The past week has indeed been wet -- and hot -- just as forecast, which gave my grass the opportunity to flourish. I usually pride myself on my timing, but this week my lawn and I couldn't connect -- until today, when I beheld a back yard too painfully reminiscent of 1960s-70s era avocado shag carpeting, said to hell with it, and tortured my mower until my 6" lawn cover was reduced to something resembling respectability. We're both (the lawn and I) considerably happier for it. My mower is sulking in the garage.
Next up: Pip. His paws and ears are seriously in need of a trim -- or as I know he considers it: vivisection. There's no reason he should be so resistant; I always adhere to the three Cs of good grooming practice: Conscientiousness, Carefulness and Cookies. Since the sun has finally appeared this evening (with time to spare before setting) perhaps I'll treat him to a fourth C -- an evening Constitutional. But he'll still resent having to submit to grooming. My girls were the same way, yet somehow I see it differently with him. He reminds me of Huck Finn, barefoot, grubby, rafting down the river with his friend Jim and no fussy wimmen around to insist you clean up and behave.
... He does clean up well, though, and occasionally he even behaves!
One happy side effect of the rain we've been having is the (overdue) ripening of the cherries on the weeping cherry tree directly outside my window. For the past week or so I've been treated to a riot of robins (not sure if that's an "official" venereal term for a large gathering of the birds, but it does describe the activity going on in my tree) feasting on the fruit. The tree itself is interesting: it's a combination of two trees, one grafted onto the other, which explains why there are both pink and white blossoms every spring. Unfortunately, the root stock is failing, but the graft is thriving, so the tree may survive even after the final two branches of the original die off. I hope it does survive, because I've grown rather fond of it over the years. It cools my house in the summer, provides shade and privacy while I'm working at my desk, and afford endless entertainment even when the cherries are gone: it seems to be a regular waystation for the local avifauna on their daily tours of the neighborhood.
The coming week promises to be busy: with luck (and such tact as I can muster) I'll have the lawn mower problem solved tomorrow, and then it's on to the "name that business" issue. I have to make a decision soon if I'm going to be ready to participate in my guild's fall sale. The summer festival season is in full swing: the Saline Celtic Festival next weekend and the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fairs the following week, to name just two of the local ones. I might actually try to attend both this year, provided I can get all my chores done in time. Haven't gone for awhile, but I was actually at the very first Ann Arbor Art Fair in 1960. Happened upon it by accident that July, biking from my house to campus (probably heading for Miller's Ice Cream Parlor) whereupon I discovered artists of all kinds occupying booths along South University Avenue for 2-3 blocks. It was small; it was intimate; it was delightful. Little did I know that I was witnessing the beginnings of what would become one of the country's largest and longest-running summer art festivals. Yeah, maybe I will make an effort to attend this year.
Meanwhile, I'm off to, um, bond with my dog.
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