Two Spring Weeks
April 7 to 18, 2010 Written April 24
Friends and Families ,
A diary. We are doing a diary. A New Year's resolution was to keep a more even record and that's what today is. Actually, "diary" implies something every day, but we don't lead lives worthy of such detail, not even for our own reading. I can't imagine how folks believe they lead lives worthy of "tweets", not daily but momentary bursts of egocentrism. So what have we done for the last couple of weeks? Garden It is Spring again. Happens every year it seems. This means we have spent two full weekends laboring at cleaning up winter damage and reorganizing our too-large back yard. We added to our bright yellow forsythia bushes, to make up for some that our neighborhood bunny ate. (THIS bunny is about the size of a small dog so we are thankful he didn't eat more!) I also started a re-design of the gravel path from the barn to the orchard. So far it has been lots of work but only a little progress. The new edge did allow a more orderly planting area for strawberries and veggies. I hope the bunny appreciates it. Marianne has done a good job at getting the flower beds in order. The transformation from raggedy winter damage to burgeoning flower gardens is always nice. We eagerly went out and bought and planted plants, but our eagerness was rewarded by a few new dead plants, as the German weather reminded us that the reliable day of last frost is in May, not April. Of course the stars of our Spring garden are always the blossoms in the orchard. The flowering cherries have been great. The other blossoms are hanging back a bit, waiting for the frost to be behind us. Trees are smarter than we are. Visitors Our parade of 2010 visitors is now up to two participating groups. Jack and Gunila dropped by on their way from Sweden to southern France. They could only stay overnight since they planned to cover thousands of kilometers in their three-week vacation. We were unable to show them all our local attractions, but we did enjoy a home dinner and a bakery breakfast before we wished them on their way. We do hope they come back, when they either have more time or fewer destinations. Work Conference My giant (80,000 employees) employer recently reorganized, from top to bottom. A fallout of such shuffling of the deck chairs is that we all need re-education to know where we sit. The division I am now a part of sponsored a "workshop" to do that for us. We had two days in vineyards east of Frankfurt and the "team building" included some good meals and a guided tour of Selingenstadt, an old village on the Main River. I know it is popular to be a bit cynical of such events but, for me, it was a good experience. I really do need all the help I can get about learning my new job.(Pictures on page 4.) Local Drives and Garden Show (Written May 2 - I ran out of steam to keep up diaries. Happens.) We are starting the local fair season. On pages 2 and 3 of the "PICTURES", we have some scenes from our first fair - a neighborhood celebration in Burghaslach. It wasn't a tourist destination, but everyone in the town seemed to show up to enjoy the first of decent Spring weather.
OK. Done. Enough. However, we will indeed keep up the diary resolution. I just hope we get to go somewhere more interesting!
John and Marianne.
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