The month of April was a relief. After a dry, blistering March, Central Texas had a nice series of cold fronts and gentle, steady rains that have gone at least some small distance toward relieving the drought it seems like we’re constantly in. I’ve gotten several nice mostly-native plants in the ground, and they have been loving this gentle start to their lives outside a greenhouse. It almost looks like I know what I’m doing! (I don’t.)
We started our month bright and early by going to see a concert put on at least in part by Maya’s clarinet teacher, Stephen Savage. The concert featured bass clarinet in various arrangements. Since Ian will be playing clarinet next year in beginning band, we made him go along too, even though he worked very hard to talk his way out of it. Two of the more fascinating pieces were actually cello sonatas by Leo Ornstein, arranged for bass clarinet by Mr Savage and accompanied by some absolutely brilliant piano. Ultimately, even Ian seemed to be delighted with the show, and the pot was even sweetened by a small reception complete with treats afterward.
Maya and Ian are starting to age out of Easter, but we (mostly Sean) filled their baskets with treats and set them out anyway. Sean went last minute to our local HEB grocery store and stocked up, and one of the things he picked up for the kids was a chocolate rabbit called “Buckaroo Bunny,” featuring a jaunty vest and a 10 gallon hat. Alas, Buckaroo Bunny didn’t taste very good, so even Maya (who’s pretty tolerant about her treats) didn’t finish hers. And the cascarones Sean bought are still sitting un-smashed on the counter. Maybe the kids already have aged out of easter.
They did receive fun gifts from the grandparents, and it seems like that is welcome, no matter how old they get. Grammy and Grandpa sent gift cards and a box full of treat-filled plastic eggs, which the kids spent a great deal of time sorting and trading. Lolli and Pop sent cool t-shirts.
I had my second shingles vaccine around mid-month. The pharmacist who gave me the first shot warned me that the second one was the one that people had a stronger reaction to it, but it wasn’t even on my mind the following morning when I was muzzy-headed and shivering with a fever. Nothing to fear, by the end of the day I was fine and as I hear tell, that was much preferable than an actual case of shingles. Sean, conversely, had a much stronger reaction to his initial vaccine than his booster. Either way, it’s done now.
The kids had band movie night on April 17th. We all gathered in a field at the school with our lawn chairs and watched Zootopia 2 on an inflatable screen while the kids ate snacks and Maya hung out with her friends. It was honestly a lot of fun.
On the 20th, we got to go to the first of several 5th grade events at Ian’s school. It’s his last year of elementary school, and just as it was with Maya before him, there are a bunch of events to showcase all he’s learned. This was the fine arts portfolio day, so we got a sampling of what Ian has been learning in art class and in music. He tried to give us a computer-based presentation on his work, but was stymied by a pair of faulty headphones. Mostly, we looked through his portfolio and chit-chatted. The boy is a talented artist, so it was a lot of fun to look through the art he’d made.
Toward the end of the month, Maya participated in her school’s solo and ensemble competition. She did a solo with her oboe, an ensemble with the jazz band, and a separate ensemble that she put together herself. She composed the piece of music, gathered her friends together and obtained their commitment to participate in the ensemble, and arranged weekly practices with her group. To be fair, the piece was probably a little more complex than what should have been unleashed on a middle school ensemble group, but they did pretty well. Her group received a score of 1 and was named outstanding ensemble.
This is output from MuseScore for Maya’s ensemble composition, “Purple Hyacinth.” The audio may be a little soft, so adjust volume as needed.
Maya and her group could have gone into that performance and delivered a real clunker, and I still would have been proud. Maya wrote music she cared about, found willing musicians, organized practices, and corralled people. That’s a huge accomplishment, especially for an introvert like her.
We have had a lot of good animal activity in our yard this past month. The lizards and birds and squirrels are all making a show of it, as usual, but we have a toad who seems to have set up shop in a hollow stump left in our front yard from a rotted out oak tree we had to have cut down. It’s right near our front porch and possibly a little dangerous, so I had considered filling it in with dirt and possibly taking a sledgehammer to the edges, but since it has a resident, I’m leaving it along for now. Plus it’s an interesting place for fungi to flourish. It’s always interesting to see nature in action.
We had a new (to our knowledge) visitor to the back yard too. I was on a call for work and Sean frantically motioned for me to look out the back window. Sure enough a snake was nosing around at the window, almost seeming to poke at it experimentally with its head. I hastily promised my coworker a callback, and we went out to see what we had. As is typical of this area, what we had was a western rat snake, nonvenomous. It was crawling around on an old hose reel that I had been meaning to get rid of. We saw it again later in the afternoon slithering gently through our back flower bed. They are constrictors, and eat primarily small rodents but also birds, bird eggs, lizards and toads, so I’m sure it was finding plenty to eat in our yard.
This month provided a little mental reset before the rigors of May set in. There will be a thousand concerts and end of school events, and we’ll need to get ready for our summer trip to Europe, assuming there’s jet fuel available to get us there and back. And it was nice to get a little reprieve from what started to feel in March like a very early start to our miserable summer heat.
