It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
In early April our flowering trees began to bloom.
The little redbud that we planted five years ago finally has had a glorious showing!
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| The last three years this tree has had fewer than 7 flowers. |
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| Tulips are blooming in the front yard and in the back yard. |
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| Grape Hyacinth are looking good. |
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| And the first iris has arrived. |
It's always exciting for me to turn over the garden soil after winter. I have a good start on my garden. I've planted pea pods, lettuce, Swiss chard, carrots, beets and onions.
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| It doesn't look like much, but these are the first lettuce sprouts. |
Each spring First Plymouth East does a blessing of the bikes. I rode 18 miles on city trails to get to the church. We had lots of families and little children with their bikes, maybe 50 riders.
First Plymouth also invited Otis Moss III to speak at what was billed as a "revival celebration".
This was an incredible experience! Reverend Moss really brought it! If you are interested in hearing him, go to
https://vimeo.com/163076038 The first 5 minutes are mostly introduction, and the next 3 minutes are his opening prayer. The scripture reading and following sermon begin at 8 minutes into the video. (One camera often captures me in the lower right-hand corner.) I highly recommend you give this guy a listen!
I had an opportunity to attend the Lincoln Community Playhouse production of "To Kill a Mockingbird".
I taught this novel to eighth graders so many times that I nearly have the book memorized. A play can never capture all of the book, but this particular rendition was pretty good. It was a very nice evening with many of my Irving teacher friends.
We had our dinner group here last week. These are friends of many years and we always enjoy our time together.
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| Greg, Rusty, Peggy, Kathie, Linda, Di |
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| Nelsons brought fresh cut flowers. |
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| nuts, fruit, chocolate and Port for dessert. |
Gretchen and I have one more class before (hopefully) graduating Obedience 2 at the Greater Lincoln Obedience Training Center. Yes, we will be signing up for Obedience 3. She now eats her way through a chew toy in about 5 days. She's also decided the landscaping in the back yard is a great place to dig. When she's calm, she's lovable and cuddly. The rest of the time she's a pretty normal 7 month old with lots of energy.
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| Gretchen gets bigger and more challenging by the day. |
We had dear friends, Linda and Roger, from Estes, CO join us for conversation and wine.
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| Lots of laughs and good memories. Wish we could see them more often! |
The next evening we attended the "Wine & E" fundraiser for Lincoln Public Libraries.
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| Librarians Becky and Nancy |
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| Sissy and Sharon with Barbara and Phil Heckman at our table behind them. |
On Earth Day I led a ride with 9 people to Seward and back. It was one of the few days this spring when the wind wasn't over 20 mph.
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| It was good to have Rusty out there riding with me again. |
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| With low wind, after the ride Rusty rolled out the canoe onto the driveway and did a little sanding. |
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| I joined my friends in the Just Sayin' riding group at the opening ceremony for Lincoln's protected bike trail. |
Without
official ceremony, the trail opened in December 2015 and was ranked 4th in the
nation for best new trail of 2015. Because the trail is separated and
protected from street traffic, it provides a safe way for riders to get through
the downtown traffic. Today there were speakers, bands, and an official
ride through town to the Railyard.
I'm so happy to live in a town that has a fabulous trail system. This month our legislature passed a law that gives bicycle riders in a crosswalk the same rights as pedestrians. Finally! This means that if you are riding a bike across a street with the cross walk signal and a car hits you, you are no longer at fault. It seems silly to need such a law, but up to now bicyclists have been at fault unless they dismount the bike and walk it across the street, even if the light is in their favor.
