Cold!

Boy, is it cold here. My computer's desktop weather program says it's 39 ... and it feels like 31. This is May 31, folks. What's with 31? or even 39?? I worked in my garden earlier when it was more like April (except that it's nearly June) and then the temp dropped when huge black clouds moved in. Of course, they moved by with only a spattering of rain, pushed by impressive winds ... again. I've probably said this on this blog before, but years ago a science librarian told me that global warming wouldn't mean that Plattsburgh would become Miami, but rather that the weather would give us higher peaks and lower valleys, i.e., more extremes than before. And almost every year since I learned that, the fluctuations have become more severe. Right now, as I look out my den window toward the west, the sky is mottled gray and the wind is whipping. And I may have said this earlier, but gee whiz, it is almost June.

Of course, I remember the first few years after moving here from what was, in comparison, balmy Iowa. My girls were never in shorts before June. Looks like we're back to that system. Brrrr.

Just a short note; have to go to dinner with the people across the street, who have done us so many favors. It should be fun.

Facebook vs. the Blog

Boy, I don't think anyone is reading blogs these days. It's easier to post and read the short (and less introspective) entries on Facebook. I'm as guilty as anyone so I'm not sure if this is a complaint, really; rather, it's a somewhat sad statement of fact.

This is just to let you know that I do still read your blogs, and I promise I will try to write more often here.

We are such short-attention-span people. Sigh.

'Tis the Season

Peepers trill at night
Lilacs exhale their perfume
Open your windows
Well, that's my pathetic little attempt at haiku. It was brought on by my short trip home from the gym with my windows partly open (it's not that warm today!) and my car completely filled with the scent of lilacs in bloom--all the way from the edge of town to home. Glorious.

And two nights ago when it was warm enough for open windows, I got to hear the peepers in the pond in the woods behind the house.

So it IS spring. I thought I recognized the signs!

Unfortunately the photo doesn't catch the two soft pink columbine stems I cut from the plants outside my front door. They're hybrids and are really pretty. The black one should be in flower soon; it has nice blossoms. And my magnolia bush has a few floweres too--it's still pretty small. But I love the fact that someone who needed something so beautiful in this growing zone got down to business and hybridized a hardy magnolia. Take that, you Southerners! (AND we have spruce trees too. Flowering shrubs AND evergreens. Hmph. I'd like to see what you can put up to that!)

But on a much friendlier note, here's another of my favorites from the non-snow part of the year:



Dewdrops on hosta
(You can see it better if you look at a larger version of the picture.)
Just outside the porch door we've planted hostas. Almost every morning when I go out to get the paper, the leaves have big dew drops sparkling in the sunlight. It's just so pretty that it starts my mornings off well. They're big blue hosta and are really nice to have: very little care in return for lots of elegant greenery. Bruce is nuts about them and has planted varieties in a number of places. (I know we'll never compete with the Kruse Mfld garden but then again, we're not trying to.)

And my garden--well, I can see my creeping phlox in flower from here, providing a nice low backdrop for my small (but tough, tough, tough) flowering crabapple tree in full bloom. Those 1 1/2 - 2 hr. shots in the garden

I'm just so happy it's spring.

Kleibers in Texas

I went to a neat steak house in the teeny burg of Winchester, TX, on Friday night to celebrate the closing of Lana's home sale. The place was recommended by the guy who came to clean the carpets; he said he always made sure to take visitors there. The building had been something like a general store--a facade like you see in cowboy movies--and has been converted to a restaurant, and also houses the Post Office. Take a look: http://www.eatatmurphys.com/ (That door on the left in the picture on Murphy's home page is the Post Office.)

So anyway, there's what I thought was a neat display just inside the door of the restaurant that includes a section of old mail box doors, you know, the kind you have when you pick your mail up at the Post Office. Each one has a name on it. The first one I looked at, pointing at random and saying to Lana, "This is such a neat idea," had the names Tom (Tony? I don't remember) & Pat Kleiber. Well, Kleiber is my maiden name! And I'm from Wisconsin. And Kleiber just isn't as common as, say, Schmidt (or Schmitt or Schmit). So it was a real surprise! I knew there were Kleibers in Texas because when I was there in the '70s, there was an ad for a Kleiber auto dealership on a paper placemat in a restaurant somewhere down there. If I remember right, that restaurant was much closer or in the heavily German area--New Braunfels, et al.--and Winchester is between Austin and Houston. But it was so weird to hit that name on the first mailbox I saw! And then Lana said that that really was the Post Office! So apparently there are Kleibers in Winchester. I wonder if, but doubt that we're related.

But cool, no? And the steaks were pretty good. And the beer was great!

Ahhhh!

It is so good to be home. I didn't realize just how much I'd missed Bruce. And I forgot to mention last night that when we got homeI walked into the kitchen to discover a vase of pink alstromeria with a Welcome Home card from Bruce. Just how sweet is this man? Yup, about that sweet!

So I thought I'd let you know where my stepdaughter is now taking up residence. Here's the link to Oakhaven, a spectacular horse facility outside the city and half as long a commute for her as it had been to her ranch. Her apartment is in the smaller building on the left, a lovely 2-BR with 30' ceilings.


Here's the link to the Web site for the stables: http://oakhavenpartners.com/facility.html

My flights to and from were pretty uneventful except for the fact that JetBlue lost my luggage for awhile. I was paged at the baggage carousel when I arrived in Austin and told that my luggage had somehow missed the plane in Orlando that I had had to wait 3 hours for. I guess that time wasn't sufficient for my baggage handler to find it. But I refused to make Laura take me to the airport the next day to get the bag; it was supposed to arrive in the airport at 11:30 or so but I think it didn't get there till much later. So I was working working working in the clothes I'd flown in. Yuck. A very nice man delivered the bag at about 4:30 p.m. (I'd landed at about that time the day before.) So much for JetBlue being perfect!

But I've just taken a long break and planted things in my garden, picked out a million more oak leaves (curses on them!), tied up my clematis that grew from about 8" last week to about 30" today, and generally wandered around looking at all the things growing. We're having another real spring--maybe all global warming isn't so bad--and I'm loving it.

Back Home

I'm home from a week in Texas, where I helped to pack up the house of my step-daughter. Actually she sold her 63-acre ranch, the Dunbar Rose Ranch (I don't think that's its whole title but close).
It's a beautiful place with many roses ... and jasmine and spice bush and palms and philodendrons and ... And horses. She actually turned it into a working horse ranch where she kept her 8? 9? 10? polo ponies.
Because yes, she was a polo player. She says she's sworn it off and is moving to learning to jump. Oh good. From one dangerous sport to a perhaps more dangerous sport.

Here's an idea of what it looks like--I took these photos in 2007, just after she'd bought the place.



Meanwhile, the ranch was simply too much for one person to handle. Make that one woman who has a more-than-full-time job as an attorney expected to work 60-80 hour weeks. And who played polo as well as taking care of all those horses. Horses, I've learned, are like valuable, fragile and wrong-headed puppies who'll hurt themselves on a daily basis if left to their own devices for more than, oh, about 26 seconds. Luckily I'm far too old to be bitten by the horse bug now. I find them beautiful and sensitive and thoroughly someone else's responsibility!

I'm writing now because I'm just back and a little too wound up to sleep, but I'm starting to wind down so I'll sign off for tonight, but will try to be back very soon to talk about where said stepchild has moved to. It's amazing.