Memorial Day Weekend

An exhausting long weekend of yard work and a little bicycling.

I took Friday afternoon off from work to get an early start to the spreading of five cubic yards of mulch that had been plopped in our driveway earlier in the week. We've been weeding and trimming and planting and mulching in an effort to keep from having the ugliest most weediest and neglected yard in the neighborhood. Since we haven't been using pesticides, we are blessed with all sorts of larvae and an unusually diverse flora in our grass.

Saturday while Cindy was working, Quinn and I worked in the yard. He ran the weed whacker and the mower and helped me spread mulch and trim trees and shrubs. He worked really hard all day. Abbey was off having a roller-skating nightmare, but that's her story so I won't tell it here.

This is sort of funny, but sort of not: Quinn and I were sawing some of the lower branches from a huge pine tree in the back corner of our yard when our neighbor with whom we share the short property boundary came out, quite upset. I had recognized that some of those lower limbs extended over his property and his garden, but was only trimming the lowest branches that were reaching the ground, and I didn't think it would have a large visual or shading effect on his yard or ours. The area under that tree was getting brushy and weedy, and I actually thought that, given their well-manicured lawn, they would appreciate our efforts to clean up our part of that back corner. Of course, their dogs have been digging holes in our yard under the pine tree and under our apple tree. And pooping there. Anyway, Quinn was doing the sawing when the neighbor came out and asked that we please not trim any more. He was polite, in a law-enforcement sort of way, but notably upset at the "ruin" of his garden. Before the weekend was done, he and his wife had substantially extended the flower bed in that corner and planted quite a number of arborvitae and other smaller shrubs in an effort to regain the "loss of privacy." Truthfully, I felt really bad about it, and it caused me quite a bit of stress all weekend. But I was also quite surprised that opening up about three feet of space under a single tree, giving them some additional view of our bushy back yard, was so devastating. To see a picture of part of the tree, check out this picture from a previous post. The tree that Quinn and I trimmed is the big pine to the left of the apple tree on the far left edge of the picture. It's quite astounding to me that they were so upset by this, particularly considering that they allow their dogs to poo and dig holes in the back corner of our yard. We made an attempt to smooth things over by going and talking with them this afternoon as they worked on their garden. They were civil, but didn't make much effort to conceal their irritation at being forced to plant a large number of new trees and shrubs. Since we could be neighbors for years to come, I'll do my best as we work in that back corner to try fill in our side with shrubs or bunch grasses that will help restore their privacy.

On Saturday we took a much needed break (mostly) from yard work and went for an exhausting tandem ride. We've had so much going on, and such poorly timed thunderstorms, that we've not had the Burleys out many times this year. The Eastern Tandem Rally isn't much more than a month away, so we've got to get our butts broken in. We made the ride down to Mason with one stop at the park for a little playground time and a stop for ice cream at Dairy Hill. The weather was ridiculously perfectly warm and sunny, and only a little windy. We had a good time, and the various modifications we've made to the Burleys seem to be working very well. We logged about 36 miles that day, and were gone for a total of four hours.

This morning, we finally let Abbey go to the grocery store by herself. She's been bugging us to let her try it for months. Maybe years. She road off on her bike with a few dollars and my cell phone in her backpack. It's only about a half-mile ride, all within our residential neighborhood. It went fine. After about a half-hour, she returned with a jug of juice in her backpack. Maybe it will be useful for us to have her able to run to the store for the occasional box of cereal or missing ingredient, but most likely the novelty will soon wear off.

I'd hoped to get in another short tandem ride today, but we spent the rest of the day working in the yard, moving mulch, weeding, and trimming. And worrying about those neighbors. At least the weather was nice.

The kids had piano lessons this evening. I took them to the lessons while Cindy went for a run. Quinn must have been tired: all through his lesson he kept getting overwhelmed by huge and uncontrollable yawns. He's awfully cute, but terribly, terribly ornery.

Happy Mother's Day!

Here's our Mother's Day message, wishing all those moms we know a happy motherhood!

To celebrate the day we decided to start by planting a garden. We put our garden on the bare spot in our back yard where there once was a playhouse. For the last few years it's held a pile of decaying oak leaves. It's about the sunniest spot we've got. We built a little 6x6 ft box with 2x6s to contain all the soil we wanted to add. The existing soil in that spot is a sandy clay with very little organic content, so we mixed in some bags of good soil along with the fully processed contents of last year's worm composting bin. There were still quite a few skinny little underfed wigglers at the bottom. Finally, to keep the rabbits out of the garden, we added a little fence around the perimeter. Our garden contains some tomato plants, peppers, carrots, and zucchini. We'll see how it works out. I keep checking, but I haven't seen a single tomato yet.



All the trees and shrubs at the back of the yard are flowering, so it looks really pretty right now. Our grass, in contrast, is thin, weedy, lumpy, and scraggly, just the way a lawn should be. Come to think of it, our old cat Maggie also fits that description.

We thought it would be nice if Abbey and Quinn recorded a Mother's Day duet on the piano. Mrs. Black assigned this piece, The Butterfly, to Abbey and Quinn a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't get written into their lesson books so we'd all forgotten about it. We remembered it yesterday, and they've been working hard this weekend to get it polished enough to make a video. Quinn's part is probably just as difficult as Abbey's, so relative to his skill level it's much more challenging for him. But it's the first duet they've played, and it took some effort just to learn to coordinate.

We had to try this quite a few times, and I put in two of the attempts, just for fun.

River Trail

We are finally enjoying some good weather here in Michigan. Sunday was 68 F and sunny. We even found time to let the Burleys out of the garage. They were really excited and went bouncing all over the street like a couple of wild horses.

We thought we'd saddle up and ride the Lansing River Trail, but I guess the river was using it. We've seen quite a few spots where the river is getting into places it doesn't belong. I suppose the Kansans we know have it worse. In case you hadn't noticed, we're not in Kansas anymore. Maybe we should be, as there's not much going on in Michigan these days. Unless you like watching real estate values plummet. The river even flowed over our mortgage this spring.



As we pedaled down the trail parallel to the swollen river, several courteous folks pointed out to us that the trail was under water just ahead. Nice folks, these Michiganders. We might just have ridden right into the river without even noticing! Most of the time, people we meet on the River Trail are pretty friendly. Maybe it's just our cute stokers.

Beautiful weather, but if you're a six-old-boy on the back of a tandem, even at 68 F you might want a jacket. And sunglasses. You can still be obnoxious. Squirt some water on your sister.



It's funny to hear all the things people say about the tandems, especially kids.

"Wow, did you see that double bike?"
"Whoa!! A two-seater bike!"
"Aw man, I want one of those!"
"I didn't even know they made bikes like that!"
"Oh, how cute."
And the perennial favorite, "Hey, your kid on the back ain't pedalin'!"

Yup. It's pretty fun.

Expecto patronum...

I've decided that my previous post was a little too grim for the younger readers of the blog. And perhaps some of the older ones. I was having trouble with it, myself. I take responsibility for starting us down a rather dark path one dismal morning during a difficult week. Seeing the face of death on the roadway grabbed hold of my inner darkness, but the path of darkness was one I really didn't want this blog to follow. Clearly it grabbed the attention of the readers of the blog. Some were saddened and some expressed similar feelings in similar situations. Some have had experiences in which doing the right thing was a horrible thing, and perhaps made them feel like they might never be happy again. Many thanks to all of you who posted comments. I read and understood.

But there is plenty of darkness in our lives these days, and I've decided I don't really want to write about it or read about it here anymore. Those whose comments have been either wiped away or never saw the light of day, please accept my most sincere apologies. Interesting comments are always appreciated, and I hope you'll be willing to post comments on future posts.

I'll do my best to focus here on the positive, and overcome the cold and dark, even on days when reality comprises the cold and dark.