Hiding...

28 August 2025: Someone ran out the front door today and then tried to hide. Or perhaps she just appreciates the new views, too.

Late August blooms...

27 August 2025: It's been dry here again and I am having to water the front bushes, which are still young and vulnerable. When I got home this evening and started watering, I found myself so pleased again with how well this flower bed has turned out. The annuals are thriving. They started out as tiny plants in cell packs and look at them now! The bushes are doing well, too. I am obsessed with the butterfly bushes. I can't say enough about how much this long-delayed landscaping change pleases me.

A summer stunner...

19 July 2025: The zinnias that I planted this year--especially around the mailbox--are doing really well. The bloom below isn't perfect, but it is huge and really pleases me, imperfections and all. Grateful for this kind of beauty.

Heat wave...

24 June 2025: A heat wave settled in today (actually yesterday, but today was fiercer!). Should last until Thursday. Yuck. Got out early and mowed the lawn and did a bit of yard work. I've been more or less inside all day since then except for a brief trip to Walgreen's. 

Reading for the Year's Work essay, taking notes, watching TV, getting the rest of my steps in doing laps around the first floor...there are a lot worse ways to get through a heat wave. 

Grateful for AC that works, a job that lets me stay inside when it's hot, and two cats who aren't that upset about the shut-up windows and are glad to have me here with them.

Long, good day

17 June 2025: 

Things I did today: slept in a tiny bit because I slept awful the night before, mowed the lawn, had lunch with Tim and two recent graduates, helped do a bit of advising for the last group of entering first-year students, did some planning for next semester with Tim (we are taking our students to the Poe House), did some research work, hosted trivia, played with BabyCat and the laser pointer (a promise I made to her yesterday), and listened to a heck of a thunderstorm roll through (with Jo hiding under my chair). 

Not the most exciting post, but I kind of like days like this. 

Yardwork day...

12 May 2025: I had planned to do some work in the yard today--a trip to Home Depot for some plants that I would then plant/pot when I got home. Then tomorrow, I thought I'd go to the really good nursery in Maryland for the rest of my plants and put them in the ground in the next couple of days. But the weather was so nice today and Home Depot's selections were not great. Plus, I realized that it's supposed to start raining this evening and there's rain in the forecast for until Thursday...so I also wanted to mow the lawn today. By about 9:30 a.m., I was ready to go "all in" on a yardwork day. 

Cleaned out the flower beds and then mowed the lawn (mowing over all the weeds I had pulled). Drove to the other nursery and got the good stuff. Put it all in the ground or in pots on the porch and deck. Feeling tired, but accomplished.

The SSAWW essay work I had planned for today (most of it, anyway) can wait until tomorrow--a better rainy day activity than mowing or planting! 

"And Zero at the Bone"

7 May 2025: Every time I come across these neighbors--every time, no matter the size--Dickinson's last line comes to mind.

Front yard refresher...

26 April 2025: This afternoon, Billy, a landscaper I met through a student's kids' homegrown little newspaper (one of my favorite things I've read this semester!) finished up a project he started a couple of weeks ago. First, he dug out the very overgrown bushes that were basically hiding the front of the house. Then he put down some mulch. That alone was a huge glow-up for the yard. People were literally saying "wow" as they walked by. We waited a couple of weeks to minimize free risks and today, Billy put the new shrubs in. Gotta keep everything well-watered and hope the rocky ground doesn't make too much trouble, but I am so happy about how it looks.

Redbud 2025

4 April 2025:

[Catch-up post]

The best tree in my yard hit its stride on Saturday. Just breath-taking.

Room with a view...

3 April 2025: Can't argue with the view out of the home office window this time of year.

Fall clean-up...

25 November 2024: Knocked out one of my least-favorite chores today: the fall yard clean-up. I had planned on doing only some of it, but ended up doing it all. I did somehow run over just the right (wrong) rock while mowing over some leaves and wrecked the mower blade. But that's a problem for Springtime Heidi. 

Also knocked out the ENGL 307 Response Papers (except for the one that came in a bit late). Steady progress on grading--and more quickly than I planned.

"The Third and Final Continent" (Once more...)

27 October 2024: Today as I mowed the lawn, perhaps for the last time until the spring, I listened to a The New Yorker Fiction Podcast episode where the guest (Rebecca Makkai) read "The Third and Final Continent," a story I've known and loved for years. (The post-reading discussion between Makkai and Deborah Treisman is really good, by the way.) 

I've blogged about this story in particular and Jhumpa Lahiri a lot--with good reason, of course. There's just no one who writes like she does and I am always so moved and floored by her work.

Anyway, as I pushed that mower in the waning afternoon light, thinking a movie I'd seen earlier (We Live in Time--great performances, not-so-great film), a kind of warm melancholy settled in--somehow perfect for listening to this beautiful story. 

Minari, yard work, and a tiny bit of book-work...

19 May 2024: Finally watched Minari today--a perfect movie for before (paused it about an hour in) and after doing a day of yard work (clean-up, weeding, and planting). I found myself laughing out loud, moved to tears, and just captivated by it. 

Still getting used to having time on my hands on weekends. There is still lots of book-work to do, but revising is going faster than I anticipated. As a result, I am letting myself treat weekends like, well, weekends, at least so far this summer break. But again, it's hard! By 5:00, I kind of wanted to work and ended up putting in about 90 minutes on book stuff. 

Surprise tenant...

1 May 2024: Getting the back patio ready for a Sigma Tau Delta party scheduled for tomorrow, I made a couple of discoveries in the patio storage bench. First...a snake skin. Then...well, you can probably guess.

Felt a bit bad asking him/her to relocate, given that shedding can (I think?) wear them out, but we both decided it was for the best. 

Liminal Jo

9 April 2024: Jo was very good at posing in liminal spaces today.

Earlier in the day, deciding whether or not to crash my Zoom conferences. (She crashed some of them...)

Enjoying the first day this season with lots of open-window time. And there's the redbud, doing its thing.

First mow of 2024...

7 April 2024: And it's a "go" on the 2024 lawn-mowing season! As I made my way around the yard, I did some of my usual yard-work contemplating, including trying to imagine that in the not-too-distant future, I'll be pushing the machine in shorts and sweating my head off (in contrast to the jeans, sweatshirt, and relatively dry brow of today's experience). And then, eventually, the sweatshirt will reemerge and the season will end. 

Spread some fertilizer, too, and ordered a new edger. (I might have the worst luck with these things.)

Snapped this picture a few hours after I finished. The sky really was that blue. 

Still feel the satisfaction of a stereotypical suburban dad every time.

Found some more "first mow" posts from years' past here, here, and here. 

Last mow...

12 November 2023: Pretty sure I gave the yard the last mow of the season today, though I guess with climate change, you never know. I wish I had taken a photo, but I still get such a sense of satisfaction when it looks clean and neat, especially when a mow can do double-duty, taking the place of raking leaves. Still something sad about it, though, as winter approaches, with a long stretch of cold and dark days. 

Bring on Bob's Burgers!

1 October 2023: Pushed and pushed myself through a boring task that I should never have had to do this evening, but it is done. Better be done for good, but we'll see.

What a nice surprise to see that a new Bob's Burgers episode tonight. Feels like a reward for getting my weekly "Book/Year's Work" list done, trimming the front bushes, and knocking off just about everything else on my daily list. 

Jo and the tree...

13 April 2023: Came home this evening after a pretty good day on campus (got some good work done, gave a little speech at the Phi Kappa Phi induction) and opened the windows upstairs so Jo could look at the redbud tree. 

Reminded me of this photo of Wes from just over three years ago, in the early days of COVID, while we were finishing up the spring semester online.

View out back...

10 April 2023: Made sure to get home when it was light out today--just brought my work home with me. Why? Well, I wanted to break too-long streak of 13+ hour days and get home to my knuckleheads. But I also wanted to appreciate the view of the redbud from the back door. It's blooming every year just fills me with joy. When the TV is off, it reflects the flowers, too, so in lots of ways, it's hard not to see the blooms from the living room.