Vinca & Bradford Pears

I love the way things bloom in a certain sequence in early spring. Each year, I swear I'm going to mark on my calendar what day each thing bloomed, so I'll have a record and can look back and see if it's happening earlier, and to be able to tell what comes next. I do sometimes mark when some things are in bloom, but I never go back and look at the old calendars.

This year, the Vinca and Bradford Pears were in full bloom by 3-17-12. That seems a week or two early, but without going back into my records, I can't say for sure. Wait, I have photos from 2007. Bradford's were blooming a week later that year. It seems early this year.

Nightcrawlers

I went out at night with a flashlight to look for my cat Speedy. While walking through the dark yard, I noticed that the entire hillside I was on was covered with large earthworms. They were mating, and the way they lined up head to smooth band was a perfect representation of something I must have seen in 9th grade biology, because I recognized it immediately.

If I moved too fast or walked too heavily, they did this amazing disappearing act, where they vanished down the little hole they had come out of, almost as if they were constructed of rubber and had been plucked like an elastic cord. Then it struck me, the name. Nightcrawlers. I had never put it together before. This must be the way they behave and why they were named that way. I had never heard of that before, and it seems odd to get through so many years and only just now to be making this connection. I wonder what else I don't know that's been in front of me all along?

Secret Barn

There is a part of Fleming Park that was annexed a while back. I vaguely remember when it had a small farm house on it, perhaps when they were still farming it. That was at least 25 years ago.

I stopped with Zach to see if there was anything left. Springtime, when the daffodils are blooming are a good time to find old home sites, because the garden perennials last for quite a long time after the occupants have left.

This time, we found daffodils and the probable site of the house, but a short walk back into the field also revealed something else. There was an old pole barn with a concrete floor still there, starting to fall apart, but still up. There was a huge owl box in the middle of the barn. There was a old barrel style trash can with several empty beer cans (these did not look that old) in it. So I think some other people found it to be an excellent party spot.

It was obvious that animals other than owls were using the area. There was a lot of scat on the floor. Some of it was clearly owl pellets, you could see the little mouse bones in it. Others samples were clearly possum or raccoon generated. Zach was quite enthusiastic about it, as only a 3 year old can be, he never seemed to lose his thrill of discovery and announced enthusiastically, "Pooooop!" every time he found some.

You could still see the outline of the old field, the area that had been cleared and farmed (or grazed, I suppose), but there were no interior fence lines. There was a pond to the east, but that whole area was completely overgrown, and the pond was silted in and barely what could be considered a pond any more.

There are a lot of movies and books with the theme of what the world would look like if people were no longer there, but you don't have to rely on fiction to figure it out, there are plenty of examples out there, if you look.

Spring in a Flash

I just reviewed the over 100 pictures of spring scenes, most shot from a car out the window. Only a few were decent quality. I thought it would be half of the month of March, but it was a 3 day period, so it was a lot of snapshots with little to show, other than the fact that spring had exploded.

One thing it did make me think was that the life was going by too fast. When you don't have time to pull over the car, get out, and take the time to get a decent picture, things are going too fast.

Occupy KC

At the south end of Liberty Memorial, outside of the Federal Reserve Building in KC is our local version of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I'm not sure how they got permission to make a semi-permanent camp right there around the base of the Spanish-American War Monument. I'm not even sure what the Philippine Insurrection or China Relief Expedition are - those are also on the monument. It's not really related to the Occupy people.

I don't think people are really paying much attention to them, and I'm not sure what their specific message is for this location. I think the protesters almost got more purchase in cities where the authorities decided to go out and crack down on them, like the Berkeley guys that got pepper sprayed. Here, the authorities just ignored them, and I think the public did too. The only thing that could sustain you to stay in a nasty tent all winter would be if it got you on TV or you felt like you were making a difference. Like most political causes, it just doesn't translate into the grass roots level. If they could solidify their message and have it be something about wealth concentration into the hands of a smaller number of people, corporate greed and corruption, or outrage over the bailouts, they might get some momentum and some followers. But the way they are doing it, they just look like near-homeless rabble.

Liberty Memorial Recon and Recollection

I dropped by Liberty Memorial on the way back from a business meeting just to see what was going on at the site. We used to work at the Kansas City Spirit Festival there, but that was 13 years ago (for 9 years straight, though).

The Festival shut down the year after I left, and I hadn't been back since. They renovated the museum, including redoing the area where we used to set up our Main Stage, right at the base of the Memorial. Rock Fest has been down there for a few years, and they trashed the site - Woodstock style when they kept the Festival rolling after a rainstorm and it became a mudfest. We had one massive rainstorm the first year I helped out, which caused us to evacuate the park.

They chopped down all the trees on the east side of the site, which was where we brought band load-in up through. This spooky gravel drive was the remnant of the original road system on the site, and it went into a completely overgrown spur (off site from the Festival, as we fenced it in) that was like the homeless central area. There were these little homemade shacks along that road. The vegetation was thick, mostly trees, but full of underbrush and poison ivory. It's on a steep hillside, mostly rocky underneath all those trees, and now that they are gone, it's a hideous rock face full of stumps. I'd like to see them try to grind out the stumps in almost vertical rock. It is nice that those roads are all paved now, and having the trees gone does open up the site.

The view of downtown from the Memorial is really great, especially with the new Performing Arts Center. They are still doing work on the Memorial tower itself, which is not clear to me what that entails. It looks fine and intact, so I'm not sure what they needed to do so desperately. I realized while visiting that I had never been up the tower before, and planned to make another trip sometime soon when I could take the time to go up there.

Merry Go Round

There is a small Merry Go Round outside of the HyVee grocery store we go to. I've watched other parents with their kids on it, and it always seems to be some combination of a torture device and slightly embarrassing and humiliating that they are there patiently waiting while their child rides it.

I tried it with Zach and I like it. It's free, so you can just keep pressing the button and stay on as long as you like. It's got this maniacal song that will get in your head and not let go, this is not a good thing. But Zach loves to ride it and we make it fun. I make him say "Giddyup" to start it each time, and he has to switch horses between rides. He doesn't even know about the Pony Express yet, but he knows that horse is tired and he needs a rest after a hard ride.

He's not sure if the other horse is chasing him, or if he's chasing it. Sometimes I put his Mickey doll on the other horse, which he thinks is hilarious. He almost always says "Doitagin, Daddy!" when it stops, and he's usually not fussy when I say it's time to go.

I'm thinking of buying one and putting it out on our driveway. I wonder if that would go over well in the neighborhood.

Aunt Bobbie's 75th

We all met in Manhattan to celebrate Aunt Bobbie's 75th Birthday. There was a lot of hanging out in restaurants, both before, during, and after the celebration. Zach did OK, he didn't like the loud noise in the Bar & Grill we met at before hand. I got to sit next to Bobbie, for some reason. I didn't think I rated that. Zach fell asleep during the dinner, but was really good to just crash quietly and stay that way.

Victory Inn

We stayed in a little Bed & Breakfast in Wamego when we went to visit Manhattan last time.

It was the weekend of "Fake St. Patrick's Day". This was a made-up holiday I had never heard of before, but apparently, when the real St. Patrick's Day is during Spring Break, these brilliant college students (or perhaps, more likely, the businesses catering to the students) came up with a work-around. Why forgo the beloved occasion to tie one on if you don't have to? So there was an unexpected celebration that filled up all the hotels.

We were able to find a room and counted ourselves lucky. I normally avoid Bed & Breakfasts (Breakfast-izz?) for a few reasons. They cost more, they are rarely worth the additional expense, and they are weird because you are staying in a stranger's house.

The house this B&B was in was really neat. It was old, and it had preserved the original feel of the house even though there was an addition or additions from some time after it was built. It had some cool furniture and decorative knickknacks.

It was pretty going in the spring when the redbuds were blooming, and there was a fun fountain that was nicely landscaped in the back yard. It was a good experience, but I'm not dying to get back.

On the Road to the Little Apple

We took a short road trip to Manhattan Kansas. Zach loved his bag of plastic Easter eggs, he snuggled with it like he would have a stuffed animal. One fun part of the trip to Manhattan, when you stop at the right rest stop, is the Jayhawk statue. I'm not sure why it is always a surprise to me.

We got off on the Wamego exit

Early Spring

In the past, the second week of March was a time when you could expect to be shovelling the walk or dodging last snowstorm of the season. Snow in April is not unheard of, but frosts and freezes usually persist into April.

This year, the last freeze, as well as the last frost, was in February. By the second week of March, the wheat was up and growing, turning the fields of Kansas green like golf courses.

Also, I finally got a good picture of the stone bridge outside of Strong City Kansas.

Bonfires and Spotting Jupiter

The whole winter and spring has had a lovely evening display of Jupiter and Venus, high and bright in the evening sky. Steve brought a spotter scope and a tripod, and we were actually able to see Jupiter with 3 of its moons clearly visible above and below it. It was impossible to get a good picture, holding my camera up to the lens and trying to hold it still for the long exposure, but I managed to get one shot, blurred from motion, that you can actually see the moons in. You have to blow it up.

We lit the pile of sticks that we had been stacking in the bonfire pit, and it was a little bigger than expected. I wish I had a good "before" picture to show just how big the pile was, there's one with Zach climbing the benches that shows the edge of the pile. It was only about 5' tall and 5' around. It made an amazing column of fire with a fantastic shower of sparks. Zach was mesmerized.