The Garden Chronicles
Everything seems to have fallen into place and on-schedule. Mind you this garden is about 150 miles north of Tosa so the growing season starts a tad later and ends a bit sooner.
It has been dry as dust lately with only about a half-inch of rainfall in the past seven weeks.
To worry or not to worry?
It's a bit of a shock to return to the newspaper after a weekend of music, friends, and reading actual books. The news you get on the streets feels a lot different from the news you read, watch, or hear in the media outlets.
Friday I visited downtown Waukesha to commiserate (or is that celebrate?) friend Darryl Enriquez's recent emancipation from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. While there, we talked to a small business owner who had just taken an equally generous retirement package from Harley Davidson.
Test Your Powers of Observation
Two-part answer needed.
Who can tell me what these two items have in common and what makes them unique?
Lamenting the loss of land lines
It's almost time for school to begin again. Son Geo is moving out of the dorms and into a house in Madison with 7 or 8 other guys. The house also happens to be right across the street from Camp Randall.
Which is bliss for him but not so much for me. I remember those houses and what went on in them. It was all a lot of fun but not what a mother has in mind for her kids most of the time.
Ray's of Illumination on North Avenue
Over the past couple of years of blogging, I’ve mentioned my favorite “gems” on North Avenue — including The Rosebud, Cranky Al’s and Ted’s — and how fortunate we are to have them within walking distance. Lately I’ve been venturing further west to Ray’s Wine & Spirits and have discovered a long-overdue addition to my list of gems.
Before you the wrong idea about my drinking habits, let me explain. A couple of years ago, my highly social neighborhood association started a wine-tasting club, and my husband and I discovered at the first monthly meeting that we had very uneducated palates. That prompted a tour of Sonoma Valley last year and turned us into wanna-be oenophiles.
Zucchini cupcakes at the crossroads
As one unhappy reader noted, I seem to be at a crossroads. Lots of company here, where people are trying to figure out which way to head as we move from the steadier lives we thought we had into an unpredictable future.
Sometimes, it's not such a bad place to be.
What would Grandma say about "Kill Granny" ?
It used to make me crazy when people said "Oh, I'm so glad ________ isn't around to see this mess."
But lately, I've been thinking I'm so glad Mom's not here to be preyed upon by people who want to scare old people in order to preserve their own interests in healthcare and finance.
Guess the Critter
I snapped this picture last month.
This bird is a relatively late nesting species.
Observations From the Big Fat Middle
First my friend Christine opined on this subject. I got to thinking - What a thoughtful, reasonable and well-articulated take on the subject.
Then I had lunch with a buddy yesterday and our normal discussion of hunting and fishing took an acute right turn to the subject of health care reform and euthanasia.
If you give a kid a can of paint...
“If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk to go with it.”
Obama's mistake
While visiting relatives yesterday, the conversation drifted from my nephew's masterful basement remodeling job to politics. Specificially, the politics of healthcare that we've been talking about here and in Tom Gaertner's blog.
Online Calendaring
I don't know how my parents did it. How did they manage the schedules of four children and two adults that covered activities like:
- piano lessons
- cello lessons
- violin lessons
- wrestling team meets
- tae kwon do classes
- dr. appointments
- family events
- community events
- social events
- school events
- cub scouts
- basketball camp
- bowling leagues
I know how my wife and I manage!
New to Mutual Funds - A Summary Prospectus
The Summary Prospectus
In an effort to enhance the information available to mutual fund investors, in November, 2008 (effective February ’09), the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the use of a new Summary Prospectus. The intent of the Summary Prospectus is to improve mutual fund disclosure by providing streamlined and user-friendly information that is crucial to making an investment decision. If you are currently a mutual fund investor, you should notice some significant changes to your annual Prospectus document this year. This new guidance allows a mutual fund company to send you this new simplified version of the full Prospectus, as long as the full, or statutory, Prospectus is available upon request. It’s a little more work for the mutual fund companies, but it should greatly benefit the average mutual fund shareholder. The Summary Prospectus will quickly give investors a basic understanding of a fund and will permit them to readily compare one fund to another.
Scientists Connect for St. Bernard's Middle School Science Program!
During the month of July, Mrs. Beresford went on an exciting research experience. The Great Lakes Water Institute invited her and seven other teachers to travel with Dr. Cuhel and Dr. Aguilar, host researchers for the JASON Project this year, aboard the research vessel The Neeskay. The team made two trips to gather information on the invasive Quagga mussel species.
On the first trip, the team traveled to five different water sites. At each site, they collected water samples, temperature, light penetration, and mussels. They used the information to test hypotheses and to learn how scientists conduct research in the field. On the second trip, they conducted experiments at the shipwreck of the Prins Willem V that sank in the 1950s to see how the Quagga mussels are influencing the wreck and vice versa. This time they were able to use the Remote Operated Vehicle or ROV to collect samples as well as professional divers.
Friday Morning Music
You know you're old when you hear this song and it brings back memories of my buddy Mike's '64 Impala with the small block V-8, CCR playing on the cassette stereo and cruising for chicks...
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