The heat is a bit much. Normally, May is the month in Minneapolis where we're hoping to avoid any frost damage to the things we planted much too early because we hoped prematurely for the end to winter. This year, we keep getting heatwaves. Minneapolis is currently under a red flag warning about fire risk due to the dryness and strong winds. The temperature as I write this post in the evening is 30.5C/87F. We're expecting a few days of temperatures above 32C/90F. It's warm weather for May in Minneapolis.

Pictured here are the tulips and daffodils that are flowering in the front yard, in the middle of the raspberry patch that is beginning to leaf out. The flowers have been pretty for about 2 weeks already, so they won't last much longer.

I still haven't finished pulling out the grass in the front yard. I did succeed in mowing over the clover path in the back yard today during my lunch break from work. Yesterday, I got some carrots and tomatoes planted, from sprouts that I put in flats a few weeks ago.

I finally ordered the air conditioner that I located last year. It may not arrive until after this heat wave breaks, but at least I'll be ready for summer. For now, the thermal mass in the house is keeping downstairs cool. Upstairs in my bedroom, I open the windows at night to help some of the heat escape and get some more comfortable rest.

My temperature was only 37.2C/99.0F this morning. I wore long clothes in the morning to stay warm, because I felt cool still. By afternoon, I took off the long sleeve shirt. After work, I felt well enough to finally get outside and do some gardening.

I'm pretty sure I'm developing arthritis in both feet. The pain is similar but still in the developing stage. My left knee, though. I had to stop gardening because I kept grimacing and audibly "ow"-ing whenever I had to stand up. It's a sharp pain like arthritis, but it doesn't feel quite as concentrated and pointy as arthritis. Hopefully it's just a result of being unfit, and it will heal into good shape soon.

If it ends up being arthritis, then I'll probably have to sell my house. Yuck. I can't keep up the yard without good knees. I can deal with the rest of it, even the feet, I think. Knees, though... I don't want to be so old that I can't garden. I don't want to sell my house to somebody who'll just put in a grass yard. I want all of this effort to continue keeping pollinators around.

For now... good thoughts. Rest for now, not aggravating the knee. At least until tomorrow after work, when I'll I return to the garden to remove more grass that shouldn't be there. Today, I disturbed some large flower bulbs whose sprouts hadn't yet broken the surface. Good thoughts for them too. I hope I didn't damage anything important while trying to keep my yard in fair condition for city inspectors who drive around occasionally.

It fascinates me that this whole-body arthritis flare-up seemed triggered by that pneumococcal vaccine. I went searching just now, and this Arthritis Foundation webpage recommends getting the vaccine "... or when your arthritis isn't active". What's up with that?

I explained last year that one of the reasons I call 911 (if gunfire is within a 2-block radius here in my beloved warzone) is because emergency responders might arrive in time to save someone's life.

I've been pondering the question if I called 911 yesterday morning as usual, would the police have arrived a few seconds sooner than they did? And if police did arrive sooner, would those few seconds have made a difference in saving someone's life, just a short distance from my house?

I don't know.

When we fail our best nature, perhaps we don't really have options but to try doing better in the future. I know that living in the warzone for so long has changed me, and I probably don't know the full extent of that change. Next time, however, I will remind myself that being Mr. Crankypants at 5:55am and losing patience with the inhumanity of humanity is NOT a good reason to avoid calling 911 to report local gunfire.

After work today, I did some very minimal gardening. Here's another plant incomprehensibly deciding to flower very late in the season and during a strong drought. It's in my front yard, almost within arm's reach of the asphalt street.

Sometimes, foolish organisms do wonderful things, given the opportunity. It's precisely the magic that's worth watching in this weary world.

Yes, I'm ignoring the big political news from Minnesota for now. I wanted to talk about my back yard instead.

I know that often my yard doesn't "look" nice at all, but I do slowly get it tamed back to general human standards. These photos show the reasons I love the #Lawns2Legumes program in Minnesota. Keep those pollinators happy, and it benefits humans too by having a healthy ecosystem.

A hailstorm swept through Minneapolis on Wednesday. I didn't notice at the time, but the main branch of my dwarf cherry tree broke. There's now a big "hole" in the middle of this tree. :(

I've had so little luck getting a proper cherry crop from this tree after many years, and now I have this setback. I've decided to give up the great sunlight in the area directly south of my house. I'll buy a proper full-size cherry tree to plant there. It'll be nice fruit to eat, a beautiful site from the street, and shade for my house in the summer.

What's your favorite cherry to eat fresh from the tree or frozen (added to smoothies or ice cream)? It needs to be hardy to zone 4 too. And maybe self-pollinating? I'm open to suggestions.

Edit 4:45pm: Okay, I've nearly decided. I'll get

• a Montmorency cherry (tart, standard size, up to 5 meters tall and wide, planted close to the front fence so pedestrians could grab some) and
• a Kristin cherry (sweet, dwarf, about 3 meters, planted by the back fence to replace that terribly astringent jostaberry, and anybody walking the alley could pick some), and
• a Hinnomaki red gooseberry to also help replace that jostaberry growth.
• Next to the Montmorency, I will place a hazelnut tree for bigger shade and more food options. Hazelnuts are native to Minnesota, so hopefully one is sufficient for pollination.
• And a few more columnar apple trees. They take so very little space. I'd like to see more than one or two fruits that the squirrels steal first.

I intended to step outside to do a small bit of gardening today. The sun happens to be shining at the moment, after a few days of on-and-off rain. The rain begins again in a few more hours, and it's forecast to continue... well, for the reasonable future forecast of many days. It's apparently a side effect of that heat dome over the eastern coast.

It's swampy out there. I decided that I just didn't want to spend more time in that sultry heat. Honestly, it's only 30C/87F air temp and 34C/93F heat index, but... I just don't want to today.

I still have a few cherries on the tree, but most of them dropped despite my adding a water drip for many days (until the rain) this year. For the very first time, I have peaches. There are dozens and dozens of "Red Haven" peaches (pictured at right), but that tree seems stressed too, with tiny peaches all over the ground around that tree. For the very first time, I have a handful of apples too, both on the regular "Northwestern Greening" apple tree and one of the "North Pole" columnar apple trees. Everything is still a long while from being ripe, and I hope some of the fruits survive the ripening time so I can taste them this year.

And I really need to get the back yard under control. Soon after all of this rain has finally stopped falling. And after I paint those 2 remaining windows. But not today.

In my front yard, the 'Many Mahalos' iris is blooming, same bloom date as last year, despite the very warm spring we had here. I obviously forgot to break them up last year to get a larger spread of them now. Hopefully I'll remember to do that later this year. Also, you can see the strawberries flowering nicely.

For several days already, local news web sites and tv stations have been going on about the imminent bloom of the death flower in the Como Conservatory. It's named Horace. I'd be willing to grow one in my yard, but they're native to Sumatra (according to the Washingtonian), so not exactly suited for cold Minnesota.

The news has been warning for a full day already about the storm that's blowing through Iowa right now. The edge should reach Minneapolis within about 2 hours. This storm has strong potential for tornadoes and hail. I don't expect much but rain here, since we're on the edge of the warning areas with about 40% chance of it arriving here. I can hear the thunder starting up again right now, so I'd better save this draft before any potential power outage.

Edit Wednesday morning: Still here. It was just rain here, except for a single lightning strike at 5:52pm that was so close to the house that the thunder shook the windows repeatedly and even my recliner chair.

Edit Wednesday noon: Apparently the people of Iowa were not as lucky (free gift link) as me. :(

I'm feeling better, but it comes after slacking off during my "weekend". I spent only an hour today digging in the front yard, and I was already short winded and light headed. I'm very much out of shape.

Rather than document what did or didn't get accomplished outside, I'll just show this photo of one part of my front yard. There are tulips, daffodils, violets, and dandelions blooming right now.

And I didn't update my resume, which means I didn't apply for that job promotion. I really should update my resume, though. Besides applying for promotions, I could also apply elsewhere. I don't see many 100% remote jobs these days, but they still exist. Maybe I could find something less stressful.

The temperature in Minneapolis reached 29C/84F yesterday. That's an interesting trick, since April temperatures are usually just comfortably above freezing. Next Saturday, the forecast is for one degree above freezing. I got some seeds into flats, so hopefully I'll have sprouts just in time to plant after all the frost is gone.

I did some more digging in my back yard to eliminate unwanted growth. I'm starting to wonder if blackberry canes are worth the trouble? At least I have very little burdock appearing this year. We could learn intolerance in the garden, where we decide which species must live and which must die. I'm not very efficient at gardening, thankfully, because I let things grow just to see them grow. Sometimes new and surprising things show up. Like this lone purple aster. Plant databases online suggest this tiny little plant is actually a Greek anemone. Where did it come from? Surprise! Just flowering there, all alone, no pollinators around that I can tell yet. I hope it survives and continues to a new generation. I searched my email, but I never bought such a plant online.

I was happy to see that some Glory-of-the-Snow that I transplanted previously has survived and is now showing off in my front yard. In a few more years, it should be a nice broad carpet when the snow first melts.

I wish I didn't devote most of my waking hours to thoughts of "earning a living". I'd rather do gardening and other stuff.

Tomorrow is my last day off from work, then students move in for the semester start. That means it is time for "hell week" all over again, despite so many mini-hell-weeks since the fall semester started a few months ago. Anyway...

I noticed a few days ago that some (only a few) trees on my block are putting on buds, thanks to the warmest December on record in Minnesota. I didn't take a photo, then last night we got a dusting of snow, so the buds are probably covered up at the moment.

Here, though, is a photo of the fire dragon maiden grass that I bought in spring of 2021. It's finally large enough to notice, although the red has muted since they first died back for the winter season. The tassles, though, do look nice over the snow. Notice that peculiar and scraggly plant in the foreground? That's the tallest bayberry plant I've got, which I planted back in 2016. I've yet to see a single bayberry fruit, though, so I may never get to craft my own bayberry candle for a winter holiday season.

I had my house viewed by a salesperson for the possibility of installing a heat pump from Daikin for ductless a/c and heating. The sales rep said they operate down to -24C/-12F, so there would be days in winter when it wouldn't operate at all, leaving me on the coldest winter days with only electric blankets. I can live with that, if it means being able to turn off my gas heater. Unfortunately, the heat pump costs about $7k per "head" for the main unit, which feeds a pipe that snakes along the outside of the house to a small unit that can heat/cool a single room. I want at least the 2 upstairs bedrooms covered... and preferably the ground floor living room too. So, that's not going to happen this year. Instead, I should focus on saving money to replace the windows upstairs, so any hot/cold air can be contained indoors. I can live easily with a single window a/c unit for another year.

More later on the Steam Deck OLED, Steam Dock, PowerA wired X box controller, and the game Coral Island. That game is clearly a direct rip-off from classic Stardew Valley, which is why I like it so much, I think. Anyway, I splurged on myself for gifts last month, and I've enjoyed it very much this week. Suffice to say for now that the Steam Deck (a Linux pc in game box format) is an engineering marvel.