Sneak Peek

Yeah, I've been on vacation. Still am.

Plus it's been way too hot upstairs in our house, not to mention in our computer room, to want to be there. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

But...I just went on a Pond and Rails tour locally and just can't resist sharing photos of some really wonderful ponds. I was inspired.

Enjoy!

May Day plus One

Number me among the folks who are astonished that April is finished.

I do love May Day though. I wish that filling baskets with flowers from the garden and leaving them on the doorknobs of friends and neighbors was still a tradition. More, I wish that I had the time to continue such a tradition.

At least the flowers in springtime are not rushed. It's a peaceful feeling knowing that cell phones and soccer practice and alarm clocks have no influence with any flower in my garden. My bulbs are aware of the earlier dawns and later sunsets as the season progresses away from the short winter days. The pansies and johnny-jump-ups set their blossoms as the daily temperatures gradually warm and my tulips quickly close if one of our typical Sierra snowstorms blows in. Patiently the dogwood sepals unfold, biding their time through false springs, blustery winds, and unexpected frosts.

Then May Day comes, the calendar changes pages, and the various garden residents all rejoice in the welcome warmth and celebrate the mercifully sunny day with an explosion of color.

My flowers are good teachers. I've learned patience as I plant a gallon-sized oak tree and been rewarded with increasing shade each year that makes my backyard a haven in the summer. I've been tolerant as I paid for the shade with more and more acorns sprouting in my lawn which I hand-pick diligently. Friendship has its price--the birch has beauty and catkins currently spread in every nook and cranny of my yard. Rhythm, the rightness of seasons, a time for the peonies to die back, a bounty of fresh sun-warmed peaches, a lone viola peeking through a snowy bed, the danger of a rose leafing out too soon and blackening from frost. A garden is a lot like life. It takes a bit of experimentation, a touch of serendipity, some advice here and there, a helping hand once in a while...

I enjoyed the warm weather much like my garden. I relaxed and unfolded some of my petals in the sun. I ignored the weather reports. Sometimes you have to live in the moment rather than dreading what the future holds. My flowers aren't worrying about tomorrow's projected storm and neither am I.

Half-empty?

The bad news--my washing machine is currently sulking/on vacation/deceased.
The good news--I might be able to fix it.

The bad news--it flooded the laundry room.
The good news--it was on medium fill instead of high.

The bad news--it soaked the underlayment for the linoleum.
The good news--I am lobbying for tile instead of linoleum and buckled underlayment helps my cause.

The bad news--it happened right before my in-laws arrive for their first visit since 2001.
The good news--it happened on the last load of laundry.

The bad news--I see the laundromat in my future.
The good news--my dryer still works.


So...I have a fence that is currently held up by a rope, a large truck tire and a log to keep it from moving in the stiff winds that keep blowing through. I have a washer that is on life support. Can you say "deferred maintenance"?

I have a three-car garage that is filled with stuff when my husband's old office closed and I lost a guest room when he created a home office. The guest room I do have is now my hurling room (filled with things that have been hurled inside when the garage and other guest room were taken over by the alien invaders). Can you say "Mom is frustrated just a little"?

I have in-laws coming on semi-short notice and I have a school function in the evening and then soccer practice the next afternoon. I'm inviting them to see the Taiko drummers and Polynesian dancers performing at our Multicultural Night but they also have the option of going to Grammy's to see her new place and having dessert there. Can you say "Thank heavens they came primarily to see my sweetie and will understand that I have other responsibilities"?

I also have a nicely mown lawn and the yard is filled with Spring color. Our pink flowering dogwood is also near its peak. My sweetie helped vacuum and straighten (wise choice since it's his family).

All in all, it could be a lot worse. Of course, it could be a whole lot better. I'm undecided.

365 Days of Good Kharma

Just remembering...

• the instant we saw her for the first time and just knew

• the trip home in the dark with our puppy in her crate

• when she was so tiny she could crawl underneath the passenger seat between the front and back
• how she liked to lie by my feet and let the air conditioning blow on her while she tugged at my shoelaces

• how her first tiny collar was still too big and had to be rubberbanded to hold the end down

• watching her step on grass for the first time and try to figure out what it was

• having her sleep on my tummy as I finally got some sleep on the sofa

• sneaking her into bed one morning when she was tiny

• how worried I was when she stopped eating and lost a quarter of her puppy weight

• and coaxing her into eating by dropping pieces of toast smeared with peanut butter or "accidentally" letting Cheerios fall on the floor

• how quickly she learned to sit and lie down

• how it took ages for her to learn not to come upstairs

• potty breaks on rainy Spring nights huddled under the incense cedar where it was always dry

• those sweet pink paws and round baby tummy

• watching her grow cinnamon-colored eyelashes

• how she teethed on metal objects--shovels, trowels, picks--and left our shoes alone

• the days of blogging with a sleepy puppy on my lap.

Lord grant us many more years with her.

Sweet Spring

Thigh-deep in pondwater on Monday evening. 69 degrees (Clear out algae, scrub pond and retrieve rocks from the bottom, thoroughly terrorize fish that survived the winter.)

Fence waving like a flag in 60mph gusts on Tuesday afternoon. 50 degrees (Prop up with rope, old Bronco tire, 4x4s and firewood, hope dog is still backyard after school.)

Blizzard with whiteout conditions at Tuesday dusk. 30 degrees (Call Grammy and marvel.)

Snow showers and sunshine on Wednesday morning. 44 degrees (Take the kindergarten out to recess.)

Ya gotta love spring in northern Nevada. It defines the word "fickle" and makes us appreciate the relative calm of the other three seasons.

An ounce of preparation...

Life isn't safe. Accidents happen. Tragedy happens. Sickness happens. Poop happens. I'm with the Boy Scouts and their motto "Be Prepared" though. You can buckle up, look both ways, wear clean underwear, take your vitamins, and not follow your friends when they jump off a cliff.

Is your children's school safe? You can, and should, ask hard questions of your school administrators. Find out their disaster plan. What would they do if there is a code red or a lockdown?

Then look at your child's classroom critically and ask if that plan is realistic. Can the teacher lock the door(s) from the inside? Can the view from the windows be blocked? Is there a place inside where the students can shelter? Could law enforcement reliably and easily ascertain which classrooms have a "situation" and which don't?

I know--scary stuff.

I don't want to be dooced, so I'm just making a suggestion that there might be room for improvement at a school near you.

There will never be a better time for it. Be proactive. Stand firm. Demand solutions. You might save a life.

Disappearing Acts

When Tess was a puppy, we couldn't find her one afternoon. The gate was closed, the garage door was down, she wasn't in the house and definitely not in the backyard where she was supposed to be. We found her in our neighbors' backyard, but couldn't figure out how she got there. Eventually we discovered that a fairly large dog can easily squeeze through a loose six-inch-wide fenceboard.

Kharma makes Tess look unmotivated.

First, she used a tipped-over garbage can to go over the fence to see her best friend, then actually climbed the fence at its lowest point when she heard Echo across the street. So we put up puppy barricades which are working perfectly (for the moment).

Stymied, she began using the defunct rabbit cage as a way over the fence. She was jumping up to the top of a four-foot cage and then just jumping over. It didn't get her any closer to Echo, but I guess she figured there was no harm in trying. I tried tipping the rabbit condo over and pulling it away from the fence, but our determined little girl managed to move a cage weighing sixty pounds closer to the fence. Let's just say that rabbit cage no longer exists except as a pile of old 2 by 4s and some hardware cloth.

I started looking for other things that Miss Creativity could use to climb and/or jump over the fence. I moved a milk can and rolled Erkie's tires out of the way, only to find that she could also move tires. She hides her ball under them and then moves them to get to her ball. She doesn't weigh more than thirty pounds tops and it's easier for her to move a tire than it is for me!

I put Kharma out for just a little while after dinner and couldn't find her an hour later. The rabbit cage had not reappeared. The barricades were still in place. She just wasn't in our yard.

I checked inside the house since I've found her many times lying leisurely in her bed wondering what all the fuss is about and why mom is calling her name so loudly. Still no pup.

Rechecked the entire yard, nothing. Rechecked the whole house, nothing. Loud calls of "Kharma, Kharma", nothing.

Eventually I caught a movement through the fence. She was in our neighbors' yard. She'd somehow used the tires, low as they were, to get high enough to claw her way over. I loosened a fence board and she scrambled through, relieved to be home.

Sigh. The tires are going on craigslist. The garbage enclosure is getting moved in front of the gate. We're moving benches away from the fence even if they are in the gated sideyard that she's never been in. I think we'll also make some test runs--have Echo's dad bring her over and see if the Kharma dog can figure out a way over the fence.

We are trying to be smarter than our dog.