Waiting for greenup

About a week ago, Chandramoon asked me five simple interview questions. I'm still working on answers, but the results should be posted here soon. More or less soon. Fairly soon.

One question you may be asking yourself is what I was hinting about last week ... what is going to get our cat so interested with the front porch? Time to reveal the answer.

Do you remember the visitors we had on our porch last summer? ...


That was on the northwest corner of our front porch. About a week ago, my wife looked out the door at the northeast corner of the porch and saw this ... and brought it to my attention ...


It was the first round of a construction project. Within a day or so, construction was mostly completed, and Mrs. Robin was in position ...


So here we go again. This time, though, it happened before April ended. The other time, it began in early June. So far, we haven't brought out the chair and mirror. Maybe we'll sneak a peek in a few days.

The warm weather is continuing here, with just a few exceptions. Even my wife's little lilac bush seems to be bursting with life ...


The only problem here is the lack of rain. It's been very dry lately. With all the forests and leaves in our area, way up north, you would think that wildfires wouldn't be a problem. And you would be wrong.

During a recent drive to Marquette, I passed a sad sight I've seen many times--a wildfire from about 10 years ago. That's quite a long time, but the scars are still plain to see ...






It's like that for a mile or so along the north-south road. Outside of that area, the woods are like they usually are--green pines and birches getting ready to bud.

That was a dry spring, and this spring has been dry, too. Last week, we were returning home from Iron Mountain when I saw smoke in the air. I had my camera along, so I went to investigate.

It came from the airport that serves this area (one short runway, located atop a hill). I drove down the access road, and this is what I saw ...




But the guys on the scene had everything under control. It was the local fire department, and they were doing a "controlled burn" of an area likely to burn each year.

With just a little tiny bit of rain in recent weeks, we are waiting anxiously for the start of "greenup," when the countryside gets a good natural drink of water, awakening the fresh grass and other vegetation that turn fields and forest from brown to green.

It hasn't happened yet, and only a chance of showers are in this week's forecast. Other areas in the Midwest and even in the U.P. have gotten rain. Not us. Not yet.

Critter cam

Winter seems to last here forever, but when it changed this year, it really did change.

For example, here's what it was like here on the night of April 11 ...


But then the weather got sharply warmer, with highs in the 60s. The ice on the area's lakes got thinner and thinner ...


I went to Marquette for an indoor track meet last Wednesday. I took my camera along in case I came across some critters. The critters must have slept in that day, or else they were out for lunch. But on the trip home, as the sun got lower in the sky, they came out. One field that I drove past had nearly a dozen deer, most of which were posing for me. You can see two of them running in, trying to get in place in time for the picture ...


Further down the road, with the sun lower in the sky, I came across more deer. These seemed more focused on the fresh grass in the field ...


Where I live, seeing deer is fairly commonplace. There are a lot of deer, and you have to drive cautiously when the sun is going down. Lately, there are more turkeys around, too. Here are some I saw on the same trip home ...


About a week earlier, on a trip to Iron Mountain, we saw a flock of turkeys, including a pair of big toms, those big fat ones you see in the Thanksgiving pictures the kids make in school. I stopped and was going to turn around--but there was a car behind us, and they stopped right next to the turkeys, convincing the turkeys that they better run off into the woods. Oh well!

The weather got warmer and warmer, and we quickly arrived at a major rite of spring around here: The year's first tender new grass started growing in front of the kitchen window. This a big day for one of our cats, which absolutely loves fresh grass. The other one could care less.

A few days ago we went somewhere, and on our way inside my wife picked some fresh, tender blades for the kitty's grass party. She couldn't get her jacket off before the cat got impatient ...


She did her coat off, and we went to the living room, where she sat down and held out the grass. The kitty came over to take a good sniff ...


When the grass didn't come fast enough, she hooked her paw around my wife's hand to move it closer to her ...


Once all the grass was gone, the cat got another treat. It was warm that day--it got to 84F here on Sunday!--so we opened the screen on the front door and moved one of the kitchen chairs over so she could look outside at the traffic and enjoy the fresh, exciting, new smells of spring ...


The cat doesn't know it yet, but she is in for another thrill. I'll tell you the big news in a day or so.

Just ... things

Gosh, it's been over a week since I last wrote. Well, it's just ... things.

There has just been too much bad news lately. I rarely turn off the news, even when I ought to, and it's been pretty grim lately. Last time I wrote, I was getting ready to cover to the funeral of that kid from our county who was killed in Iraq. The Navy wouldn't let us take pictures of the flag-draped coffin. It supposedly was at the family's request. I am highly dubious about that. I could go on about that, but I won't.

Right on top of that, we had the madman going off at Virginia Tech. Those things always get me very sad at the ridiculous waste of human life. All because our government and the people in charge don't have the balls to take on the gun lobby. Here we had this young man who obviously was very troubled, and he was able to walk into a gun store and arm himself adequately for his "school project." Same as it ever was.

That's a topic I've given up on. The gun lobby here in the States has the politicians so deeply in their hip pocket that nothing will ever change under the current system. Think about some of the comments made after the Virginia Tech shooting--that if the students had been armed, they could have taken the gunman down. Yeah, sure. Just like Dodge City.

You know, there was talk in the office that we ought to do a story about all the preparations our schools have taken to guard our students against armed madmen. A feel-good story easing the local fears. But that's stupid, isn't it? The schools locally now lock some of their doors during the day, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which is the front door. Their only security consists of the principal and his power to issue detentions.

Then there's the local law enforcement. We have a few local police departments with a few officers, a sheriff's department with about 10 deputies and a State Police post in town that is constantly threatened with being closed due to Michigan's never-ending state budget crisis. If there ever is a real emergency/hostage type situation, the State Police would race down here from Marquette. About 90 miles away.

As for the local gun dealers, I'm sure they are just as diligent about keeping their products out of the wrong hands as any other gun dealer is. If their money looks the right shade of green ... it's a deal! The madman in Virginia didn't raise any red flags, right? He had no police record. So to me, it's not a question of if there will be a next madman grabbing the headlines. It's just a matter of when and where.

Sound like I'm frustrated?

Other frustrations. After I sent an e-mail to S last Monday, she wrote back to tell me that her mom had died that morning and she was having a rough day--she was in California, and her mom was in Wisconsin. That night, I wanted to call her just so I could offer my condolences and good wishes. I called her number twice but got recordings both times, and then it was too late. (She told me later that the recording goes on when someone is on the phone.)

In truth, this was no big surprise. Her mom had been in a nursing home for some time, and her health had been going down. But it was her mom, and S was feeling down, and I wanted to give her my sympathies. It was a highly important thing for me to do for one of my best friends ... and I couldn't get through!!! I had to say the words in an e-mail, and, under those circumstances, that doesn't cut it with me.

Then, when we were driving to visit my mom on Friday, my wife told me that (according to a sister) her dad had cut back on the medicine he was prescribed after his battle with pneumonia. The thinking is that he's more likely to get sick again by doing this, but he doesn't seem to care. He feels he has lived long enough and wants to be with his wife, who died in 2000. Can't blame him.

Later, while we were taking my mom to dinner, she at first used a walker in the corridor, but she seemed unsteady, and I suggested we take the wheelchair instead. She agreed. She just seems more and more frail. She turns 85 late in May. Food for thought.

There has been good news, though. Honest.

I have been immersing myself in the NHL playoffs. My policy this year is that I'm watching every game I can. The games have been exciting--some more than others, of course. I am focused on hockey now--I'll only watch a little baseball and nothing of any other sport--basketball, car racing, golf, etc.

The Red Wings can win their first round series in six games tonight. The Canucks have gone to the seventh/final game against Dallas, but that one will be in Vancouver. Alas, the Minnesota Wild fell in five games to the Anaheim Ducks. (FWIW, I'm thinking about getting a green baseball cap with a Wild emblem--I think they have a great logo.)

I also got good news at work. They are taking away some of my news/meeting responsibilities, including the "temporary" ones that have been sucking up the most time for the last few years. Hallelujah! They're important beats, and I want to do a good job with them--but that means detailed stories about complex topics, and they take up a lot of time when I've got so many other things on my plate.

The word I got is that starting in May, someone who used to be with the paper will take those beats over again, and I can devote more of my time to my other duties and responsibilities. Ironically, I have two such meetings in the next two days, but those will be the last ones.

I've taken a bunch of pictures lately, but this post is long enough the way it is. I'll put together some shots for you in the next day or two. (If tomorrow night's game doesn't go to quadruple overtime, that is.)

I also have a challenging set of questions to answer from Chandramoon. She sent them over today. Not the kind of questions I can answer in a sentence or two. So that's in the pipeline. Yeah, another long post.

Pizza party!

I've got a little news, but I think the photos will go first this time.

Spring has been taking its own sweet time about arriving. It got nice and warm, the snow melted, and we saw a robin in the back yard ...


And then the snow returned. We had a big storm last week in the U.P. Most of the snow missed us, but it was very windy and blew the snow all over. Here's a view along a nearby road ...


But we saw a flock of some pretty strange birds for this area. I don't have an explanation for this one. One of those mysteries of nature ...


A few weeks ago, my wife and I drove down to visit my mom. On the way home, we stopped at Pizza Hut for dinner but got full before we finished the pizza. The final two pieces rode home with us, we stuck the box in the fridge ... and forgot about it.

Until my wife came upon it and decided the pizza was just too dried out. So she knew what to do: break it apart into tiny pieces and throw it on the back lawn for her bird friends.

It wasn't long before a crow discovered the feast in the back yard and called all his friends to come over for a pizza party ...


Some of the little birds that hang around our place also heard the call and swooped in for a snack ...


But the crows were a lot bigger and had first dibs on the snacks. This guy picked out some of the biggest, nicest morsels ...


... And flew off to the roof of the garage next door, where two of his cohorts were waiting ...


After a while, he'd return for another piece. It went like that for a while until the leftover pizza was snapped up. Between the crows and the little guys, it didn't take long.

***
A little news now. It's been very busy here, for a number of reasons. Too busy to write for fun lately. Hopefully it lets up soon.

In short: (1) Working on articles for special sections, plus lots of regular news work; (2) problems with the stat service for the fantasy baseball league, which occupied a lot of my time last week--things seem straightened out now; (3) finishing up the state and federal income taxes--those were sent out today.

On Easter Sunday, we drove across northern Wisconsin to visit my father-in-law, who had just returned home from the hospital after a bout with pneumonia. He was asleep when we arrived but woke up, and we visited with him for about two hours before driving back home. It's about 175 miles each way. He said he thinks he'll be feeling better in a couple weeks. Right now, he's resting a lot. He still has a lot of recovery to go.

He described what I interpret as a near-death experience, when he was so sick with pneumonia last week. He said he had chest pain (from the antibiotic that had the bad reaction on him) and then he felt himself up in Heaven, which he described as a very beautiful place, and his late wife ran up to him and hugged him tight, and he said, "No, Jeannette, not yet. I'm not ready yet. I didn't do everything I needed to yet."

Then he felt the chest pain again, and he was back in the hospital room with the doctors over him.

Finally, I've been feeling pretty down all week. We got word over the weekend that a young man from our area was killed in Iraq last Friday. When only 13,000 people live in the entire county, news like that hits close to home.

He was a Navy Seal and was the only one killed in the incident. I knew his dad pretty well--he's the District and Probate Court judge here--and I can't imagine how much he and his wife are hurting right now.

I'm going to be covering the military funeral on Saturday. Nearly 3,300 Americans have been killed in Iraq so far, but he's the first from our county.

****
One other distraction now: The Stanley Cup playoffs started tonight. I watched the Sens beat the Pens earlier tonight, and now the Stars' game at Vancouver is going to overtime. So I've got to wrap this up and I can focus on the OT. The time now, by the way, is close to midnight, and I have no idea how long I'll be staying up.

31 + 28 + 31 + 5

The equation above means that yesterday was really January 95, 2007. The snow we got on that day was straight out of January ... and the biting winds were straight out of the Arctic.

The high on Wednesday barely reached 20F. To think that in the last week or so, I was driving around, enjoying temperatures in the 50s and 60s.

The only thing not January-like was the length of day--13 hours here now.

Here is the snow blowing off the roof next door ...


I took a drive after supper Wednesday (it was already 7:30 and just starting to get dark). Here are some trees with a light powdering of fresh snow on them ...


My drive took me down a rural road. This view showed the wind gusts drifting the fresh snow around. Does that look chilly to you? Imagine how it felt!


Eventually I turned around at a rural intersection, as daylight faded away. But there was still time for a wide-angle shot at a corner of a field, this time with the flash on ...


Yeah, that's every bit as cold as it looks. Fortunately, there hadn't been much snow during the day, or otherwise driving would have been a little tricky.

The cold is only going to let up gradually and grudgingly. January drags on.

***
My FIL continues to improve back home--his daughter left today, deciding he was doing well enough by himself. Everyone is still amazed by his sudden turnaround. I told S about his improvement and canceling the trip to visit him. She replied, "So glad you and your FIL are enjoying the effects of what I do. :) "

It's late. I mainly watched hockey and worked on taxes tonight. Tomorrow I think my wife and I are going out for a fish fry. We haven't done that for a while. Maybe a movie later. We'll see.

The taxes can wait for a night. They've been waiting several months already, so one more day won't hurt.

And then on the next day ...

It's just been a long, tiring, frustrating day. An ironic day, too.

Sunday night, after finishing the last blog entry, I phoned S and asked her to do a healing meditation for my father-in-law. She said she would, and we talked about the situation for a few minutes. It was late (here), so I didn't stay on long.

The frustrating part came today, as I tried to clear my schedule so I could take two days off to visit my FIL in Marshfield. It's just 170 miles away, but a snowstorm is moving into the northern Wisconsin-Upper Peninsula region Tuesday, dumping a bunch of wet, sloppy snow. My job: to determine the timing of the storm, which areas would get hit and which won't get it so bad.

My determinations: Central Wisconsin (including Marshfield) will get off rather lightly--that area won't get much snow. Up north, we'll get hit pretty good Tuesday afternoon and night and early Wednesday. So, I decided, we will leave Tuesday morning, stay in Wisconsin that night and drive back home later on Wednesday, once the storm ends.

I had one interview I had to reschedule, with a school superintendent. Instead of Wednesday morning, we pushed it back to Thursday. The people at the office were told not to expect me around on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I also had to finish work on the WW2 vet's feature I mentioned yesterday--finish up the story and prepare the pictures--one that I took last week and several he had from way back when. I stayed late after work tonight (close to 5:30) to get all that work completed.

During the day, we got an update from a SIL that said they had found blood clots in his lungs. Not good news at all.

Back home, my wife and I talked briefly about our schedule--we'll leave about 9 a.m., before the snow gets too bad. Then, just as we were sitting down to supper, the phone rang.

It was my wife's sister. "You better change your plans," she said when I answered the phone. I gave it to my wife, and she sounded startled:

They're letting him go home!

Apparently there were no blood clots in the lungs after all, and he's feeling better, for whatever reason. He was being driven home as they spoke--about 120 miles. Someone will be staying with him at home for at least the short-term.

So yesterday, I went from worried to alarmed. Today, from alarmed to scared. And then ... I just don't know how I feel now. Relieved, yes. Screwed around, too. And confused? Most definitely.

Under the circumstances, though, I am not going to drive through a snowstorm for a visit, given that the urgency of the situation is considerably less than it appeared to be. Instead, tomorrow, I'll be in the office, watching for the snowflakes to start flying.

Well, it beats visiting hospitals.

Since last I wrote ...

I didn't write anything here over the last week. No, winter sports didn't resume. I got busy with this and that at home.

So here's a short recap:

Whither the editor: On Tuesday, I overheard something the editor was saying on the phone. Putting two and two together, it sounded like she was talking about moving away. She had gotten divorced recently and hadn't been able to fine a place to move into. Frustrated about that. When I asked her, she said she had decided over the weekend to move back to the Chicago suburban area, where she came from, moving back in with her mom for the time being while she looked for a job.

That led to a long, sleepless night. I woke about 3 a.m. and started wondering where the paper would be going now. We can barely get the work done with three people, and I am stretched absolutely to the max the way it is. I can't absorb more assignments, especially since the major news assignments I agreed to take on "temporarily" back in 2002 or '03 are still mine.

There's the task of breaking in a new person who doesn't know our systems or software and who likely would need massive amounts of training. There was plenty to worry about as I tried to go back to sleep.

The next morning, when I came in, she asked me, "Can a girl change her mind?" It so happened that after work the day before, she had found a place where she could move in, so she decided to stay in town. She has to be out of her old place by May 1.

Nursing home: Early in the week, the nursing home called me at home, telling me that my mom had to go to the hospital to have a scan taken on her back. We did that on Thursday. I spent most of the day away from the office. It was warm enough that we went out to get the chicken sandwich and strawberry shake she had been looking forward to quite a while. No news on the results of the scan yet.

Also early in the week, we got an e-mail from one of my wife's sisters, telling her that their father was in the hospital with pneumonia. More about that later.

62 years later: Also on Tuesday, I did an interview on a World War II vet for an annual special edition we put out each year. He's 82. Way back when, he was aboard one of the carriers that took part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, off the east coast of the Philippines, in October 1944. It was a major battle ... and then, a half hour after the Japanese fleet broke off the battle and headed north, his carrier was hit by a kamikaze plane, which penetrated the flight deck and exploded airplane fuel and the munitions below deck. The ship was doomed ... it sank a half hour later. He escaped (obviously) to tell his story ... to me, 62 years later.

I enjoy interviewing the World War II vets--have done a number of features about them--but they are dying off rapidly. This fellow was aching physically due to the switch to colder weather ... and emotionally due to his wife's death two years earlier. They had been married 57 years.

Draft Day: Friday and Saturday were mostly concerned with the fantasy baseball league I run as commissioner (and have run since 1989). But my interests have changed, and this year I decided for the first time not to have my own team in the league.

It's just that I have so many demands on my time now, from so many directions, and I just don't have the time to do all the research needed to run a team. Or the interest. Very frankly, I am much less of a sports fan today than I was a few years ago. Times change with everything, and the changes in the world of sports are not to my liking. I have decided I will continue to follow NHL hockey (which I still follow closely) and back off from everything else.

Regardless, I decided to run the league again. It really doesn't take a lot of time during the season, and the guys like me and count on me to run things well. So I had to do the pre-draft preparations for Draft Day itself, which took place on Saturday. Started at 9 a.m. and ended about 4:30 p.m.

On Friday night, most of us went off to our pre-draft "owners meeting," which involved a trip to a strip club about 40 miles away. I had written about it last year at this time. This year, it was amusing for about an hour or so. After that, it was terribly boring. The girls were pretty to look at, but they're way too young for my taste. I'm 57, the age gulf was obvious, and the girls didn't come around me except when they made the tour after their dance, looking for dollar bills.

The other guys are in their 30s and 40s, but I don't know. Judging by the way they carried on, I'm the only one of the bunch who has a sex life. Another guy and I tried not to be be too obviously bored, but I was.

The drive over there and back was fun, though. Several of us have iPods, and we all seem to like blues music. So on the way there, we listened to John Lee Hooker and sang along to "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer." A great song. Someone wished he had "Sixty Minute Man" on his iPod--and was delighted to find I had it on mine.

Anyway, Friday night I was gone until 1:30 a.m., and I left for Draft Day at 8:30 a.m. That lasted till about 4:45 p.m. So Saturday night, my wife and I stayed home, watched some hockey (Penguins vs. Maple Leafs) together and then went to bed early for some snuggle time.

My FIL: On Saturday, we got an update about my father-in-law. It seems the pneumonia has gotten worse, and the docs are trying a different antibiotic. My SIL's e-mail sounded worried.

He just turned 79 and has lived longer than anyone in his family. My wife and I talked about it and decided we will make the trip to visit him in the hospital some time this week, depending on what I've got to do at the office--it's expected to be a quiet week--and the weather (which is going to take a more winter-like turn in early April--several inches of snow is forecast for Tuesday).

Cripes ...

Just a minute ago, the e-mail tone on the computer sounded, so I went to see what's new. It's from my SIL. My FIL had a rough time of it Saturday night. Turns out he was allergic to the newest antibiotic and had chest pain--needed a nitro pill and morphine. Though it wasn't a heart attack, the doctors told her his heart has lost about 1/3rd of its strength.

I just came upstairs after a short talk with my wife. We are currently making plans to drive down to the hospital in Marshfield (about 160 miles away) on Monday after work or else Tuesday morning, before the snow gets here.

Wish us the best. Wish him the best.