Spring Flux

Old man winter seems to finally have given up and moved on.  The best of spring's blossoms have passed and now it is the sweet, swift slide to summer.

Life is in flux right now--like the season--and I am trying to keep myself calm and reasonable.

The flux:

• School is almost out and the students are like ponies anxious to leave the stable.  It takes all I've got to keep them engaged. 
• I am hunting for a new job closer to home, and my window of opportunity is closing in.  
• The bathroom re-do is still in the works.
• My youngest son is having housing problems in a town far away where I can do little to help.  
• The house next door, connected to many nostalgic memories, is scheduled for tear down later this week.

• Also, the house on the other side of us sold and may be torn down as well. 

These tear downs unsettle me.

Our part of town is a hot little market right now--little houses on lots of expensive land.   I called this blog 'Notes from the Buffer Zone' because this neighborhood was a street of small, old houses smack between a few streets of stately old homes and a street of scraggly unkempt and condemned houses.  When I first moved here 30 years ago, we laughed and called it the Buffer Zone.

Well, of course the condemned houses were torn down (along with the woods behind them) and developed and now my street itself--which used to be students and artists and senior citizens in the Buffer Zone days is rapidly becoming something other.  It is odd to watch this transition.  I never would have thought that houses on my street would sell for over a million dollars.  It is a disturbing kind of gentrification.

But, on the be calm and reasonable side of things--I am very happy in my little house. And happy that at last, the garden is in!

It is not too lovely to look at with fencing all around, but I've spied wild rabbits in the yard. Last year they devastated our beans and cowpeas right as the seedlings came up. So, what better way to keep bunnies out, than to use a pen (well several pens) designed to keep them in? 

While gardening, I found this little nest made partly with soft rabbit fur.  I wonder what kind of tiny birds lived here?

Also, I have been s-l-o-w-l-y knitting this little fair isle cardigan sweater. I am finally up to the yoke.  I need to finish this as I have lost some of my motivation for it.  It really shouldn't take as long to make as it has taken me.  It's just that I only get to do a few rows at a time because bits of it take focus--like sit in a straight backed chair at a table kind of knitting focus--and I just don't feel in that mood very often.

I have also been knitting another hitchhiker shawl at the same time which has slowed progress on this little cardigan as well.

I am sure that by my next post here in the blogisphere, many of my concerns will have played out.  I'll just keep my eyes on the small delights of the season, keep breathing, and have faith that the universe will smile kindly on us all.