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Saturday Cat-astrophe

 

It’s a lazy Saturday here. We’ll go to the orchestra tonight but for now we’re just watching the weather decide if it wants to be nice or not. 

The cats started their Saturday with a early-mid morning nap in the chair.  

In addition to chasing their cat food, they like to play with the laser pointer lately. 

I’m not sure why Ravel looks blue but they both get really wild chasing the red dot!

We’ve had a couple near catastrophes around here too.  Yesterday at school, we had an afternoon- long power outage.  I had just unplugged my crockpot of Sloppy Joe meat to take to our lunch potluck when the power flickered and went out.  Thankfully, I had just finished rehearsing with my students and my afternoon classes were all on another fieldtrip.  We’ve had at least 3 power outages since I’ve taught there and it is no fun.  The good news is there was no power, no bathrooms and no internet so we all left as soon as the students were gone!  That was a bonus at the beginning of a 3 Day Weekend.   

Doug will have to write all the details but he also had a near catastrophe involving our electric lawnmower, clouds of white smoke, a second attempt and yet another cloud of white smoke. 

I expect we will be purchasing a new lawnmower sometime this weekend as the lawn is half mowed. 

In between catastrophes, we’ll have plenty of time for relaxing, too. 

Planting Complete

The planting got completed on Sunday afternoon - just before the rain started.  We’ve had a couple periods of rain and sun so hopefully that will continue to get everything growing nicely. 

I was supervised from the house by a black cat and an orange cat who were very interested in what I was doing. 

Since we’ll be gone during some of the prime growing time, I was careful about what I planted this year.  We have an easily moveable pot of cilantro for all our salsa and Mexican food needs but no tomatoes this year.  That’s what the Farmer’s Market is for!

By the garage, we have Ganzia which have grown very nicely there in the past and a few leftover Dahlias. 

On the south side of the garage, I planted several packets of “drought tolerant” wildflowers along with some super tall sunflowers again this year.  The wildflower idea worked well last year as pretty much every weed can be considered a “wildflower”!  A new addition to this area this year is pumpkin seeds.  I wanted something that didn’t need much/any midsummer attention and Pumpkins were the winner.  We’ll see what happens with them. 

Dandelion (native wildflower)

The inspectors came out for a little while.

Last year, I planted some leftover flowers around our window well.  This year, this mysterious plant came up so I’m going to let it grow to see if I can figure out what it is.  It seems too healthy to pull. 

We’re back to Dahlias along the sidewalk this year.  After the Dahlia Debacle of 2014, I was very careful about which flat of plants I picked up at Gertens this year. 

These are our “cement covering” bushes we planted about 5 years ago.  They are supposed to be covered with snow during the winter.  This one looks great!

Unfortunately its neighboring plant did not fare so well.  We’re not exactly sure what to do so we’re doing nothing right now. 

After a long afternoon of checking my progress from every window in the house, these guys had to take a nap.  They are hoping Doug brings something extra delicious for them from the grocery store. 

To Be Or Not To Be Planted

 

Spring planting time is here so while I was playing the commencement ceremony with my band on Thursday evening, Sue went to Gertens in the rain to pick out the plants to be planted.

Instead of one big pot for the front porch, Sue settled on two of them watching over the front yard like gargoyles.

Our front bushes took a hit this winter and my not come back. We may have to replace them with more products from Gertens.

Dorene was surprised that I hadn’t yet mowed the lawn. I did it on Friday once the grass dried out some from the gallons of rain we’d been getting.

Here is a Japanese curry pack that I heated up for dinner the other night. You pour it out on some white rice for a delightful Japanese style meal. On my first morning in Japan back in 1997 when Sue went to her JET meetings all day, I ventured out into Shinjuku Station, the largest train/subway station in the world. During rush hour. I cannot explain why I didn’t get photos of the ocean of people flowing through the underground concourses. I sought refuge in a curry shop that was serving this brown curry at 7 am. That was my first meal in Japan.

Here’s a noble knave, a kind cat, a beautiful brother, a friendly feline

On our first night in Tokyo, while we recover from jet lag and before we meet up with Miho and Anthony in Shibuya, we will stay in Shinjuku. I may press for a curry breakfast. We’ll see.

Yesterday we met the Bergs in Eau Claire at Fuji out near Mall of the Oakwoods for a little lunch of Japanese food. We wanted to have a Japanese meal with Mike to show him what he can expect on a Japanese food menu. Then while the Bergs were picking up their new car, Sue and I walked around UWEC’s campus.

Gretchen Peters, who many 21 year olds were in love with back in the 1990s, still teaches music history. She’s married to Tim Lane the flute guy.

Here’s my old locker in the Fine Arts building.

And then we crossed the mighty Chippewa River on the footbridge.

The “footbridge” at the University of Minnesota is about four times longer than this one, is double decker with  light rail and a road on the lower level and the bikes and pedestrians on the upper level but is covered to protect the students form the wind and cold. Bluegolds are encouraged to get across this bridge as quickly as possible during the 8 months of winter.

After hanging out at the Berg’s house for the afternoon, we headed back on the superhighway to Minnesota. I wanted to take highway 10 but Sue was having none of that craziness.

Nigel.

Ravel watching the planting.

Spring, Sprang, Sprung

 

Now that my semester has finished I took the opportunity to pump up the bike tires with air and head out for a trek in yesterday’s fine spring weather. You can see here our Linden tree is greening up nicely. I spread some fertilizer on the lawn but haven’t yet cut the grass.

my lucky Freiburg mug

 

I rode to downtown St. Paul to check out the new St. Paul Saints minor league baseball park that was built on the site of a defunct razor blade factory. It is in lower town on Broadway Street hemmed in by I-94 and the highway 52 bridge.

 

We are calling it CHS Field because we have to--Cenex Harvest States paid for the naming rights. Cenex might be a fortune 500 company and they might be based in Inver Grove Heights – can someone check those facts for me?

 

Yes, I rode my bike right in the gate that was open and cycled all the way around the concourse. This is a nice little ballpark. The Twins, when they were looking for a location to build their ballpark looked at this site, too. I think actor Bill Murray owns part of the Saints. (again, will the fact checker check on this?)

There were some workers doing some final painting and paver work. I think the Saints open on Memorial Day weekend.

The entrance is right across from the St. Paul Farmer’s Market.

Then I tooled around the urban island that is downtown St. Paul – I basically rode a counterclockwise loop staying within the perimeter of highway 52, 94, 35E, and the River. I’m glad Sue was not with me as I rode the wrong way down many one way streets on the sidewalk. Sue would have called me out on two traffic violations. I also rode by The X to see if there was any playoff hockey hoopla going on. Aside from some news vans (Fox 9 and KARE 11) setting up, nothing was happening yet. The Wild lost 1-0 to Chicago last night to go down 0-3 in the series.