Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

LCCB concert is this weekend. It will be fine. There's too much fast stuff that I haven't had a chance to get really good at (so I'll be doing a lot of getting every other note), and the Glenn Miller medley is horrible -- badly arranged and poorly played. (I did get a bit of a chuckle out of the main things that the clinician mentioned - people don't listen to other parts, and the only time the band actually plays softly is when there are only a few people playing - because those are the things that I've been complaining about since I joined. hee.) As far as I can tell, I will be playing Bsax in the summer session. Whee? I mean, it's my preferred instrument, but I get tired of hauling it around to all the summer gigs. This year, they've rearranged the schedule a bit, and two (lightly attended) park gigs have been either removed or replaced with outreach concerts, so that will be a bit easier. I will still miss the last summer gig because I'll be in Interlochen.

Still wearing many hats at work. Still waiting for Sup to schedule a moving day. (Maybe I'll poke TE myself.) GC for the office remodel returned the keys yesterday, and then yesterday afternoon we discovered that the AC unit for the old building wasn't running. Thermostat says "cool", info panel on furnace says "cool", compressor not running. HVAC guy is already scheduled for next month sometime (annual system checkup), and it will be annoying to have him out twice. Maybe he can do the system check when he comes out to check on the AC. And there's a clog in the drains somewhere between the building and the septic tank. The question is exactly where? upstream or downstream of the clearout? not my problem.

Starting to really work on the garden. Finished half of the E bed (the area that I didn't get to in the fall); and raked leaves out of the NE garden, although they're still piled on the lawn because I got called away for other things. I'll go finish that this morning before the rains come. Tomorrow when I'm out I need to get more garden gloves. I bought a pack of inexpensive ones four or five years ago, and the last pair is getting a bit ragged.

J cleared grass out of the pond early in the week, and he said he didn't see any frogs, but the last couple of days there has been a toad chorus (at least three!) in the pond area, and today it really sounds like frog "chatter", not birds or toads, so maybe they were just hiding.

The cranes are still hanging around in the backyard, although there's now an adolescent and an adult, rather than the pair of adults we had earlier -- one is considerably smaller than the other. One of them got spooked this morning while I was in the kitchen and crashed through the birch tree on its way up.

There was a flock of turkeys in the yard this morning when I went out to pick tomatoes -- two or three adults, three larger-but-not-full-grown chicks, and a mass of poults (scrambling too fast for the field to be counted, but at least ten).

The frog count has settled out at "lots". :) DB and I got to 15 on Sunday evening before one spooked and 'bloop'ed which led to a bunch more doing the same.

The funeral meal went well, other than underestimating the number of people by 25% or so. We'd guessed at 70, and fed 90+ (there were 150 in the church for the service, but many had not planned on staying for the meal after -- good thing, because we don't have that many tables and chairs, even if we set up outside). We nearly ran out of meat and cheese, did run out of the fruit tray, had to send out for more tomatoes, but nobody went away hungry. I grabbed the wrong pair of shoes and wound up with a blister on my heel. I guess I'm wearing sandals for the rest of the week.

There are bitty frogs in the pond -- at least half a dozen, all about an inch long.

The cranes seem to have moved in -- they're in the yard almost all day. Their poo is not as bad as goose or dog, but I still don't want to step in it. The frogs stay hidden when the cranes are near the pond, but otherwise they don't care much.

DB has been working in the theater spaces at the schools for the last couple of weeks, and worked sound for the first few days of VBS this week. Bad timing on someone's part -- he'd have been willing to work all of VBS if it hadn't been the same week he was sorting/building/cleaning at school. J filled in on the days DB wasn't there -- he'd have been there anyway on Wednesday, as a tree branch came down on the powerline that goes by the church and the entire corner (including us!) was without power. J went over with the generators so they'd have lights and sound.

I have more plants for the garden, and a plan for where to put them, but probably won't do that until next week, when it cools down a bit. Transplant shock plus heat shock is a good way to kill a plant.

SR leaves for Taiwan on Sunday -- she'll be there for at least a year, teaching English (vocabulary & conversational) at a 'cram school' in Taipei.

There is one more FCB performance this season (Monday, 7pm, Riley Park in downtown Farmington), then most of the band gets six weeks off -- a bunch of us are going up to Band Camp at Interlochen, though. I have music and bins to transport to the concert, and may have custody of some auxiliary percussion until September if we can't get in to Harrison after the concert.

The FCB season is winding down. Yesterday was the annual "sardine packing", where we cram 70+ musicians on a stage that's crowded with 40. A week ago (Monday), we played outside. I have heard rumors that we may be making up the cancelled library concert sometime later this month, but those are vague. There is one scheduled performance left, the season finale at Riley Park in Farmington.

The counting of the froggies is five.

I really should go and weed, but it's chilly and humid -- there's a storm system moving in, too. And the neighbor is mowing his lawn -- he's better than J about not running over things, but I spent too many years living with a 60" mower deck and I don't want to get hit by flying sticks or pebbles.

I didn't get any weeding done over the weekend, as SR and I went to Greenfield Village (where I got a FCB costume idea) on Saturday, because we hadn't visited yet this season. It was the Ragtime Festival, so there was lots of music. Some of it was good.

Plans for the Annual Picnic remain nebulous. J says he's going up, but I have no idea when he's leaving, or who is going with him. We shall see.

Froggie count is ten, all visuals, plus a possible blorp.

The weeds are still growing, and I've been slowly getting to the flowerbeds I ignored much of the summer (when they weren't too weedy, but now the summer flowers are beginning to fade and the weeds are taking over). Yesterday I "fluffed" the geranium in the front flowerbed -- they're sprawly things anyway, and a couple of wind/rain events had flattened this one out, so I fluffed it. It looks much better now. There's still weeds to pull in that flowerbed, but I disturbed an anthill yesterday. So it will wait until tomorrow when the ants have calmed down and the weather is better.

Today is a football game. Whee? It's predicted to be the hottest day of the year, with the heat breaking "sometime" in the afternoon. With storms, of course. Yesterday's JV game was postponed due to a storm that rolled through in the late afternoon, and I wouldn't be surprised if they did the same thing today. The visiting team isn't coming from that far away, and the weather tomorrow is supposed to be gorgeous.

I have no idea what I did to my back, but I've been having a lot of numbness in the already compromised areas. Do not like, especially with a football game tonight.

The black cat is sleeping on my bed again. So, yes, my bed is still not made.

Into the workroom -- I need to replace my bags for band, and first rehearsal is Monday.

Saturday we went to the (Detroit) zoo. There were only a few animals off exhibit due to the weather -- the ground was still a bit too cool for a couple of the more tropical animals. Lots of turtles basking, and ducks and swans nesting.

Sunday it rained most of the day. So much for getting into the garden over the weekend. It's probably too wet to get out there today, although I will check later.

Last night I heard the first froggie of the year (I think it was actually a toad, but they're all "froggies"). I knew that we hadn't lost all the amphibians in the pond, as one went scurrying for cover a couple of days ago as I walked past the pond, but I hadn't seen or heard one. (still haven't seen one, but that will come -- if the sun comes out today, I'm sure they'll be out.)

The small lilac in the front yard is just about ready to leaf out, as is the willow tree, and the rowan has fuzz on its leafbuds. The double daffodils in the NW bed bloomed Saturday, but that's pretty much all the new flowers -- the Chionodoxa (snow glories) and anemones and wind flowers in the side bed bloomed mid week.