A shortage of color

We've done some yard work.

Our biggest mistake last year--not getting rid of all the leaves.

We did make a sweep of the yard last fall and move all the errant crocus and anemone bulbs.

However, my chipmunk friends replanted some over the winter.

I wonder if, like a hobbit hole, there are storage rooms off the main tunnel,

and this purple crocus came up from there.

Another front door.

I think chipmunk holes are bigger than mole holes.

But, I don't know.

At this point I have no animosity toward either.

So much left to clean up.

I see a couple of weekends of hand and knee work ahead for two young women.

Now, about the lettuce tower.

Lettuce plant flowers this year!

Here's what I'm thinking:

Top pot:

Portulaca and nasturtium

Middle pot:

Trailing lobelia

Black eye Susan vine

Million bells

Bottom pot:

Snowtopia

Burrow's tail

Creeping Jenny

Trailing clematis

The only flowers in at the greenhouse now are pansies.

I need to return at the end of the month.

There is plenty of time to change my mind about anything,

Except portulaca, nasturtium and snowtopia.

The case for driverless cars

I live on a dead end country road that has no more than ten homes. Some traffic in the morning, some in the afternoon. Up at the county road, our exit to the world, a different story. It’s busy much of the day and heavy often during the day. Big trucks; semi tractor trailers hauling freight from point of loading or unloading, up to a major interstate. This piece of Ohio has grown up around us in the last thirty years.

This afternoon I waited to get out onto the county road, off to get Laura. I had to turn left. I watched at least one semi approaching from the right, and some pickup trucks and cars. From the left, a small black pickup truck, with another car behind. All the traffic from the right cleared and I looked back to the left.

The black pickup was creeping. Some impatient traffic was piling up behind. I looked right. Oncoming traffic a couple streets down. What to do about the black pickup at left, a thousand feet away and barely moving? I turned in front of him. I realized the driver’s head was on his chest. Was he dead? I looked into the cab as I passed.

You guessed it. Texting. Completely, totally obvious to the road around him. He was close to a stop on Akron Cleveland Road, impatient drivers behind who were not clear to pass, and him with unfinished texting to do. This was not the classic left hand holding phone at eye level, eyes darting occasionally to the road. This was total focus on phone held surreptitiously below steering wheel level.  So no one would notice?

As I drove on down the road, it came to me. This is why driverless cars are being built. These millennials are something else, aren't they.  

Missing the point, what?

No visible cell phone.

Trying something new

I have several shelves of thread to weave with.

I don't care for much of it.

More than a little is too heavy for shirts I want to make.

It will go to the Art Institute soon.

Next week Linda and I are going to North Carolina,

with our walking shoes, 

to look at 18,000 square feet of thread.

In the meantime, what to do.

This warp has 30 ends per inch;

Twenty are cotton slub and the other ten are any interesting thing on the shelf.

I wove off in periwinkle.

Not exciting.

Until I turned it sideways.

It's taking me too long to weave right now.

I spent three or four days weaving the small, one pound cone of periwinkle,

and another several days getting it ready to cut and sew.

Today I made exactly one shirt.

Tomorrow I'll make the other two sizes, for Etsy, and get them posted.

I am so slow because my back is uncompromisingly painful.

No quarter given.

However, I am finally through four months of protocol.

A week from Monday

I can tell you all about radiofrequency ablation.

Well,maybe Tuesday.

Looking for spring and another story

The park calls this "Brier Rose Farm,"

another euphemism for property they did not need to purchase,

have no use for

and have no money to maintain. 

However, the postman is quite happy it is a trail head with facility.

Looking out over the hills.

Today was beautiful, but cold.

Tree trunks.

I like them.

Kendall Lake, in the park.

Several years ago it had to be drained.

It became too silted in and shallow for the volume of water it handles,

And would be dredged.

When it was empty, Oh, the stench!

It was properly cordoned off, warning signs posted. 

The drive to the parking area is locked every night.

In short, if you could read and think, all would be well.

Two young women were visiting. 

One said "Oh, I lost my ring in this lake years ago,"

and went out to look for it.

Into the stinking muck.

It held her fast.

It rose to her armpits before the level stabilized.

Her friend called for help, 

and our EMT's showed up.

They laid all the plywood available at the local lumber yard on the mud's surface,

and crawled out to her as if it were an ice rescue.

She was so stuck they could not lift her.

In the end they secured a harness under her armpits, which were below the surface,

as were her arms.

They used a crane, on hand from the dredging operation,

to begin lifting her.

The entire rescue took about eight hours.

Paid for entirely, as I've mentioned from time to time,

by the fewer than seven hundred citizens of the township, 

many of whom are children.

Allowances are not taxable.

It's not spring until the last snowflake falls

As I traveled down into the valley to work this morning,

snow was falling.

Falling on top of the valley, too,

when I came home.

Caroline and Laura.

We were given assurances of safety equipment

when packing up to visit happened.

Hmmm....

Laura has roller blades, of course.

Caroline has an articulated two wheel thing.

Remember I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate?

That's the locomotion for Caroline's board.

Snow on the pig.

Snow on the toad.

It's not spring, yet.