Snowshoe Blog

I have been busier than usual with the-day-job. I was in Minneapolis yesterday; I headed out at 5:45 AM and returned home around 6:00 PM. Very long day, but the weather in Minneapolis was fantastic; it also happened to be Beautiful U Day at the University (not sure I have been clear - by day, I am employed by the University of Minnesota and work on the Duluth campus, but I frequently have meetings in Minneapolis, outside the day-job, I tinker with machines, tend hounds, tend bees, grow gardens and program esoteric computer things - like compostb.in - a compost-centric app for the iPhone). The non-day-job things ground me, and keep me relatively sane. Anyway, Beautiful U Day happened to have a really beautiful day. The tulips were blooming, the flowering crabtree in front of Morrill Hall and Northrup Auditorium was blooming (and smelled wonderful). With all the flowers in bloom, I kept an eye out for pollinators, but, unfortunately, I did not see any. Not even a bumblebee. Depending on your political leanings, you might blame Karl Rove, who happened to be visiting campus yesterday, or, you could blame the protesters who were protesting Karl Rove's visit. Either way, I was slightly saddened by the lack of visible insect life on such a great day.

All around, it was a nice day. Breezy, but nice. The bees were out and about with an ordered chaos of neurotic flights of toing and froing. Leaving the bees to do their thing, I set to work on getting a garden-to-be fenced off from the hounds. I would equate a hound's stalking of good-smells-in-the-ground to that of an anteater. The anteater, as seen in many a nature programs, will find a termite nest and then set to work on determined pursuit of its quarry. Hounds are likes that; except, we do not have termite mounds in Northern Minnesota.

All around, the last couple of weeks have been stressful. In the non-hound, non-bee and non-garden realm (read: work), it is the kind of stress that comes from dealing with things and people that down-right piss you off. In the realm of hounds and bees (and gardens), we had the unfortunate need to have one of the hounds make his final trip to the veterinarians' office. In the circle of folks my wife frequents, this is referred to as "heading to the bridge"; like during their lives, the animal's journey to the bridge is embellished, dramatized, and/or anthropomorphized. Homer caught a ride, to the bridge, in the back of our old red truck. (which most likely has, since selling it, died, too) Homer would not have taken a bus; some people will say their pup took a bus. Homer hate all vehicles with air-brakes or most likely fueled by diesel - something with the low-rumble set him off.