Working For The Weekend?
Or for the plants? Or the pension? OMG + Playlist!
Hello and happy Friday.
How was your week? Did you make it through? Any major “adventures”?
Hey, there’s a playlist at the bottom of the page for you!
Despite weeks of warm weather in the 70s, we’re spending our first days of May with overnight frosts. The kind that leave little patches of white on the lawn and the roof…and vanish as soon as the sun hits. The days are cool, but I can feel all that warmth coming.
The first peony is blooming (variety,
) and of course I had to bring a few stems inside.
The frost wilts some of the peony plants over night, they look listless flopping over their supports while I make my coffee. But then the sun comes and they perk right back up.
Yesterday a co-worker gifted me a small baggie of morel mushrooms, cleaned and wrapped in a paper towel. She might have thought she was awarding me the Nobel Prize based on my response. I was speechless, we hugged. I could not believe she was bringing this gift, this haul, for me. (And yes, last night we had pasta with morels and fresh herbs.) I guess I should claim that as the highlight (and adventure!) of the week.
Stickers, of all things, have come up a lot lately. D sent a message that there’s a Honda Pilot in the pickup line at school with a bumper sticker that said “I used to be cool.” I love these types of bumper stickers. I asked D if she is a bumper sticker person - her answer is they are “squarely in the no bumper sticker camp”. Somehow as adults both M and I are wildly in the bumper sticker camp. And the sticker camp. And the “if it sticks, we’ll stick it somewhere camp.”
My hypothesis is that as a kid I never ‘used’ my most favorite stickers. In fact, I still have most of them in a little flip top plastic rubbermaid. I am trying to use them - but a lot of them have lost their stick.
Maybe that’s the lesson - use all the stickers before they lose their stickyness. (And use the good salt).
C sent me a text (and lots of messages to catch up on) with the absolutely amazing bumper sticker and - well - scenario. Obvs we are trying to maintain this motorists privacy, but honestly the custom license plate was fucking awesome too. (Sorry to leave you hanging).
Did you notice…the googly eyes on the mastadon on the Ice Age Trail license plate?
I’m sitting on the back porch, and the sun just crested the west side of the roof. I can hear the rapid drips of the melting frost fall into the gutters, and plop through the downspout.
Nature has really woken up these past weeks. I won’t bore you with too many bird reports but I’m excited that at least three (of the four) eggs in the Bluebird house hatched. I can’t quite age the babes in the photo below, but I can count at least three beaks - and they should fledge soon.
I am so excited to pick up their first flight (or plop) on the trail cam. I can see the house and the platform out in the hayfield, and a little bird flying around undoubtedly looking for worms. (All the parents seem to do is bring food back to the house to feed the babes). The little platform (formerly for crow peanuts) will be perfect for the babes to perch and rest on as they learn to fly.
We’ve had two non Bluebird (and non-owl) visitors to the platform out there. One Red Winged Blackbird pops by every few days. And a Chipping Sparrow (native, friendly, not a thread) stopped by too.
And, the owl has been back on camera one night since my last note…this time with a big wing flap upon landing.
The Orioles are chatty in the trees, but I can’t quite spot where they are weaving their nests. I think there are at least two pairs. There’s a Red Wing Blackbird who perches on the feeder in the hayfield so he can watch his woven nest in the grass nearby.
We seem to have at least two pairs of White-crowned sparrows this year. Their head markings are so distinct. Who knew planting a dogwood in front of the living room window would provide such good morning birding from the sofa?
The dog (first typo-d as ‘god’ which feels appropriate) has a little limp in her front passenger side shoulder and it’s impossible for her to hold still and rest it.
All the new plants that have arrived from winter-time purchases are in the ground…along with the spoils of my splurgy-y trip to the local nursery last weekend. Tonight we drive down to Rockford to pick up native plants from theird Wild Ones fundraiser (Obviously I need to buy these plants, IT’S FOR A GOOD CAUSE!) and making it into a dinner date adventure for Pho because we don’t have any Pho in our county.
Thanks to folks who provided ideas on where to move upon abandoning Spotify. M started us on Tidal, and so far it’s been okay. (I did like unlimited audio books on Spotify, but the transition to Libby has gone okay.) It looks like now you can share playlists from Tidal, so I offer you this bananas playlist from April.
🌦️ April 2026 | Make Time
(Okay, good to know - doesn’t pop up a cool graphic to click on like it does when you share a Spotify playlist).
That’s it for today as I am learning to work just to work. To start at 8 and be done at 4:30 - and not think about it in the in between. (I love this for me.)
I have a retirement countdown on my phone (3,528 days) and trying to be both present and eager for the future when I can just putter around this place (or any place) without first standing in front of a computer or in meetings for eight hours.
For now this is a wildly no proofies situation…because I have to go to work.
Happy Friday and have a super-excellent weekend.
🦃vanessa
(Yes, the wild turkeys are all over the place this year - and I can hear them right now!)
I just got a new car and promptly put an "I Brake For Bogs!" bumper sticker on it. My last car had an excellent "I'm pro Sasquatch, and I vote" sticker that I am considering rebuying. I love bumper stickers!