A Queer Mobile

Our trail's flooded out again

We've had torrents of rain the past few days. Our walking was cut short - twice! - when both of our trails were flooded out this morning.

Early spring in the garden

Here's a slide show of our garden. (I just got in from about ninety minutes of pulling weeds...)

Cirque du Soleil last night

John got us front row seats for Cirque du Soleil's Saltimbanco, appearing this week in Cedar Rapids. He (and I) have been great fans of video recordings of Cirque's performances, but he'd never seen them in person before. He camped out on the ticketing website and grabbed best available seats for us - which amounted to us being less than ten feet from the stage - and right in the line of aerial acrobats flying around the auditorium. Pretty wonderful, I say!

Stuff's up!

John came in my office earlier last week. He'd retrieved a pop can someone had thrown in our garden. While doing that he saw that crocuses (croci?), snowdrops, and these Louisiana irises were up and blooming.

I got out both days over the weekend to cart away detritus from last year's garden. I pruned back echinacea and peony stems, raked apple and oak tree leaves, and started weeding - the creeping charlie starts early in the season.

Out on a limb

This cute guy gave me the eye when John and I passed by on the Cedar River trail yesterday. Ducks were just settling in and geese were flying by, coming back for the season. The water's still up a bit and moving fast.

The power of winter

A week ago John and I headed out on the Indian Creek trail just outside of town. Threading our way around bits of snow and ice we rounded a bend where I shot this. The water - which had been high and flowing fast - had gouged out big hunks of the river bank. Tree limbs were down everywhere, casualties of winter's snow and ice. We dragged small limbs off the trail; the city will be through at some point to remove the bigger stuff.

In a month, though, this scene will be unrecognizable. Scrub trees spring up fast, and the whole place will be emerald green...