Blogging on the Powwow

Wander the halls of any academic institution in June or July and when one academic encounters the other the conversation usually goes along the lines of... "Have you recovered from the end of the semester? Are you getting a break... at all ?" Fast forward to late August and regardless of where you wander, you'll note that the conversation has changed to... "Are you ready? Are you ready for it to all begin... again ?"  I used to try to get ready for the semester and then I realized it doesn't really matter. One can anticipate some of the potential obligations - faculty meetings, applications for endless committees to join, endless work to get those committees up and running, getting course Blackboard sites up and running, copying syllabi, etc. But, the tsunami comes and crashes regardless of preparation. At that moment, it's sink or swim. After week two or three of the semester, we usually find ourselves lying on the equivalent of a trash ridden beach, ...

Sometime in the middle of the summer, I heard children outside our house, in the churchyard that is adjacent to our street and home. I looked out the window and saw two school-aged children, a girl and a boy, digging in the untended churchyard. They were there for quite a while. I watched through the windows without making myself known, so as not to disturb their adventures. They were making a small garden plot. They dug up a tall weed and replanted it, poured a canteen full of water over it, and used a pile of bricks along the retaining wall to mark off their new garden. Neil, delighted, took pictures from the second story. The first day of the garden. They were back within a few days, this time with packets of seeds. They dug in the dirt, planted seeds, and raced back and forth from the river (for water), to the garden plot, to their home at the top of the street for supplies, and back again. Their enthusiasm and excitement was palpable. I enjoyed being a "fly on the wal...

Thank goodness this old adage is true - that you reap what you sow , because Neil and I figured out that in just this one spring/summer season, we planted about 65 trees, shrubs, or other perennials. If we weren't busy reaping what we sowed, we'd likely be crying. It's been a summer of amazing transformations in our yard and luckily for us, constant bloom. Here is our "summer of bloom" in pictures. Holly, planted in 2012 We even accidentally grew a fungus called "Dog Vomit Slim Mold." Isn't that lovely? Turns out that it is not harmful and may even help plants, so we left it alone. Wonderful butterfly bush - with sunflowers in background, planted  2009. Dahlias and sunflowers - planted every year. More sunflowers and dahlias. Snowball tree, planted 2012. Black-eyed Susans, planted 2011. Jethro Tull, planted 2012 and very hardy! Delphinium, planted 2012 Spiderwarts, transplanted from neighbor, 2011 ...