The nitty-gritty of spring

This post has had a strange history. I wrote most of it offline last week and was at the point where all I had to do was final proofing and inserting the photos where appropriate.

But I hadn’t inserted photos at Efx3 yet, and it took me a while to learn how. Also, the end of last week got to be very busy. Then … fate took a strange turn.

First, here is the original version …

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It’s really spring here. We started last week with highs in the low 30s and a cold wind out of the north. But it gradually got better. Late in the week, we reached the mid 40s, and we got to the low 50s over the weekend. This week–more 50s and maybe even the low 60s. Then it’s going to get colder just in time for our trip.

The recent warmth has done a lot to finish off nearly all the final remnants of the former mountains of snow where the plow piled it all up during the winter. Doesn’t look so imposing now …

The forecast for this week calls for a constant run of sunny weather. That’s nice, but notice how brown the grass is. We could really use some rain, and it’s not in the forecast. That leads to more problems than dry vegetation.

In a word: grit. All winter, the city and county trucks have been dumping sand on all the snow and ice and slush on the local roads. Now, with nearly all the snow melted away, the sand and grit is all that’s left of our snowbanks. That stuff doesn’t melt, and there hasn’t been rain to wash it away. This is the sidewalk near our house, looking down the street …

But there’s not as much sand 0n the sidewalk now. My wife devoted much of Monday afternoon to sweeping it into piles and putting it onto the street by the curb. That way, she explains, when the street sweepers come along, away goes the sand. Besides, the city and county trucks are responsible for most of the stuff, so it is going back where it came from. Return to sender.

She is getting busy with other things, too. Her little kitchen plantation is doing very well. See for yourself …

In time, if everything goes right, this is what we will have near the clotheslines this summmer …

… oodles of morning glories, like these from 2007.

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But I didn’t get the photo links set up before our trip. It was 74 degrees when we left Oshkosh Saturday afternoon. T-shirt weather. It was 49 by the time we got home that evening. Spring jacket weather.

Sunday, temperatures were in the 40s and getting windy. A cold wind from the north. Around bedtime, it started snowing. Snowing & Blowing, a familiar wintertime combination. Except it was April 20.

Snowing & Blowing kept on doing their thing all day Monday and picked up the pace after dark. On Tuesday morning, here was the view from the back porch …

The lilac bush next door had a heavy coating of white …

I really didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice. I put on the heavy boots, picked up the heavy aluminum shovel and went to work .

And once I finished that, I trudged through the extremely wet snow to work …

We got roughly 10 inches of snow here, and other places in the U.P. got around 20 inches. Heavy, wet, “heart attack” snow. But it won’t stay around long. The sun finally broke through the clouds today, and we reached the low 40s this afternoon. On Thursday, the high is supposed to be 63. On Friday, we’re forecast for 75 degrees, along with rain and thundershowers. Next week, highs back in the 40s.

What can I say? Springtime in the U.P.

Not your ordinary visit

After a really busy, hectic week, our weekend trip was completed successfully on Saturday.

Just as well we got it all done Saturday. Sunday, we had cool, damp weather that never got out of the 30s. But for most of Saturday, we enjoyed weather in the 60s and even the low 70s early in the day. For Monday and Tuesday, about a foot of very heavy snow is predicted for our area. That's April for you.

We had been planning to visit S and her husband for a long time, but the story took on new urgency last Sunday, when S wrote and told me that her husband was looking very good for a new job--but their car had just been diagnosed with a cracked block. Not a good thing when your new job is 30 miles away.

Their car had been ailing for some time, and last fall I reminded them that my mom's car was still sitting in her garage, unused since she went to the nursing home in late 2005. If you need it, I said. We'll see, she said. That was the last time we talked about it until last Sunday.

Her plan was that I drive them north when we go home, so they can get the car. Monday, I was busy putting the paper together all day, but I called around to a garage that could help us.

Tuesday, we drove down to the house, then called the garage to send out a flatbed wrecker to pick up the car and take it to the garage. (Its battery was dead, and the gas had been sitting in the tank for three years.) I told the garage to give it an oil change, lube, coolant change, fluids, and give the car a once-over. We visited my mom and got the car keys from her. Had a nice visit, too.

I knew where the title was--at our house. It was made out to my dad (who died in 1994) "or" my mom. The title had been mailed to them in 1988. It cost the state 18 cents to send the business envelope. But I had to call the Wisconsin DMV to find how to fill out the title, since my mom couldn't sign it.

But I have power of attorney. I went to the state's website, e-mailed in a question, got a reply that asked me to call so-and-so. I called Madison, got connected to the right person, explained the situation, gave them the VIN number, they went to their computer and told me how it should be done.

Keys? My mom had a set. But I had seen another set when we were cleaning out the house in '07. I remembered it was in my mom's dresser, in a wooden box that said "Canasta Cards" on it. We looked through all the boxes we had taken to our house from hers. We found some other wooden boxes, but they had jewelry inside. Finally we found the Canasta Cards box. Yep, there are the keychains. Yep, there are the extra car keys.

Wednesday, I was out of town all day for a track meet out of town. Thursday, I called the garage to check in. The car would be ready. But they close at noon on Saturday, and there was no chance I could get S and her husband there by then. So on our trip south Friday morning, I stopped at the garage and paid the bill for their service and the towing ($267; it has also needed a muffler and tailpipe, besides the battery) and got the key back. The car stayed at their lot; that's where we would pick it. Just as well--I had let the license plates and the insurance lapse several years ago.

We got to Oshkosh Friday afternoon and went to S's house right away. About a half hour later, her husband and I went to the state DMV office with my mom's car's title. He filled out the forms, turned over the title, wrote out a check and got the new plates. At some point, he handed over our agreed-upon price for the car. At the DMV office, he had to pay the sales tax on the purchase price. $25 * 6% = $1.50.

The rest of Friday was more relaxing. We went to Golden Corral for supper with their grandson, who is staying with them. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet; we ate well. From there, we went to our motel's swimming pool. I spent some time in the pool but more time in the nearby whirlpool, enjoying the warm, bubbly waters and loving the way it felt on my tired back.

All four of the adults spent most of their time there, but I also spent time in the pool, horsing around with their grandson, who wanted me to go under the surface time after time. Then I had to do the deadman's float--and he climbed up on my back. Later on, though, some teenage girls got into the pool and started playing volleyball without a net, and he decided that was much more interesting. I gratefully returned to the whirlpool.

On Saturday morning, my wife and I made the only shopping stops of the trip: at Hobby Lobby (fabrics) and Fashion Bug. Then to S's house. From there, we went to the Oshkosh museum for the original main reason for the trip: a exhibit of contemporary quilts called "This Is Not Your Grandmother's Quilt." Many interesting quilts and designs. The only downfall was that they weren't lighted that brightly, and I wanted to take pictures by existing light. But I took a few pictures, and once I can find the time, I'll post some of them soon.

At some point that morning (don't remember if it was before or after the museum visit), S gave both me and my wife reiki back massages. She had converted her front porch into a massage area, with wall hangings, incense, candles, running water, CDs of relaxing music and a really nice massage table. She sure didn't have to twist my arm. I loved it, as she is a good masseur. My wife even decided on a massage, and she loved it, too.

Then, the long trip north. It's about 140 miles away, about three hours more or less. We talked, looked at the scenery (the leaves still have not opened, and the landscape is pretty brown right now), but the highlight was near the end.

I decided to play them a CD on my iPod named "Halloween Stomp," which is full of fun Halloween/ghost/"spooky" music from decades past. One was "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" by Stanley Holloway, about Anne Boleyn, who supposedly walks the Tower of London by night with ... well, as the title says.

S recognized the tune instantly and started singing along. "A gal I used to sing with did that one," she told me later. "I haven't heard it in years, so it was a fun treat for me as well."

Finally, we reached our destination. They had brought along the title, plates, some Heet and some octane booster. We drove to the garage, they put the Heet in the gas tank, replaced the license plates got inside and turned the key. It started. I followed them to a gas station, where they put some high octane gas in the tank plus the octane booster. From there, I refreshed them on the route back home. (They could take one highway all the way south.) Then it was time for some hugs and kisses, their car turned east, and ours turned west. An hour later, we were home.

They finally got home between 8 and 9. They were tired, S wrote, but the car ran very well for them.

That made me happy. It had been a very tiring week for me, with many extra things to do. It was stressful, trying to get everything done, trying to remember everything I had to do and everything I had to bring.

I guess I did OK. They are happy, and they have a decent car again. That's what matters.

Peep Research and an upcoming trip

I know this is a little late for Easter, but I wanted to share the story of those resilient little birds that symbolize Easter for many young ones. Namely, the Marshmallow Peeps.

I was able to find several extensive scientific discussions of the Peeps online during the first years of the internet. Sadly, many of them have faded away, lost to changing times, student scientists graduating and their scholarly papers on the Peeps being unceremoniously deleted from the server.

Fortunately, one of the better Peeps sites still lives. Over at Peep Research, their studies "focused on basic attributes and reactions of Peeps to simple conditions and stimuli," such as heat, cold, low pressure environments and solubility.

They also conducted health-related experiments on the Peeps, showing the effects of smoking, on alcohol and even the adaptive fear response. Another study details the groundbreaking work in separating conjoined quintuplets, a frequent event in Peepland.

Brave researchers, carrying on their studies for the good of Peeps everywhere, of every color. "Here," they explain, "we try to discover just a little bit more about the world around us through the miracles of science, technology, and preservatives."

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On that note we enter another week. We went to the Easter service with David this morning, and he spent the rest of the day with us, doing this and that. We had a very nice supper of ham, baked potatoes and broccoli.

The weather is going to be wonderful this week--highs in the 50s and maybe we will touch the low 60s. But no rain is in the forecast. And that increases the threat of fire. Until we get rain, we don't get to the event known locally as "greenup," when the new grass, weeds and dandelions take over, when the trees start budding and you start seeing a fuzzy haze of green on distant trees.

Fortunately, we rarely have worse than little grass fires around here. But we have had wildfires in the past, and the weather conditions this week, unfortunately, may have the local firefighters hopping to keep up. Breezy weather. Low humidities. Dry vegetation. You don't have to live in southern California to know what that could lead to.

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The highlight of our week is that we will be visiting S and her husband on Friday and Saturday (just one night). We haven't visited them since New Year's, so it will be nice to see them again. The usual plan is to visit them at their home, then we take them out to dinner and then head for our motel, where we all enjoy the swimming pool.

Tonight, the story of the weekend changed. S's husband, who has been out of work for the last several months, apparently is in line for a job--all that's left is the in-person interview. But it's at a city 30 miles away. And his car is in bad shape. It has been leaking coolant--they tried something called StopLeak, but they just found out from a mechanic that the car has a cracked block. That's not something you want to hear if you trying to get a job 30 miles away.

Last fall, when S told me about the car's problems, I thought about a car that could be available. It's my mom's car, a 1986 Ford Taurus, which has been sitting in her garage since she had her fall and went into the nursing home in late 2005. Yes, it's been 3 1/2 years now.

So I talked to a mechanic at a local garage, who told me there's no reason the car can't run again--only put Heet in the gas tank to absorb the water that has formed in the gas tank. Also, the battery is dead and has to be replaced. But we plan to have the mechanic give it a good once-over to see if there are any major problems.

That makes the rest of the visit a little more complicated. The tentative plan is for us to take S's husband--and maybe S herself--up north with us when we go home. It's about 130 miles. Once there, we will probably go somewhere for supper, maybe across the river in Iron Mountain. Then they will pick up the car and head for home by themselves.

Before you ask--yes, I've got the car's title, and my mom signed it some time ago. I have power of attorney, so I can sign papers on her behalf, anyway.

It's an old car, it may not be long for this world, but my thinking is that it will help them along for a while till they can get something better. And if I can do something to help some dear friends ...