Credit Where Credit is Due, and other musings

No one will ever nominate him for "Husband of the Year," but the Godfather of Soul demonstrated this weekend that he can be a real class act. Though no one would have faulted him for politely declining to perform at local wannabee politico Charles Walker, Jr's ill-conceived and abysmally organized James Brown Soul of America Music Fest--especially given that its taking place at all was no guarantee even a few weeks before--Brown, who after all is no spring chicken, flew home from a paying gig at his own expense and trekked to the Fest to perform a short program. It is too bad that the gross lack of planning and local disinclination to trust Walker's grandiose claims for the three-day event resulted in lackluster attendance. Shamefully, Walker wound up the event nearly getting it shut down by quarrelling over payment with local deputies who were working security for him. This guy shouldn't be trusted with so much as a moderate-size Tupperware party in future.
Thank you, Mr. Brown. Your community spirit is admirable.

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Dog Bud dispatched three--three!-- brown thrasher fledglings Saturday. Initially I didn't catch on to what the clever fella was up to; he figured out that he could, by pouncing on the big rhododendron bush in which they were sitting, knock them down and then scoop them up before they could recover. While he doesn't seem to have any interest other than carrying them around awhile, that itself is (unfortunately) pretty quickly fatal to them. Once I got wise to what he was doing I took off to the home & garden and picked up several fencing stakes and a roll of mid-gauge 2" wire mesh, and fenced off a 10 x 15 foot section of the backyard around the rhodo. While pounding stakes (and having my ankles eaten by the no-see-ums that have cropped up with the arriving heat) I could not but muse on comedian Jeff Foxworthy's assertion when the Olympics were held there that the locals might be inclined to bring nails and barbed wire to the Fencing venue. Future thrasher nestings should be safe now; Bud seems to have accepted that he's not gonna get past that fence. We don't have this problem with other fledglings, but thrashers are comparatively big and tend to nest and forage in low shrubbery so I guess they're more vulnerable. I don't think Donna Reed ever did fences. I may have to turn in my Domestic Goddess card.

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The Ironic Catholic has posted a news item reporting on Benedict XVI's Polish trip. It seems that take-away cream cake sales in Wadowice have been stopped during the papal visit due to fears that they might "go off" in the heat. One of the IC's commenters helpfully explained that this is a British idiom equivalent to our "go bad" or "spoil;" still, for those of us on this side of the pond the image of cream cakes exploding all over Wadowice and whipped cream raining down on the faithful is just too much fun to give up! (Gosh, I hope they do Boston Cream in Poland!)

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Harvest: Anyone out there want some zucchini? Tomatoes in fruit. Picked one large cuke today, several small ones coming along.
Environment: The fireflies are out!
House painting: Don't even ask...