Bill Rose lived down the street. He was a nurseryman, and he had a wild yard. This was many years ago.
One day Bill stopped by to introduce himself, thinking that we owners of wild yards should get to know each other. He brought bare-root wildflower gifts that have bloomed gloriously every year since then.
Bill’s Bergamot (Bee Balm) are some of the last springtime flowers to bloom, which they suddenly did in lavender profusion yesterday.
Thank you Bill. We miss you.
The teaching is done. Has been for the better part of a week as [some of] the kids have been working on a review packet. Finals start Monday.
As an extra source of inspiration and a boost to get them across the finish line, I will hand out the usual Oreos as they work on the test. And as a token of thanks, I will continue my tradition and hand out approximately 160 cards to thank them for being in my class.
The cards are hand-drawn but copied on the copier. And they are hand-colored, including a different function in the graph of the cover of each card. And they are hand-signed, including a left-hander’s checkmark that some of them have joyfully complained about all year long.
Although some of the cards will be left on the tables when the students are gone, in my experience there won’t be many.
One thing I can say with absolute certainty: no Oreos will remain.
The students are reviewing for their Algebra 2 final exam. All week, they’re reviewing. Every day, all week, they’re reviewing.
For some of them, there’s nothing left to do after they’ve finished the 59 problems on the review packet. Many of them have finished. There are three more days of this left. Hence…
My father would be proud.
“I’m not good at math,” she said as I posed a question to the class.
“Nope,” I said. “None of that.”
“Ok,” she said, looking down at her scratch paper.
“Hold up,” she said to herself after a minute. “I need to discuss this with my brain.” And she proceeded to work some more.
And then she got it, coming to the whiteboard to show everyone her work.
The test was over. Everyone was done. She turned to me.
“Mister, do you want a picture of a cat?” she asked.
“Let’s see.”
She showed it to me.
“Yes!” I said. “Let’s tape it to the gallery.”
The first Walnut branch that fell last night scared the living daylights out of Izzy. She hasn’t whine-barked like that since the duplex fire in the alley years ago. Then a second branch fell early this morning. But with some assisted inspection all was well with her, and how could all not be well with me — with Corona loppers and Felco hand shears.
I will leave the sawing to another day.
In the meantime, we’ve got some new calibrated kindling piles prepping for fall.
Silver linings.
The Apple trees have been laden with juvenile fruit for a couple weeks.
The weekend’s winds have done the hard work of lightening the load. Many have fallen to the ground. We look forward to the remainder with great anticipation.
Maybe this year, we think. But of course the squirrels have other ideas.
After several years of this, we have resigned ourselves to giving away the bounty. Because with squirrels, there is no share. There is only give.
© jumpingfish by David Hasan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
