Ed Icionsub

Spring fever has all my neighbors outside planting gardens, painting shutters and trimming trees and shrubbery. It is almost a contest among neighbors to see who can be the most creative and diligent about making their yards the nicest on the block. The latest craze is ecco mailboxes.

The original mailboxes that came with the houses when the subdivision first launched are long gone. Over the years, everyone has replaced their mailbox with new posts, new boxes and borders around the bases.

My next door neighbor installed her new ecco mailbox over the weekend. She hired a crew of latinos to come do some yard work, which included replacing her old mailbox. They put in a new post, the box and a stone border with mulch and petunias.

When she put in the new box, she told me about the web site where she got her new mailbox. I looked at a new style of box, the ecco e8 mailbox, which is a tower style instead of a post and box.I’m not sure that the tower will look right in front of my house. I’m going to think about it for a day or two, and if I decide to get it the web site has different colors and finishes, so I can get exactly what I want for my home’s curb appeal.

I have never seen deer this close to the house before. There were 6 doe and their fawns just a couple of blocks from my house when I left to run errands this afternoon. It was hard to get a good shot of them because of the late afternoon lighting, but if you look closely you can see them all.

I have no idea what this type of mushroom is called. They have never been in the yard before. They are all gathered in a little group at the base of this tree and no where else in the yard.

There are fungus amongst us. This month has been so rainy that we have broken all records for the amount of rainfall in the month of May since they started keeping records. And we are only 17 days into the month. We have many days of rain – or no rain -ahead of us yet.

So a result of all of this rain, on top of all the flooding we had over the first weekend of the month, is that there are mushrooms and toadstools springing up all over the yard. I have seen at least 6 different kinds of mushrooms in my yard this week. That is very unusual for us. Last year I remember seeing two kinds. I have to wonder where the other 4 came from?

Most days our mail carrier is brusque and impersonal, even though he has been delivering the mail to my house for over 6 years. He rarely waves or smiles when we meet up at the mailbox, and the few times he comes to the door with certified mail or postage due, he just thrusts the piece into my hand and leaves as quickly as possible. So, no award to this guy for “Mr. Personality.”

Usually, mailboxes are not on mind. But this morning I wanted to mail out a graduation card and when I walked out to my mail box, I realized that someone has broken off the red flag on the side of the box. If I cannot raise the red flag, then the mail carrier does not know to stop and collect my outgoing mail. Frankly, I’m surprised the mail carrier has not complained to me about the damaged box. There are probably some obscure regulations about having to keep a proper box at the curb.

So, I carried the card to be mailed with me in the car until I could get to a post office while I was out running errands. And I suppose tonight I will get online and search for  mail boxes so I can order a replacement for my damaged box.

On the Yahoo front page this morning is a link to the headline stories about which cities are expected to be be trouble spots over the next 12 months.

Local Market Monitor, a Cary, N.C.-based real estate research firm, surveyed 315 U. S. cities and has forecast the Atlantic City metro to experience the largest drop in home value this year – and possibly well into next year.

The top five cities they predict will see the worst decline in property values include:

5. Bellingham, WA

4. Glen Falls, NY

3. Portland/Beaverton/Vancouver OR/WA

2. Provo, UT

1. Atlantic City, NJ

Almost the entire country is suffering from spring allergies and exposure to heavy pollen. According to today’s pollen map from Pollen.com, the only place safe from pollen in the U.S. is way up north in Montana.

This afternoon our mail carrier was mad that my houseguest had, in all her innocence, parked a little too close to me curbside mailbox and he drove off without leaving my mail. I know I will get it tomorrow and there was more than likely nothing time sensitive in my mail. But I had no idea it would be too much trouble to get out of the mail truck and walk a couple steps to do his job. Out here in the suburbs, house mailboxes are at the curb, mounted on a post, and sometimes people park in front of the mailbox, blocking easy access from the street.

When we lived downtown our mail was delivered by a postal worker who parked a mailtruck at the top of the hill and walked down to our condo building with a huge sack of mail. I had a beautiful wall mount mailbox on the condo’s exterior wall by my front door. The postal worker walked the condo walkways and elevators to deliver my mail and that of my neighbors directly to the wall mounted mailboxes throughout our condo development.

I always thought it was smart of the mail carrier to park at the top of the hill and walk down with a full sack of mail. Then, after the mail had been delivered and the sack was empty, his trek up the hill was much easier than if he had parked at the bottom of the hill and had to climb up with a full, heavy load of mail.

Way back around Christmas, I took the pit from a fresh avocado and suspended it in a glass of fresh water. It sprouted and now I have the start of a very cool avocado tree. It is over 2 feet tall now and growing well. I see new leaves sprouting from the top. Now that the weather is so warm, I moved the plant outside and have to remember to water it each night.

Stopped by the little children’s park today so my grandson could run and play for a bit. I had my camera with me, so I snapped this shot of the blossoms on one of the crabapple trees. There about 100 bees flying in and out of the blossoms, but I think they were too fast to show up in the photo.