Tuesday, May 01, 2007

More This and That

It turns out that my knee injury isn’t as bad as I had feared. I have a cyst by the lateral collateral ligament and some “degradation” of the meniscus. I’m to try a course of physical therapy to see if surgery might be avoided. Meanwhile, the NSAID is working its magic, and I can do just about anything but run.

The juncos have moved on, and the cowbirds and goldfinches have arrived in force. The hummingbirds aren’t back yet, but we put out some nectar just in case and for any of them that might be passing through on the way to points north. We put out the deck furniture and have been cooking out whenever we can.

We planted some shrubs in the part of the pond by the weir that had washed out. I filled up the gully with silt from the pond and reinforced the rock wall with a patch of pond liner. I also lowered the weir to reduce the chance of overflow in all but the biggest storms. Take that, Mother Nature!

Every day that I can, I am digging out silt and detritus from the pond little by little and putting it in low spots in the yard. I aim to build up a couple of swampy spots by about 18 inches, and the storms provided me with enough silt to do the job.

The forsythia burst into bloom overnight the other day, and the front yard is festooned with yellow. It is quite cheery. A lot of folks on the road have forsythia hedges, and it looks really nice this time of year. The return of color is helping to relieve my winter blues.

Jasper is active despite his recent leg injury and chases the fish now as well as the frogs. Some wood ducks visit the pond from time to time, but Jasper chases them away. He hates him some ducks and squirrels.

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