Silly wabbit...

Silly wabbit...

Actually it is silly gardener.

All winter my two neighborhood rabbits were zipping back and forth across the snow in my back yard. So when I put my garden in, I carefully assembled wire fences to wrap around the boxes to keep the rabbits out.

I spent a lot of time at the hardware store figuring out how to make the fences fairly easy to take down and reassemble so that I could get them out of the way when I wanted to. And I had prided myself in how effective they were because I have stuff coming up all over the place and the rabbits haven't touched it.

So imagine my surprise late this morning when this rabbit came skipping across the lawn and, without missing a beat hopped over my fence into my garden. Right in front of my nose! I think I stood there with my mouth open thinking "How did he do that?" and "What's he going to eat?" when she - you'll see why I say she in a second - started digging a hole between a tomato and a pepper plant. That's when I realize she had a mouthful of leaves and softesh stuff and was building a nest.

I told her in no uncertain terms that she wasn't welcome in my garden, and that she could not build a nest there. I chased her away and thought that we had an understanding. I checked out the damage (She pushed a couple handfuls of dirt out of the box, but hadn't hurt either plant.) and refilled the hole. Then I turned around and there she was again, with another mouthful of nesting material.

This time I guess maybe I raised my voice a little. And, yes, maybe I did throw a few things at her. (Don't worry, my aim was pretty bad.) She didn't want to leave, but I was persuasive and maybe she decided that she didn't want to build a nest where there was a crazy man in the neighborhood. She hasn't been back, but I'll see what happens overnight.

The Memorial...

The Memorial...

Going to The Memorial means leaving the house at 5:30am, driving for four hours, walking around in the sun for seven and a half hours, then driving home for another four hours.

Sound crazy?

Of course. But it was a great day.

As a kid and young adult, I guess I thought golf was the stupidest game in the world, and golfers were a bunch of dandies.

It is still a very strange game, but I've come to respect it - even love it.

And when I see good these professionals are, I am in awe.

And walking around this course for the day I realized that I wasn't the only one. In fact, there are thousands of people walking the course at the same time, and almost all of us have tried to do what these guys make look so easy. And since we know that it isn't at all easy, all of these people are walking around are wondering, somewhere in the back of their minds, if these pro golfers are actually human.

Maybe later I'll write more about the experience. Right now I need to put my head down and sleep.

Dusk...

Dusk...

I can't overstate how much I like dusk. Tonight I had to run an errand downtown after supper and when I returned I realized my plants would be thirsty by mid-day tomorrow so I gave them all a drink. Then I swept up some crud on the back patio, and watered my raspberries, and cleaned up some old dead climatis branches, and pulled a few weeds and...

What a lovely evening for putzing around the back yard.

I had a call from a friend yesterday asking if I was free Friday to go watch the Memorial. One of his suppliers had given him a couple of tickets, including food, parking, the whole nine (actually 7,265) yards. All I have to do is be on my porch at 5:30am. I said "Let me think about this for a nanosecond. Yes!" I've never attended a professional golf event before. I'm really looking forward to it.

The downside to a lovely evening like this is that I don't want it to end, and the morning still comes at the same time.

Posting...

Posting...

Is it the spring weather? None of my favourite bloggers seems to be posting these days. Of course I live in a glass house and can't throw stones; I haven't been carrying my weight either.

So much going on these days. This is the first night in weeks that I haven't been racing out to do something.

I played golf twice since my last post, and, as one golfing buddy said, I had PMS: my game Pretty Much Sucks. I knew when I hit that 45 that I wouldn't start hitting that every time I went out. But to add about a dozen strokes over 9 holes is humbling. Ah, golf.

My garden is all in. I read there is a small chance of frost tonight so I put my newly sprouting beans and tomatoes under blankets. This weekend I put up my trellis for the climbers on the North sides of the boxes. This makes that setting out blankets a snap, as long as the wind doesn't blow them away.

My biggest headache is the !*#^!@#@ed squirrel. He comes and digs up my plants looking for tidbits. Just about every day he comes and digs up another square. I try to love all of God's creatures, but this one is pushing my buttons.

My second biggest headache is watching out for poison ivy. So far I've managed to see it before it saw me. A couple times I plastered it with Roundup, which seems effective, and other times I just used the tried and true dig it out method.

The third biggest headache is the Creeping Charlie. A friend finally identified the stuff that has taken over my front yard and that is well on the way to taking over the back too. Its futile, but my goal is to wipe the stuff off my yard, without resorting to things that I wouldn't want to find on my dinner plate. This means a lot of hand pulling.

In other news, #1 daughter moved in with me for a couple of days. She's been sick and wanted someplace to stay and recover from whatever it is that has her down. Glad I can help her.

45...

45...

I skipped posting my last golf outing, partly because I was busy and partly because my score was embarrassing (63 - ouch - and 49 - better - for a total of 112). Tonight Foos and I played nine and I put down three pars and walked away with a 45. This is a personal best, in spite of one triple and one double bogey.

Maybe it was the yoga lesson last night, but somehow I was calm and grounded. We played at a relaxed pace. It was a joyful experience.

Coming in on 18 (we played the back nine) I had a 175 yards into the green. Normally I lay up on that hole, or aim to the right of a long water hazard that lays to the left. Tonight I hit this beautiful second shot over the water and onto the fringe of the green.


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This was just to the right of the sand trap at the top of the map to just above the green. When you hit the ball just right it feels good all the way from your finger tips down to your toes.

Razzle-dazzle...

Razzle-dazzle...

Yesterday my raspberries arrived. I ordered them a couple weeks ago but had a notice that they'd be shipped in the fall, so I was surprised to find them inside my porch door. I got the "Fall Red Everbearing Raspberries". Who can resist a description like this:

New Hampshire University developed and introduced this red everbearer, and its hardiness has won it new friends every year. A vigorous grower, it yields large, bright red berries rich in flavor and berry aroma. In Fingerlakes Country, the first crop is usually ready by July 1. Fall crop begins mid-August and doesn’t let up until frost. Reserve a small spot in your garden for a berry that won’t let you down.

So I had to quick clear a small spot in my garden and I got them planted tonight.

Then I started pulling weeds. Most of it has been pretty clear, but there is one small spindly cluster of something that might flower and it might just be junk. It dominates one section of one of my flower beds. I need another opinion, but I'm inclined to yank it all out. Then I need to find a steady supply of grass clippings to help keep the weeds down.

Quiet day...

Quiet day...

I was going to say I didn't know what happened to this past week but that's not true. I do know. Last night was the final MCCO concert of the season and Tuesday I realized that I could either blunder through the concert bungling a lot of notes or I could put some time into practicing and see if I could still recover. Twenty minutes two or three days a week isn't enough.

So I got up Wednesday morning and put an hour in, and repeated that on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, along with dress rehearsal Friday night.

By concert time I had come a long way and I did OK, as long as I made sure the A# was really sharp enough. (One of the pieces had a movement that was in F# - which means you're playing six sharps. That's a lot of sharps. Another piece had a movement with 5 flats, which is a lot of flats.) We played a bunch of Mozart, and it was a lot of fun - worth the extra work. But the extra practicing, plus something going on about every night of the week, plus a mild cold that came on Thursday night left me worn out and dragging.

By this afternoon I was ready for a nap and a lazy day. It rained most of the day, so inside and lazy was good.

Yesterday the weather was gorgeous, so I picked up a couple plants at the market. Now I have tomatoes and peppers in the ground. Frost danger seems remote and I can finish planting any time. What is amazing to me is that stuff actually comes up. You put a seed in ground and it turns into a plant. How cool is that? Did you ever stop to think about what kind of miracle that is? I'm more and more impressed by this fact the older I get.

Hilary Hahn was...

Hilary Hahn was...

Hilary Hahn - the world famous violin soloist that came last night to play with the South Bend Symphony - the same Hilary Hahn that I've admired since she burst on to the world stage at 17 with an energetic recording of Bach's Suites and Partitas for Solo Violin - the same Hilary Hahn that I purchased concert tickets for over two months ago - was...

Early.

Yes, you read it right: Hilary Hahn was early.

When I got my tickets in the mail in early March I put them in my wallet because I didn't want to lose them. They were showing some wear and tear from riding in my back pocket with George and Abe and Andrew, but yesterday morning I took them out, double-checked the concert time, yep - 7:30, and figured backwards when I'd need to leave my house to have to dinner with a friend and still get to the concert on time.

Everything went without a hitch. We had decided to eat at the Thai place on N Main so that we could park once and walk around the block. As I pulled up (around 6pm) I saw people heading to the hall, but I figured maybe there must be a pre-concert lecture that we hadn't signed up for. My tickets said 7:30. Everything was cool. So we had a leisurely supper and arrived 15 minutes before the curtain to find the foyer virtually empty.

A friendly volunteer said "Oh, you must have been one of the ticket holders who didn't get notified. They moved the concert forward an hour. It started at 6:30. You can't go in until the intermission."

I was proud of myself: I didn't swear once at any of the volunteers. I thought for a while that they would put Hahn's solo at the end of the concert and that I might still hear her. But no, she played right before the intermission. After her solo they let us into the hallway that buffers the concert hall from the outside foyer, and we could watch her play an encore - the first movement of the Bach Partita in D minor - through a glass window. I could only hear fragments. It was like being in a dream - a bad dream.

Then it was intermission, and I found a Symphony employee to vent to. She took it, but there really wasn't anything she could do. (Really - even then I didn't swear.) They've promised me a refund, and yes I want my money. But I wanted to hear Hahn. I could have stayed and watched the second half, but I was too upset to sit quietly and fume about what I had missed.

In the course of human affairs - with wars waging in Afganistan and Iraq, with global warming and a declining dollar and record oil prices - this is a minor event. But moving the concert ahead an hour was a boneheaded thing to do. My anger has subsided, but I'm still disappointed.