Turning the Corner

The terrace strip is almost cleared with the help of the city's gardeners who jumped at the chance to get free plants. Since most of my perennials were gifts from others, it makes sense to give them away now.  I've actually enjoyed this interaction with like minded people, even if it meant losing the flowers. 

Today the sun shone on us as we worked.  This has been a frustrating spring in Northeastern Wisconsin.  We gardeners couldn't get to work in April as we usually would.  Even May was rainy and miserably cold. 

 Here at Mathom House, it was slow going..  Gardening with winter gloves is not very effective.  I plugged away and today felt it happen, the magic of summer. 

Gary went into gear this weekend, mowing, pruning, trimming and setting up birdbaths and fountains.  I cleared yet another bed, this time the rock garden and suddenly it all was coming together.  Oh, I still have at least one quarter of the back yard garden plots to weed and plant but now I know it is possible.  

For the past hour I've been wandering through the flowers admiring them.  The terrace strip may be gone but the back yard is mine. So far, the city can't do anything about it.

Mowing it Down - the Terrace Strip

The terrace strip is the the space between the sidewalk and the street.  For years I've planted this area with a wide variety of flowers, starting with crocus in the spring and ending with bright pink sedum and brown eyed Susans in the fall.

School children, teachers and walkers stopped by to thank me for flowers.  Little girls would tell me that some day they would have gardens like mine. I picked bouquets for them.  Butterflies and hummingbirds feasted throughout my yard but the monarda at the front of the house drew them more than any other area.

No more.

The City of Seymour has ordered that all of this be removed by Tuesday or I will face fines. Grass is considered more attractive than flowers.

I knew this was coming because I sat on the city council when the ordinance was drawn up.  There were a few silly moments as when our city's weed control "expert" said that milkweed was a noxious weed, when in fact it is protected by the State of Wisconsin as necessary for the well being of monarch butterflies.

It was inevitable that someone would complain about my flowers and they would have to go.

So I have put the word out that anyone bringing a shovel and bags can dig up whatever plants they want.  Susan came this afternoon and went away with a dozen bags but hardly made a dent in the flower display. Gary's sister will be here looking for hostas.   I'll announce it in church but then on Monday Gary will mow down the remaining plants.

Nothing can be done about it until people realize that lawns feed no one, not even the birds and insects. The herbicides, fertilizers and insecticides used on them harm our water.  

But until then, the terrace strip will be bare of flowers.

Let's Fool Grandma

Tonight Chris and Tisha were off seeing a movie and I was at their home playing a game with Evan called Let's Fool Grandma.

Yes, he could play video games but only until 6:30 pm.

“My mommy let's me play video games until 7:00 pm.” he said, but Chris showed me the power switch and gave me the controls before he left.

Evan gave in on that one, brushed his teeth and put on his pajamas.

“My mommy always gives me a granola bar before I go to bed.”

“After you brush your teeth?” I had him there.

I read him two picture books and one chapter of his chapter book.

“My mommy always reads me three chapters,” he said.

“Two,” said I. I knew he was fibbing but I love reading to my grandson.

By then he was yawning and went to bed without any more fuss.

I am an expert at this kind of thing, I thought.. I had a son who played,”Let's fool Mommy.”

But then a few minutes later, Evan pulled the ultimate trick. He pulled out his loose tooth. Of course, we had to call his mommy and daddy to let them know, even if they were just coming out of the movie theatre.

Of course, we had to find some place to keep the tooth safe for the tooth fairy. And we had to discuss tooth pulling techniques.

I had Evan in bed but then Chris and Tisha came home and up he popped again to discuss picture taking and proper placement of the tooth fairy's bounty. I was happy to learn that tomorrow is Evan's last day of school so he only has to be there two hours.  He'll have had enough sleep to manage.

It was time for this grandma to go home and go to bed herself. 

I wish someone would read to me.   

Books to Leave at Home

I took several books along camping and realized that there are some books that simply don't work well when traveling.

The latest by Jasper Fforde, One of Our Thursdays is Missing, is another of his romps through the world of books, language and satire, with a mystery woven throughout.  It would have been a wonderful book if I had been alone, but about once a page I would burst into laughter.  Then I would insist on reading the good bits to Gary, who was trying to concentrate on his own books.  I was annoying him, but I couldn't help myself.
After all, it takes a well educated fellow like Gary to understand the humor of trawling for metaphors.

Refuge, An Unnatural History of Family and Place, by Terry Tempest Williams, inspired me to visit Utah with her descriptions of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, but towards the end of the book, she, her mother, and grandmother all have breast cancer.  If I read that before bed time, I tended to obsess about my health.

Keeping track of the Russian names in The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, was just too difficult for an outing in the national forest. I will have to come back to that one.  

Excellent books all, but next time I travel, I'm going to pick some light mysteries that require no deep thought whatsoever.  

Last Day

These photos tell you why Gary and I tend to be overly protective of the national forests. We get upset when they are abused. Let a President sign one too any bills giving rights to timber, mining and cattle interests and he (and sometime in the future she) is in danger of losing our votes.

When Gary arrived at Day Lake on May 18 he began to collect litter that previous campers had left behind last season. Glass beer bottles, aluminum cans and beer boxes have always been a problem but plastic water bottles are catching up. When I arrived on Thursday, we walked the bag of trash to the receptacle.

We obsessively clear a campsite when we are done with it. Gary even brings along a rake to do the job properly. He sweeps out the floor of the pit toilet when he arrives and when he leaves. He brings along a room deodorizer and even has a bag of coat hooks so that each toilet has one. This comes in handy when one has a wet coat along. A wet coast picks up everything, including slugs, from a toilet floor.

The rangers always tell him, “Stay as long as you want!” He makes their job easier.

We try to leave places better than the way we found them. That's a good philosophy any way you look at it.

.

Tonight, I'll be back in Seymour. He'll return two days later.

Rainy Day

We woke up to rain, but that was expected, so we snuggled in and went back to sleep. I finally got up to make tea at 8:30. By 9:30, we had had our breakfast and were reading when Ranger Janice came tearing up.

“Big storm coming,” she said. “Best place to seek shelter is the block toilets over at Paper Birch Circle,” and she was off to warn the next camper.

Gary has a weather radio so we listened in. The report was for 60 mph winds and large hail. He decided we should take off in his van. I packed a bag of necessities: computer, paper, pens, books and the last sudoku puzzle from the book. Forget water, food, and clothing. I don't mind seeking shelter but I don't want to be bored when I am there, wherever there is. However, the concept of taking shelter doesn't register with Gary.

We headed away from our campsite to check out what was happening with the rest of the campers. Mostly, they were leaving, pulling their big rigs behind them. By the time we wound through all the circles, we found we were down to three occupied campsites, as compared to 27 the evening before. All the while, Gary was tracking the storm on the weather radio and knew the storm was going north, missing us entirely other than the rain.

Gary, always a scavenger, went from campsite to campsite to see if anyone had left behind any fire wood. With a big reunion at Jack Pine Circle the day before, he found plenty. Out of curiosity, I checked the big block toilet. We saw some of these being hauled in by the Forest Service last year. Now we realize that besides serving as toilets, they are shelters in a storm.

Three hours later another storm went through, another ranger came to warn us to take shelter and again we did no such thing. We tend to be fatalistic, I guess.

So this is our Memorial Day, celebrated with rain and hail. In an hour or two we'll take a look to see what kind of damage there was at Clam Lake and Mellon, the two closest villages. Meanwhile, I am back in the camper with computer, paper, pens and books.

I finished the last sudoku puzzle.

A Day at Day Lake

Here in the center of the Chequamagon National Forest, Day Lake is 624.7 acres of water. If there are motor boats on the lake, they tend to be widely separated, so Gary's canoe is not likely to be swamped by wakes.

There are six campground loops. Before I even got here, Gary figured out that if I walked on the roads through all of them and included the registration station, my total would be 3.6 miles. I do this at least once a day. I hike along listening to sandhill cranes, white throated sparrows, ovenbirds, and loons. Along the roads there are wild strawberry and blueberry blossoms. With all the rain, there should be a good crop by the end of June. Gary keeps his wildflower identification book handy. There are both Canada and wood anemones. I can't tell the difference but he can.

I would prefer walking on the wooded trails but wood and deer ticks are currently a problem. Gary has already been bitten by a deer tick. Not all deer tick's carry Lyme's disease, but I am keeping an eye on him. If he shows symptoms, he goes right to the emergency ward.

I had a deer tick of my own but I discovered her before she attached herself to me. I believe in regular tick inspections.

There are 52 campsites here and as of last night, 27 were occupied. The ATV people left this morning, leaving a quiet crowd save for the occasional barking dog or crying baby. There is one fellow who is running an industrial generator but he's far enough away from us not to be a nuisance.

So we walk around, read in front of the fire, or watch the sunset. That's enough excitement for today.