years. She deals with her impatience by bumping the people in front of her with her shopping cart. She pretends to be nearly blind and confused when they turn around to glare. Her performance usually succeeds. Anyone with half a heart and warm feelings of home and mother will step aside feeling sorry for the old woman. She always thanks them with a "God Bless," as she moves ahead in the line.

"May we get a picture of you with Miss Bitterroot holding the jar you just bought?" asked the reporter. Molly gladly agreed and fumbled around in her shopping bag to find her honey.

"There it is," she said as she proudly displayed a jar of Nutella.

"This is the best honey in the world. It has the taste of almonds and chocolate. How Miss Bitterroot does it I'll never know." Molly said as she held up one finger to stop the photo from being taken. "I need to get presentable."

Molly Totter returns to the Home with her day's shopping

Molly searched her purse for her powder, glasses and lipstick. Naturally she wanted to look her best. Needless to say, the photo wasn't taken. The reporter thought it best to help her on her way to the Home and more familiar surroundings.

Miss Bitterroot urges everyone to purchase Bitterroot Honey in their favorite shops, as long as your favorite shops are either the Piggly Wiggly or the Red Owl. She turned her nose at our mention of the Coop or the Food Emporium, both of whom carry a different brand.