gadget in lot

This spring this contraption appeared beside the tulip poplar tree, on the stump of the wild cherry. It regulates the irrigation of the vegetables in the lot across the road.

flower on a tree?

Yeah. It's called tulip poplar. I planted one 15 years ago. It's about 25 feet high. The lowest flower is eight feet above the ground. I'm loving it because I usually miss the flower because the garden takes my free time when they bloom.

TP-ed or feted

In dawn's light Monday I woke to paper all over the place. This is a ritual called TP-ing. One goal is to keep it anonymous. Is it performance art? Pranksterism? It says, You're on our radar.

first picnic

Memorial Day weekend kicked off the picnic season, this one sponsored by Lois and celebrating Helen's 6th birthday. Mom Angela holds her while Grandma Lois lights the candles in Musser Park, Lancaster. Then some boccie ball and kubb games.

end of story

My amorous teenage neighbors reminded me that today is Ascension Day, 40 days after Easter. I figure just as important as Christmas. One holiday gets the God-Human on earth. The other gets the entity off-planet. Without Ascension Day we'd have the most famous tomb in the world or we'd have to delete all those post-resurrection events and sayings of Jesus's "life."

The junge also remind me that in a buggy the driver's seat is on the wrong side, on the right. These courting buggies let you see what's going on. Is that related to British cars with drivers on the right? Front buggy has an outing bag of perhaps picnic items hanging on back axle.

nature's way

The garden's the thing these May days. I check out the peas first thing daily because I'm trying peas after at least eight years of giving up on them. Soil, natural, garden--all words of great virtue. But if you go for nature you have to take the whole thing, including dead creatures.

What was it? Dad robin bringing the first worm of the day back to the nest and flying just a little too low across the road and stunned? A pesticide-laced morning dew drink?

from the wild

Before we were in the same vase, we lived separately. That's our Siberian iris in the foreground, the lusher, regular iris behind.

30 years together

What to do on your 30th anniversary? A little poetry in flowers at daybreak.

leaving the nest

Outside my office window a mourning dove built a stick nest. A week ago the mother covered her two chicks. Today one waits for for its moment to leave.

foreign stamp

Not often do I see an actual foreign stamp in our mailbox. Here's one. In the left corner was just "air mail." I missed the "par avion." Wiki says: French is ... traditionally the international mail language. The "avi" is the same verbal unit for aviation.

Inside was an appeal for money to help a student.

the sign at home

I asked the township road master if the school sign across the road could be moved farther east so the milk truck could leave without clipping our post. Later the same day he did it. Apparently road masters don't pound stakes in with sledge hammers anymore. The huge front loader pushed it down like a toothpick.

roadside signs

Forget your GPS latitudinals, just meet me at Wallace and Ranck. See the township note on Ranck? Where else? Into fonts? Try this one for asparagus. The mailman hums "As I Write This Letter," I bet, as he drives up to the triplets. All this ten miles southeast of Monterey.

Dorcas gets 15-year recognition

Last evening Lancaster Mennonite School honored Dorcas for fifteen years of service.

mystery uncle

Uncle John was born during World War I, a year before it ended. He died one year before World War II began. There was more nation-sponsored killing of young men in the first half of the 20th century than I can imagine.

homage to unknown uncle

Six years before I was born, my mother's younger brother (John L. Groff) was killed when his car wrecked. Seventy-one years later (Saturday) some Groff cousins discussed the two newspaper articles about the accident and the two obituaries (one in the local newspaper and one in the church periodical). We gathered at the cemetery and shared info and asked questions of three of his contemporaries--Chris Brackbill, Amos Groff, and his sister, Elsie Martin.

tuplip and tree

Out front at the pump, the tulips are wide awake; the black walnut across the road is just now starting to bud.

intruder in garden

Last night some horses traipsed through the garden, crushing some plants. Here are four lettuce plants off to a good start. The step in the middle has toppled one. I asked a neighbor, who noticed hoof prints in other fields nearby, but the culprits are still unknown.