Spring in the air

Saturday my husband and a friend worked on the yard. They weeded the front garden (which is, we hope, to eventually need no more maintanance than occasional pruning of the forsithias and watering, but isn't there yet). The friend sprayed the yard for the dandylions and other broadleaf weeds. Since perhaps two-thirds of our ground cover consists of these plants, we're expecting the yard to look pretty terrible pretty soon. It would be nicer to pull them out by hand in terms of not having the poisen spray, but completely impracticle. The basswood tree got pruned down to one trunk. It was a volunteer seedling from my parents' big trees that started in Mom's rose garden. My folks left it there for a few years, well, because they weren't sure the cherry in the garden was going to live, and they need some decently sized tree in that area to shade the front door. They've been trying for twenty years to get two cherry trees to grow at their house, and for twenty years have had just the one. This year it looks like the little one will bloom, too, and finally they'll get a good cherry crop.
So last fall they told us we could have the basswood if we'd just take it out of the rose garden. It had about fifteen trunks coming up from the base. We cut off all but the five straightest central trunks, dug it out as best we could (without damaging the roses or cherry, weren't sure we got enough root to keep it alive), stuck it in the ground here, and left it for the winter. Well, it's a hardy little tree and made it through the winter just fine. With the buds all swollen and green, the men decided it was time to thin it down to the best of the five trunks.
The tulips are all up in the front garden with their spiky leaves, and so are the iris. The forsithia are considering putting out leaves. I can't blame them for delaying a bit, between the snow last week and how severely the men pruned them back last year before moving them. (I can tell they're delaying because usually forsithia leaf before lilac, but the lilac next door has already leafed.) The ground cover ivy has sprouted, and the columbines are growing enthusiasticly. They all seem a little ahead of season to me.
Dad says that the winters have generally been getting milder here and spring coming earlier. Globle warming, he says. Well, perhaps so, but I'm still suspicious that it's just a temporary thing. Sun-spot cycles and all, you know. This year, instead of whining about drought, the farmers are whining about flooding. I suppose they feel it's their duty to whine about water.
Yesterday we planted the peas and parsnips out at my folks. Perhaps next week it will be warm enough for beans. It was horribly windy, a storm was blowing in. I strongly suggest not to try to plant parsnips in the wind. The seeds are perfect little kites. There might be some lovely parsnip plants coming up on the little rise west of the garden where the wind blew the seeds it snatched out of my hands. But the storm was good in other ways: we got done planting just before the rain started, and seeds do like to be watered.

Spring in the air

Saturday my husband and a friend worked on the yard. They weeded the front garden (which is, we hope, to eventually need no more maintanance than occasional pruning of the forsithias and watering, but isn't there yet). The friend sprayed the yard for the dandylions and other broadleaf weeds. Since perhaps two-thirds of our ground cover consists of these plants, we're expecting the yard to look pretty terrible pretty soon. It would be nicer to pull them out by hand in terms of not having the poisen spray, but completely impracticle. The basswood tree got pruned down to one trunk. It was a volunteer seedling from my parents' big trees that started in Mom's rose garden. My folks left it there for a few years, well, because they weren't sure the cherry in the garden was going to live, and they need some decently sized tree in that area to shade the front door. They've been trying for twenty years to get two cherry trees to grow at their house, and for twenty years have had just the one. This year it looks like the little one will bloom, too, and finally they'll get a good cherry crop.
So last fall they told us we could have the basswood if we'd just take it out of the rose garden. It had about fifteen trunks coming up from the base. We cut off all but the five straightest central trunks, dug it out as best we could (without damaging the roses or cherry, weren't sure we got enough root to keep it alive), stuck it in the ground here, and left it for the winter. Well, it's a hardy little tree and made it through the winter just fine. With the buds all swollen and green, the men decided it was time to thin it down to the best of the five trunks.
The tulips are all up in the front garden with their spiky leaves, and so are the iris. The forsithia are considering putting out leaves. I can't blame them for delaying a bit, between the snow last week and how severely the men pruned them back last year before moving them. (I can tell they're delaying because usually forsithia leaf before lilac, but the lilac next door has already leafed.) The ground cover ivy has sprouted, and the columbines are growing enthusiasticly. They all seem a little ahead of season to me.
Dad says that the winters have generally been getting milder here and spring coming earlier. Globle warming, he says. Well, perhaps so, but I'm still suspicious that it's just a temporary thing. Sun-spot cycles and all, you know. This year, instead of whining about drought, the farmers are whining about flooding. I suppose they feel it's their duty to whine about water.
Yesterday we planted the peas and parsnips out at my folks. Perhaps next week it will be warm enough for beans. It was horribly windy, a storm was blowing in. I strongly suggest not to try to plant parsnips in the wind. The seeds are perfect little kites. There might be some lovely parsnip plants coming up on the little rise west of the garden where the wind blew the seeds it snatched out of my hands. But the storm was good in other ways: we got done planting just before the rain started, and seeds do like to be watered.

April 19

Today is the day I leave the radio off. I don't go to news sites on the web, either. Today, I don't care who's blowing what up, or starting revolutions, or what-have-you.

For today, it's enough that the sun is shining, there's a child sitting on my lap, and my husband remembered what today is. He coached the boys, too:
"Happy Birthday, Mommy!" Beau said.
"Happy Birffday to you." Hemi sang, coming in behind his brother.

My husband, being older than me, likes to tease me about how young I am. Today I could tell him that I'm now the same age as he was when we got married. He protested that he wasn't. I reminded him that his birthday falls the week after our wedding, so yes, indeed, I am.

This 'n that

The weather is being typical, rain over our house, blue sky and sunshine on the mountains to the south.
Dad was supposed to be released from the hospital three hours ago, but no one is at my folks house yet. I hope the hospital is just being its usual slow, paperwork impaired, nightmerish bureaucractic mess.
Tomorrow we have a pancake breakfast at church, if we're feeling well enough to go. After a couple days of this cold, I think it should have let up enough for us to attend. (I'd rather eat someone else's cooking, and if you saw the state of our kitchen, you would, too!)
When I talked to Dad this morning, he didn't know if he would need an oxygen tank to take home with him. (He has an oxygen compressor at home all ready, but at sixty pounds and requiring a power outlet, it's not quite portable.) If he needs to stay on oxygen, and they prescribe him a tank, then we'll probably eat out for Easter Dinner. If he needs to stay on oxygen, and they don't prescribe a tank (a possibility since he does have the at-home machine and they might not want him out and about), then we'll probably skip it this year. Mom is not up to cooking, neither am I. My husband is an excellent cook, but Dad is not supposed to eat carbohydrates except in very limited amounts (about the equivalent of a half a small baked potato per day) and my husband's staple cooking ingrediant is rice. (If we could get it, it would probably be fermented ground casava, but that's unavailable here.) My husband comes from a one-pot cooking tradition.
It's been a really long week. I did make-up lessons with two of my students on Thursday and Friday, plus Wednesday's regular lessons and today's. Oh, and yesterday was a midwife's visit. Baby's heart is audible now with the little tool they have to amplify it. Baby sounds fine. I met the other midwife, she seems a little older than the first, both seem very nice. Said she hoped I didn't have a bigger baby this time than last time. I just sort of shrugged: big babies run in both families. There's not much I can do about it.
We were offered a crib today by one of my students. "Thanks, but we've already got one." We won't use it until the baby's at least six months old anyway. We've had good results with the first two having them sleep in the car-seat carrier next to our bed. I can reach them to nurse easily at night, and since staying awake during a night-time nursing is beyond me, in bed's the safest place to do it. I'll wake up when the baby's done and put it back in the carrier, all safe and snug. The boys have both felt secure on their backs on the carrier because it's so close around them so they didn't startle and wake themselves up.

Health Update

They admitted Dad to the hospital last night after finally doing a scan (ultrasound, I think) of his lungs and determining he has a pulminary embulism. This is his second. Now why they didn't do this back on Monday . . .
He does also have congestive heart failure, that diagnoses was correct.

Mom stayed home from work all day and slept. I just talked to her on the phone and she feels much better and is going in to see Dad. I stopped by this morning with a science fiction novel, a crossword puzzle book, a newspaper, and a notebook so he could get some work done.
I also picked up the dog from the vet and took him home. Mom was glad to see him, and he was glad to see her and the other dog.

The boys have a cold. I am coming down with it. We all hope my husband (who, if you've been keeping score, is the only healthy member of the family) does not.

Altogether too long.

I was planning to post yesterday but . . . at nine in the morning my dad called, could my husband take him to the hospital? He felt short of breath and just generally bad. The docs let him go home yesterday afternoon. He's been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Mom came down with stomach flu, so I ended up handling much of the outside-the-hospital-coordination.

Hemi is at that awful defiant stage. Yesterday afternoon he threw a book across the room in an act of pique. I told him "No, don't throw books." He threw himself down on the floor to scream and bang his head. I'd had enough of the temper fits, so I pulled him back up, put his little hands down at his side, and told him he could scream as much as he liked as long as he stood with his hands at his side. Well! It was an hour and a half before he finally gave in and stood quietly with his hands at his sides. Clearly he thinks he is the boss, and I've got to work on that attitude of his. Two is quite old enough to behave tolerably when he doesn't get his own way, and he'll be two the end of this month.

So with the one thing and the other yesterday, we didn't get outside to play and I didn't get much done. This morning was gym class, and Hemi behaved better than usual, but not really well yet. I suspect I'm going to have a few more major battles with him. I do find the advice on this website helpful: http://www.raisinggodlytomatoes.com/

My husband dug up half the vegetable garden space on Saturday, if the weather holds dry enough he'll do the other half this Saturday, then I'll arrange the horse manure with our friend who's got some to get rid of. The seedlings are growing great guns: everyone who comes by admires them.

The folks at the Butcher Block are now taking orders for organic produce. I placed mine today when I picked up our fish and meat. NPR had a very interesting interview on the subject of how what Americans eat has changed in the last forty years on Radio West today. We do like that show host, Doug Fabrizio is his name. He does a very good job of keeping his own biases out of his interviews. Not perfect, but very good. Better than any other show host we've heard. He has folks with a wide range of opinions on his show. Did you know that corn syrup was invented in the '70s, and was first introduced into food (Coca Cola) in 1980? Or that Americans eat 63 pounds of corn syrup per capita each year?

I can't wait to be able to plant the garden and get our own fresh vegetables. Cheap and fresh picked, what could be better? Oh, I already got my first sunburn of the year, fortunately not a bad one. I sat outside for half an hour while my husband worked on the garden. Oops! I didn't realize even I'd burn that fast with SPF 15 on. It's gone now: I slathered it with cocoa butter lotion, and it had vanished by Sunday morning. It's April 11th, I have another month and three weeks to wait to plant. Well, it might be okay to plant lettuce a little earlier than that, but the tomatos and stuff have to wait. I'm getting impatient. I'll have good big plants by then, for certain.