trash and peonies
Driving home from an appointment this afternoon I had to dodge around some trash in the road. It looked like someone had bashed apart an Ikea-type dresser, maybe, only with metal bracing? The pieces in the road included some larger metal bits that seemed unsafe to me, especially the angle bracket.
So I stopped a block or so down and walked back and removed the trash from the road. A cop car pulled up a block down the road about the time I reached the dresser bits. I wonder if he would have removed it, if I hadn't been in the process, or if he had just pulled into that parking lot to take a break? I walked the dresser-bits down to a trash can (right in front of the cop car) and dumped them in. I found myself wanting to clean up a bunch of the other trash that was in the street and on the sidewalk, stray smashed plastic bottles and other bits of litter, but I do that on my block twice a week and I have other appointments today, so I decided that's for the people who live block to do. At least today it is.
On my way back to the car I stopped and smelled a peony. And some iris. And some roses. The peony were past their prime flounciness, a bit wilted on the edges, but smelled lovely. The roses had no scent. And the iris made me homesick for the iris gardens I used to visit up near Santa Rosa, when I lived in California. It was my first visit to an iris garden, with beds and beds of them massed in one place, that I realized that bearded iris actually have a scent. It varies from cultivar to cultivar, but it can be quite strong. Sometimes it's hard not to think the deep purple ones smell like grape jelly.
Right now I'm taking a break, playing with Jordan the rat. He's currently wrapped up in a towel, having to figure his way out. It's my variant of making him run a maze. And if he finds his way out AND comes to me when he's called (which he just did), he gets a kibble. He's hungry, so the kibble are proving an excellent motivation. He grabs it and runs back to the safety of the rumpled towel, where he eats it.
Jordan & I are still new to each other and this house is full of places a rat could stay lost for days, if he ever got loose in it, so I want him to know there are rewards for coming when called. I don't always use food as a reward, but I am trying to teach him that coming to my voice gets him affection of some sort.
So I stopped a block or so down and walked back and removed the trash from the road. A cop car pulled up a block down the road about the time I reached the dresser bits. I wonder if he would have removed it, if I hadn't been in the process, or if he had just pulled into that parking lot to take a break? I walked the dresser-bits down to a trash can (right in front of the cop car) and dumped them in. I found myself wanting to clean up a bunch of the other trash that was in the street and on the sidewalk, stray smashed plastic bottles and other bits of litter, but I do that on my block twice a week and I have other appointments today, so I decided that's for the people who live block to do. At least today it is.
On my way back to the car I stopped and smelled a peony. And some iris. And some roses. The peony were past their prime flounciness, a bit wilted on the edges, but smelled lovely. The roses had no scent. And the iris made me homesick for the iris gardens I used to visit up near Santa Rosa, when I lived in California. It was my first visit to an iris garden, with beds and beds of them massed in one place, that I realized that bearded iris actually have a scent. It varies from cultivar to cultivar, but it can be quite strong. Sometimes it's hard not to think the deep purple ones smell like grape jelly.
Right now I'm taking a break, playing with Jordan the rat. He's currently wrapped up in a towel, having to figure his way out. It's my variant of making him run a maze. And if he finds his way out AND comes to me when he's called (which he just did), he gets a kibble. He's hungry, so the kibble are proving an excellent motivation. He grabs it and runs back to the safety of the rumpled towel, where he eats it.
Jordan & I are still new to each other and this house is full of places a rat could stay lost for days, if he ever got loose in it, so I want him to know there are rewards for coming when called. I don't always use food as a reward, but I am trying to teach him that coming to my voice gets him affection of some sort.