In Washington three weeks ago, I met four college guys who are going to ride from International Falls to the southern tip of Florida in Key West to raise money for Alzheimer's research. 

They are going through Bemidji. They then will go to the Twin Cities. 

Anybody want to help? They could use places to stay and of course, donations!

This spring highlighted the risks of growing apples in Minnesota for a living. The good news is, we'll still have apples. 

The nursery has just had its wildest week ever, I think. I feel like I need to come up for breath. Sorry about the sparse posts. I just don't have time to think, much less write, much less write intelligibly. 

It does me good to know we'll have a good year. Last year was a bit tough. Our road was almost impassable and we never had spring, at least until July. Many people skipped planting. 

They're making up for it this year.

I get frazzled quite often, especially when there gets to be a back-up of people needing help. But I recover and can get back to feeling normal pretty quickly. 

This week has been a busy week with meetings, both on assisted living (3 meetings) and the community fund. They have gone well. Things are moving along. Thanks to everybody who showed up at the hearing on Monday evening. There is another this afternoon at 5 p.m. The hearings are needed for bonding the project and are a chance for people to ask questions. One problem is you have to move ahead on several fronts at once so the answers to the questions aren't always solid, yet you have to act like they are solid at some point or you'll never get in the ground. What we are trying to do is err so completely on the side of being careful that many variables could go wrong and yet the project would cash flow. 

THERE IS NO JOY IN MUDVILLE. The Twins simplly stink. I put them on for background noise, and then that even gets annoying. 

Attention residents of Fertile: We are having our first hearing on assisted living at 6:30, Monday at the city offices. If you support assisted living, or even if you don't, please come to the hearing and be heard! 

One of his best, for a night-cap after a beautiful, busy May day. 

A very busy week. The nursery has been hopping. I had to sneak off to a two-day Bush Fellowship seminar, which was excellent. Then back into the fray at the nursery. 

I can only think in bullet points tonight, so:

•I am trying to keep running during the nursery season as I think it releases seasonal stress. Tonight, I passed the 200-mile mark for this calendar year. That is thrilling for me, as I have never exercised this much in my life. 

•Obama's personal embrace of gay marriage yesterday was politically interesting. I think it is about time he quit trying to appease people who are going to hate him no matter what due to the color of his skin and just do what he thinks right. It is obvious that his hesitancy on gay marriage was a political ploy, as is his embracing of it at this point. That is what the presidency is about. Lincoln didn't pull the trigger on the Emancipation Proclamation until he thought it was the right moment. Truman didn't integrate the military until he felt it was the right moment (also in an election year.) Roosevelt once said about a piece of progressive legislation, "It is the right thing to do, now go out and make me do it."

No matter how you cut it, gay marriage is no big deal. The people who are going into conniptions about it have no dog in the fight. They are free not to marry somebody of their own sex. They are not free to limit the freedoms of others who are doing nothing to harm anybody. 

Then, just for balance, the Forum publishes this letter. Apparently men should be physicians an women should be nurses and anybody who says otherwise is "playing into the hands of the elitists." Wow!

The last few years, if anything, have given the neanderthals the courage to come out from beneath their rock and proclaim their ignorance from the hilltops. 

I just now realized it has been Wednesday since I last wrote in this weblog I once called "daily!" 

The nursery has been running crazy. Business has been great.

However, it is at this time of year that I realize more than ever that I am introverted.

"Underneath all that performance stuff you do, you really prefer to be alone, don't you?" one insightful customer said to me last week. She probably read it on my face.

Being alone isn't always my preference. I like about two hours of people per day. When it gets up to ten, however, I spend the remaining few hours just staring at the ceiling of the living room in my recliner. 

Individual conversations are usually pleasant. Yesterday was busy, but I didn't have a single unpleasant customer. Not one. Dad said the same thing. All good people all day. 

And yet, last night my head was so stirred up that it was really difficult to calm down.

I take frequent breaks from the tumult during the day. I go in the office do some of the books for the day, a necessary task which is complete recreation for me. Or (my favorite activity) I lay on the floor behind Joe's desk and "answer the phone." I can fall asleep and still reach up to pick up the phone half-way through its first ring. I do think that this is a valuable service as a ringing phone adds stress elsewhere at the nursery and I can usually answer whatever question somebody has. But there is no question that the bulk of that time is spent in blissful slumber. 

This spring, I am trying to continue running through the busy season. Unlike the rest of the people at the nursery who are busy out back moving things, my tiredness is not physical. Running down the abandoned rail bed south of Fertile is absolute therapy. 

I haven't met anybody on the track all spring. I have it too myself. Each day, things change. The aspen groves change from yellow to light green. The first oriole showed up yesterday. Mallards start up from the ditch next to the track. Sandhill cranes make a constant racket. Fox run across the trail. Deer amble in the distance ahead. Butterflies and moths dart around, often in pairs. Beaver duck underwater as I pass. Blue jays crisscross the trail, as do woodpeckers, who, like jack rabbits, seem incapable of leaving the trail and instead stay 50 feet ahead of me for up to a mile. 

The only sign of recent human activity are the buggy wheel tracks from the Amish, who also use the track to get to town. 

Who wouldn't be calmed by such a scene?

I actually agree with a Fargo Forum editorial! 

Here is a good letter refuting one of the more ridiculous aspects of the marriage debate: In their zeal to return to...the 1600s? anti-gay marriage advocates now have included adoptive parents in the group of those who need to feel inferior in order for them to sleep at night. Yes. The National Organization For Marriage, as well as some bishops, say children are best raised by their biological parents and that other arrangements, such as adoption, are less worthy. 

What motivates these people if not blind hate? Everybody's just trying to make their way in the world and then we have these people who judge, judge, judge, looking down their nose at people who aren't like them, even those who adopt children.  

In general, these people are happy to ignore broad societal issues like care of the elderly, conserving the environment, educating our children, building roads and so on. Those issues bore them utterly. However, as soon as something comes up which remotely addresses sex, they're all over it and want the government to get involved. 

Something's probably missing in their bedrooms, but I don't care to snoop.