Spring Fever

Spring is a promise.

 A promise of eggs,



red ripe tomatoes,

apple pies,



fantastical projects, 

and warm days in the shade.

Today is a day that I have to believe that spring's promises will be kept.



Just Dishy

 

 

 



 

 

There's a very good reason I haven't posted in the past few days.

 

 



 

 

We're having a new roof put on the house and we found out that not only did the roofer have to remove the satellite dish but that it couldn't go back on a metal roof.

 



 

 

But today the nice folks from 1st Choice Satellite came and, in the pouring rain, installed our dish with an upgrade and, yes, on the pole in the berry garden (see Sod Off  . I knew there was a reason we couldn't get it out of the ground!). So  now we are back in the land of the cyberconnected.

Of course, 90 minutes later the electricity went out but, hey, that's life in the country.



For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.

Miss Kelly: A white rabbit, six feet tall.
Wilson: Six feet?
Elwood P. Dowd: Six feet three and a half inches. Now let's stick to the facts

I've had rabbits on the brain lately.

We got two cages built and finally a stand for them. I've ordered the third cage; we still need to put a roof over everything and then I need to find some rabbits.

In the meantime, we were blessed to have Tom's sister, Dianne,  and her husband, Rick,  drive out from New York bringing along my favorite mother-in-law, Margaret.

I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whoever I'm with.

In the course of a delightful visit, we learned that Rick has never watched "Harvey".

I didn't think it was possible to reach adulthood and not have seen what is one of the most quotable movies of all time. We lost no more of that time putting in the dvd and learning all about...

...pookas,

P-O-O-K-A: From old Celtic mythology, a fairy spirit in animal form, always very large. The pooka appears here and there, now and then, to this one and that one. A benign but mischievous creature. Very fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?" [Inverts and shakes the dictionary] "How are you, Mr. Wilson?" Who in the encyclopedia wants to know?

...families,

Myrtle Mae, you have a lot to learn, and I hope you never learn it.

...and bad psychiatry.
 
Dr. Sanderson: I'm not using psychiatry, Miss Kelly — and let me give you a little friendly advice — that chip on your shoulder stems from a persecution complex that undoubtedly goes back to childhood.
Miss Kelly: Well, thanks so much for the case history, doctor. Now could you tell me what an over-inflated ego stems from?

Funny, witty, and well acted, this movie also fills me with the warm hope that people  can be loving and loved, with our prickles and oddities, even if we march to that different drumbeat and, yes, even if our best friend is an invisible, 6' 3 1/2 " rabbit.

Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.

If you've never spent time with Elwood P. Dowd and his friends, rent, buy, download, or borrow a copy of "Harvey", beat off those flyspecks and welcome the miracle that is everyday life.

Dr. Chumley: Fly specks, fly specks! I've been spending my life among fly specks while miracles have been leaning on lampposts at 18th and Fairfax!

We made our bed but didn't lie in it.

I want to raise meat rabbits. So, I built some cages*. We decided the north side of the garage would be a perfect place for our rabbitry but we needed to build a stand with a roof to hold the cages and protect them from the weather.

We perused our pile of leftover and scavenged wood; surely there was enough material here for a cage stand.

Nope, no matter how many designs we came up with, nothing was working.

Then we looked up. In the garage rafters was a day bed frame left by the former owners. Maybe this would work and wouldn't it be classy, in a funky kind of way, to have our rabbit cages lounging on a day bed?

In an act of supreme daring-do, Tom climbed up on the stepladder and finagled the pieces down to me. We assembled the ugly thing, only to find it was too small to hold both cages.

We didn't want to take it apart after all that work, but what do you do with a bed frame if you don't want another bed?

I've been thinking that what we need around the property are stands or benches, something to put your tools on while you work or to rest your weary bones. Part of that wood pile in the garage are slabs of beadboard that our neighbor had long ago retrieved from a church being torn down. We'd hoped to use it in the house but it is too brittle and worn to fully disassemble so we've kept it attached to the framing boards. The top piece on the pile just happened to fit onto the bed frame, and, shazam...

...a fancy garden stand.

The rabbit cages are still in the garage but now we have a bed at the head of our garden bed. And we've given the neighbors something else to wonder about. A win win.

* "I built some cages". That phrase doesn't remotely begin to describe what I went through. When I get over the trauma, I may write about it.