The Boat Fits…

…in the readjusted garage.

So little rain that the creek is running low and clear.

Plenty of room when you get rid of a lot of junk, especially when you have a narrow boat.

Lunch with Tom and Mary, indoors, at Paddy Coughlin’s in Fort. Small crowd, well spaced out, and, we can assume, all well vaccinated like us.

Finally, internet service has been restored. After observing the tech, I’ve realized I could have done the repair myself, though more slowly and without the fancy connectors. And, I’ll be ready for the next time I go nuts with the cutting pliers.

Pretty Chilly, Mostly Cloudy

And yet the garden flower bed extension got finished, and the garage paint job neared completion.

Operating with the best intentions but in thoughtless mode, yesterday, attempting to be helpful and to get the garage more presentable and paintable, I took a side-cutter to the tangle of wire that had accumulated there over the past decade or more. Thanks to inviolable law of stupidity, two of the wires I cut provided our internet service. Realization, of course, came a nanosecond after the snip.
My attempts at repair faltered when I hit some specialized ATT connectors, so a technician was scheduled, surprisingly for this afternoon. No sign of such a person, as of the present, however. So we continue to limp along using a cellular hotspot.

Trim and Pictures

Trim bushes and take a few photos, at the new house, on what was not really a work day. Nonetheless, the bushes got chopped, and James caught a grub, also known as a “grump,” but during lunch, in a moment of inattention, Paxton ate it, much to the chagrin of the hunter.

Sod Busting…

…and garage painting.

This is going to be a mini annual flower garden, which is a new idea for those of us who have a tradition of not being here much in the summer.

And, the garage is being transformed.

But also, time out to attend the Urban Forestry Commission’s dedication of a new purple martin house.

IMG_7991.jpeg

So Much Fun…

…I didn’t remember to photograph any of it.

Walked with Ben and James from Victoria Lane to Fowler Park and then around the east side of Fowler Lake to the Roots bistro. We observed robins eating worms, crabapple blossoms, tulips and daffodils, a garbage truck, a big transport truck loaded with sewer pipes, a fork lift, lily pads, and a guy trying to fish up-wind, of which there was plenty, and plenty chilly too. Luckily, we got a lift back home and didn’t have to plow home with the wind on the nose.

GroCo Day

Whitewater Grocery Company, that is.

Four year anniversary of the beginning of an attempt to form a co-op grocery store here in Whitewater. As owner #73 out of the current number of 743 I had become frustrated by the slow pace of progress. According to co-op guidelines, 780 members are needed before anything much can really happen.

I therefore, about a year ago, decided to stick my oar in, to try to goose the process—my philosophy being, of course, that a membership drive should actually have some drive to it, and that people like engaging in things rather than just picking up a brochure or a wooden spoon. I therefore developed a number of quizzes that passers-by can interact with. At today’s event (disappointingly small) my Goofy Food Quiz got a lot of laughs—and one new member.

Rain, Actually…

…and perhaps enough to do some good.

I spent the best part of an hour (even 30 minutes can be the best part under certain circumstances) out on (the front porch, this time, facing west) just soaking in the beauty of moisture, and every time that I thought, “well, that’s it for now,” I heard a rumble and the output increased. (N.B. I love deserts too, just not here and now.) The robins are beside themselves (or each other—I can’t tell which).
And now I can stop worrying about the immediate impact of climate change in the immediate vicinity, and begin worrying about something else, of which there is no shortage of subjects.

Plans B…

…in case border closed another summer. Whitehall pulling boat one part, and this could be part two.

IMG_7884.jpeg

Magazines sent by cousin Art, who built, and is now racing, his boat. I would like to build the same boat Art did, but perhaps I should check to see if there are any fleets in the area and what class they sail.

And, if you really want to hang onto your hamburger, this from Alexandra Petri, one of my favorite humorists.

No Bugs, No Berries…

…and not a worm to be seen.

IMG_7818.jpeg

This weird, cold and dry spring continues. Today a robin was pecking at the remains in the suet feeder. Chickadees on Pax’s water dish.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In The Garden

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad, —
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.
—Emily Dickinson

Serviceberry…

…shadbush, Saskatoon in blossom. The buds are silver before they break.

IMG_7859.jpeg

And the blossoming means the shad fish are coming from the ocean up the rivers in New England, although that has little impact on us here. The berries, when they arrive, on the other hand…
To Oconomowoc today, possibly for the last time, to help out while the parents closed on their new house in Merton. Looking forward to heading that direction tomorrow.