The days are long and the years are short

One of the ducks from the school courtyard was out in front today (9/18/09). The children were so enthusiastic about seeing him/her.

The media specialist/G&T coordinator was taking videos of the duck. Other ducks have been flying south for the winter and we hope that this one will start flying south also. This is one of the children from the mommy duck who laid eggs in the courtyard last spring.

The acorns are falling and birds are flying in my backyard.

I had a nightmare about compost last night. Oh boy.

Moved boxes first thing at starstraf 's and sweetie's townhouse. Eventually, had to just supervise my daughter while the rest of them got things organized. :-(  mrmoosie felt that he lifted and toted enough for his whole family.
I got email from a person that had compost-able trash and wanted to dispose of it. So I gave her directions to my heap. :-)

The pizza that we got was delicious. :-) Emily had a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich. She left the bones (crusts) for Teddy Bear (starstraf 's and sweetie's dog).

We had ice cream nearby. The leaves were falling on us. Tons of leaves.

When I got home, I turned my compost to bury the new additions. 

Then it rained all night. :-) My garden/yard and compost needed that.

mrmoosie is off to the store with a list. I gave him a sneak peek at the school calender and encouraged him to copy important parts into his iPhone.

I buried the deer feces, that I had been walking over (never on) for days while doing my garden work. I seeded all the bare soil areas with Fall Grass seed, that Emily helped us get at the hardware store. Our neighbor recommended that mixture of grass seed. (Although she dug up all her moss, and I lazily just seeded on top of the moss). I thought that moss was an indicator species, but I can't find a reference to it. The Wikipedia entry says that mosses can be encouraged in acid soil and discouraged in alkaline soil, which is close to the bit that I heard about them being an indicator for acid soil. I already know that the site has lots of rainfall, little light and poor water runoff.

I filled three pots with potting soil and put seeds into two of them. That finished off the potting soil for good. And the cantaloupe seeds are all gone now, also.

It rained really hard last night. So I am not going to worry about watering for a while.

There are still new cases being reported in the US and Canada. Illinois has suddenly had 3 deaths. But the numbers of new cases are small compared to the numbers that have already been reported. The big increases in cases are occurring in the tropics (?) like Panama, and the Southern Hemisphere, especially Latin America.

I wonder about the seasonality of it. All flu is supposed to be seasonal, due to the way it reproduces. It can be spread 6 or more feet by a sneeze in cold, dry weather. Much less distance in warm humid weather. Hmmm.

We'll be spending a fair amount of time there this summer. However, both of the first days we went, the pool spent some time closed with thunder. Today, lightening was seen and we cleared the deck.

Emily and her friend from school are watching The Lion King.

It's not raining at this very moment. However, it is extremely wet out there.

My mint is coming back. Not strongly, but there are some sprouts.

Two of my five squash transplants survived. I saw one get stepped on, and one was broken before it was transplanted, so only one died of unknown causes.

My peas are growing OK. The grapes are growing somewhat well.

The cantaloupe aren't coming up yet. They may not make it.

The sun is finally out.
Emily doesn't need glasses. The test picked up some astigmatism, which will eventually need to be corrected, but it shouldn't be a problem now. It's mild, like T's, and astigmatism doesn't change over your lifespan (unlike near- and far-sightedness).  I brought Emily to school just in time to go to the lunchroom and be the lunch lady (1 of 3). Oh, the kids were full of beans!!! Just very bouncy, interfering with their neighbor, etc.

Last night's Spanish class was awful. I wasn't prepared and wasn't awake enough to follow the teacher. The teacher wasn't too upset with me, though. She was very glad to get some good essays from the rest of the class. I will have to get my essay emailed to her soon.

Making it a FULL week without sun!!!!!

I am ready to be done with winter, but apparently winter is not ready to be done with me.

Must get directions to Howard University (and figure out what room I'll be going to).
Rearrange my notes for the interesting order in the accelerated class.
Either dig out our driveway or buy icemelt and melt out our driveway (driveway is nearly completely ice).
File lots of paperwork.
Dump shredding on top of my compost to keep the squirrels from making a mess in there. The mess is SO much more obvious spread out over a layer of clean ice on top of snow.
Make sure that my daughter eats healthy food. Ha, ha, ha. I crack myself up.
Send my sister a book on composting with worms. That's fun.