Saturday Slight

Tom Sherry stressed that the weather report had changed.  Earlier in the week he had thought that Easter Weekend was gonna be wet.

He revised that forecast yesterday on KREM-2 News----though, emphasizing no rain until Sunday night and that we might get to watch the lunar eclipse aka "blood moon" if we were up and at it by 5 a.m.

Well, I missed the moon deadline, but my ears zeroed right in on significant raindrops pounding the roof at 5:30 a.m. 

The wet stuff was still falling when I went out to feed at 6.  Later, when I came in with the papers, a dusting of snow covered about two thirds of the mountains to the west.

Well, fortunately, Tom's off the hook, temporarily anyway, cuz the rain finally stopped.

Maybe I will get to burn those piles of dead grass later today and maybe even use the paint brush a bit to touch up my planters around the deck.

Tree limbs and shrubs are clean from the rain.  Daffodils are blooming, as are a few of my yellow shrubs. Two sets of crocuses are putting out some color as is my periwinkle.  

I'm excited because the little periwinkle starts that I transplanted last week in various areas are blooming too.  So, I think they're going to thrive in their new areas.

The mild winter continues to allow me opportunities to do clean-up jobs rarely thought of in most years.  Yesterday's project was the grassy area with trees south of the main lawn. 

I took the old mower, set the deck up high and mowed the scruffy/dead grass throughout the entire plot, and it looks wonderful this morning.  

My plan is to keep it trimmed until the lupine along Love Canal put on their spring show. Most years the tall grass hides the beauty from most directions, so, with luck this year's display ought to be the best ever. 

On the garden front, all those cute little stalks of corn popping up in the planter out in the greenhouse started disappearing two mornings ago.  Yesterday morning only four remained. 

I'm glad the mole(s) or whatever has been feasting on the baby corn has a full tummy. With yesterday's re-planting, I moved the container to the deck and covered it with Saran wrap. 

Maybe the second batch will live a little longer and grow big enough to survive those nasty little teeth. 

In other news on this Saturday, it was fun to see that Sandpoint native, Chris Pietsch, and his colleagues on the Eugene Register-Guard won a distinguished award: second place in the annual "Best of Photojournalism contest, judged by the National Press Photographers' Assoc. 

"We won the award for Best Use of Photography in the less-than-75,000-circulation category for work published in 2014," Chris wrote. "The entry was composed of four complete issues of the newspaper from throughout the year."  

He added that the paper from Jackson Hole won first and that the New York Times won first in the same category for papers with 75,000 or more circulation. 

Pretty neat.  Congratulations, Chris and crew. 

After a week away from basketball, I think I've just about gotten through withdrawal, although it's tempting to tune in today to watch the Final Four----all depends on the weather.

One diversion, which has kept me from missing that steady diet of basketball, has involved taking every opportunity available to sit down and read.

My good friend and retired teacher Bill Gee is responsible as well as others who have raved about The Boys in the Boat, a nonfiction 2014 release about the University of Washington crew team which won the 1936 Olympic Gold Medal in Berlin. 

Until Bill's comment on Facebook the other day, I simply listened to comments about the book but didn't get that excited.  After all, crew seems like a nice precision sport, but a whole book?

After reading Bill's revelation that one of the main characters of the book spent time in Boulder City, where we family members have visited a time or two, my perception changed.  Boulder City, now a ghost town, sits above the Kootenai River east of Bonners Ferry. 

Probably within an hour of learning the local connection, I walked through the door of Vanderford's, asked Marcia where the book was and soon walked out the door anxious to get home to read. 

Marcia told me she hadn't read it, but that it's "been flying off the shelf." 

Within a few pages, I was thinking, "This is as well-told as Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand." 

Later a quick study of the book's endorsements indicated that my first impression was fairly universal. 

I'm hoping to catch more time today to read on, and with luck, I'll finish it by this weekend.  

The book definitely revolves around the crew team, but its historical, geographical and personal dimensions add so much to the story that, for me, thoughts about college basketball seemed inconsequential soon after I began reading.

The Boys in the Boat definitely provides a great escape and some brief journeys into several historical elements of the Pacific Northwest and the world.  Should be a wonderful movie. 

With that in mind, it's time to escape to the outdoors and see what kind of mischief or beautifying I can indulge in today, now that the rain has stopped.

Happy Saturday.