Fennel Seeds and Pink Submarines?

I literally sloshed around the gardens this morning.  The rains still pelt the hillside making it a tad bit mucky to plant so I tended the herbs.  A good many are ready to be picked and dried.  As I harvested the mint, sage, basil and fennel, I found it amusing that I was drying herbs in the rain.  Well, not exactly but still it did seem humorous!  The fennel caught my attention more than the other herbs.  The plant stands much higher than my head now and is covered with the golden heads of flowers.  I started snapping off the fennel heads to be dried.  Each one was sopping wet and had to be shaken vigorously before putting in my basket.  This is all sort of mindless work so I started staring off across the Bay.  I really would much rather be fishing..if only that weather would agree!  Then I saw it!  Pink!  Bright pink!  I saw "it" alright but was not quite sure just what I was seeing!

Two of the sixty or so fennel heads that will be dehydrated.

Pink and marine equipment just do not seem to go together at all.  Memories of the old movie, "Operation Petticoat" popped into my brain.  In case you are too young to recall the movie, memory fails you or you just never sat through two hours of a Cary Grant comedy.."Operation Petticoat" saw Cary Grant as commander of a submarine during World War II.  This was a tale of a misfit crew and too few supplies.  They wound up painting the submarine with a mix of red and white paints.  Of course, this created a lovely pink!  Needless to say, the pink submarine became the laughing stock of the Navy.  Well, of course I did not have a pink submarine in the Bay but something was definitely bright pink.  With the first break in the weather, I headed down the pier.

Across the Bay, a pink monstrosity sat next to a pier.  I am supposing that someone was having work done on their pier and this was a pile driver putting in more posts.  The building of piers is a natural sight around here but having that work done by a flamingo-hued machine is a bit rare!  I mused that perhaps whoever owned the brightly painted machine had the same problem that Rear Admiral Sherman (Cary Grant's role) met with the lack of paint.  Surely someone did not intentionally paint their machine this color!  Then, again, maybe they did..at least they would never misplace it!  I stood staring at the pink pile driver until the rains came again and chased me back to the house.  Once inside, I shook my head..a pink pile driver!  Poor Cary Grant and his pink submarine.  Later this evening when the sun did peek out for about five minutes, I rushed down to the pier again.  Yep, that pink thing was still there!  I snapped a picture..just for the record!