Secret's out

Our spring has long been popular with people seeking something fresh and cool to cut their stronger beverages.

Are they going to start coming with spades as well as cups, since the pot of gold has been so clearly marked?

Endure, prevail

I was terribly worried that our forays into the 40s would ruin the tropicals -- particularly the plumerias.

They'd already had one big leaf-drop since coming out of the greenhouse, and the new shoots seemed awfully fragile for cold weather. Even scarier, both big plants had flower stalks.

Turns out I didn't need to worry.

Stop and smell 'em

It's been a ridiculously busy week -- errands back and forth to Chatta- nooga, errands into town, tiddly crap to do here and there -- so nothing profound today. Just a look into the big standard lantana that Joe Stuart gave us years ago, which seems to be profiting wonderfully from benign neglect.

A dying ent

The snapped-top oak on the service drive isn't our only arboreal problem.

The pin oaks on the lawn south of the pool house have been dying off for a few years now, but this year the enormous old white oak near the summer house is leafing its last, too.

You can see the bare top, but you have to look closely to see the last living part, on that huge branch down on the right.

We're thinking it might not be a total loss: If we can scrape up the cash, we're going to try to find a sculptor to do something creative with it.

Which, I suggest pragmatically, will include several feet of base, where we can saw it off and take it with us if the farm ever sells.

Cole comfort

Have you heard
that Mimsie Starr/
Just got pinched
in the Aster Bar?/
Well, did you evah?/
What a swell party this is!

Oh, SNAP!

Robert was away at bridge Monday, and I was up in the office. Out the west window, after a cold gust, came something a sound-effects guy would have given his mixer board for:

Craaaaaaaaack-rustle-rustle-rustle.

If that wasn't a tree falling over. . . .

Only part of a tree, an oak, way up high along the road to the shop, like some giant leafy sword of Damocles.

It is going to need a very careful pro, and quickly.

Sh-sh-sh-shuffleboard

For a minute there, I wondered if the shuffle- board court might be better suited for curling. But no, the rain didn't freeze, and Robert's season opener got off to a well-sweatered start.

So Sunday saw Ben and Ken and Toby, Ahmed and Greg, Steve and David and Jerry and summer fare: burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans and two kinds of cake.

And though the pool was at 90 (and the pool house bathrooms finally worked; we called a plumber to fix the burst hot-water pipes in both showers) it would have been madness to get in.

This morning I noticed that while it's 47 here, it's 78 in Key West. And tonight there are frost warnings? Lord, what am I doing here?

Did you notice?

In Obama's Notre Dame speech -- which I think was a marvelous piece of grace, wit and rhetoric -- one part that his audience liked, too, stood out for me:

. . . One hundred and sixty-three classes of Notre Dame graduates have sat where you sit today. Some were here during years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare -- periods of relative peace and prosperity that required little by way of sacrifice or struggle.

You, however, are not getting off that easy. You have a different deal. Your class has come of age at a moment of great consequence for our nation and for the world -- a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age. It's a privilege and a responsibility afforded to few generations -- and a task that you're now called to fulfill. . . .

Your generation must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity -- diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief.

In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family. (Applause.) . . .

Were you listening, JT?

Up a creek

With the rain, and the cold, our babbling little watercress factory by the road has been turning out a bumper crop.

But with cattle and horses in the watershed, and traces of you-know-what doubtless in the water. . . .

Kinda kills the appetite. I'm quite content to admire it at a distance.

Answering the call

The "Christians" from Westboro Baptist -- you know, the "God Hates Fags" people -- are coming to picket Key West High School next week, saying its Gay-Straight Alliance is teaching "rebellion against God." (These are the kids who showed such great support at last November's equality rally.)

Just about everybody -- the city manager, the chief of police (who's gay, and points out that he has a certain sensitivity on the issue), the island's clergy, local LGBTQ groups -- is urging that we ignore the rubes en masse. As the city manager, Jim Scholl, put it, "Your tolerance will further illustrate the unwavering commitment we have to our One Human Family."

Indeed, that statement -- coined by our friend JT, and the city's official motto since 2000, distributed on more than a million bumper stickers worldwide -- really gets the Westboro loons frothing: "I think that that is a doctrine of Satan," says one of the "congregants."

Well. Turns out one fella is planning something nice and peaceful: an online Phelps-a-Thon with contributors making a flat pledge, or one based on the time the pickets are here on May 22. Proceeds will go toward One Human Family t-shirts for the GSA.

Now that's a t-shirt that fits.

A Marcel moment

Not so much a remem- brance of things past as a fast track right there: I walk through the kitchen maybe two dozen times a day, but this time sense and memory made a direct connection. Whiff, WHAM: Peonies -- and a specific "shade" of scent -- took me back to my grandma's house.

I closed my eyes and I was in the living room, cool in the dark of green velvet drapes, and there were the craftsman desk and the bowl of blossoms on my left, the piano on the right.

I swear, she was just around the corner, past the staircase on the left, through that swinging door, past the basement steps, in the big, sunny kitchen, making jam.

Trickle interruptus

When I tried to fire up the pool fountain -- the lion on the cabana wall -- the pump ran just fine. The connection from the pump to the tube feeding the lion on the wall was another matter: The fitting connecting the two had broken off from the pump housing.

I drained the whole thing, watched it fill up with rain again, drained it again . . . and then Robert volunteered to get a replacement pump. I put it in, we fished the power cord through the little gap, I spliced wires, and the power (.07 amps vs. .5 amps) wouldn't even push an air bubble up and out the lion's mouth.

Another pump, an industrial-grade replacement plug and several hours' work later: good as new.

Just enough

. . . sun- shine to let me shed the hoodie outdoors, though not enough to let me roll up my sleeves. And just enough to get the clematis blooming on the arbor near the greenhouse. It's the "Fireworks" variety, and it does pack quite a bang.

Ready for the closeup

When the sago palm that Jerry gave us all those years ago came out of the greenhouse, almost every frond had some yellowed patches. It was the cold, I think.

There was a lovely little pillbox hat of fronds-to-be on the crown, so I trimmed it back to Square One (oh, I miss that restaurant; in fact, on a day like this, don't get me started on how much I miss Key West and its warmth). You can see the trimmed stubs spiking out at the base -- and yes, they are spiky.

But when the sago's fronds first emerge, as they did so beautifully, they're soft and pliant, wheels within ferny wheels of fresh velvet. So I got closer, and closer, and closer. . . .

One for Mom

Actually, we took her a bucketful, along with four banana plants and a tub of elephant ears for the garden off her sun porch.

And some sesame noodle salad with roast pork, and a couple of grilled tenderloins for the freezer, and carrot cake. (Hey, diabetics can have a little fun every once in a while).

It was going to be an elegant little lunch, but we got busy unwrapping the fountain, cleaning out the winter gradoo and unclogging the pump. Fortunately, her eyes are bad enough that she didn't notice our mud-spatters.

Chillbusters

Steamy pots and savory smells are the perfect answer to clammy days.

So I harked back to Budapest, and came up with caraway-scented red cabbage and chicken paprikash.

Actually the "sh" is an S with a dot, but we're restricted by English here. Not that I'm an expert in Hungarian -- but one word I do remember is "etterem." It means "restaurant."

Good for the geese

Those two dots you see on the right under the crape myrtle are ganders, and goose is nesting on that little ringy thing out in the lake, to the left of the tree. (It helps to click on the picture for a closer view.)

We built the floating planters last year, on specs Disney provided after we admired theirs, and they used to be matte black, but apparently turtles clambering up on them to sun over the winter wore off the paint.

But I digress. Ms. Goose took up residence in the ring about a week ago, and her two male companions have been standing watch on the shore ever since.

Now, I'm no gansologist, but . . . three? Are they waiting for the results of the paternity test? Or are they just "modern"?

Blackberry winter

I think everyone in Appalachia knows the term -- when the black- berries bloom, and the weather loses its spring glow to grow cold, gray and dank again.

It's the last vestige of a dismal season, and despite the daisy-strewn meadows it's quite a shock after a few beautiful weeks of warmth.

There is consolation, though: Each of those little snowdrops in the hedge will, given a nice, warm summer, turn into deep purple tastes of heaven. Maybe I'll make jam again this year.

Windfall

The only benefit of the storms that passed through in the last few days has been the chance to see some tulip poplar blossoms up close.

The trees are awfully fragile and come apart in clumps. This branch-end blew down from a few dozen feet in the air and across several hundred feet of lawn.

There's really no color like the fresh spring green of the leaves, and the buds and blooms are four-inch beauties.

And there's a universe inside. . . .

Fallen Sky

This is Fallen Sky, the Museum Center's first living history char- acter, brought to life by our friend John Bradley.

So it was fitting that when they had to choose a place for his memorial service on Sunday, it was the Museum Center. And it was also fitting that they put out 330 chairs, and still had standing room only.

"Friends are the family you choose," John often remarked, and the size of the family that gathered was a measure of the man.

I was impressed that Maurine Nichols, who was his co-star in their breathtaking performance of "Love Letters" there, held the program and herself together perfectly. Like me, she only teared up a few times, and nobody else noticed.

We cried a little and laughed a lot and remembered that we are all going to carry him around with us for the rest of our lives.

Eat the evidence

I took a stromboli to cocktails with Ben and Ken at Kathy and Carl's place on Saturday, and it disap- peared somehow. So did my chicken satay, though it wasn't as photogenic by far.

Nobody seemed to be embarrassed to take the last pieces -- usually one of the frustrations of a host who wants to clear trays away, but doesn't want to be wasteful.

It's hard to beat ham, salami, pepperoni, roasted peppers and cheese wrapped up in a toasty crust.

But only in Tennessee: As I was ordering up the salami at a deli, a worker yelled over: "You better warn him. There's wine in it." Pronouced "wahn."

"There's wine in it," the woman filling my order solemnly told me. "That's why I've never had it."

Un-ravaging

It was a slow, rainy day yesterday so -- besides fighting the crowds at two groceries for ingredients for hors d'oeuvre we're taking to a cocktail party tonight, and ferreting out a spark plug for the Gator -- I spent some quality time with picture frames that needed fixing.

Over winter, when we're not here, the house gets cold and dry. That does no good at all to old wood, and especially not to plaster ornament or fill. So when we get home, those little white chips are staring right at us on the big Dutch landscape in the entrance and the bird paintings in the library.

Purists may cringe that the repairs aren't professional, but it's obvious that I'm not the first to give them a bit of TLC. And hey, they're frames, not canvases.

The first is too big to move, so up go the ladder and the lights and out come some glue and the paint kit, with its shades of gold and brown, for a few hours' close work. The other two come down, with some help, to get their damage camouflaged on the kitchen table.

It's a little job, but a satisfying one.

Dead ringers

I was running into town on an errand, and about a mile from Calhoun, there was my dad at the wheel of a pickup coming at me northbound.

Unsettling, considering he died four years ago.

Of course, this isn't the first time I've had that confusing ricochet of thought and emotion: Hey, there he is! No, there he isn't! My, that's an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Years ago, I was walking along Michigan Avenue a few days after John Fischetti died and spotted him across the street.

Gone but far from forgotten.