West Allis Zoo a.k.a. Asylum for Criminally Insane Rabbits

May 2009

May: While the rest of y'all were celebrating mother's day, I was on a wonderful hiking trip, discovering new restaurants, new trails, and ticks. Lots of ticks.

Then I kidnapped Ruth and forced her to do some Milwaukee-area tourist stuff, including the Boerner Botanical Gardens.

The last of the garden beds has been compost-ified, amended, dug, and mostly planted (with seeds packed for last year . . . and the year before . . . and the year before). Compost piles have been moved and turned. Vast quantities of creeping phlox have been dug up, given away, and repl aced with echinacia and chrysanthemum (or should I get with the times and call them leucanthemum). The pro cess of raising and levelling the stepping stones in the front yard has begun. A couple of 50 lb rocks hav e been moved from back yard to front.

Bunny-people get-together on the 16th with much convival chatter.

Forest Farm order arrived on the 18th, alas the rarest plant I ordered was already sold out.

Bird news: I think there might be a bird living in the front yard skull birdhouse. At least I saw a bird investigating it, I think he went inside and scrabbled around a while. Of course when he saw me watching, he feigned disinterest and wandered away. I also saw a woodpecker one day in the back yard, on the dead tree which I use as a trellis for honeysuckle, trumpet vine, and grapes.

During the middle of May, Raven became horribly VIOLENTLY ill with a UTI. I've never seen somebody so knock-down, drag-out SICK from a UTI! I had to kidnap her and drag her to see a physicians assistant at a quickie-care type of place in Watertown. There I was amazed at the wonders of modern medicine. They have a sort of whizmotron or pee-o-lator machine right there, and can examine your yellow liquid outputs for all sorts of things (diabetes, protein, UTI). Well, the whizmotron confirmed that Raven was indeed voiding the Tinkles Of The D-mned. So the PA wrote a script for ABs, and in due course Raven returned to the land of the living.

I'm still working at getting the house set up for a cleaning lady. While attempting to install the lock on the upstairs door, I managed to lock myself out of the upstairs. (Latch was in place, knob with keyhole w as not.) So I decided I needed a break, and invited Petunia over for pizza. While waiting for Petunia and pizza to arrive, I figured out how to remove a door using a pry bar, screwdriver, and coat hanger.

After disposing of pizza & Petunia, I discovered that I needed a hole saw. No problem, I found the right s ize (I think) hole saw, even found a mandrel. What I couldn't find was a wrench to attach the correct size hole saw to the mandrel. Couldn't find any of my numerous wrench sets, nor my handy-dandy adjustable wren ch. What the . . . ?

Last weekend of the month was devoted to gardening frenzy. Herb fest at Boerner Botanical Gardens, used plants & rummage sale at Mitchell Park Conservatory (Domes). There I got cheap freesia & sparaxis bulbs to fill in a few spots in the front flowerbeds. I also got the last of the potager planting done: beans, zuchini, new zealand spinach. And continued the fight to keep flowering rasberry (a.k.a. thimbleberry) in its place.

In addition to my gardening frenzy, I also spent the last weekend of May starting the process of downsizing the fishtanks. Fish and plants from the basement freshwater tank are now temporarily located in my bedroom. Next I must dismember & clean the basement tank, then start rebuilding it as a saltwater tank.

Wish me luck as I am having Lasik on my eyes on Wednesday June 3. During the pre-op exam, the Doc said I do not have good fusion -- I've known that my whole life but never knew the word for it befo re -- my left eye and right eye do not agree on the location of what they're seeing. He was amazed that I knew the word "strabismus" (wall-eye) and checked me for it but said nope, no strabismus, that's not what's messing up my fusion.

Zoo Blog

May 2009