As Time Rushes Crawling

Time has been a bit weird this week. Or maybe this week has just been weird for some time. It's easy to get confused. Take the rain. Last weekend we had three days of it, totaling a good 5 inches. Be patient - it will make sense shortly. Two miles west along the highway there is a large field with a pond next to the road. It used to house bison, but people died, new generations wanted different things, and the bison got sold. The farm will be sold shortly as well. But the bison were our markers. It was where we were in relation to home. What they were doing, where in the field they were, how many light brown babies there were, all marked time. The pond in particular was a reliable calendar. It froze and thawed with the seasons, filled in the spring, held ducks, geese, the occasional heron or egret. The bison waded in to drink, to cool down in the heat of summer. Late in the summer most years, but earlier now with the drought, it would start drying up. Birds would leave. Bison would cluster around a water tank near the buildings. When it rained last weekend I watched for the pond to fill back up. Just even a teeny bit. The other rains we'd gotten were light enough to have no effect. But surely 5 inches...?

When I drove to the dealership Thursday to get my car fixed, I passed the pond. Still dry. On the way to pick it up yesterday, once Paul was home from work and gave me a lift, it was filled brim to brim. No mud, just green plants touched by the water. It had taken that long, exactly, for the rain to soak in and slowly flow down to fill the pond. Exactly. Very slow, until it actually happened overnight. But this time, there were no bison meandering down for a drink. No birds have come back, perhaps discouraged by too long without water to keep alive whatever they were feeding on there. Nothing to mark the time passing as in years past. By the time autumn brushes the field with gold I'll be long since south, in a place where the rare green is always green, having learned to survive without browning because it's always dry and plants still need their chlorophyll, so they guard it closely, never letting it drop so it has to be renewed.

By the way, the car is fixed and the bank account is a mere $453 and change lighter. The problem was exactly where I said it was, working exactly as I imagined, but the mechanism was a switch rather than a loose connection. It took an extra day to locate one in the metro area. I'm supposed to be impressed by the fact one was available, when I'm actually negatively impressed by their parts department not having one on hand and fixing it right away.

Do you recall I mentioned that I've "graduated" to working 2 hours in the yard? I went out a bit late this morning. Cooler air has come down for a brief visit, and it came without smoke or humidity. Last night I could see many of the stars again, and the dog had to go out early enough this morning that I could see the Milky Way in the sky. It's just a hint, still, a patch of light stripe. Nothing like what I saw in Arches, an official Dark Skies area. Still, it was the first time I've seen it, aside from Arches, in many years, a piece of my childhood when I grew up in rural northern Minnesota when winter night skies were dark enough both early and late enough that seeing it was possible on any cloudless cold night.

Anyway, because I was out so early with the dog, I took a nap after we came inside. It was 9:00 before I got dressed for the yard, often my heading back in time on those hot mornings. Today was cleaning up the mess I've made for the last couple weeks in the front yard. The southern side has a border of lilacs part way along, with wild roses filling in to the east from a single plant given to me by a neighbor 30 years ago, and way overgrown honeysuckle bushes to the west until they reach the back yard fence. The lilacs got a chainsaw haircut to a height of 6 feet just after we got here, and the honeysuckle is scheduled for the same in the fall. In the shade they provide, there is a very healthy border of green hostas, a smattering of daylilies so shaded they no longer bloom and barely survive. Spring's lack of foliage still allows sunshine for crocus, scillas and daffodils to bloom and store enough energy to give it a go again the following year. But everything had gotten so overgrown and untended that it's taken me two weeks to clear out everything unwanted. That list includes all the usual suspects for this yard except thistles (too shady), a whole lot of dead wood and a thick cover of rotting sugar maple leaves. That tree has thrived there. It's the only thing that doesn't need attention, and it doesn't get any, even tapping in spring.

The roses were so overgrown that the new growth is too spindly to support itself once the weeds were removed. With major clearing and cutting back, I'm sure they will start thriving again. The cutting back revealed the heretofore successfully hidden utility boxes on the property line. All our power is buried, so this is the only access. It's a great way to prevent ice from bringing down the wires. And roses are a greatly thorny barrier to prevent any needed maintenance. The boxes couldn't be seen until the pruners did major damage to the old growth. We had gotten here just in time to see the huge mound of fragrant pink blooms this spring. You'd think they'd be full of rose hips by now, but either neglect or the drought left them without the resources this year. Proof that previous years had been kinder shows in the young plants sprouting out in the grass two to three feet away from their assigned growing spot, vulnerable to the mower... in the unlikely event that happens. Sunlight now invades the area  for the first half of the day, so I have hope for new, healthier growth. Perhaps even a willingness for any needed utility maintenance personnel to actually approach those boxes again -  without swearing!

The sugar maple shades the yard where I've been working these two weeks. Today was lovely, and I had a really big job to tackle. No illusions about finishing it. I felt sure that a mess that took two weeks to make would take quite a few days to clear. There's no chemicals to apply, no sorting between types of foliage to decided keep or kill. But there's lots of cutting of branches, stripping leaves off to go into the compost, small twigs up to 2" trunks to separate,  section, and relocate depending on size and anticipated use, and trips with full wheelbarrow and overflowing tote into the back yard, the whole area to be topped off by a good raking for the pride of claiming a job finished. For this year.

We have baby pine/spruce/something? trees growing in the lawn in the space currently covered by all the detritus removed these two weeks. The needles are short so I've no confidence in identifying them. They get mowed rather than dug out, so each one little trunk multiplies into many and they grow out sideways. The rain has helped in loosening the ground enough that a well gloved hand - sometimes two - can pull them out along with an 8" tap root, occasionally a fist sized root ball of dirt as well. They are jarring to see in a mix of grass and  broad leaved plants. The brain registers a wrongness before the eye can actually see it, so the job stops as I scan around to work out just what and where I saw something. I have to take careful note and go straight to pluck it, then scan again for the others because they are always in groups, never just one. I move my chair and two turn out to have been under it unnoticed when I first moved the chair to that spot. Or three. Four. Five. I'll go away a few feet and return to find ones I've missed. 

What's really emotionally jarring is no matter how many I've picked, there is never that resin scent of pine, or spruce, that hint of Christmas that even though it fades too quickly is still trumpeting the holiday season when the holiday greenery is first brought in. But still, they have to be. There is nothing I know of that looks and feels like these that isn't some kind of conifer. Those blueish green things are needles. They just don't smell right. I do realize that reminders of December in August could be just another way of messing with time, but the absence is still wrong.

The lovely weather, the size of the task, and the variety of all that needed doing, combined to keep me going past my usual time. I'd start to feel a bit tired, a muscle would protest. I didn't overheat, sweat into my bandana, get thirsty. When a blister started in the thumb of my pruning hand, I shifted tactics to use it less and still make progress. Eventually I just decided I'd done enough for the day. I didn't need to push myself to make that blister pop. The big piles I started with could be consolidated with making what was left into a single one. Tomorrow should see the job done if I could just get Paul to used his guy-muscles for cutting the last few of the extra large branches into firewood lengths so I could sort and trim and relocate. 

But as I started walking toward the house, I decided I really was kinda tired. Maybe I'd ask him to dump out the wheelbarrow and tote, relocating stuff where it needs to be in the back yard for me so I could get a good start on tomorrow's job without having to spend time on that bit too. Closer to the door that sounded like an even better idea, while I put the tools away for the day. Entering the house I had to get closer to the clock to see just what time it was: did I really work until 12:10?  That would explain why I had no energy left. Not to mention the blister. Wait! Wrong hands. It's 2:00? Seriously, I was out there for five whole hours? Holy crap!

OK, I'm officially sitting down for the rest of the day, asking Paul for all that help I was thinking of, and after a bathroom break, going to finish the bag of gorp next to my chair rather than even microwaving anything for lunch! Holy Crap!!!!

Maybe I can talk somebody into bring me some ibuprofin for that arm that's starting to complain big time too.

Unsettled

I have a plan. Actually, I have several. I don't know which to use. If any. I need more information and I have to wait for it. The rest of the world is still waking up. So I have to wait. 

One of the pieces of information I need is whether or not it will actually rain here this morning. Because the next yard task involves chemicals, I need to wait to find out. It's tough enough spending a couple hours plus out there every morning - since I've "graduated" to working that long - without needing to repeat it again when stuff has grown back with multi trunks because the stumps still live. The latest forecast is maybe 9:30 for knowing if it will rain or not. By then I pretty much need to be recovering from the job and cleaning up for taking the car in and dropping off videos along the way. So I can't head outside to work off this nervous energy that way.

Sometimes blogging helps, if for nothing else but ordering my thoughts so they make more sense. To me, anyway, as I try to have it make sense to you. There are decisions to be made. Possible actions to be taken. Not that it's my problem, exactly, but I'm trying to figure out whether I can help, or even if I should get involved.

We left one of my sons in Arizona when we came north for the summer. He had/has limited access to the house, and certain responsibilities in exchange for my making the monthly payments on a court ordered fine. He helps me, I help him. He doesn't have access to the whole house for several reasons. First - though not necessarily in order of importance - last summer is the only summer I ever want to be stuck with a $300 / month AC bill. Next, because he's not 55 yet, he's not allowed to stay while we aren't there due to the HOA covenants about it being a senior community. Finally, we don't trust the people he tries to be kind to out on the streets. He has a good heart, but two of them had untreated mental illness issues, and one of those had to be removed by the police after she turned and attacked him. This happened after we left, but we're now extra glad the point was enforced with deadbolts not reachable with keys beforehand. (No puns intended.)

He can be on the property, store his possessions, use the laundry, keep food in his own little refrigerator, cook in a microwave. He cannot stay the night. I'm pretty sure he's not coping well. He keeps a lot from us, like taking three weeks to inform us that the woman he had thrown out after inviting her to use the laundry (already a violation of our rules) had broken his hand by hitting it with his rock hammer. He also took his time to let us know his bicycles had been stolen out of the yard so he no longer had transportation.

His latest issue is more worrisome, and true to form it's been coming in slowly by increasing dribs and drabs. At first he was totally incommunicado. Then he mentioned a spider bite on his neck. No information about what kind of spider, or where he encountered it, or how he even knew it was a spider and not some other venomous desert bug on the back of his neck just under the skull. He did mention he'd been a bit out of it in the week since it happened. 

In this morning's email I see he sent pictures. One is of the red spot on his neck. Three others are of a finger, badly swollen at a joint and with yellow/grayish discolored skin. Another spider bite, he says, without elaboration. He want's to show us because he's on his way to the ER. He doesn't know if they'll remove it. He tries to be flip with something about never giving the finger to a spider because he'll take it. I double check the time stamp and it's last night, after I went to bed. No further updates. 

Without a bicycle he must have walked to the hospital, about a mile and a half. That alone is troublesome because he's saying other stuff about postponing necessary things until he can be made to find them important again. Not only does that speak to his safety along the way, but I'd been trying to reach him about his court matters.

I pay those monthly fees by calling into the court and putting it on my credit card, something he doesn't have. So he pays me, or like now swaps work for it and I make the call. With covid, court doesn't want to actually see anybody. Do it online. Do it over the phone. And periodically, contact the judge for a status update. The people taking the fine payments won't accept one if the judge hasn't been contacted in a timely manner. They put out a warrant for him instead. So I now know that somewhere in his non-rational state post spider bite #1, he missed that latest phone appointment with the judge, because I was so informed when they refused yesterday's payment. That's what he can't feel is inportant right now.

I kinda have a hunch that the court won't agree with that assessment. So somewhere in all my running around today I need to call the hospital, find out has he been admitted, can I get information on his state of health, and how then can/should I relay that information to the court? I envision both/either they come and pick him up, possibly interrupting treatment, or temporarily "forgiving" the missed call and let me pay the fine. OK, yes, great imagination, Heather.

While writing this, I heard rain pattering on the window behind me. At least one question is answered for the day. All else, including my gut, literally,  remains... unsettled.

Southbound Oriented

There comes a moment where one is no longer on vacation but gearing up to return home. I've just passed that.

The yard work is wrapping up. Never confuse that with being done. Ain't gonna happen. But the to-do-before list hovers over my head. Rain had prevented my getting rid of weeds and weed trees for a bit, but there have been other projects. Yesterday was perfect for clearing off the front of the driveway, as in the part next to the house. For the last couple of years a collection of tools, the garbage/recycle bins, and a ladder have contributed to an accumulation of stray sticks which never quite made it to the back yard, as well as a wind trap for leaves and tree seeds to accumulate. Two wheelbarrow loads went back after what is already compost got shoveled up from the concrete. A ladder still sits nearby but Paul let me know - upon my request - where in the back yard it needs to go.

For some reason the frustration of not being able to do my primary job leaves me itching to get other postponed tasks finished. So the entryway got (significantly) cleared. Well, all Steve's fishing stuff is back in side the house anyway, where it actually belongs, but the chainsaw is still there. I wrangled Paul into relocating the scooter into that entryway space, ready for Steve's excursions to the local store, and later moving him around inside airports on his trip home. There was some fuss with the battery, but charging the new batteries seems to have settled that. A key had to be located after three years of the scooter just sitting around in our bedroom now that it was to be used again. The key - of course! - was under the TV in the living room. So are about 5 other sets of keys that somebody, some other time, will need to figure out a use for. Meanwhile the bedroom has more space in it. Good news is I can reach the window easily for fresh air. Bad news is I lost my "clothes tree."

That frustration didn't stop there in pushing me to do stuff. Stray items are getting organized again. Dog necessities are again divided into for-the-trip-to-be-packed, and for-the-trip-for-use. Clothes, meds, food and electronics are mentally organized, and starting to be physically organized. Without Steve in the front seat, the car has room for a couple pieces of furniture to head down. Of course they have hollow spaces, so they will be first fitted into the car to see where they best will travel, then brought back in to be loaded up with spare clothes, souvenirs, etc. The brain is busy even when the body isn't. I'm getting back to not falling asleep as I mentally work on figuring it all out.

The video library has now been cleared off the shelves on one wall in the 3rd bedroom, aka den. Old copied-from-the-TV tapes have been relegated to our thankfully very large garbage can. Kids videos, mostly Disney, are in a fairly large box waiting for my granddaughter's visit in a couple weeks to take with her for her kids. (I asked first.) These also include a couple of videos from her dance class when she was little, as well as videos of her when she was little that I took. No comments on the lack of decent editing, please. A few other home videos, labeled for the trip they were taken on, like "Yellowstone", will be kept in order to see what can be done with them for long term storage - provided anything is left worth saving.

That leaves all the to-be-donated videos. I was slightly shocked a few years ago to find out that it's hard to get rid of them, even for free. A little research revealed that Family Pathways will still accept them. Thursday they will be dropped off on my way to get the car fixed - without turning said car off because the starting function is no longer trustworthy. Yesterday the final sort happened on the videos. There are now 3 boxes of them in the back of the car. There are also 8 bags full in the hatch. All in all, there are close to 200 heading out for somebody else to enjoy. It's a fairly eclectic bunch. Sets include Star Trek videos, civil war, John Wayne, fishing how-tos, and the full boxed Black Adder. (I would have given those to my daughter who introduced me to that particular brand of British humor, but she long ago got her own - on DVDs.) In addition there are all sorts of generally family friendly movies, both modern at the time and old classics, along with all kinds of musicals. I finally even parted with a belly dancing video. Heck, I still remember all the moves, even still have some of the flexibility I gained decades ago.

Sighhh....

I mentioned my car starter, didn't I? Pretty sure it's not the starter. Not exactly. Not the tranny either, exactly, though it happens in the interface between the two. As an automatic, my car needs to be in park to start. Sometimes, and now with increasing frequency, I have to pull the knob back out of park and put it in again before it will start. To me that screams loose connection. Maybe a dust buildup from it sitting through a few too many haboobs - dust storms for you who haven't heard that term before. I'm hoping for a quick, cheap fix. Early this year I ran into another loose connection, one in the front left turn light. Richard fixed that, after I'd replaced the bulb during an oil change. The new bulb worked fine in the shop, something which lasted until two miles down the freeway when I had to use it again. He looked at where the bulb was hooked up and found two loose wires sitting an inch apart and simply twisted them together. No problem since. I expect tomorrow a bill of at least $150 just for as simple a fix. I just don't trust the dealership to give me as simple a fix. But whatever it is, it must be done before that 1800 mile drive.

But this morning's thunderstorm has blown over, and it's about time to get dressed for more yard work. It won't be as wet as it sounds, since most isolated storms or simple rain clouds, from whatever direction, manage to part and go around Shafer. It's amazing that we got 5" of rain over the last several days. I can already see weeds sprouting from those places I cleared without adding the weed/brush killer. Dang!

My Great Sock Puppet Lake

The lake is called Superior for a reason. It's huge, it's awesome, it's frequently scary and occasionally deadly. For me, however, all that vanishes the second I look at a map of it. It makes me giggle. What I see is a raggedy-ass sock puppet.

Start with Duluth/Suprior, in the lower left of the map. Or Southwest, if you insist. That's the nose. The long head rises up to where Isle Royale forms a slanted eye. If you follow the southern shore, the first bit of land jutting north into the lake, forming a mouth, is where Bayfield and the Apostle Islands lay. I can't help imagining the islands as food bits in the mouth, ready to pour out since my puppet is chewing with its mouth open, and of course facing down.

The next bit of land jutting up north into the lake/puppet ends at Copper Harbor. This is the neck, and everything behind it, aka to the east, is a raggedy sock, loose and raveled, likely why it was donated for this silly use in the first place. Why turn a good sock into a puppet, after all?

Still can't see it? Take your right hand, thumb towards you. Bend it down at the wrist, fingers together but thumb spread. Imagine a sock fitted over the hand at that angle, the toe stuffed back up into that gap between fingers and thumb making the mouth of the puppet. Unlike the lake, when your thumb moves separately from your fingers, it's a mouth talking. It's how sock puppets work. Add a long eye, and voila! You now have a "Superior" sock puppet.

If you're like me, once you see it, you can never unsee the puppet. But shhhhh! It'll be our little secret.

One Thing Leads To Another

Once I finished posting yesterday, true to form - and your expectations, no doubt - I headed back outside, camera in hand. There were still raindrops hanging under the cranberries and covering many of the garden blossoms. And yes, I carried the dog out to the middle of the yard and set her down to finally do her thing. Since we were near the grape arbor, I decided to shoot that first, and made a discovery. The bronzing leaves were being attacked by Japanese beetles, turning each into dying lace almost matching their own colors. Single leaves had half a dozen of the beautiful pests on them, others one or two. I had seen one here and there throughout the yard this summer, but never anything like this. Seems it's mating season.

Once done in the yard, I had another errand to run, and just because, took the camera along. I needed to cut some cattails, both for myself and for a couple other people. One good thing about cutting cattails in a drought year, you can easily find dry spots to walk into the middle of a roadside patch, not risking muddy shoes. While they are visible all along highways out here, I refuse to stop along anything but low traffic country roads. The drivers along Highway 8 are insane! Plus, the shoulders are narrow. I found myself a good spot a few miles out of the next town over, and clippers in hand, waded in. As I emerged with two handfuls for the car, I noted around the edges of the marsh that the cattails are already starting to fuzz out. Not just this marsh either. I had certainly put this off till the last minute!

Taking a few different roads back home, I started noting what was blooming now along the roadsides, how colors and species were changing from my last outing, the morning of the fog. Field corn was fully tassled, goldenrod shouted for attention from the ditches. Though early August, fall was definitely arriving. I started getting acutely nostalgic. I miss Minnesota autumns. The Sonoran Desert doesn't have them. There is something special about the smell of the vegetation after the first hard frost that I miss, even better than a fresh cut hayfield or mown lawn, though they all signal dying vegetation. That late fall air signals an end to mosquitoes, changing colors in a palette that varies by the day, the return of lower humidity and bluer skies, and of course the beginning of the next school year. Every year I'd mark my birthday with the arrival of blue asters and red sumac. With all that hitting me, I changed purpose from heading home to driving around looking for more roadside things to shoot. 

Last night's storm had cleared the air somewhat, leaving clouds in blue-ish skies, and there was finally a reason to head out to Crex for that last trip I'd promised  myself. After a quick run to Walmart with Steve for milk and prescriptions, I headed north.

Do you know what the first red sumac leaves along a busy highway, a turtle, a doe, a large flying hawk, a sandhill crane in the road, five turkeys on a fallen tree along the highway, and hundreds of butterflies have in common? I saw every one of them and never got a shot. On the other hand, there were familiar landmarks with different colors and vegatation, new water levels giving different reflections, and a plethora of roadside flowers attracting those butterflies. A family of trumpeter swans obligingly swam within camera range, and even periodically managed to emerge from between the tall grasses in the foreground  which seemed to always block their heads by the time the camera was ready.  A fellow photographer pulled up behind me for the trumpeters, prompting a conversation based from his view of my license plate on the unlikely coincidence of two people from the Phoenix area (Scottsdale vs. Sun City) now back in Minnesota for the summer, and out in Wisconsin at the same time enjoying Crex. He actually knew where "good old Shafer" was, and I knew his Hopkins high school had two athletes in the Olympics right now. I did see his car later, emerging from the parking area I was entering near an osprey nest with one youngster still patiently waiting for its parents to bring its next meal.

What I thought was a distant sandhill crane in grey form turned out, upon enlargement of the shot back home, to be a blue heron. A different, actual sandhill, strode across the road as I made a turn before disappearing into the tall grasses on the other side. My now very buggy windshield prevented a shot straight on, and the grasses hid most of it from view through the open window, but it was there.

Besides all those butterflies I didn't shoot, one obligingly visited a large swath of purple liatris stalks right where I could park and roll down the driver side window for a series of shots. This one was a dark swallowtail with yellowish-tan spots, the mirror opposite of the tiger swallowtail visiting my tiger lilies a few days earlier, just a short visit, no time to get a camera so just enjoy. The butterfly I did shoot was much the worse for wear, missing one wing "tail," likely damage from the storm or similar buffeting since traffic in Crex is slow.

On my way out, I noticed two cars stopped along the road, one fellow out with his camera pointed down at the edge of the road. This was a monster camera, what looked to be an 18' long barrel lens with a saucer-wide end. I figure ten pounds? What would he be finding standing in place long enough to make all that work worth while? And the other car to stop and watch? I paused a bit as I passed, partly to avoid bothering whatever he was shooting, but mostly to figure out what the fuss was about. It was an orange butterfly, smaller than a monarch and fairly plain.

I had to chuckle as I drove on. Not only did I have a bunch of butterfly shots of my own, with my little lightweight camera, never having to get out of the car, but I'd just spent five minutes about a quarter mile  away around another bend, shooting the same dead tree snag I'd shot earlier in the day from the opposite side just because of its unusual form, but this time, from about 20 feet away, I got seven shots of the bald eagle sitting on the top of it!

By the way, his head feathers looked like he'd had a bit of a rough go in the previous evening's storm as well.

Brightening Up

The colors have all changed.

Last night we had a glorious thunderstorm blow through. I've always loved them, being one of the lucky ones who's never experienced the worst effects of one. Yes, I've seen trees that were blown down, hail dents in every car within 30 miles, even helped clean up after a tornado went through an old town destroying whatever it could. It just never happened to me.

When my then seven-year-old granddaughter was riding in my car for her weekend visitation (court-ordered, another story), a thunderstorm popped up on our route. I knew her mom was terrified of them, and expected it would have rubbed off on her by then. So even while driving and needing to pay attention to the road, I started telling her how much I loved them. I even had a screen house added on the back of the house so I could safely sit "outside" and watch them. I described counting the seconds after lightning until the thunderclap to see how far away it was, and we did that a couple times. 

Still not distracted enough to get past her mother's fears, I got completely inventive. Or so I thought. I made up a challenge, suggesting she watch for the lightening to see what color it was. (Color? What color? They were all white, right?) When one flashed, I asked her what color it was. One was yellow, another green, but her favorites were the purple ones. 

Success! Hey, still all white to me, but....

Last night's storm started close to bedtime. We heard the rain pounding on the roof, a very welcome sound in a summer of severe drought, Minnesota's effect from climate change. On a personal level, I had noted the dustiness of all the colors I was seeing, shooting. Part of this of course was the smoke blowing down from Canada's forest fires, the total lack of the blue skies I remembered, way more so than just from the humidity in the air. Eventually it became normal enough not to really see, though it has been keeping me from bothering to head up to Crex Meadows with my camera, a prime goal every trip up here.

This morning Heather Too refused to go out, no matter how full her bladder must be after not getting her usual just-before-bed trip out due to the storm. This morning the grass was still wet. She hates any grass on her belly when she squats, even more so if it's wet, say, from dew. (Definitely a desert dog.) I resorted to picking her up and taking her, shutting the doors to keep her from returning until duty done. Or, as it turned out, until I finally got chilly enough, still in my pajamas, to go back in myself.

I had plenty of time to look around. The sky was blue again, wisps of clouds drifting by. The two oak trees in the very back of the yard were more clearly two different colors than ever before. The grape arbor wasn't just green, it was three different greens, dark, light, and starting to bronze. The moss on the concrete blocks lining the stairs I was sitting on as well as in other parts of the yard was no longer dusty and dried, but a brilliant bright green, full and fluffed up, screaming for attention. (I'll be out with my camera in a bit, you can be sure.)

I've been watching the leaves start to turn early on one of the viburnum/cranberries, an early project for clearing out this summer. It's been very faint, just a hint of blush, an early harbinger of the brilliant red of fall. I've tried shooting it, but got just hints of color, nothing to really bother keeping photos of. This morning it was  much brighter, still not red, but a pinkish apricot in the leaves now turning coral, and more distinct reddening in the berries. This was the only cranberry bush which bloomed this summer, so the only one with berries forming on it. These usually get ignored until early spring each year, when it's finally an acceptable food for returning robins, cardinals, and cedar waxwings. They fascinated me years ago, and I love pouring through the shots I took back then, knowing I'm no longer around that early in the spring any more. Sitting on the back steps this morning was a nostalgic hint of past springs.

After finally accepting that the dog was more stubborn than I had patience sitting out for, I let her back in the house.  Some time later I'll have shoes on and actually carry her out well into the lawn where she can't escape the wet grass. Meanwhile I'll watch her like a hawk inside. But I wasn't done yet being out. Still barefoot, I went out the front way to see what the damages were to the tall plants in the front garden. Surprisingly, they were mostly standing tall, filled up once a gain with water from what a bucket bore witness to as being just over an inch of rain. The morning opening flowers hadn't yet, so no colors to compare, but the balloon flowers, heretofore white in their blooms were now bluer than I've seen this season.

Definitely a camera morning!

Flunking Trampoline

You're probably asking, "How on earth does anybody flunk trampoline in school gym? It never would have occurred to me beforehand. After all, it was just bouncing around, fun stuff. Right? I mean, I already knew I flunked the rope climbing part of gym, having too little arm strength to haul myself up to even the second knot in the rope. Chin-ups I maybe managed 1, push-ups perhaps 5 on a very good day. But trampoline? How do you flunk having fun?

So... ever watch the Olympics trampoline event?  Back when I grew up, there was no such thing. Not in the small town where we didn't even get TV until I was twelve, and then only one channel, NBC, and only within 3 miles of the water tower. Had there been such a thing on TV, we might have watched it, but, really, trampoline? We would have wondered, with snickers and elbow jabs,  did they have Olympic pogo sticks too? How about jumping rope? Maybe kites?

I watched a few minutes of the men's finals this morning,  jaw dropping, full of envy and shame. After all, I was the object lesson to the rest of the class back in the day, a lesson on why we needed spotters around the trampoline, paying attention, not just chatting with each other while the unpopular chubby kid did her thing. Seeing the expertise on TV reminded me of my worst 5 minutes in gym class ever.

Possibly our teacher's worst 5 also, judging from her reaction. Umm, OK, her second worst.

There I was, just getting the bouncing part down without falling over. The teacher of course wanted more, like a sitting bounce and back to your feet. Whee! Big accomplishment. Who'd uh thunk it? Next came the call for a drop to the stomach, followed again by being back on your feet. Buoyed up by my previous success, off I launched... forward. A little too forward, and overachieving on past horizontal as I reached the edge of the trampoline, where head down was the inevitable result of my inertia. Down, between the springs that weren't being properly spotted. Whoever might have seen me coming decided to dodge out of the way rather than risk contact, so my feet began flying up and over my head until they couldn't be dodged by my classmates. 

Thank goodness. And no, not in a mean way as if I were happy to kick them as I crashed, but as in thank goodness they finally stopped me, want to or not. I was fine, just mortified, red from my scalp to way past what the gym outfits covered.

I was first in line for my thorough dressing down. How dare I try such a foolish move? Was I showing off? I could have broken my neck. Been paralyzed. Died even. (Apparently our teacher had seen such a result before.) It was pointless to try to reason with her that I had no control over my body, very little sense of position or movement or place, at least back then, something I've tried to correct. But I knew from long experience when to shut up in my own defense, as it so seldom resulted in anything but more trouble for myself.

Then it was my classmates' turn for dressing down. If I thought I was getting it, that was nothing to what they were hearing. She gave it to them up, down and sideways. By not doing their job they could have killed me! They totally neglected their duties to keeping me - or any classmate - safe. Nothing in what the teacher said to them endeared me any more to them than my own already miserable place in the pecking order. I was still the clunky kid who got them in trouble, judging by their reactions to me  for the much-too-long future.

While I tried to rack my brain for what the teacher had said about how we all were to accomplish what she asked of us, either on or around the trampoline, and came up empty, I knew it also wasn't my place to rise to their defense any more than to rise to my own. Antagonizing a teacher had never proved beneficial to my future either. I just accepted that I had again failed gym, both physically, and now socially. I had actually managed to flunk trampoline.