Assorted stuff

It's so hard for me to dust the cobwebs off my blog and come up with something to write about.  The older I get, the less things I do; the less I do, the harder it is to find something anybody would care to read.  So, you get springtime drivel.

Cliff and I can never understand why people go to such great lengths to rid their lawns of dandelions.  We love them.  I like to think of them as miniature suns decorating my yard and pasture.   

Cliff and I were with a friend the other day, and we mosied over to a church to see the lovely rows of tulips planted along the sidewalk.  As I admired them, I was thinking about the tulips in my weed patch flower bed at home, surrounded by hen-bit.  They are equally lovely, but of course the weeds do distract from them somewhat.  Doesn't matter; I don't judge a flower by its surroundings.  

Then the acquaintance we were with said, "Look at the weeds!"

The weeds were so few, and so minuscule, I hadn't seen them until she said that.  Of course my first thought was "What does she think of MY flower bed then?".  Later on, though, I felt a bit of pity for her, to think that she was looking at what I would consider a perfect bed of tulips and seeing only a few tiny weeds less than 1/4 inch tall.  After all is said and done, it just shows how different we all are.  You can imagine what a messy world it would be if everyone were a slob like I am.

Here's my lovely bed of tulips and henbit.  I planted those bulbs hastily last fall without working the soil:  I just dug a hole for each one with a shovel and covered them.  As soon as the petals fall off I'll pull them, since tulips usually get smaller and weaker each year when you leave them.  I might buy bulbs again this fall, or I might not.

The garden has shrunk greatly since last year, and what I do plant is sort of hit-and-miss.  I have little faith that I will keep up with a garden, even a small one.  I really don't have a lot of room for sweet corn, but I happened to remember you can plant corn in "hills"... six seeds to a circle.  Beyond the dampened hills in the picture, there are two tomato plants I put out early.  They haven't done a lot, because it was cool for so long.  Tomatoes like it warm!

I have some things already up in the garden:  radishes, beets, lettuce, and one of the three cabbage seeds I planted.  Strawberries are blooming, but they, too, are in competition with the henbit.  

I think our little girl is going to be in Iowa for the week, and I'm trying to figure out a cheap road trip we could go on for a night or two.  We'd have to be back by the weekend, since we are dog-sitting, but I wouldn't want to be on the road on Easter weekend anyway.  We shall see.  

In other not-so-good news:  I have a cold that is mostly in my throat, but has me feeling listless and short of breath.  I keep yawning, trying to get a deep breath.  I can't complain; I've only had one other very mild cold all winter.  The other sad news is that my favorite of the young tomcats we just had castrated two weeks ago has disappeared.  That kept me depressed yesterday all day.  When you keep barn cats, though, it's always a possibility.  Coyotes, foxes, and hawks consider cats and small dogs a food source.  Also, Grady had a habit of climbing into vehicles; he may have sneaked into a neighbor's car and ridden away.  I'm down to two-and-a-half cats now.  The one-half cat is Mama Kitty, who is probably on her way out:  She'll show up, stick around for several days, then disappear for several days.  That isn't normal behavior for her, but she's been doing this for the last six months or so.

Peace.