Welcome to Teapot Tuesday
the Sisterhood of the Traveling Teaparty
and challenge #244
Manifred Manners vs. City of Muniferd
Note: Anyone is welcome to play! You automatically become a Teapotter the first time you play in our challenge. Also, you do not have to write a story. You just have to be inspired by the teapot or by the story about this week's location! Have fun! If this is your first Teapot Tuesday Challenge, please mention that in your commentary so we can be sure to greet you properly, in pure Teapot Tuesday fashion! Your participation in Destination Station is 100% voluntary and not at all required. Just have fun!
The rest of the story:
1: Oh, it's so good to hear the birds chirping in the morning and start seeing shoots of green poking up through the brown dead grass. It's like the earth is coming to life again after a long, long nap. All of this gets thoughts of gardens and vegetables and flowers running through Manifred's (Just call me Manny please) head. For Manny is an avid gardener and has been known to be out digging in the dirt during light spring rains and even after dark thanks to the lights his loving wife had installed in the yard. She knew she couldn't get him to come in before "just one more thing dear" was done and she did so love the vegies he grew. Together they always had the best pantry exhibit at the fair; he grew the vegies and built the shelves and she cooked and canned the beautiful colorful vegies. And he has an even bigger plan this year.
2: Now that the little Manners are all grown and gone, Manny and the Mrs. just can't eat all the vegies he grows and he gives lots of them away to the neighbors. Last yr. instead of just putting a box on the curb with a free sign on it, Manny decided to plant a "U-pick" garden in the space between the sidewalk and the curb. He will maintain it and teach people how to grow their own food and allow them to use the produce from this spot in their meals to see how tasty it is. He dug up the area last yr. and put in lots of special nutrients and is ready to get started on his plan. Mrs Manners has even made some great signs to put up letting the neighborhood know what is going on. Manny is headed to the feed store to buy some easy to grow things like pumpkins, squash, cherry tomatoes, salad greens, onions and such for this new plot.
3: However, the Muniferd City Council has decided that Manny's planned garden violates some obscure city ordinance and they have ordered a cease and desist order. Hmmmph...Manny isn't about to be deterred by any uppity city slickers that don't know a tomato from a radish and he continues on with his plan. The neighbors are all interested in this new garden they see him planting and as they find out the plan, interest grows tenfold. They start bringing rocks to line the beds, sticks to mark the plants, mowed grass to use as mulch, and asking about 42,000 questions. Manny is in his glory acting as the garden professor to all these novices and is glorying in the retelling every evening to the Mrs. Everything is going along smoothly until just about the time to start harvesting the first salad greens. Then trouble in the form of a certain nosy Mrs. McDubbins drives by and writes a letter to the editor about the disgraceful state of the landscaping on "that block"
4: Well, fate would have it that the editor of the paper is an avid gardener also and a health nut also. So a editorial is written and a crew is sent to the Manner's house to take pictures of the said "Disgrace" to post in tomorrows addition. Just as they arrived at the house, they saw a group of self -proud women marching down the street carrying shovels and trashbags, with Mrs McDubbins in the lead of course. They are intent on ridding the neighborhood of this disgrace, and they claim they have the city council's backing on this. Well, Manny isn't about to go down quietly and he loudly calls for the photographers to get shots of this destruction and "make sure you post it on the front page too".
5: Rut-Roh....Mrs. Manners senses trouble brewing and when she looks out and sees Manny squaring off against the detestable Mrs. McDubbins she knows she was right. So she picks up the phone and calls on her friends, the teapotters to come help her moderate this war and maybe bring some fresh salads and vegies to show the busy-bodies what Manny is trying to offer the area residents. Surely if they see the lovely vegetables and taste the delish offerings they will have a change of heart.
Challenge translation:
Ok, y'all bring some groceries. bring the celery, the tomatoes, the eggplants, the corn, anything you can think of to show them what they are missing if they tear out this garden. But, don't you dare bring a trashbag with you, it's the back door for you for sure.
EPEC: (extra points for extra cookies):
bring scripture if you can.
Destination station:
If you want a destination for your cards this week, how about sending them to Donnie. Donnie was brought to our attention by fellow teapotter Jan
Preciouskitty
to find out why as well as get the address to mail your card, please visit Post
#343 in the Teapot Tuesday Destination Station thread. Please remember that just because you participate in a Teapot Tuesday challenge that is combined with a card drive request, it does not mean that you are REQUIRED to send your cards. It is totally 100% voluntary!
Here is
my card
Here is a
quick link to the Teapot Tuesday #244 Challenge Gallery.
Here is the wonderful card
Jan made.
Be sure to you use KEYWORD MMTPT244 in your upload and post a comment here so we can all see your card!
Ever want to get a jump on next week's challenge card? SCS has given Sheri (KSNurse) permission to create an email Teapot Tuesday Cheater Group and email the challenge out on the Saturday before the Tuesday of the challenge so you girls can have the weekend to make your card. Send her a pm with your email address if you wanna be a Cheater!
If you are confused about these challenges, see the first sticky post of this thread for more information. There is also a directory of individual challenges. Feel free to grab this I survived Teapot Tuesday Badge for your blog!
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MMTPT #244 ~ April 2, 2013 ~ Manifred Manners vs. City of Muniferd
