the weekend started out with a tornado watch, and though the tornado hit way down in mississippi, nothing but a cracklin radio up here, the stress of the whole thing lingered around anyway, as it rained, rained some more, got cold, and rained still more. it was the weekend of the irish festival, which has turned into a fun time with good music and stuff for the kids, in a local park that is well-placed, but this year i ran into a guy who was really from ireland, and i complained that they had pretty lousy, cold & blustery, weather for the irish fest, and he said, that's the kind of weather ireland has, so that's an irish fest for you.

grass is now growing so quickly that even weekly mowing can't keep up with it. go three days and it looks like you've been a week; go a week, and dandelions are flowering and the tall grasses are moving in. the dreaded yellow ticket means the city is down on you and ready to mow for you, and charge up the wazoo for it too. but nobody wants one of those yellow tickets. some people wonder if they just cut the median, can they avoid a ticket, by looking like they at least got started, then had to leave to fix their mower? i'm not up on what works. we hire a guy named karl these days, and he takes care of it. adds years onto my life, i'm sure; i feel a bit yuppish about it, but do it anyway.

turtle season rapidly approaches, because the mulberries on sunset boulevard will come ripe in early june. that house, with the tree, is for sale; the mulberry tree in the japanese garden is entirely gone. the ones on the road are no good; they get sprayed. the turtles on the boulevard are onto the good one though; i'm sure they take a big interest in who, if anyone, buys the house; this is their livelihood. their june.

i'm thinking of going into the mulberry tree business; i could start with my own yard, and plant sweet messy berries all over town. johnny mulberry, i could be; my wife already has disdain for my project. but she at least said i could plant one. she may not like them, but maybe she's never climbed one. there are male and female trees, supposedly; i certainly wouldn't know the difference. those and wild pears. now that i have a granddaughter, i am working on preserving the best things of life. mulberries, wild pears, and quilts. maybe not in that order.

working on the haiku a lot these days; it's going well. my collection still has a lot of bogus ones, though the links should be good; still needs work, is what i'm trying to say. also went to my friend's art exhibit; she's korean, had family from korea to see the ceremony. one of her favorite pictures has many pears in a splay of color; korean pears are round, so the fat-bottomed and many-colored varieties here in the usa represented diversity to her. diversity, and more than that, if you could remember the wild kind, that used to grow on farms, and get swiped by the wild animals regularly. those wild pears are worth saving. sometimes i can taste them, just as i sit here. at the moment though, i've been reminded of a korean persimmon: red, grainy, messy, infinitely delicious. some things are worth going 8000 miles for.