Laughing Ravens

The bees are sleeping late,      curled up in the dahlia blossoms. The blue jays are acting out scenes from West Side Story. The frogs in the pond are silent now,      except at dusk when they ask to be tossed a few jumping worms. The hummingbird has taken flight after weeks of checking with us to see if it was time to go. It's 9am and there are no sounds from the garden      but the dripping of morning dew on the leathery leaves.  I have started the process of reorganizing the iris beds. When I started this crazy thing three years ago, we were just going to grow Siberian irises. The thinking was that the lowest part of the yard (that floods) would be great for them since they want an abundance of water. Turns out that line of thinking is flawed. (insert embarrassed laughter here). It floods during the winter and develops an ice sheet. That isnt what Siberian irises want during the winter. Lost quite a few Iris sanguinea to this flawed ...

  Thursday afternoon, just before shutting down my work computer, I got an email from my arborist. His crew was going to have time to take out a few trees that he had been unable to finish cutting down earlier this year. I thought: fantastic! He let me know the crew would be here at 9am. Okay, I was a little surprised, but still excited.  Six am and the backup beeping of a tractor-trailer outside my bedroom window shocked me awake. Even my neighbor, the former excavator, wouldn't start moving heavy equipment at 6am. Bleary-eyed, I went outside to confirm that this crew was in fact going to repair our little rural road. Today.  Well, that was fine. I needed to head into town to go to the doctor's office and have some blood drawn. Blasted off a little after 7am and arrived a half hour later, none the worse for wear. No one was waiting, so I was quickly called to the front desk. The usual pleasantries were exchanged: name, DOB, referring doctor, was I fasting, etc. The nurse...