Garden Party

Notes on Musical Notes

I am in a twit this afternoon.  Music.  Musicians.  Musicians wannabes.  Rap stars.  Pop stars.

Ugh.

I was just watching blurb on some current pop star who "writes her own music".  Really, This "pop star" is 21 years old.  She sings a lot.  She goes out with guys and then the paparazzi sells all the photos to the press.  She "writes her own music".

Why should we look?  Or care?  Has she written a Missa Brevis?  I doubt it.  I doubt that this pop star-singer-whatever even knows what four-part harmony is.

I know, this is a negative entry, but REALLY.

And here I go, even more negative.  (So sorry.)  This morning at church we sang a Swahili song, and a Brazilian song.  Both in English.  So, we Lutherans are singing songs with a beat, and the beat does not coincide with the Lutheran song mode that is in our hearts.  And the beat(s) also do not REALLY work with the English translations of the Portuguese or the Swahili.  And finally, the songs are SO ding-dong repetitive, like my father reflects:

7-11 Songs: Seven words, repeated eleven times.

Yes - my Dad has got it so right!  Bring back our hymnals:  I read through the Justification hymns this morning during the sermon.  I have to say, they gave me great comfort in my reading.  I did wish that our hymns during the service did the same.  Swahili- and Brazilian-translated words and tunes just not do it for me.  I want some substance to my voice and song.  Something I can sing on my way home.

Not a 7-11.           

The Problem "Child"

He's not a child.  He's a dog.  A beautiful, sweet bloodhound.

How can he be the vortex to so much TROUBLE this week?!

Over the weekend, he hauled an animal part (large leg bone?) back home from the creek.  It was gross.  Rancid.  Smelly.  Pretty awful. 

Our dogs stay in their dog yard most of the time.  It's a large fenced area (larger than most city yards), and they have the indoor run of the broadside of the barn as well.  Even with all that space, I like to let them out in the pasture/creek area in the mornings and evenings for exercise and to remind the circling coyotes and foxes that yes, the domesticated canines have the run of the property.

A couple of days ago, just after the dead leg recovery, Beau the bloodhound romped down to the creek and brought back another treasure: the skull of the dead animal whose leg he had so proudly retrieved a day or so earlier.  It was awful: he wanted to show me his prize, and I was running backwards trying to keep out of physical contact with Beau.  Listeria!  Rabies! Awful germs that I don't know about but am afraid of anyway!  Beau had a hurt expression on his face when I was running backwards and screaming "No!  No!  No!"   

I have yet to find that skull in the dog yard. It is too awful for me to come to terms with, just yet.

I took the pups out this beautiful morning, at 6:30 am.  The pasture grass is up to my knees now, green as green can be.  I have my little mown path around the pasture, and the pups and I went down towards the creek.

Along that fence, on the creek side, the grass is even taller.  I saw something just on the other side of the fence - just a puff of black, a few inches higher than the grass.  Beau spotted it just when I did, and whoosh! over the fence he went to get a better look.


He took a direct hit from the skunk.

I suffered collateral damage.   

I came right back to the house and threw off my clothes (they are lying in the grotto; I may burn them.) and grabbed my vet friend Cate's remedy for all things skunk: dish detergent, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide.  I showered and I can't smell it on me.  Paul couldn't smell it on me.  While I was showering and scrubbing, Beau made his way back to our yard and circled the house several times.  Eau de Skunk filtered into house.  I did vet friend Cate's other trick - the same one we flight attendants used to do for inflight vomit: coffee grounds in the oven @ 200º.  (Well, we flight attendants just poured fresh coffee grounds on the target spot on the plane, we didn't put grounds in the oven.)  And then?  I vacated the house for three hours.

Oh - and Beau?  Poor Beau.  I have yet to bathe that nasty hound dog.  That's on tonight's agenda.

Blech.

 

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis.

Always it happens when we are not there--

The tree leaps up alive into the air,

Small open parasols of Chinese green

Wave on each twig.

But who has ever seen

The latch sprung, the bud as it burst?

Spring always manages to get there first.

Lovers of wind, who will have been aware

Of a faint stirring in the empty air,

Look up one day through a dissolving screen

To find no star, but this multiplied green,

Shadow on shadow, singing sweet and clear.

Listen, lovers of wind, the leaves are here!

by May Sarton

Criminy!

This week has been one of beautiful weather.  Rural Kansas: not always synonymous with that phrase.  The temperature has been mild, a few showers, no wind to speak of (in Kansas-Speak this means less that 15 mph.) and everything is green.

Some years ago, and I have written about this, that Spouse o' Mine and I (and our kids) gathered acorns, just like little squirrels, from Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.  Back home in rural Kansas, we planted the acorns, and they grew into tiny little oak trees.  And then they died from horse manure compost - which any horse owner will tell you, will not "compost" for fertilizer use until 1-2 years of aging in a big ol' pile somewhere.  Lesson learned (I, a horse owner, KNEW this, and had discussed it at length with another adult member of our family.  Deaf ears, I say; my words fell on them like felled giant oak trees.)

Last autumn, that Spouse o' Mine and I returned to Washington, D.C.  We walked over to Capitol Hill and collected more acorns from those giant oak trees - those that the congressional squirrels had not already hoarded for their own needs.

Back home in rural Kansas, I dutifully set them in our refrigerator for a couple of months, and then planted them in individual containers.  Three had already grown into baby oak trees, and this week I set them outside in our grotto.  I had nine more planted pots in our mudroom, and this week I set them outside, too, and thought ahead to the day, centuries from now, when the new landowners could appreciate our arborial services to the future generations. 

This afternoon I looked out the window and !!GASP!!  two of the baby oaks were missing from their pots.  I immediately went outside to investigate.  My first accusation went to the ducks.  DUCKS!  Eating my tiny oak trees!  Stupid, stupid ducks.  Stupid.  Ducks.

But that didn't make sense.  Ducks will take bites out of leaves, but not haul an entire little tree out and chow down.  Hmmm.

By this time, that Spouse o' Mine had come home and he listened as I whined as only a good horticulturalist who has lost her crop can whine.  He reflected, and surmised, out loud, that ducks don't do that kind of damage.  Squirrels, however, do.  And interestingly, we have had two adolescent squirrels take up residence in our trees just the past week or so.  Aha!  J'accuse!  I walked over to the other nine pots of planted acorns to show that Spouse o' Mine that we still had a viable oak plan in our summer season.

I knelt down and dug my fingers into the soil to pull up an acorn to check its progress. 

There was nothing in the pot.

I moved to the next pot, stuck two fingers into the dirt and felt around.  No acorn.

Time and time again (nine times, exactly), I felt into a pot for a burgeoning acorn: not one ding-dong acorn in the whole lot.

Those !*^!>! squirrels!!! How in the WORLD did they do it?  How?!  How?!!

So now: we have to make yet ANOTHER trip to Capitol Hill.  Or plant holly.