07 May, 2020 - Happy Growls & Spring Has Sprung

Dear, Mom -

My Dear Sweet Mother, how are you? How are your friends doing? I hope you all got to sit in the sunshine today. I worked in the yard. I pulled up 4 hours worth of weeds, pruning, and finished some hoeing under the fir tree. I almost filled our yard debris bin up with just the weeds along the front, inside strip. If you can see the fence in the picture, it is along this side of it that I was working.

You can see my lovely red maple tree and my blue lilac (in full bloom). My neighbor actually came over to me in the street admiring the way I had pruned it and made it to look like a full, fledged tree. The funny thing is, this is the 'bush' I planted years ago. This bush is clearly not a bush, but a TREE!

I told you the other day I may need to take it out because it is on the gasoline. I may call the gas company to see if they can do a free inspection. I'd rather not have to chop that tree down if I don't have to. I guess I can carve the wood, though. We'll see. I'll keep you up to date on the elegy of the tree. I guess I could actually write a brief elegy for the tree: 

"Oh, bluest tree.

Thou doth blend with the sky.

Hues reflecting a spectrum of happiness, 

fore the Sun is your bosom friend."

Look at me utilizing two different definitions of the word 'elegy'. Ha ha. Glad all that schooling' paid off. Or Google. Meh.

Anyway, I did get a lot done. I came in a bit after 6 pm to make dinner. By the time I'd made some garden burgers and French fries, we sat down to watch an episode of 'The Repair Shop' and both almost fell asleep in our diners. Oh, this show, 'The Repair Shop', you all would really like. It is on Netflix. It is a British show. Kind of like an 'Antiques Roadshow', but with repairs and no stated worth of an item. What the show is about is people bringing in very dear things that have some how not faired well over the years and needs a fixing. The show has specialists in metal, clocks, radios, woodworking, ceramics, silversmithing, leather, stained glass, and other random specialties. They have fixed some pretty incredible things. The items usually have some sort of attachment to a significant family event, special relation with the owner, or passed generation to generation, etc. We both live these kind of fix it/fix up shows from the UK. 

Holly and I have had this pink jasmine on the front of the house for at least 6 years and it has never bloomed. I couldn't believe when I looked over today to see these lovely little blossoms blanketing the middle of the house. It took it long enough to bloom, eh? I thought for the longest time it was just a handsome vine coming back year after year. Sometimes I don't about me.

Elsa is on the bed waiting to get her nightly love growls out. She is hilarious. You sit next to her on the bed and start to pet her and she does little growl, a little bigger growl, a little bigger deeper growl, sometimes throw a huff in there, maybe a tooth or two, but it's all done in affection. It is a herding dog thing. Our friend has a pure bred border collie and she does the same thing, too. At first it was a bit scary, but then we realized when you really look at her demeanor, she is completely submissive other than her vocalization. So, for a long while now it has been a nightly ritual. Elsa is a good girl. The below picture depicts how she sleeps. She starts with her leg in the air and it slowly falls down in rhythmic bounces until it then touches her other foot or the floor and it shoots right back up again. Silly dog.

I have lots to do tomorrow concerning both paperwork and yard work. I better get to bed so I can get up early, get the dog fed and walked then start all the work stuff. Boooo. Oh, well. It could be worse. I could be very bored. Nah.

I love you, Mom. Enjoy your day today. And your friends, too. --- Love, Sal