danajohnhill.org » Garden

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Dana — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:25:17 +0000

To get to my yard, of course. [Click picture to play video.]

There is a nightly visitor to the garden here, and the cats do not seem to mind. I do wonder what Bela is thinking. Does she understand that this other animal is a bird, and that cats are supposed to want to eat birds? Does she think it is perhaps another large and very ugly cat? Does she know it is a chicken, but realize that even if she did attack it, it could easily fend her off? Or does she think she could defeat it, but has no interest, since she receives her meals everyday with no effort on her part? Some time ago we had an armadillo in the back yard and she seems to look on it with pity. We had a raccoon as well, but never witnessed their interaction.

Did I mention I live in a city, and not on a farm?

You Can Never Go Back

Dana — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:48:55 +0000

I was just outside watering the flowers in front of the house when the cool breeze and sunlight shining through the oak trees mixed with the sound of bluejays, and made me feel for a moment as though I were back at the site of my most sacred childhood memories–my grandparents’ old house in Dade City–on an Easter Sunday.

How is it that our memories make us feel at once so young and so old?

Oh, Fay

Dana — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:36:27 +0000

It has rained all day today, which is remarkable, really. I would have to guess that we’ve had five inches of rain. The winds this afternoon have been strong, though not especially steady. Mostly it’s been rain blowing against the windows, but at about 5:30 this evening I was sitting on the couch and heard a snapping sound behind me. I found that the wind had broken a small limb on one of my Eastern Red Cedars in the front yard, and knocked down the arbor beneath it. There’s no serious damage, but my cedar trees are pretty shabby to begin with, so this doesn’t help. I haven’t looked out back where there are eighteen oaks of assorted varieties, which will use any excuse to jettison limbs, so I might have some unpleasant surprises there. Meanwhile, I got a text message from the University this afternoon–they have an automated system–saying campus was closed tomorrow. I am not scheduled on Fridays anyway, but if I were I’d have to go: when you work for a public radio station it matters not if there is rain or snow or sleet or any of that jazz.

I hope everyone is keeping safe.

August Is the Hottest Month

Dana — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:34:29 +0000

I can scarcely believe that it is the first of August, the swelteringest month of all the year.

Naturally, August 1 affords me a sense of relief, since it means that I have but one week left of Summer B at the University. In retrospect, three classes was a big mistake. I’ll do well–straight As, maybe–but it has come at a high cost: neglect of friends, chores, television, hobbies, etc. I would say that the eye of the storm has just passed, though, since I have already turned in two of the four big papers I have due before next Friday. The last two, however, may be the worst two, since for one of them–Age of Johnson–I haven’t the slightest idea what to write about.

The end of the semester also coincides with the start of the 2008 Summer Olympics, which I have looked forward to with great anticipation. I love track and field, diving, men’s gymnastics, women’s beach volleyball, and, for some reason, rhythmic gymnastics, with the ribbon and the ball. Each successive Olympic games, too, I am more and more amazed at the improved television technology. In Athens they debuted a freeze-frame effect during the diving competition, where you could see the athlete’s entire dive in still pictures; it was fantastic. This will also be the first Olympics I watch in HDTV, though just barely, since the TV here has ruined my life, with its pronounced white line across the top third of the screen, above which every shape is distorted beyond recognition. Alas, this line falls precisely at eye-level for most human faces on screen. It actually makes watching television an unpleasant experience.

I don’t recall if I mentioned it before, but I briefly saw Sandi last weekend when she came to town for the afternoon. School work prevented me from spending any degree of quality time with her, and since most of the little time we were together was spent consuming Satchel’s Pizza, I felt like I didn’t really get to catch up with her as I’d have liked. She and Jeff went to Prince Edward Island this summer–making stops in New York City on the way there and back. This is the first summer in several years that I haven’t been able to make it down to see them in Miami, which is sadder now, since they bought a house within the last several months and it has a swimming pool! In any case, what I don’t understand is why I didn’t bother to get a picture of Sandi, Kathleen and Steve when we had lunch together last Saturday. I took a picture of Kathleen’s pizza, and the menu, but not my friends. My constant reading and writing has me off my game.

Last, but not least, the flowers in the garden are all blooming–at least the ones that haven’t been eaten by caterpillars–which is beautiful.

Today Is April First, and…

Dana — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:25:43 +0000

…Some of the azaleas still have flowers on them, making this year’s bloom longer than any I can remember, having started back in January on some plants; the jasmine is just starting to flower; and,

Today is the birthday of Sandi and Patsy Clothesline. Happy birthday to both of them.

Happy Easter!

Dana — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 18:34:50 +0000

This is the first Easter I haven’t spent with my family in a long time, which is sad, but the holiday was made much brighter this morning when Elke knocked on our door and invited us to an Easter Egg Hunt in her garden. I found one nest of treasure right away, but it got much harder after that. I finally spotted a chocolate bunny wrapped in gold foil stuck in the branches of a tree. In the end I had that bunny, plus some smaller chocolate eggs and some fruit-shaped candy in bright colors. I traded my chocolate bunny for a white chocolate one, and then we all posed for a photo with our winnings. The eggs the kids dyed were beautiful: brown with the imprint of leaves from herbs and flowers from the garden, and stripes from the skin of an onion. The weather is stunningly beautiful today.

Protected: Let There Be Lights

Dana — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:14:35 +0000

Protected: While Millions Were Getting Married…

Dana — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 03:25:39 +0000

Protected: I Conquered Nature

Dana — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:20:22 +0000

Rain

Dana — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:30:43 +0000

For now it looks like the rains have stopped, and looking around the house I am surveying the damage. Nothing severe. The nice fern, sitting in a pot beneath the eaves, was pelted such that it is looking droopy, but it will spring back. The impatiens appear happy, and so do the St. Augustine plugs I have planted. I’ve been waiting two years to see one of the rotten limbs on the live oak come crashing down, and when it finally did the day before yesterday, it did so not with a fearsome, obliterating force upon the Japanese magnolias, but with a relatively gentile swinging motion. Pulling it the rest of the way down will be challenging, since other delicate plants are at risk.

The rain has been very welcome. At our house we have gone without rain for what seems like months. April and May are usually dry months, but they had been so dry that we were several inches below normal precipitation levels region-wide, and at this particular location, even lower, since rains that fell on other parts of the county missed us altogether. But we got a couple inches this week, and that’s good news. Now we just need another two inches this month to be “average”, though I have pondered for a decade or more why they continue to say year in and year out how annual rainfall has been “below average”. If “below average” rainfall is the norm, why hasn’t the “average” changed?