Change of the watch

I've mentioned the road super retires the end of the year. Last January it was a bad joke; this December it's about three days away.

If you haven't followed those last several years, the road super is Tim, the poster child for conservation. Tim who guarded a sunflower in the crack of the township drive from the Memorial Day parade.

Tim who nursed several volunteer pumpkins in the gravel bin for the entire summer. When a full grown pumpkin disappeared, Tim put the rest in his "pumpkin protection program," until he could display them for the kids on Beggar's Night.

Tim with all the snapdragons growing last summer, in the gravel bin.

The weather has been so mild that all the snapdragons continue to grow out there, lush, green little bushes. I took my camera back after lunch to take a picture. I found:

The new road super, who's training with Tim this month, was in the building. I nailed him. Before lunch, he explained, he took a truck load of gravel to fill a washout on Major Road. 

A snapdragon, toes up. We'll see what we get next summer. I also have a new road super to educate.

Tim showed me his first pay stub, from thirty three years ago. He had a delightful story. His first job was on the road department in the village, Peninsula. One day at lunch time the super handed him a pink slip. No more job.

Tim was a volunteer fireman back then, too, and stopped at the fire station, which at the time was in our town hall. He saw Ed Hodges, the township road super, in the yard and told him he had just been laid off down the road, in the village. Ed told him to come back after lunch, he was now hired in the township.

"So," Tim added, "for my entire working career I have been unemployed for exactly half an hour, and that was unpaid lunch time."

Some pictures when I came home. From the world's coolest rain gauge, an inch of rain yesterday. Hence the washout on Major Road.

And, the garden thinks it's spring. There may be hell to pay next summer, but I am loving this weather.

Holy great pumpkin patch, Linus

Where we left off yesterday:

From the right:  some rocks.  Never know when you will need a rock.  Some size of gravel.  In the bin, another size of gravel. Actually, there are two sizes of gravel in that bin, in neat piles. Some spare culvert pipe tucked back there. Then, the squash advancing on Boston.

The road super was still in his office when I stopped to pick up the payroll information.  I asked why he didn't just dispatch that dud squash to get at his back fill.

It's a punkin, Charlie Brown!

The pumpkins out on the asphalt.  I am not about to climb that hill of fill to look at the pumpkins up there.  They are growing in gravel!

Last summer the super couldn't open one garage door because there was a sunflower in it.  This summer he can't use any back fill because there's a pumpkin in it.

The Boston Creeper

The township road super runs a rather tight yard. Clean, neat, shipshape.

The salt barn, for instance.  Last year's left over salt in the first bay, some rolled up snow fence.  Some catch basin thingies.  The snow plow blades for the two trucks are in the middle bay.  Take my word, it is equally neat behind the grey door.  A wall of shelving; rows of fanny numbing metal folding chairs.  The floor probably is swept.

The parking lot is swept once a year for Memorial Day.  Every year I've been here the super had Buckeye Sweeping do the yard and all the roads.  This year just the yard was swept.  By hand, by the super.  "Sequestered," he said.

There are bins for road "stuff".  Some gravel, in case of a wash out in a ditch.  There's another bin, just to the left.  It's to the top with back fill that will come in handy for those potholes that spring up in the road right of way at the intersection of township and county roads.

Yes, the road super who rescues sunflowers let another plant in. The squash (?) that owns the back fill bin.  Apparently out in search of a mate all these months.

PS--the fence is not broken.  Those are spare pickets, just in case.

Laura's sunflowers

For many years there was a grape arbor here.  A fungus blew through, the vines made grapes every year, but they withered before they were grapes.  Last fall Tom dug them up and burned them.  Laura thought sunflowers would be a good replacement, and she and Uncle Tom planted sunflowers.

In all fairness to them, our side yard is on the deer trail. They come from the woods behind the garage, stroll through the yard (and the big garden beside the garage), cross the road and disappear in the woods across the street.

So, sunflowers on the way merely provide another nip and nibble. "A little taste, dear, and we must be on our way."

The sunflower stalks continue to grow, in spite of being topped.  At first Uncle Tom planted more seeds. Then the deer didn't need to bend so far for a tasty morsel to chew on the way.  Or, one more bite for the road, perhaps.

Uncle Tom left sunflower outside the fence for the deer.  But the rest of Laura's sunflowers are for the birds.

Up, up in the sky

               

Heavy rains, today.  An inch or more forecast, and that is excellent. Yesterday the skies were the blue that artists paint and poets write of.

At work I went looking for the road guys, to get some paperwork signed.  Down the hall, through the road office, through the road garage, until I spotted them through the open bay doors, out in the yard, looking up, up into the sky.

You know I think the world of these two men.  Tim, the road super, who saved the sunflowerfrom the Memorial Day parade last year.  The sunflower that Doug, the road assistant, and I were charged with watering the week Tim was on vacation.  In one day we nearly baked the poor thing to death, but Doug set up anIV drip of chicken manure water and Sunny was revived.  (Click on the "Sunflower" label to read her story from last year.)

So, I found Tim and Doug looking way up, and I looked up too, but only saw three planes and their contrails. Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is about twenty miles northwest of the town hall, and air traffic is not an uncommon sight.  As I remarked.

“Do you ever wonder if they will crash in the sky; look how close those two are!”

No, I've never wondered that, as air traffic controllers are in charge. 

A little disappointed planes in the sky did not fascinate me, Tim added “We've seen the President’s plane go over.”

“NO WAY! How did you know?”

“Fighter jet escorts, one on each wing.”

With the Fiscal Officer suitably impressed, Tim added “Doug’s even seen numbers in the sky.  Tell her, Doug.”

An embarrassed Doug was prodded into his story.  Driving with a buddy, they both remarked on the striking cloud formations ahead of them, clearly, remarkably forming three different numbers.  No question about it, they both saw them and said them.  “We should play those,” Doug’s buddy said.  “Waste of a buck,” Doug said.

At the next gas stop Doug filled the tank and looked around for his friend, who came out of the station folding his lottery ticket.  He’d played the numbers pick three, boxed.  He advised Doug to go buy a ticket.  Doug called him an idiot and they got back on the road.

You know the end.  The buddy won $790.  Doug’s not seen numbers in the sky since.

Altocumulus from the ISS

Altocumulus formations usually comprise many individual cloudlets and take shape at heights of 6,500 to 23,000 feet. The whorls visible in this altocumulus layer, as seen from the International Space Station, are caused by two regions of ocean air moving at different speeds.

Photo: Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and the Russian Space Agency Press Services

Sunny has left the building

She certainly lived in a mighty small spot.

And she picked a beautiful weekend to leave.

School starts Wednesday.  Laura is so excited that we went by her school to read her teacher’s name on the door.  She couldn’t wait until open house tomorrow to learn it.  At the orientation last week the school counselor sent all the children off on a scavenger hunt while she talked to the parents. 

Find both gyms.

Which gym has green mats?

What is in the open room in the hall with room 106?

And so on and so on.  Because she spent an hour scouring the school with fellow new students, Laura knows everything!, including the location of her room.  “Easy, peasy, grandma.”

Emily got up at six this morning, to get into the swing of school.  I teased her about having nothing to do and she said she would walk the dog with Uncle Tom.  Now for the brutal part.  For Uncle Tom.  Emily’s bus leaves at 6:45 am and Laura’s leaves at 8:00 am. For the rest of the school year.  But not until Wednesday.

Sunny exits stage right

I realized, as I pushed the appropriate button in the bank of door uppers and downers, I’ve never taken a picture of the sunflower with our town hall as a backdrop.  It is a wonderful building, wonderfully conserved.

Sunny was a little chewed up today.  Someone’s buffet.  I expect next week there will just be a hole in the pavement.

I looked under at the flower, and found a fat grasshopper.  He probably has not read Aesop’s Fables.

And on the sidewalk into the office, a dragon fly.  He was hard to snap.  When I moved, he moved.  So, we danced a little on the sidewalk in the sun before I went into work.

Extreme grass

I thought you all might be interested in extreme vegetation.  This two lane road in an adjacent township was closed and gated almost twenty years ago.  Just recently it was legally abandoned and title reverted to the adjacent landowners, in this case the MetroPark and the Federal Park.  The asphalt is still under there, leaching into the water table.  I wonder if that will be rectified.  But, it certainly is a testimonial to the power of grass.

Sunny went the distance and has nothing to be ashamed of

No gold, but plenty of smiles.

I visited Linda over the weekend and saw some more plants growing through the cracks.

The rendering pot of succulents and annuals, from Linda’s second floor porch.  God bless the hens and chicks that escaped.

God bless the grass that grows thru the crack.
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back.
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the truth that fights toward the sun,
They roll the lies over it and think that it is done.
It moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it is growing everywhere,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that grows through cement.
It's green and it's tender and it's easily bent.
But after a while it lifts up its head,
For the grass is living and the stone is dead,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that's gentle and low,
Its roots they are deep and its will is to grow.
And God bless the truth, the friend of the poor,
And the wild grass growing at the poor man's door,
And God bless the grass.

Malvina Reynolds

What will Sunny do?

My daughter called me on her drive home from Ann Arbor over the weekend to tell me she was passing field after field of sunflowers, a beautiful sight.  We decided someone has to grow all those seeds we buy each winter for the birds.

I pass a small home garden each morning on my way to the post office and the whole west edge of the garden is several rows of sunflowers, greeting the sun.  I’ve never gone by in the afternoon; I don’t know if the flowers face west then.  There are two hives at the front of the garden, and I think they are the source of the bees I see working the flower beds at the town hall.

Sunny is soldiering on.  I think her head was permanently bowed down in those relentless days of hundred degree heat, but her stalk is firm.  A few more leaves are gone. We’ll see.

Sunflower Volume1:Chapter8

Sunny’s eight weeks old.  That’s middle aged in sunflower years and powerful old in sunflower-growing-in-a-sidewalk-crack years.

The road super and I rolled up the door for my weekly assessment.  He thinks she’ll make it to seeds for the chickadees and finches.  So do I.  She still has a strong stem and leaves. 

He told me he has volunteer purple sunflowers at his house and he posted pictures on Facebook. I went over for a look, and just need to share it, too.  The best credit I can give is it was taken by the finest road super in the State of Ohio.

Big sunflower Monday

Sunny is maturing.  Her scrawny, scrappy self probably will have seeds in a month.  I’m plotting how I can get a picture of chickadees hanging off the blossom, picking out seeds.

In news from Cousin Camp 61, there are four grandchildren here for the next two weeks.  Emily and Laura, who live here now, and Francis and Caroline.   I dropped off Laura, Francis and Caroline for Ranger Camp this morning. 

Upwards of a hundred boys and girls spilled from cars, and the counselors checked them in with equanimity.  Only my head was spinning as the efficient staff sorted them into groups.

I quizzed the day campers when I picked them up.  They hiked three to four miles today, and, according to Francis, had a very skimpy lunch of two grilled cheese sandwiches “and some other stuff.”  Tomorrow they are exploring a stream, and need to take their wellies.

Back at home I spent the rest of the day filling out the school registration packets for Emily and Laura, while Emily did all the trim work on her room.  I have one set of forms left to complete, but Emily finished, and clean up and move in can start tomorrow.

Sunny sunflower Monday

'Nuff said.

Dr. Doug's Sunflower reviving elixir

I looked around the road garage Tuesday afternoon for something to put between the sunflower and the door and have there all day Wednesday.  Like I really knew what I was looking for.  Doug, the assistant road super, kindly steered me out of his bailiwick, telling me anything I put there would likely blow over and snap the stalk.  He said, in his opinion, it was up to the sunflower.

I pulled in this morning.

The IV is still dripping.

The sunflower is starting to bloom.

Doug is smiling.  He only hoped it would be alive, and here it is about to bloom.

No further bulletins until Monday.

CPR and an IV drip for Sunflower

I stopped at the town hall yesterday afternoon, before I picked up grandkids from their art class.  I pulled in the lower level; the back road garage doors were open and I found the assistant road super.  The one on vacation last week.  The road super, as you know, is painting his house this week.

I told Doug I’d come to see if I could have a bucket and to see where the garage door buttons are. ”Does this have anything to do with that sunflower?”

We went into the office, where he showed me the only ‘to do’ list the super left him.  He watered the sunflower before anything when he came in at seven.

Back out to the garage and he opened the door to show me the sunflower.

We were dumbstruck.

OMG, it’s 100 degrees, Sunflower faces south and is baking in the reflected heat from the white door.  We poured water on the crack with abandon.  It was so hopeless; only a tiny crack to put water in.  That’s why Tim told me he let the hose dribble on it all morning.

We did what we could.  Doug poured water on the crack and left the garage door open until he went home.  The kids and I gave it another drink in the evening.

This morning I went straight to the garage.  The white garage door is up, and Sunflower is receiving an slow drip infusion from a tiny hole in the bucket of chicken manure tea.  Doug raises chickens.  He figured it wouldn’t hurt, and with luck we might get away with being stupid.

Now to think of something to do tomorrow.  Coneing it off won’t work this holiday.