Not a Drop

Somebody might have gotten rain yesterday but we sure didn't.  We didn't get any rain, not a sprinkle, not drop, it even turned kind of sunny.  Now today there's a spiral of clouds out over the lake that's headed East but the trailing edges of it are reaching back West toward Green Bay.  They're not talking about any rain with it and it's supposed to clear up for the afternoon.  I heard the weather guy last night say we might have a thunderstorm on Sunday night into Monday.  I could go for a thunderstorm.  That means I should probably take my rake and my weed puller out tomorrow and clean up the garden and along the back of the house.  That way when Mother's Day rolls around in 10 days or so I'll be ready to plant.  Ooh, planting!  I'm thinking I might employ some weed barrier this year and also see if somebody's got Miracle Gro garden soil on sale; our garden soil needs help and a top-dressing of that might be just the thing.  Or I could pave over the garden and ditch the work...  Nah.  Won't do that.

For the first time since I started knitting both sleeves simultaneously I turned the work after knitting one of them and purled back--only to realize that the working yarn for the next sleeve was on the wrong end.  $#%&@!!!  That meant tinking (k-n-i-t backwards) 66 stitches, knitting the OTHER sleeve and then turning the whole shooting match to purl all the way across like I was supposed to in the first place.  That means I have done both of the major "knitting 2 at a time" errors--carrying the yarn across the gap (thereby knitting handcuffs instead of sleeves) and turning to go back one sleeve early--so I should be done screwing up on this segment of the project, right?  Right.  (yeah, I'm not convinced either.)

I looked out this morning to see a tulip bud standing tall and proud, and you can't really see but down near the daffodils the allium have sent up little flower buds too.  Soon more flowers will bloom, some will be finished, but I'll have flowers for a while.  Maybe soon there'll be leaves on some bushes and trees?

April 30--David Mendelsohn, DM2005.

the buzz
the hum
wires looping
resistor to resistor
ringed by fence
topped with curls
of razor wire
the hum
like muffled bees
keeps the curious
at bay
better than the
No Trespassing
signs
~~~~~

And that's the end of this year's round of April is Poetry Month.  It seems fitting that Ellen Kort, Wisconsin's first Poet Laureate and someone I took many poetry classes from left us this year during Poetry Month.  She was a real proponent of poetry for everyone, even carrying glow-in-the-dark chalk in her car for scribbling poems on walls and sidewalks at night.  She was quite a woman, an inspiring poet, I miss knowing she's around if I need inspiration or a kick in the poetic pants.  Godspeed, Ellen.
--Barbara