Portland in winter

This picture sort of epitomizes Portland in winter. Gray, muddy, dead, blah. But! It's the newly built planter boxes that give hope of spring! I'll take this picture again in July and you'll see why Portland is so great....green, lush, sunny and beautiful.

Our oak trees are starting to lose their leaves today, another sign of spring. Unlike every other tree in the world that loses their leaves in the fall (when the city comes around to vacuum up the fallen leaves) our trees shed theirs in the spring....where we are responsible for the cleanup. 

Half a dozen daffodils came up out front this year.....who knows what happened to all the rest. I must have planted 100 of them last year....believe me, my back remembers doing it. I'm the only person in Portland that doesn't have a yard full of daffodils right now. The tulips look like they are going to put on a stellar show this year though.

I'm itching to get over to Portland Nursery and see what's new but it's still a little early. Maybe just a short trip to go look at the roses....what could it hurt?.....

What I learned from CNBC today

I learned that no one in the financial industry has incentive to do good work unless they are rewarded at year end with giant bonuses. Not giant bonuses for doing exemplary work mind you, bonuses given just for showing up.

Which, of course, makes me understand what a sucker I was for years and years working in the blood bank.....turning out compatible blood that would not kill the recipient....for an hourly wage and never with a bonus. I never knew that I should have been receiving a bonus just to DO THE RIGHT %$&^@#!! THING!!!! Without it, what incentive did I have not to kill people????

Gawd, Wall Street makes me sick....

And for the cat sympathizers out there....

The cat I mentioned in the post below is on the left, Pippy. Her sister, Angel, turned out to be a pretty good nurse. They didn't hang together much when Pip was well but when she got sick, Angel stayed pretty close. I hear that Angel is thrilled to be an only, INDOOR, cat now. I still miss Pip however....:-(

I'm getting bloggy lazy

(Daisy, being cute, 2009)

OK, so I'm getting a little slow at posting. As we head out of winter it seems there is more to do.

So I was preoccupied the past few weeks with helping my neighbor take care of her ailing cat. Pippy, the cat, had cancer and was unable to keep food down for long so she lived in Charles' shop briefly as barf doesn't hurt anything out there. I imagine Charles will be finding a little pile of hurl here and there for awhile.

When it appeared Pippy's quality of life had hit its low point, I went with my neighbor, Ann, to the vet to have her put down. It was as hard as if she were my own. Pippy was always one to help me when I was working in the garden and she would often greet me at my car on a particularly sunny day. She would face off with any dog in the neighborhood that dared to pee in her yard. She was one tough cookie and I will miss her.

Now that the stock market is on a bit of an upswing I'm trying to take advantage of the irrational exuberance long enough to make a few bucks. So far, so good but it makes me tense. You never know when these idiot traders will turn and decide to bid everything down again. I was listening to some guy on the radio today saying he thinks the markets might have turned up for good now that Wall Street has got it through their collective tiny heads that a Democrat is going to be running the show for awhile and bidding the market down does nothing but lose everyone money. How much did that particular round of sulking cost our 401k's?

We had three young guys (with strong backs) over today to do a few things outside. I'll take some "before" pics of what we did but we've set ups a series of planter boxes to grow vegetable in. We figure if the next Great Depression really hits at least we can grow some of our own food. If not, we'll be able to donate a lot of fresh vegetables to local food pantries. Matter of fact, we'd probably donate in either scenario since we're not, like, TOTALLY heartless, you know. The "after" pictures I'll take midsummer will hopefully be lush.....aside from the planter boxes, I think I'll put in strawberries in the front yard. The sun is really the best there and the plants are pretty.

Also, Charles got in a load of the walnut he'll be working the next couple of years so the 4 boys moved 6 TONS of walnut this afternoon from the back of a flatbed truck to various points in the backyard and garage. Yikes! Of course, all of this happened during a surprisingly rare rain storm. We've had a fairly dry winter here so far. After moving all that wood, Charles has decided to sub out the manufacture of the 12' x 4' tables. I can't say I blame him.

OK, that's briefly what is new here. Hard to believe that this time last year I was recovering from an appendectomy. How time flies....

I'll post up muddy garden pics soon....