bogen.org

Memorial Day has come and gone, but we tried to use the time as best we could.Getting our garden in the ground is always an effort for us. Some years we put it in early, take a trip, and come home to find the whole mess choked with weeds. Other years it takes us a bit of extra time to get it in because of a trip we take in May. This year was one of the latter. Because we went to Cleveland a couple of weeks ago, we didn’t get our garden in the ground until Memorial Day weekend. We’ve got an expanded garden this year because we’re using space that used to be under a spruce tree we had removed. We’re not growing anything too unusual this year. Tomatoes, cukes, kohlrabi, pumpkins, eggplants, green beans, zucchini, lettuce, sweet peppers, hot peppers, dill, basil, mint, oregano, and broccoli are the ones that come to mind. I’m also growing some hops for brewing (Cascades, Sunbeams, Willamettes, Mt. Hood, and Kent Goldings), but I’m not expecting to get a substantial harvest of cones from those until next year. Most everthing that would interest rabbits has been fenced off, which means that we should actually get some kolrabi and broccoli this year. Dalla is 100% effective at stopping rabbit browsing of the garden, but she’s only in the yard 15-20% of the time, so we still have to put out chicken wire.

Garrison went in for his four month doctor’s appointment recently. He’s still in the 70+ percentile for his age in weight, head diameter, and length. He got some more vaccinations, which put him into a nasty mood for the evening, but he was mostly over that by the next day.

Lest anyone think we forgot, we made our obligatory trip to Brat Fest over Memorial Day. As part of the successful effort to eat over 200,000 brats, Sarah and I each consumed three sausage tubes on Saturday. Garrison managed to sleep through his first Brat Fest, which I suspect he won’t do next year when he’s older.

Memorial Day, we decided to take some time off of working around the house and hike some of the trails at Devil’s Lake State Park. The weather was generally favorable and we brought a picnic so that we could leave the house a bit earlier. The park was crowded with people enjoying the last gasps of Memorial Day weekend, but we still found plenty of space for ourselves. The pictures below were taken during our hike.

Garrison, Dalla, and David

Dalla

Sarah and Garrison

Garrison recently was given two new toys by our relatives. A new video on YouTube shows him playing with the toys.

It must be Spring because our lawn is a sea of dandelions. Last night our lawn got the first mowing of the Spring, Summer, and Fall seasons. Only 50% of the lawn actually needed to be mowed, but that 50% was distributed randomly around the entire property, so I ended up mowing the whole thing anyway. At a minimum, it cut the dandelions down to size for twelve hours or so.On the upside, our patio furniture is outside once again, and we had our first multi-family cookout on the patio a few weeks ago. There is so much more room to entertain on the patio, compared to our dining room, that it is easier to have larger groups of people over. The charcoal grill has been restored to its place of primacy and the gas grill relegated to usage on rainy days or for quick, small grillings.

Dalla has been reveling in the arrival of Spring since we’ve gotten in the habit of leaving both the patio door and the screen door open in what we refer to as our “open door policy”. Since there aren’t any mosquitoes out yet, we don’t mind having the screen door open to the yard. She loves running in and out as the urge strikes her.

Dalla upped her prey-tally this season by two mice and a rabbit. The mice she caught under our recycling bin; the rabbit was dumb enough to wander into the yard during early evening. She saw it and went sprinting out after it. Unfortunately, it was too big to fit through the chainlink fence, and couldn’t easily go under it. The rabbit was just halfway under the fence when Dalla caught up to it, so the struggle devolved into a contest to see if she could keep it in our yard or if the rabbit could struggle away into a neighbor’s yard where Dalla couldn’t follow. Given Dalla’s advantages of weight, strength, and grip (she had the rabbit’s hind quarters in her mouth), the contest was all but predetermined in her favor. After she ended the struggle, I rewarded her with a couple of treats, and the rabbit carcass joined the mice in our trash bin. With so many dead animals in our trash, we might have to rename the trash can the “carcass bin.”

The birds are back in our neighborhood, including some that we haven’t had in the past. Some white-crowned sparrows have been making an extended stay in our yard on their way north for the summer. An Eastern Towhee, which I’ve never seen in our yard before, has been hanging around for the better part of a week. I also put some sparrow-excluders on my birdhouses this year, which has encouraged some chickadees and wrens to check out the potential nesting spaces. It’s nice to have the wrens back this year. I enjoy listening to their songs much more than the cardinals’ endless braying.

As part of my ongoing descent into homebrewing madness, I planted five different varieties of hops in our yard this year. The hops are planted along our fences, so that they can use the fences for strength and guidance. This year’s harvest will likely be lean, but next year’s should bring an abundance (likely an overabundance) of hops that I can use in my own brewing endeavors.

Garrison is still a herky-jerky three-and-one-half month old. He doesn’t have much in the way of fine motor control yet, though he’s started reaching for objects and may even have a favorite toy or two. He likes to sing, coo, and howl in the morning and during dinner time, unless he’s sitting on someone’s lap. Putting him down for bed is still a real chore since he seems to think that he might never wake up if he falls asleep. However, Sarah (with whatever minor assistance I can offer) soldiers bravely onward and he generally gets to bed by 21:30 every night. When he’s upset, Sarah is clearly his favorite person, and that makes getting him ready for bed a major component of her evenings. We’ve been trying to read him books, but, of course, he can’t actually understand the words we speak. Regardless, he likes to smack the pages of the books with his hands. Since we had a real Dr. Seuss deficit (i.e., none), I bought him a twelve book omnibus that contains many of Geisel’s best known works like, “The Lorax”, “The Cat in the Hat”, “Green Eggs and Ham”, and nine or so others. His physical growth continues unchecked. He’s doubled his birth weight and is now over two feet long.

Sarah has been keeping herself busy with keeping Garrison fed, happy, and alive. She has been diligently seeking day care for him that is reasonably priced, somewhat conveniently located, and staffed by caring individuals. As anyone who has looked for daycare can likely attest, finding care that meets those three simple criteria is not easy. She is also looking forward to getting back to work come June 1st. She recently attended a professional convention here in Madison while I looked after Garrison for the day. She said it felt good to be back amongst professionals, but that she also missed her time with Garrison.