To The Zoo
Dog Fight
We have nice news neighbors, back left, a young couple, or what passes for a couple these days—fiancees, who are renting the newly renovated house that used to have students. Renting now, but thinking of buying. This is great news for the neighborhood, where the cancer of student rentals is slowly being reversed (thanks in part to our neighborhood association). The young fellow has two dogs, two boxers, one an older female, the other a big one-year-old male. The guy works with them every day, and they seem well trained and well behaved.
This afternoon he and his dogs were in their back yard and Pax and I were in ours, and we waved to each other through the bushes, then met in the middle for an introductory chat. The dogs milled around, sniffed a lot, and seemed to get along. During the conversation we moved into his yard, and Pax for some reason decided to do his little dominance act with the male. The boxer rolled over at first but then decided he was more interested in a fight, and the two went at it. We two humans had a tough time pulling them apart; I had to actually punch the boxer alongside the head to get him to let go; but no blood flowed and no visible damage was done.
Once the dogs were put away Blake and I talked gardening, which he is interested in trying. And, perhaps, the dogs can grow to appreciate each other.
I hope the grandkids don't see this as I am slowly teaching them that my name is Bubba and not Bubbie. But the real point is about sauerkraut and dogs. According to the book I am reading, Hal Borland's The Dog Who Came To Stay, some dogs, for example his, like sauerkraut. Deciding to test this theory I have put a glob of it in Pax's bowl. That was a few hours ago and it is still there.
Crocuses are up. The compost pile is slowly thawing. But we need rain. All is dry and brittle.
Redwing, Trailer, Ice
Warm and sunny spring day.
Redwing
New trailer (Craigslist).
Bye-bye Ice
Tuesday in April
Showers overnight. A damp but warm morning, followed by a cooler north wind and a good crop of springtime cumulus, which occasionally sent a few rain drops down to Earth.
Pounding Sand
Sunny and warm. High near 70. Pax and I took a bike ride to the prairie which heated him enough to require a jump in the pond, which required a hose-down once home. Fortunately, the hose had been reconnected now that its spring. And after the dog, Sue's car.
Pax and I found several of these on on morning walk. I suppose it makes sense; if you're going to litter it might as well be Earthchoice.
Spent a few hours pounding the old chiminea to pieces. The ancient Amazon indians turned sterile rainforest soil into highly productive gardens using charcoal (or biochar) and pottery fragments as soil amendments.
While I was in the garden I thought I'd rotate the compost—everything shifted one bin. Surprise, two inches down all frozen solid.
Everybody Outside
Not the most perfect day, but perfect enough. Upper 50s, moderate wind, SSE or SSW. Mostly sunny, though with high cirrus coming in after noon, washing out what little vibrance there was. Glass high, but dropping.
Perfect enough, however, for bikers and motorcyclists, jogggers and dog walkers, swingers and sliders. And for us—explorateurs—for whom it was Bark River. We brought the camera in spite of the fact that now is perhaps the most drab and colorless time of the year.
Whitewater creek runs into the Bark, and the Bark joins the Rock in Fort Atkinson (and The Rock joins the Illinois, and the Illinois joins the Mississippi, and so the water we walked beside ends up in the Gulf, which is the source of the world's finest oysters). And the long but narrow riverine park running for a mile or more along its bank is lined with red dogwood, ash, willow, and alder.
The flooded Bark.
Willow.
Frog...freshly released from five months locked in frozen mud...sitting in a patch of sun, completely intert but waiting to warm and revitalize.
Sunny With Visitors
Iceboat to the barn. Dog washed. House given a good airing. Bri and Ellie and Maddie, and Becca over for some play time and dinner. The first thing Ellie said when she got here was "we definitely have to go to the park."
