WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

Well, Jeepers Creepers – Cruisin’ Downriver is upon us again. I went the inaugural year – 1999, and, while it was unique and fun to see all the old cars driving by, it soon got a little tiring – same old cars, incessant burning rubber, ad nauseum honking and one too many wheelies. It was a hot Summer day that year and the exhaust fumes got fairly intense and the air was clogged up and hard to breathe. The original Cruise had a carnival atmosphere at Memorial Park with oldies bands playing at the Bandshell and people dressed in 50s garb. There were vendors galore and I spent more time than I should have at the elephant ear cart. I’ve never gone back, but this event draws the crowds who flock to Fort Street, rain or shine and searing temps or not. Cruisin’ Downriver is our contribution to the annual cruise events, and is sandwiched in between Cruisin’ Gratiot and Cruisin’ Telegraph, and of course the granddaddy of them all, the Woodwood Dream Cruise. It was not hot today, nor was it sunny, and I suspect a lot of photo ops were lost due to the thick clouds and looming rain. With all this stormy weather, it will no doubt put a DAMPer on this event and not bode well for many of the classic coupes, notably the convertibles, as their owners keep an anxious eye to the sky. I started out early to beat the crowds, who, along with the classic cars cruising along Fort Street, informally start the event as early as Thursday night. I walked along the Lincoln Park portion of Cruisin’ Downriver but during my 3 ½ mile-walk I saw just a handful of classic cars. I have heard them all day, however, since I live only a few houses from main drag. I have always liked the 50s and if I could pick any decade in which to live, I would choose that era. I never missed watching the TV show “Happy Days” and loved the movie “Grease”. During high school, friends Dave and Ed Zelenak and Pete Tirpak, a classmate of mine, formed a 50s band called “Little Davy and the Diplomats” patterned after the great greaser band “Sha Na Na”. They played at the LPHS talent show and several school dances. Although we were not groupies of Dave Zelenak’s band, they were friends, and in our early college years a girlfriend and I occasionally showed up when the band played local gigs. We attended the dances dressed up as bobby soxers. We wore pegged denim pants, white socks and penny loafers and both of us scooped our long hair up high into ponytails. I bought an oversized white shirt and my mom embroidered an “L” on one shirt pocket and the other pocket sported a fuzzy poodle head. I guess you could say I looked like a cross between Laverne De Fazio of LaVerne & Shirley fame and one of Michael Jackson’s many fashion trends. Little Davy & the Diplomats has been playing well over 40 years and often show up at the Bandshell in the Summer or local fairs. I’ve gone to see them a few times, but it is not the same as back when we were all in college. Dave is now a judge in Lincoln Park and his brother Ed is the Lincoln Park City Attorney. Good times, good friends and now good memories.

“Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”
–L.M. Montgomery

My mom often imparted wisdom to me as I was growing up: “believe half of what you hear and all of what you see”, “if everyone else jumps off the bridge you don’t have to follow”, “be careful what you wish for”, “tuck a tissue in your purse or sleeve”, and who could forget “always carry two dimes at all times” (the dimes were to pay for two phone calls if needed, in case I mis-dialed and wasted a call, or dropped the dime on the ground. Gradually I had to carry more and more dimes, and then quarters and then I got a cell phone, thus obviating the need for telephone change at all.) But I digress as to my Mom’s wisdom which is not the entire subject of this post, just her first suggestion that applies to anything in life – gossip, the news and the WEATHER FORECAST.

I follow the weathercasters and their often ominous predictions to the point that I find myself in a constant tizzy over expected bad weather. I listen to two radio weather stations – WWJ and WJR respectively. Often their forecasts differ. I have to admit that I listen selectively, choosing to go with the forecaster who predicts the weather most in my favor. Selective hearing!! If I have something on my agenda I start listening several days before. But it seems to me anymore half of what they predict is wrong, wrong, wrong!! Witness this last week as an example. Sunday and Monday afternoon, thunderstorms and significant rainfall were predicted by both stations. “Widely scattered” they said (hint: this is just an all-encompassing term which essentially means hit-or-miss in your area); through the day they kept predicting rain before nightfall coming to the Tri-County area. Well, it didn’t happen Sunday, nor Monday. Tuesday a.m. dawned and no rain in sight – perhaps, thunderstorms and rain would happen Tuesday late afternoon which “most of us would see” – their words not mine. I didn’t trust them so decided to forego my walk and water instead. I donned my green garden boots and took my sprinkler and trudged around both back and front yards to give the bushes and perennials a good soaking. They got a good soaking all right. While I was finishing up, I felt rain droplets and before I knew it, a great boom of thunder and instant downpour. I got soaked before rolling up the hose onto the hose reel. I would liken that experience to the old theory of lighting up a cigarette at a restaurant and your meal will come sooner. Well, no harm, the pre-watering to the storm helped the rain water settle in better. It rained a good part of Tuesday and through the day dire forecasts of volatile weather with windstorms to 70 mph and hailstorms were on the horizon. They ominously predicted late day Wednesday we should be prepared for severe weather and keep our “eye to the sky” … well that got me worried. I hate storms. While I do not run around the house sprinkling Holy Water everywhere like my great grandmother did on her farm, and my grandmother would do in her home, I do worry about the large, very old trees in the area and what would happen if one fell on my small house? It would wreak havoc on the house, not to mention my life. So my fears intensified as the day progressed with each dire forecast. All day Wednesday I was fairly whipped into a frenzy about the impending weather … it never happened. The next morning the meteorologists did not even acknowledge their collective “oops” but instead said Thursday we might have afternoon storms, nothing to worry about. Don’t get me wrong – I’m relieved when bad weather doesn’t happen, but in any other job, if we were wrong that much of the time, we’d be standing in the unemployment line. Thursday late afternoon, I switched on the radio to catch up on local news of which there were many hot-button issues right now, especially in Detroit, and the first item I heard was the impending severe weather. Oh really? Looked out the window – everything looked calm and serene and innocuous enough, but according to them a storm was looming. By 4:45 p.m. a terrific rumble of thunder seemed to shake the house from its foundation and made me nearly jump out of my chair. Luckily for me, my boss was headed out the door shortly and I called to alert him I was shutting down due to the weather. I turned the A/C off and put on the fan in the corner of the kitchen, hunkered down and switched on WJR as that station gives weather alerts for storms as the particular city. The emergency alert siren signal was activated and the Tri-County area, including Wayne County, was placed in severe weather mode. Flash flooding was predicted as well. Our severe storm timeframe stretched to 6:30 p.m. Within minutes the sky opened up and torrential rains pounded the house and lashed against the metal blinds. I watched the blinds moving back and forth as the heavy rains pummeled the metal. I heard ping, ping, ping so assume that was the hail making its own assault. The sky just roared over and over with thunder. I have to wonder how much water is left up in the Heavens as surely we must have gotten several inches this week. The storms hop-scotched around the Tri-County area and Monroe and Lenawee Counties for several hours, with its heavy rain, hail and hefty winds and before it was over, there were well over 100,00 people with power outages – I feel their pain, having lost power one time for well over a week. Here, I am blessed – another bad storm and unscathed.

Climbing down from my soapbox … let me share a few tidbits from the trail this morning. The aftermath of all that wet weather was a jungle-like feeling. I persisted in completing 2 ½ miles on a misty morning just cloaked in humidity. Pools of rainwater dotted side streets where sparrows gathered to sip and a few enjoyed a quick bath in the larger pools. A few robins were playing tug o’ war with longish worms and one robin got one and he reminded me of a kid who purses his lips to slurp up his spaghetti noodles. I had to laugh out loud when I passed a large metal birdfeeder. Dew drops ran along the lip of the feeder and were dripping along the edge and dropping to the floor. I could see through the glass portion that the feeder had just been topped off and several chickadees were sitting on the mini perches which were strategically placed by large holes in the feeder. A pair of cardinals sat on a nearby shepherd’s hook anxiously awaiting their turn. But, beneath this huge feeder was, of all things, a female mallard. Obviously bored with the fare at Ecorse Creek, she was feasting on the soggy seed gruel that had spilled and mixed into the wet grass. But wait … occasionally she would tilt her head upward to grab some falling seeds, much like a person who positions a bag of peanuts to funnel into their upturned mouth for optimal enjoyment. I walked several laps around Ford Park as the sky was dark and I didn’t want to stray too far from home. The many dips in the Park’s grass had caused quagmires and very soggy turf where hundreds of button tops were visible throughout the grass. Hmmmmmm, I wonder if the mallard likes mushrooms?

No, not talkin’ about a foot fetish, nor “toes up” signifying a vacation and no, not sinking my toes into the sand or dangling them in the water at a beach venue. I’m talkin’ about dinosaur toes. Every time I leave the house, I must pass my small rock garden. No grass ever grew in this small patch of land so years ago I started collecting unusual rocks and placing them there. One small, flat rock was “donated” by my boss years ago to add to my collection. He found it at the family cottage near Collingwood, Ontario and thought it unusual as do I. The rock contains a very clear imprint of a fossil – it appears to be a toe of some type, long embedded into this otherwise boring-looking brown rock. In my mind I have fashioned a tale that this particular rock was probably a dinosaur’s baby toe. Indeed, the imprint looks like toe cartilage. Growing up, we did not have the mythical movie “Jurassic Park” yet I’ve always had this fascination for dinosaurs. Perhaps that interest was fostered by many elementary school field trips to the Royal Ontario Museum and their fabulous dinosaur display. Years later, I could hardly tear myself away from the impressive dinosaur exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Heck, maybe as a child I delighted in all things dinosaur simply because my father bought Sinclair gasoline – remember their famous mascot Brontosaurus? Perhaps my favorite childhood T.V. program, The Flintstones, with the family pet “Dino” lured me into the prehistoric world of these creatures. At any rate, I’ve always been convinced that this rock is a fossil of a Pterodactyl baby toe, so there!!!

I think to enjoy nature and nature’s gifts, you need to have a child-like wonder, awe and yes, even respect, for everyday natural things. I have always had such awe and appreciation of nature; I believe that curiosity and an ever-growing love for the simpler things in life will keep me from getting old and staid.

As to dinosaurs, perhaps their images are floating around in my brain these days due to a new fruit discovery. Last week Meijer featured “dinosaur eggs” which are just pale green and purple-speckled extra-large pluots. I tried them and they taste the same as a regular pluot, but with a twist. Aw shucks, I am just a kid at heart.

P.S. – In all my travels and trails, I’ve yet to see that legendary One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying Purple People Eater – perhaps he will be at this weekend’s Cruisin’ Downriver 2013 event. I will look for him and keep you posted.

A penny for your thoughts, a quick decision-making toss of a penny or perhaps a penny wished upon for good luck? All those options pertained to me today. Soon into my 2 ¾ mile trek this morning I saw a gleaming penny on the sidewalk. I picked it up, turned it over and saw it was minted in 2013. It was a very bright and shiny copper and looked virtually untouched. Momentarily, I was reminded of my mom who always referred to a penny as a “copper” which is really a Canadian reference for this coin. Well, I made a wish and tucked that penny into my pocket for safekeeping. That wish came to me easily because I am burdened by worry and uneasiness the last few days. I am conflicted over a problem, so in a sense, the penny represents me . I wish it were as easy as tossing a coin into the air to call “heads” or “tails” and the resulting plunk of that penny would determine my answer.

My walks take me all over Lincoln Park and everywhere I go I see spent firecrackers in every size, some still half-bursting from blackened cardboard wrappers. There are always sparklers laying around too, just discarded onto sidewalks, driveways, even lawns, including my own. I was very concerned about neighborhood firecracker usage last year with the drought, but now my fears are intensified. Last week my handyman was cleaning out the gutters and found a burnt shingle near the rear of the house, which would be the location of my bedroom. The firecracker had burnt the shingle, necessitating replacement of the damaged shingle as well as tearing off two perfectly good shingles to get to the burnt one. Luckily I had a large package of shingles in the garage from when I lost some after a heavy wind several years ago, or it would have cost more than just the $45.00 for last week’s repair job. Unfortunately, this was not just wind damage – no, not an act of God– this was damage from a person who was more interested in the momentary pleasure of a few colorful trails of lights in the sky or a big boom here and there than being respectful of other neighbors. While I had almost gotten used to the nightly 10:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. noise fest since well before Memorial Day, the more critical beef now is the burnt shingle from an errant firecracker. This morning’s local news told the tale of a West Bloomfield home which sustained major damage when a neighbor’s firecracker landed on the roof, smoldered all night and ended up gutting the house due to smoke and water damage. That story terrifies me, especially when every night my neighbors across from and behind me are setting off firecrackers. Where are they keeping their stash during the day? Stockpiled in the garage? Do I alert the authorities about the damage and then worry about retribution down the road? Do I go and ask the neighbors behind to be more careful, i.e. appeal to them? Do I let it lie and risk the potential of the house burning down? My neighbor Marge and I have dealt with our backyard neighbors in the past in 2008 and 2010 – both occasions were because their pit bull, left out 24/7 barked day and night and caused rat problems. The fiasco only ended because they got rid of dog number 1 and number 2, and certainly not because of our pleas.

Tonight, a massive crowd will head to the Detroit River to see the impressive international fireworks display. Firecrackers should only be displayed under controlled circumstances like this and I rue the day Governor Snyder legalized them in Michigan. I wish this were not so, … but wishing does not solve problems – so heads or tails it will have to be.

This is an open letter to the Robin family who became the avian equivalent of DPs, or displaced persons, this morning. Please understand that I really like birds, and believe me when I say I am neither happy, nor proud, that I evicted Buddy’s brethren. I am sorry that my slate “Welcome” sign seemed to invite you to become permanent residents here, and that you mistakenly thought my coach lamp was something special, made for your needs and move-in ready. You built your nest in record time, but sadly, now that home is gone. I suppose you and your kin shall hold me in the same esteem that you did the last time I tore down a nest at the side door. Yup, Dad sat on the cyclone fence and chattered angrily and loudly while I dismantled the nest. And, yes, for two or three years after that, every morning when I watered my flowers, and picked a few weeds, or re-arranged the mulch, you went right out, while I was still there, and pecked pieces of mulch out of the garden and threw it over the rubber edging and onto the lawn. I appreciated that. Thank you. Yes, I know it was under the guise of “looking for worms” that you just grabbed the mulch and picked it out of my garden. Every time I went outside, you stalked me and gave me an evil look. But that nest dismantling was not an isolated incident. How many nests did I need to tear down on the front and side coach lights, eh? A dozen perhaps? And, I had to put bags stuffed with styrofoam peanuts and a pinwheel on the bend of each coach light to deter any more settling in. Finally, we both moved on and I threw the contraptions away and figured you and your kinfolk relocated to another neighborhood. Well, evidently you have a short memory because once again this morning what did I find? A large nest in my front coach lamp. And yes, I am guilty of evicting you on the spot, no eviction notice even tendered – out on your fractious feathered butt! I hope we have now reached an understanding. You will see that I had to put a large puffed-up bag in the coach lamp’s elbow in the front yard to deter a return visit. Lookin’ good in the neighborhood now! I do, however, have to admire your tenacity in building this remarkably made nest in record time. I went out to check the mail at 3:00 p.m. yesterday and there was no mail. The rains and storms began around 4:00 p.m. This morning I went outside to walk at 7:30 a.m. I thought I’d check the mailbox to see if mail arrived after the last check. There were huge spots of dried mud on the lid. In the dried mud spots were large pieces of grass, weeds and tangled up dried vines. The front door had similar mud spots and splats up and down the glass and dripping from the cross-buck portion of the white metal door. Of course I looked upward. I saw a fully-formed nest, about one foot in diameter, resting solidly on the elbow of the coach lamp. Yes, I knew it was a Robin, since I’ve obviously seen your calling card before. Yes, it was duly noted that two of you were watching me as I left on my walk, and again 3 ½ miles later, when I returned and rounded the corner, you were taking more nest fixin’s … perhaps you were adding on another room? I can’t deal with any of this and I am sorry. You were messy and it will not be tolerated. While I am angry with you, and you with me, I still marvel at how you modeled this durable home for your mate to lay eggs and sit up there. The mud that “glued” the nest together had not even dried yet. The nest lifted out with a small rake, was intact, and it was large and fully formed, anticipating the big event. Mercifully, there were no eggs in the nest. If I could have, I would have taken it somewhere else for you. I apologize for leaving the whole nest sitting in the dustpan momentarily in the driveway while I collected my thoughts on what to do next – I did not mean to taunt you. You looked at me with anger and hurt in your eyes. I felt somewhat humiliated and still do; I am not a mean-spirited person and the last thing I would ever do is harm a living creature. That is why I put your handiwork into a white plastic bag and took it to the end of the street to the alley.

Please don’t hate me – I feel badly enough.

Signed, Homeowner.

The sun was up early and so was I.  After my alarm clock rang and so rudely interrupted my sound sleep, I put on my radio headphones  just in time to hear the Weather Channel reporting it was already 73 degrees out.  It was only 6:00 a.m.  What happened to the cool and refreshing temps a few days back?  Ugh to The Muggies.   I left the house early and got in a 3 ½-mile walk this morning, which puts me over the century mark now; I hope the temperature doesn’t rival that number as it will certainly put a kibosh on long walks for awhile.  Bumper stickers and fortune cookies proclaim:  “Life is a journey, not a destination…”  so my journey going forward will involve my best effort to stride another 100 miles to my goal of 200 miles in 2013.  I wonder if I will make it?  A few more days like today and I will melt into a liquid pool.  I stand corrected as The Weather Channel touted TODAY as the longest day of the year – actually a minute longer than yesterday.  So, today the sun will shine the longest and the moon will be the brightest and closest to Earth.  The tides will rise several inches because of this Super Strawberry Moon.  Well it all sounded good on paper, however the sun disappeared most of the day and thunder boomers and rain came in its stead.  The weather, the sun, the moon, even Al Gore’s supposed global warming – a lot of funky things are afoot in our universe nowadays.  Perhaps the plausible excuse is the stars are not aligned correctly.  Maybe we should be singing a few lines from The Fifth Dimension’s  “Age of Aquarius” and that will make things right again with the world.  Groovy idea man.  Peace & Love.

Today is the longest day of the year and the shortest post I’ve made. I am often long-winded so today’s commentary will be short and sweet, potentially bordering on sarcastic or snarky and perhaps smacking of a bit o’ wit. Bill Shakespeare quipped that “brevity is the soul of wit” … so here goes. As we now head toward Winter and all things snowy, cold and frozen, let me segue to the frozen foods section at Meijer which provided the fodder for today’s post. This morning, after walking several laps around the store for exercise, I headed over to the frozen foods area to cool off. While I was perusing the popsicles and fudgesicles, a woman and two young boys happened along. She suggested to them to “go get you somethin’” and then they pushed past me, opened the freezer door and reached in. They snatched up a box of Snickers Ice Cream Bars, tore the end flap open and took out two treats, one for each of them. They unwrapped and enjoyed their frozen filched bars while walking next to whom I presume was their mother. I am sure my mouth gaped open. How selfish they didn’t include mom in their pilferage!! I next caught up with them at the self-serve checkout. No, the rest of the box was not in their cache of groceries they were paying for. Ms. Manners would shudder at this incident. I was appalled. Just sign me: Not SNICKERing in Lincoln Park.

It is said “a picture is worth a thousand words” so let me try to capture some images and create a photograph of what I saw on this morning’s travels … a postcard, if you will.
First off, I walked past a corner house where an entire length of the yard was a spectacular color combination of yellow and purple. It was as if the owner swiped two primary color crayons from a kid’s Crayola box and ran around the yard with them. There were bright yellow Stella D’Oro day lilies interspersed with regal-looking, deep purple irises. Then, a small paver-brick pathway separated a most-impressive array of yellow pansies with purple “faces” which looked upward seeking the sun. The pansies appeared to be gazing at the trailing purple Jackmanii Clematis creeping and climbing on the chain-link fence above. Wow, this was a work of art and some creative garden planning.

Everyone’s annuals are progressing nicely, albeit still pitifully scrawny and looking a little lost in large pots and planters boxers, except of course the perpetually perky zonal geraniums. I saw some beautiful hot pink ones in powder blue pots in a bed of white gravel which looked almost too perfect. Our cold May led to planting later, but not to despair, these puny plants will be blessed with the Summer’s warm rays and a little Miracle-Gro on the side to help them along. In a month these pretty blooms will be worthy of a page in a Georgia O’Keeffe coffee table book.

The same goes for what I term “wanna be trees” … those cute little maple tree seedlings, basically a stick with one or two leaves, which no doubt sprouted from a maple seed “helicopter” as we always called them. I saw several of those mini-mini saplings today, all encircled by a small fence. Its owners have aspirations for this little seedling, they’ll nurture it and see where it goes. I can tell you from experience maple and elm seeds don’t need TLC. Over the years I’ve had hundreds of seeds land, sprout and grow, eventually embedding themselves with huge roots in my lava and river rock gardens.

There must’ve been a convention of crows somewhere this morning. Their constant caw, caw, caw was annoying in the quiet 7:00 o’clock hour. The crows were swooping and circling, almost buzzard like, and occasionally a large group of them would settle into the treetops. They seemed so huge with their widespread wings. The noise overhead actually stopped me in my tracks and then in my peripheral vision I caught a flash of black. It seemed that if I closed my eyes, Buck Owens and Roy Clark would scoop me up and plop me down between them on a bale of hay (hee-hee-hee-haw-haw).

So, there is your picture I’ve painted for you on this last day of Spring 2013. I hope you have enjoyed the scenery. I took an entirely different route this morning and probably couldn’t recreate it again – I was here, there and everywhere. I clipped on my pedometer and left the house at 7:15 a.m. and arrived home exactly one hour and 6,005 steps later. Three miles. The heat and humidity are slowly coming back after today. The lush lawns have already gone to seed and soon will start getting brown and then crispy. But today, at my feet the grass was emerald, and glancing up toward the Heavens were Berry Blue Jell-o with generous spoonfuls of Cool Whip – a Kodachrome experience to be sure.

Wish you were here … see you later ‘gator. 

I crept out of bed slowly today. Unlike when I get up at the crack of dawn to go walking, or I head out with a full agenda of items to tick off, I knew I had to go out in the yard – with them – those demons that exist in my backyard. I know they are out there hiding, and, yes, probably more afraid of me than I of them, but still they are there and it terrorizes me. But, I had to just put on my big girl panties and get out and prune and deadhead my roses and give my flowers their first dose of bloom fertilizer this season. It sure seems inconceivable to me that it is the 19th of June and I’ve not used the hose yet. I usually multi-task in the yard, by trying to use the sprinkler to water and simultaneously pull weeds or tug out, or at least tame, that &^%$ choke vine and purple nightshade which threaten to overtake the garden every year. This growing season, we’ve had way too much rain to even think of watering, so I’ve not tackled the weeds either.

The alarm rang, I rolled over and got up a tad late in apprehension of my chore. I watched the sun filtering through the slits in my metal blinds in the kitchen as I sipped my still-steaming coffee. I blew on it to cool it off so I could drink it down and get dressed. I had on sweats and my green vinyl gardening boots and headed outside while it was in the low 50s. While men sweat and ladies perspire, (or merely glisten as the saying goes), I was already sweatin’ bullets about going outside without getting myself further fizzed and hot and bothered when the sun came out; yup, I had already whipped myself into a frenzy about dealing with the outside critters. I hate spiders and centipedes but our backyard bouts with rats off and on since 2006 leaves me somewhat paranoid every time I go out back. My neighbor Marge reported lots of baby rats in the early Spring this year and that tempered any enthusiasm to get out and work in the yard.

My friend who lives in Richmond, Virginia e-mailed me last weekend, and attached a picture of a five-foot snake shown slithering along her porch railing when she got home from work Friday night. Her husband Tim was terrified of it and called Animal Control, (they are still waiting for them to show up), but Evelyn was cool and calm about it (a helluva lot calmer than I’d have been). She waited until the snake struck a pose on the top of the railing and promptly grabbed a camera and a measuring tape. It posed prettily for her, and turned out to be five feet long! Tim and Evelyn found a burrow at the side of the house and given the size of the snake and its home, they figure it’s been there awhile. I’d never go out of the house again. Evelyn offered to box her snake up and mail it to me to help with the rodent population, but I declined. I forwarded the snake picture to a friend who lives on the cusp of a woodland area near Rochester, New York and told her “this was hanging out in the Richmond ‘burbs – OMG” and she replied “it’s so small!” — Right.

So, out I went this morning, my over-active imagination in tow, and knowing that any form of backyard demon that crossed my path was sure to cause me consternation, a heart attack, or, at the very least, to pee my pants. I’m happy to report that I knelt, stooped, hunched down and stuck half my body into the seven-foot tall row of prickly rosebushes and there was nary a critter – with legs or without, that threatened me. I filled up half a waste bag with that obnoxious, scraggly, purple night shade, and more than a few tall thistles, plus I put a stranglehold on the choke weed which clings and winds around every stem so quickly that it looks like a National Geographic time-lapse photo from one day to the next.

Well PDQ, those gardening and fertilizing chores were dispensed with and I hurried in to reward myself with a big glass of chocolate milk, then got cleaned up and ready to attend to the rest of the day. Gardening used to be a favorite pastime, then my little paradise became a private hell with the onset of rats in 2006. They went somewhere else in 2007, resurfaced in 2008 and thereafter. In 2010, we had days and days of torrential rains and I ended up with slugs everywhere. Every morning I went out to find slimy trails where the slugs inched along the sidewalk and over the leaves of my hostas, butterfly bushes, daisies, Black-eyed Susans and coneflowers where they subsequently munched away to their heart’s content. I even bought soapstone toadstool ornaments that get filled with beer to guarantee the slugs would enter, drink up and drown, but it never worked. All it did was cause my yard to smell like Michelob every time it rained or I watered, and there were lots of drunken slugs from slurping up all that beer by the time the sun came up. I pressed copper pennies around each perennial to give them an electric jolt when they slid over the copper, then the birds started flipping them out of the dirt and onto the grass. Gallon jugs of Sluggo® pellets sprinkled around the base of the flowers nearly put me in the poorhouse but the slugs slunk around that congealed mess as well. As of 2011 they disappeared forever – Shhhhhhhhhhhhh, I don’t want them back.

In 2010 and 2011 I also battled black spot on my climbing roses and doused them daily with disease control potions –the black spot won and I acquiesced one day when the roses looked sickly and in frustration, I trashed them and their special umbrella trellis. The neighborhood scrapper was happy – he had lunch money that day. But black spot was not a pest per se, though I’ve conquered other perennial issues, including the loss of two butterfly bushes this Spring. Alas, the butterfly count will be way down this year. Now, I have only perennials and roses in the backyard and have “potted” artificial plants in the front and side; no muss and no fuss … no more endless deadheading, fertilizing, pruning and twice-daily watering and no one is any the wiser they are artificial, even up close. How I wish I’d done that years ago!!

We get too soon old, and too late smart. ~~(American proverb)

God created a picture-perfect day for us today. A day as pretty as this one helps make up for the many bad weather days back in April and May – all that snow, sleet, rain and cold thwarted my attempts to walk and kept us collectively miserable and feeling Spring would never arrive. With 90-degree temps predicted by Summer’s arrival this Friday, I set out to enjoy this 60-degree morn at 7:15, wearing just a short-sleeved tee-shirt and lightweight pants. The chilly air was invigorating and conducive for a long walk and I was so energized that I kept going farther and farther, and stayed the course all the way to ECORSE! I got to the Ecorse/Lincoln Park borderline and decided to turn right on River Drive and walk parallel to Council Point Park, enabling me to vicariously enjoy the ambiance of the Park from the opposite side. From my vantage point, there were no mosquito worries and from afar I was still able to hear and identify a handful of birdcalls. I chuckled as I watched several bunnies bolt, when their keen hearing from their tall and sunlight-filtered, nearly translucent ears, detected my assortment of pepper spray, whistle and I.D. info tag which were noisily jangling on my lanyard as I strolled along. There was no “duck fix” today as I did not go near the Creek, but I did glimpse a gaggle or two of geese, perhaps gathering for gossip over donuts and coffee, along the Park pathway. (Smile.) I was so glad I made this impromptu detour to Lincoln Park’s little gem and the time flew by. When I arrived home, I was surprised to see my pedometer registered 7,554 steps … wow, over 3 ¾ miles. It just felt good to be alive and enjoy this splendiferous day. I am reminded of this children’s poem that Mrs. Jamieson, my first and third grade teacher back at E.A. Orr Elementary School, often had our class recite– it is meant to fill your heart with joy and leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling all over … hope it has the same effect on you as well. Enjoy!!

All Things Bright and Beautiful
~~by Cecil F. Alexander

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.