We watch the hurricane creeping up the coast of Florida and we wonder how it will change the coastal line. Will water come in, think twice and retreat? How will it all look tomorrow? Ten years from now?
(Breakfast with our visiting friends...)
It's a beautiful day here, in Madison -- bright, brilliant, breezy. Ed and I mean to take a hike, but as our friends take off for a few days of visits elsewhere, we wander across the farmette lands and the pull to clean up stuff in need of pruning or weeding is too strong. So I turn my attention to the yard. You know, to that stretch of land that once bore a bounty of flowers, berries and the occasional cherry!
I take out the tractor-mower and I set out to cut down (the hope is to eliminate) 90% of the raspberry bushes.
They're out of control. They've always been out of control. They grow even in shade, producing few fruits, but serving as home to many of the mosquitoes who visit us each summer. Of course, many of my flowers are also a haven for bugs, but I point out to Ed that there is a benefit to growing flowers. I do not see a benefit to letting the raspberries spread out in all direction. And the weeds between the canes! Oh, the weeds!
When I tell him I intend to take down most of the bed, Ed acquiesces, but retreats quickly inside so that he doesn't have to see what it is that I am doing.
It's a terribly onerous job and after an hour or two, I've had enough. (I know you cant tell how much I've cleared, but I can!)
There isn't much time for hiking now, but we do allow ourselves a quick bike ride... (past the truck farmers' fields to the east and here's a change that has not happened yet -- the development hasn't pushed forward as rapidly as we had expected!)
... to Lake Waubesa. There, we take a very pleasant stroll through the small lakeside community that has cropped up at the shores. No danger of great surges there. Our problems remain tied to agricultural and development related pollution.
(A quiet pond to the side...)
In the late afternoon, I pop in briefly to a going away party for my friend who is moving to Mexico.
There were years when she brought music and a bit of Latin culture into my life and I was so enamored with it all! Our lives eventually segued into other forms, other landscapes and I've seen little of her or her husband or their world in recent years. Still, today there is that one last sidestep into a very familiar place...
I cannot stay long though. I have a dinner to prepare at home. For these guys (the young dad is busy with work this evening):
Oh, happy girl...
A happy time, on the porch still, despite the cool evening breeze...
Want some (toy) pizza, ahah?
Want some macarons and fruit, Snowdrop?
And in the meantime, I do think the eye of the hurricane has passed my hunkered and bunkered friends in Florida and I'm hoping they will be lucky, riding this one out without too many trees uprooted, or landscapes reconfigured!
(Breakfast with our visiting friends...)
It's a beautiful day here, in Madison -- bright, brilliant, breezy. Ed and I mean to take a hike, but as our friends take off for a few days of visits elsewhere, we wander across the farmette lands and the pull to clean up stuff in need of pruning or weeding is too strong. So I turn my attention to the yard. You know, to that stretch of land that once bore a bounty of flowers, berries and the occasional cherry!
I take out the tractor-mower and I set out to cut down (the hope is to eliminate) 90% of the raspberry bushes.
They're out of control. They've always been out of control. They grow even in shade, producing few fruits, but serving as home to many of the mosquitoes who visit us each summer. Of course, many of my flowers are also a haven for bugs, but I point out to Ed that there is a benefit to growing flowers. I do not see a benefit to letting the raspberries spread out in all direction. And the weeds between the canes! Oh, the weeds!
When I tell him I intend to take down most of the bed, Ed acquiesces, but retreats quickly inside so that he doesn't have to see what it is that I am doing.
It's a terribly onerous job and after an hour or two, I've had enough. (I know you cant tell how much I've cleared, but I can!)
There isn't much time for hiking now, but we do allow ourselves a quick bike ride... (past the truck farmers' fields to the east and here's a change that has not happened yet -- the development hasn't pushed forward as rapidly as we had expected!)
... to Lake Waubesa. There, we take a very pleasant stroll through the small lakeside community that has cropped up at the shores. No danger of great surges there. Our problems remain tied to agricultural and development related pollution.
(A quiet pond to the side...)
In the late afternoon, I pop in briefly to a going away party for my friend who is moving to Mexico.
There were years when she brought music and a bit of Latin culture into my life and I was so enamored with it all! Our lives eventually segued into other forms, other landscapes and I've seen little of her or her husband or their world in recent years. Still, today there is that one last sidestep into a very familiar place...
I cannot stay long though. I have a dinner to prepare at home. For these guys (the young dad is busy with work this evening):
Oh, happy girl...
A happy time, on the porch still, despite the cool evening breeze...
Want some (toy) pizza, ahah?
Want some macarons and fruit, Snowdrop?
And in the meantime, I do think the eye of the hurricane has passed my hunkered and bunkered friends in Florida and I'm hoping they will be lucky, riding this one out without too many trees uprooted, or landscapes reconfigured!
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