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 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. 
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