Wounded

Briggs has discovered the thrill of riding down the cross street and slewing into Old State Ten on his scooter. Last Sunday he wiped out. He drug the scooter into the yard and then started crying and limped inside. We cleaned him up easily enough: nothing but a couple of scrapes. But they hurt, and he really, Really, REALLY wanted bandages to make them stop hurting. (He's had a bandage fetish for years.) But I told him "no," that the wounds need to be able to breathe, and that bandages would not take away the pain. He was thoroughly ragged out by the whole experience and by 715PM, this was him. Please notice how the elbow and knee are positioned so that they won't get "re-injured!"

Lettuce

We planted six lettuce plants about 6 weeks ago. We've been able to have many salads off of them. About 10 days ago I picked all the junk off the base of the plants. Tonight I noticed they had all shot up and had many, many small tender leaves on them. Salads for lunch again this week! We've also got folks coming over for a pot-luck this weekend, with us signed up to provide a big green salad. Hope the lettuce holds up so we can use it for that meal also!

Our weekend

I've been sleeping and breathing songs and dialog from the children's musical The Troubabble of Zerubbabel for months. Our performance of it on Sunday evening went really, really well. The kids nailed their songs and their lines; the band was awesome. The crew did great with set changes and props. Our costumes were stunning; our "Adversaries" brought the house down! Here's one picture, but you can view a slideshow of the dress rehearsal and reception following the performance at the church's music blog. Thanks to all the kids, all the parents and everyone who helped make it happen.

Briggs knows most of the music and dialog because he had to be at the last five (long, intense) rehearsals leading up to the show. He brought a copy of the score home last night, and even carried it to school today to share with his chums. This morning at breakfast he reported that he couldn't get the music out of his head.

FWIW: Libby played flute in the band and Eli was one of the crew. If it wouldn't have offended a bunch of other siblings I probably would have stuck a keffiyah on Briggs and let him do the show. As it was, he watched with Calvin in the audience. But it won't be long.

Obama visit

President Obama and the First Lady vacationed in Asheville a few weeks ago. One of the things they did while in the area was visit Billy Graham at his home in Montreat. This took place on a Sunday morning. The motorcade was due by the church right at the end of church. We had a nice crowd of church folks lining the block in town. This is a pic of Briggs that afternoon.

Bird latest

Thursday evening I took Calvin to see the babies. He hadn't seen them up close. All fine. After a quick peek, I put him in his swing. As he was swinging the baby robins bailed out of the nest. They had apparently had enough of our being so close. They fluttered to the ground and did kind of a hop-fly action across the grass. Every other (adult) robin in the neighborhood starting screaming and dive-bombing us! It was amazing how much noise they could make. And the feathers on top of their heads flew up. Pretty cool if it weren't so unnerving. I got Calvin out of the swing and went to scoop up the babies and put them in their nest. They each tried to nibble on my hand, but I got them back in the nest. Today the nest was empty, but I am pretty sure I saw them lurking in the apple trees. I'm going to check right before sundown and see if they are still keeping residence.

Awesome stamp

I was going through some stamps I got from a friend this week and found this.

It was issued by Belgium in 1986 to mark "100 years of the beer." Or more accurately an anniversary of the nation's beer industry. Nice.

Funny, I can look at this over and again and not feel the need to run out and drink a beer. But you won't ever see anything similar on a US stamp. Pity that. Come to think of it though, I think there was a stamp depicting a cask being destroyed on a stamp commemorating the prohibition era. Spilled alcohol we can put on a stamp. More's the pity.

Prost!

Science art

Eli has been studying various systems of the human body this month: circulatory, cardiovascular, muscular, etc. Somehow he had some free time at school this week and came up with this.

He says it consists of the cardiovascular system, the circulatory system, the respiratory system and the nervous system.

The green thing at the bottom is a little robot-thingy that he drew as a bonus.

Beans and peas and carrots! Oh my!

Nine days later everything has popped through the surface! Above are peas, and below are beans. The carrots are also up, but the sprouts are so fine it's hard to see them against the dirt. But they are there, as are the melon sprouts. We'll string line this weekend so all the bean and pea plants will have places to climb. Libby also planted some nasturtium seed along the chicken wire fence. Those will be coming along soon. More later...

Bird update

The nestlings are covered with feathers. They puffed up when they saw me invade their space just now. Momma is still keeping guard. They seem to be doing well. I found this nifty site that describes baby bird development using robins as examples. Wish I had thought to get more pictures earlier on.

Rainy weather

We've had rainy weather the past few days, mostly short, strong storms in the evenings. Today it rained off-and-on for most of the day. By late afternoon, though, it looked like things were going to clear off.

I was leaving to pick-up Eli from Scouts when I noticed this portion of the sky. This hill is south of Interstate 40 from us, and a couple of friends live up there. It's no more than 1/2 mile away. Also, there is a water tank about halfway up the hill. It's hard to tell but fog has settled over the topmost portion of the hill, lopping off maybe 50 feet of elevation. With clear blue skies, just a little further up. The big tree on the left is in our yard.

Eli's Scout troop meets in Montreat, a mere 2 minutes up the valley. By the time I got back, this was the view of the same spot. The clear sky is gone, and the hill across the way is completely socked in. The temperature has dropped quite a bit also. The same tree from our yard, but to give a sense of perspective, the line of trees that borders State Street as it heads toward Ridgecrest. That tree line is about 100 feet from the house. So, as you can tell, the mountain is gone!

I'll try to remember to get a picture in the morning if, as I guess, things are even more thoroughly shrouded in fog.

Click on the images to get a closer look; you should also be able to zoom in. This will help see the detail of the fog on the mountain-top in the first picture.

Cutey

Calvin was heading out into the yard to play a few days ago. It was cloudy, and damp after a shower, I think. Anyway, he came to the door attired thusly. That's Eli's cap on his head and my sandals on his feet (on the wrong feet). But Calvin thought he was something else!

Bonus plants

The whole yard was a mess when we moved in. Two years ago I finally conquered the back corner where these roses are. They had been covered over by all kinds of junk. I mulched the whole area, and thinned out the junky weeds. Last year these little roses said, "thank you." This year they screamed it. I may have to go back in here and thin them down. The aroma, though, is divine.

There are a few of these toadstools in the mulched area of the back yard. This area is more open and tree-shaded. There are a couple of these at the moment, but I could see more ready to pop through the mulch.

Just a few feet away are these, next to a dead limb. I'm not sure what prompted their development, but they seem to like where they are!

Vegetable Garden

In 2008 we started with a space about 10x10. Last year we went to 20x16 and under-utilized the space. This year we staying with the same square footage, but are committed to using it better.

Last week I tried to come up with fencing that would thwart animals, but not necessitate a gate. So far so good. I haven't seen the groundhog that lives under the barn yet this year. We suspect him the in the great broccoli raid of 2009. Last week we added peas, beans and carrots by seed. We also planted 4 cucumber seedlings and a tomato plant.

Libby got lettuce and cabbage in the ground early. We've enjoyed several tasty salads.

Fruits

In addition to the strawberries in the perennial bed we have these:

There are a couple of apple trees in the back. They produce a red apple that's pretty mild. Not much flavor raw, but they cook very well.

There are four blueberry bushes. I really meant to prune them back in February, but the moment got away from me. I tried to root cuttings back in the fall, but that failed. If we want more, I reckon we'll have to buy them like other folks. We'll have to cover these soon with mesh to keep the birds away from them.

Then there is the pear tree in the front. The first couple of years it didn't do anything. Last year it was full of fruit, and we couldn't keep up. Looks like this will be a good year also. A branch near the top of the tree that snapped during one of the winter storms, but I don't have a ladder tall enough to get at it and cut it out. There are couple of previous broken limbs also, that have kept on bearing fruit. But I think the tree would enjoy getting rid of the limbs that grow upside down!

Perennial Bed

This is the perennial bed at the front of the lawn. There was a huge rosemary shrub in here, but it died in the harsh winter.

The strawberries made it though, if somewhat reduced in vigor.

We put this rose bush in last year.

The peonies were gifts from Charlotte S. and Betty H. They are doing really well.

Libby's put herbs in a container on the side of the house.

There's also this orange bush. I forget exactly what it's called; we brought it with us from Richmond.

Birds

We've seen a lot of bird activity this spring. Mostly pigeons, grackles and robins.

A robin built a nest in a storage bin attached to the boys' play set last month. I got rid of a lot of it, knowing that because the boys were out there a lot, the birds would be sorely disturbed. Sadly the parents re-built the nest in a matter of hours. And I missed it. Next time I looked there were three eggs.

They hatched throughout last week. On Tuesday one of the babies fell out into the sandbox and died. These two are holding their own, though. The momma flies away every time someone comes near, trying to lure them away. The boys have taken it upon themselves to cut back some on the amount of time they spend near the nest area, to give the babes a chance to thrive.

In memory of Bud

My dad always got a kick out of ferns as they opened up in the spring. Here's one around our shed.

Painting

Briggs made this last week at school. It reminded me of stained glass. I turned it into a puzzle here. It had 10 solves and a positive comment within 10 minutes!