Photo Collage

As requested, here are some photos from around the home and town.

I often get asked how well the fur balls get along.

Mr Man & Big Girl get along - when they're both worn out from too much excitement. Here they wait under the dining room table for the next big thing to happen.

She's been teething so she's been cranky. Earlier this week she lost her baby canine. She's got one more to go. We'll all be much happier when she's got her adult mouth.

Over the weekend we visited the Black Door Gallery & Museum of Unnatural History. I've visited a few natural history museums but this was a first for unnatural ones. It was loaded to the brim with quirky, good-humored, political statement type art.

I think this one is titled "Diana Goddess of the Third Grade." The artist, who I noticed was reading Ulysses while he wasn't walking around with a handheld guest counter that looked an awful lot like one of those gizmos you can use to shock someone who's gullible enough to still shake your hand in spite of your Cheshire cat grin, was all too eager to comment on Charlton Heston's "not from my cold blah blah blah hands" speech to the NRA while I looked at this piece. I just wanted to admire the taxidermed pet opposum at her feet, the miniature skulls hanging from her hip, the dog bone in her mouth, and her toy weaponry - in peace. How ironic. I may have said something about Ben-Hur. The dude, CH that is, has Old Timer's.

The mechanical sperm bank was what brought us into the gallery. The photos do not do it justice. I especially like the phallic faucet and the plastic babies in the testicle jar.

On my walk around campus this afternoon, I noticed another old tree got sacked right around the corner from us. It was a maple tree. Today at lunch I got to chat with a Phi alum and the Phi house chef about the historic catalpa that got taken down in their front yard last week. Maybe a picnic table can be made from some of the wood. I like that idea. It would be wonderful to keep the tree around campus in some form. That tree meant a lot to many people in the neighborhood.

We found another old catalpa growing elsewhere on campus, hopefully that one won't get axed too.

This gives you an idea of the size of the catalpa's leaves and sead pod. That ruler is a little more than 12 inches long. I'm waiting for the seeds to ripen, then I'll harvest and germinate them, and if I'm successful, someday there will be another catalpa in town.

A few days ago I located a huge wisteria vine growing near the Y. The property it's located on is up for sale. Got a million bucks?

One of the weird things about this town is the mixture of relative poverty and unbelievable wealth in the same neighborhood. A walk through my neighborhood reveals scruffy, cheap properties and well-kept mansions.

I very much prefer this way to the usual segregation of rich and poor.

I brought some of the fragrant flowers home and put them in a bud vase in the bathroom. I'd love to grow a wisteria in the back on an arbor near the fence.

I did some homework on wisteria. It will grow fairly easily here but if I start it from seeds, it could take a decade before it blooms. From cuttings appears to be the best way to go, and wouldn't you know it, August is the best time to do cuttings!

I need some stuff called vermiculite to condition the soil so that the roots grow well.