crap on a crap cracker (and pictures)

My trees are lost in transit!!  Some of them, anyway.  Only about $700 worth of them.  They were shipped from California on Monday, today they mistakenly arrived in Iowa, and I'm pulling my hair out in New York.  Next week the trees will head back to California from Iowa and then onto New York, but by that time I will be in California, and then in Iowa, before arriving back to New York just in time to find my trees dead in their boxes.

There is probably some lesson to be learned here about buying local but instead I'm cursing the east coast for not having or growing or doing anything as well as the west coast.  I don't understand why east coast - west coast nursery competition shouldn't be as fierce as the rivalry between their respective hip hop artists in the 90s.  The true moral of the story is that we all have something to learn from dead rappers.

I've been a little busy lately, what with the traveling and the pool house and the planting and being sick with a nasty bug on top of all that.  This week has been the first we've really had to dig in at the Schoolhouse Road property, and we've unearthed (literally and figuratively) all kinds of unexpected problems.  Which is to be expected, I guess, ironically.  I'm still excited about having rocks and fossils and things in my soil, but my arms are less and less excited about excavating them.  The clay is something I have no love for.  In some places I wonder if it might be pottery-quality.  Seriously.  It's grey.  It's devoid of life and oxygen and I don't know what the fuck to do with it besides maybe throwing it.  All I need now is a wheel.

Tristan began private art lessons today, and I started taking mandolin on Thursday.  Yes, really.  I couldn't be happier.  My teacher remarked on my total lack of fear and shame.  I told him that he had no idea.

Here are some pictures of our time in Omaha and Chicago in early April!

At Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha..

 

Tibetan monk torsos?  Anyone?  If they were red?  Friar?  Something.

I'm not usually inspired to use filters, but when I am..

This one really needs scratch & sniff technology more than it does fancy filters.

At the Art Institute of Chicago.. 

 

 At the Willis Tower in Chicago..

And perhaps most importantly, at XOCO in Chicago, where Tristan had chocolate for lunch..

Order the Mexico City Chocolate, thank me later.

And these last two, because SPRING..

Perfect.

Pool House Chronicles III

Future site of les jardins.  Hopefully.

I officially own the pool house on Schoolhouse.  I am officially burdened by multiple required improvements before it can be a viable source of income.  But I now have my own personal refuge from the world, from concrete and noise and the people that put more thought into their wardrobe and hair color than they do into anything else.  I have acres of land in which to plant whatever I desire, and seemingly miles of deer fence to install. 

I am grateful and ecstatic in anticipation of seeing my girlfriends in Iowa this weekend, and tearful over the reality that these precious opportunities will be less and less as I prepare to sell our home in Ida Grove. 

I've had way too much to eat and drink at Food Studio tonight.

I can't get enough of this.

Tristan had his first guitar lesson this week, with a woman who is also apparently really into cheese.  I am almost paralyzed by confusion and glee when I think about it..  a nice respite from the feeling of being crushed by the weight of responsibility and uncertainty. 

Things are alive under that ice.