Its taken me a long while to gather up enough random happenings to make a solid post out of it. I haven't been doing much these days other than reading and working.
The weather has turned to spring though, so perhaps things will get a little more interesting going forward. We'll see. This is a life update of some of the random things happening in my day to day.
As I said, the weather has turned warmer and spring has sprung.
The flowers have finally started to come up in our garden. It started with the daffodils and then came the tulips.
The hostas are mostly up but there are still a few stragglers pushing their way up through the soil. The allium, and peonies haven't started yet.
This is what the backyard garden looks like today on this gloomy rainy day.
Next!
I'm still learning Dutch with the Duolingo app.
I've been at it for 239 days so far. I probably have the vocabulary of a 2 year old now...
Every now and again it teaches me some random phrase that I find funny, like "Her cheese is my cheese."
Here is another gem. I can't wait for the day to use this while speaking to someone I barely know.
A now for a bit of a tongue twister... Thats a lot of "Z" words.
Here is a photo of our dog sleeping. He looks dead but just dead to the world. He is still very much alive.
I've seen quite a few woodland creatures in our neighborhood this year. I saw a fox twice and an opossum in our backyard.
Opossums are ugly but apparently they are good for the environment so I have no issue with it wandering through or even living in the back yard. They generally do not carry rabies and they eat pests. Please eat all of the ticks for me. I've pulled several off the dog already. Opossums are an interesting creature and are the only North American marsupial. It was neat seeing it.
I recently read this very short 4 page story that was written in 1948 for The New Yorker. You can read it online for free Here and Here. I remember reading this in high-school. Its so short but so good and worth a re-read. I would definitely recommend giving it a go since it only takes about 5-10 minutes of your time. Imagine this being published back in 1948!
Now that all of the leaves are on the trees our balcony is back to feeling very private. People walking can't see us up here from the road below anymore. They can no longer see into our living room either. Its like sitting in the tree canopy again.
Early last year I removed what I thought was a paper lantern from the balcony that was left by the previous owners. Almost immediately after doing so we started to get all kinds of bees looking for a place to nest. Carpenter bees to be precise. This year they have been super annoying too. I realized that the lantern I removed was actually a fake wasp nest that acted as a natural bee and wasp repellent. Wasps are very territorial so new bee and wasp colonies won't try to live near other nests. I bought a new fake nest and hung it today, so we'll see if it gets rid of the bees again.