At the Junior Prom

Ms. Douglas & her prodigies

I went to a piano "recital" at my piano teacher's house yesterday with some of her other pupils; I was the newest, having started my first piano lesson a little over four months ago and the oldest, or, I should say, of the granny-age, member of her class.  Everyone performed bravely, with some hiccups here and there, received polite applause from the classmates and encouraging remarks from the teacher.  Here is an abridged, i.e., before things started to go south, clip of my piece, At the Junior Prom -

  

Deer Haven

For some inexplicable reason, the deer seem to have taken quite a fancy to our backyard lately and pay prolonged visits there daily.  Just now, there are two sitting in the garden boxes, one resting against the hedge and one in the middle of the lawn.  This morning at breakfast we counted five of them out there leisurely enjoying their breakfast as well.  I've noticed that they are always chewing something in their mouths and have since learned that the white-tailed deer, like cattle, are a ruminant animal.  They keep an idle eye on the goings-on inside the house and look back at you calmly when you look at them.  It's hard to tell which of us, Kirk and I or the deer, are the animals on zoological display.

Spring Awakening

They may not look like much, these tender shoots of the daffodil bulbs I planted last fall, but they represent for me the tell-tale signs of the gentle re-awakening of life with spring, after a three-month hiatus.  Before we know it, we will have been in Bloomington a whole year and have witnessed how nature, in a more intense fashion, endures and manifests itself a complete cycle of life, death, and rebirth. 


The temperature has crept up to low 60's in the past couple of days but Kirk does not believe that we have seen the last of snow.  After hearing about the several slip-and-fall accidents among the people from the Philosophy department alone after the last major snow storm earlier this month, I finally got wind of this "Ice Melt" thing, which is rock salt that one can sprinkle on walking surfaces to dissolve ice.  I remember driving around town in a blizzard with Kirk trying to find a store that still had ice melt in stock.  When Kirk phoned Lowe's to find out whether they had any, he got a chuckle in response.  As we were having company that evening and our front walk was especially slippery, Kirk first tried to melt the ice with Morton Iodized Salts but soon found out that that wasn't very effective.  He proceeded to melt the ice with buckets of hot water which proved more efficacious but incredibly wasteful.  After who knows how many trips to the tub to fill up the bucket with hot water, we managed to secure our guests safe arrival and departure.  I went back to the local hardware store when they were expecting to get their next shipment of salts and bought a 20-lb bag, a modest amount which probably wouldn't last very long should we encounter another snow storm, but then again it might be sitting on the garage floor until next winter.  An update about the damage we sustained during the last storm - the branch was cut up and removed, and the lamp post straightened on the following day. I'm sorry to say that Kirk did not get the chance to buy a chain saw; I called in Eddie of the Helping Hands who speedily cleaned up the mess.   

The Iceman Cometh

Frozen path

We went outside this morning to survey the effect of last night's ice storm which swept past the Midwest.  We first noticed that there is a thin layer of ice embedded with broken branches and little ice blocks all over the driveway and walks.  Forget about 'shoveling' it at present!  I went inside to get my phone to take some pictures, and of a sudden Kirk dropped the unexpected "Oh Eh, we got damage!"  Sure enough, a large branch had fallen from the tree at the end of the driveway, knocked off a light pole, squashed some bushes, slightly damaged the gutter on its fall and just barely missed hitting the glass panel of our sun room.  Unfortunately, there is nothing much we can do at the moment; Kirk will have to get a chain saw or hire someone to remove the dead limb of the tree and reset the light pole when the weather clears up a bit.  Even so, we count ourselves lucky for not having sustained any other more serious damage.  The snow storm is still raging hard outside my window while I write; the glorious colors we had last summer seem like a dream of yore. 

Here is the plaque, commemorating the summer garden walk of 1991 which passed through our backyard, dangling on the light pole which was knocked off kilter by the falling branch. It says -

"A garden 

Soothes the soul
summer garden walk 1991"