Mushrooms in the Springtime

Celebration!  Friday evening the children of BBBH showed up here to honor her for being their mother.  They took her out for dinner.  Unfortunately I was not able to accompany them, but one of the kids brought me pizza!  Visiting went on until some hour past, probably well past, my bedtime.

Sunday afternoon her youngest child, Kent, showed up to take his mother mushroom hunting.  I was invited, but I opted for the comfort of the mattress.

They were not unsuccessful, for they did find mushrooms. (See picture.)  They were looking for the ever-elusive morel, of course, and it eluded them.

Scientific identification:  some sort of fungus on a stick.

April Showers

Sweet April showers
Do spring May flowers

--Thomas Tusser 1557  

                         Good Points of Husbandry

Or as we always said, "April showers bring May flowers."

As I was thinking of wishing you a pleasant April to come, this and the succeeding twenty-nine days, I recalled a little song we sang when I was in elementary school.  Why we were taught such things, I cannot fathom, but there it is, stuck in my mind.



Rosy Betsy, blue eyed Molly, Molly
April is the time for folly, folly
Blackbird's shouts ring round and round
While Jenny Wren is building in the Willow.

Put off your cloaks of grey and brown 
Run in you green shoes out of town
Run in the meadow up and down
While Jenny Wren is building in the Meadow.

 What nonsense that you learned in school is still stuck in your head?

May your flowers be bright and your feet be dry.  Happy April Days!

Groundsel

For years, I have seen the yellow fields in Springtime Indiana.  Being basically ignorant of botany and agriculture, I mistakenly assumed that the plants were mustard, and in some instances even imagined that they were literal rape (canola) crops.

Today I took the time to walk into a field and pluck a sample of this creature for closer study.  Imagine my surprise when at first look I saw not a blossom with four petals, but rather an aster-like cluster of flowers on each stalk.  To the interwebz!  A Purdue University site quickly made identification certain: Butterweed or Cressleaf Groundsel (Packera glabella formerly Senecio glabellus).

It’s everywhere!  It’s everywhere!

Look at that little dickens.  Would you look at that?

Spring Chores

Sunny and eighty, so we get nuts and mow the yard.   Plant a few seeds.  Then we really go crazy: wash all (14) floor-to-ceiling glass panels in the sunroom.  Inside and out.

We're tired.

But blessed in that we are able to do this stuff. Slowly, we admit, but we get 'er done.

What Was I Thinking?

From October until a couple weeks ago I was thinking, "C'mon, Spring!  Where's the Green?"

Well, the lawn has been mowed now.  Twice.  In one week.

And.

And knowing it would have to be done Saturday in spite of the fact that it was done the previous Monday, I went to the barn  mid-morning and started the chore of prepping the tractor.  Drained the oil, involving several trips to the garage, to the tool shelves, to... Looking for the right tools, you see.  Finally got the oil drained-- now what to do with the plastic sack full of used oil?  Then I had to go to town to get oil because I'd only half-quart on the shelf.  Installed new oil, pumped up a low tire, straightened a tie-rod.  Oh, boy!  Here we go.

No. We do not.

Go anywhere, I mean; because when I tried to start the engine, rr-klunk.  Battery charged.  rr-klunk snick, snick.

I wound up mowing the fenced enclosure with the walk behind mower, and I am not going to describe what that walking means to my aching bones.  You really do not want to know.

Had lunch, rested, went to look at new $$$$ lawn mowers.  I know, I know.  It has been thirteen years since we bought one, but what the?

So we came home and I mowed the front yard, and I am not going to describe.  Oh, wait.  I am perseverating.

So the mowing is done.  Well, except for the one-third of the lawn that is behind the barn.  To heck with it.


Is there an emoji that would represent vanilla boxing himself severely about the ears?

Picture Game

Today is the 18th day of the month.  I played this game to help me come up with a post for today.  I went to my "Pictures" album and counted down to the eighteenth folder.  I would have chosen the fourth picture for the fourth month, but the folder contains only two pictures very similar to each other.

This picture was taken on April 14, 2009. The RV was completing its first winter in Texas since we had traded vehicles the previous July.  We were on the way home and at the end of the first day of driving, we stopped in this park in northeast Texas near Jacksonville.  We and the deer were the only occupants and they did not seem in the least concerned that we chose to intrude on their territory.

Surely missed making the journey the past two winters, but Spring has arrived in Perfect, and that is Perfect!.

Green!

During our evening walk, I had been thinking "A week into April and the trees are not showing green.  What's the deal, anyway?"

We turned the corner to head across the field back toward the house.  I could see our row of austrees ahead, and against the grey of the evening sky, green!

Ever so subtle, but the trees are showing green.

Soon the neighbors will drill in the corn, the beans, and life's productive season will begin!

Renewal.

Ah, Springtime!

At dusk 

we walked 

in field behind

the house

My Love

my dog, and I.

Available light

quickly fading

borderline photography

but mood is captured. 

It is great to be

outdoors again!

Spring, springs, and spring

These early signs of Spring in the yard combined with a sunny seventy degrees in the air tended to get me all excited within the range of possible excitement for a jaded old man such as myself.

Seriously, I do feel excitement at the promise of the coming of Spring and a new growing season.  I can still feel, I am just less able to be expressive about it.  I mean, there is no dancing in the streets.




In reading from the Bible,  I find the term "spring" as I am using it here to be pretty much absent although the word "spring" appears numerous times.  In I Samuel 9:26 we find an injunction to rise in "the spring of the day" which might be interpreted as a Spring such as we are soon to have, but I think more likely the phrase could as well have been interpreted "daybreak."

The only other use of the term which might reference a season is in Ezekial 17:9 wherein there is mentioned "leaves of her spring."  All other uses of the term refer either to spring (n.) as a source of water, a very important thing in that semiarid geographic locale, or to spring (vt.) meaning to leap, or to leap forth.  In any event, I find the Spring time of the year to be most exhilarating.

The first picture shows the springing of the naked ladies, or resurrection lilies about which I almost always write at the end of July.  The second picture shows the lilac, the leaves of which are near to bursting open!

About three years ago I wrote about Achsah, Caleb's daughter, and the springs which were the object of her attention in the Book of Joshua.  If you wish a short Sunday morning devotional, revisit the account here.

"Give me . . . springs of water."  Joshua 15:19
.
The readings are from the King James Version

High Time, Too

One of the numerous puzzles we have done this winter.  This one, a reminder that winter shall not always endure.  This is the appropriate day for that reminder, too, for the temperature may well reach 60^o!  Maybe this everlasting snow won't be so everlasting, after all.

If you find that missing piece under your table, send it on over.

Really?

Yesterday

Today

Saturday: 78^o 

Sunday: 78^o

Monday: 68^o

This morning: 29^o  

Is this Mother Nature's April Fool joke?  She's late; but then, everything has been late this Spring.

I've Still Got It

Today dawned bright and clear.  It is the long-awaited day.  A balmy 55^o by 10:30 turned up to 64^o by mid-afternoon.

I accomplished both more and less than I had planned for the day.  I wound up doing a great deal more raking than I had planned, and a good bit less planting than I had envisioned.  There are only so many hours in a day, and only so much energy with which to complete tasks.

Following the raking came the removal of a dozen piles of sticks.

During the days of my youth, an old lady told me, "You can work hard or you can work smart.  Pick one while you are young enough to decide.  In my case, I got too soon old and too late smart."

Though I am not yet quite as old as she was then, I am old enough to understand what she was telling me.  But, I, too, am too soon old.

In my head, I heard the "quitting whistle" blow at 3:20.  It may only have been the screaming of the joints and muscles, but I took it to mean it was time to knock off for the day.  When yet a young man I worked in a factory where our quitting time was 3:30; but we were allowed to wash up on company time, so most of the guys headed to the washroom at 3:20.  Those who didn't?  They were on piece-work, turning out product by the job, by the job, by the job.  Hourly employees could not have cared less.

So then, the pay-day here is no more than the satisfaction of accomplishment.  But that is a pretty good paycheck for a fellow of my advanced years!

This is not an April Fool's joke; I really did work four or five hours yesterday.

A follow-up to the rant about video review of game calls appears over on Bob Warr.