Once the weather warms up a bit and the sun hits the Oval, it's pretty amazing what you can find out there as you walk across campus. Blooming dogwoods, sunbathers, people sword fighting...

I just ventured across the Oval to get my head just about taken off by some guys playing some sport. Cricket maybe? All I know is it involved a rather hard ball flying at me, causing me to fall flat on my face in an effort to avoid getting it smashed in.

I really don't have a problem with people playing games and enjoying the weather out there, but please, hows about we don't go batting hard objects at people walking by?

In the meantime, facebook, craigslist, and some other listing website has failed me. I'm trying to sublet my room this summer, and a lack of responses from my postings is leading me to walk up to random people at the bus stations and ask "so where are you living this summer?" That's not creepy at all.

I don't know what's up with facebook--it's just not showing anything posted after April 9th (including my ad...). Craigslist has got me nothing but some overseas scam. And that other listing website doesn't let you put your phone number, email, or really provide any way for someone to contact you unless you pay some ridiculous amount of money. Yeah, that's helpful. I managed to put my phone number in by writing it out...call five one three etc.....so we'll see if I get any responses before the site figures out what I did and deletes my account.

And I've been putting flyers up around campus....a big no no. Hopefully someone calls before the university fines me for advertising in its buildings.

Still, a fine would still probably be less than paying rent for two houses this summer....

Posted by blonde_gardner at 7:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Cincinnati Flower Show has officially started.

While that statement might not mean a whole hell of a lot to many people, most in the horticulture industry are pretty excited right now.

Thursday I came home to Cincinnati, jumped into an Isuzu with my mom, our coworker, and several carts containing our exhibits, and drove down to Coney Island to begin the million hour-long set-up process.

No one would believe how long it actually takes to set up a container garden exhibit. But it was still fun. It was a gorgeous day--the sun setting on Lake Como with thousands of flowers blooming around it.

Judging was yesterday, and my mom and I got an early start down to the show to add the finishing touches on our exhibit.

It turns out all that time and effort paid off in the end--we got a gold medal. Our coworker also got a gold medal.

And now I'm running out the door to get my brother to his baseball game--out in the middle of nowhere, of course...

Posted by blonde_gardner at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was rather chilly today, and from what I hear, it wouldn't be surprising to see a few snow flurries tomorrow. But the trees are still leafing out and flowers are blooming and hopefully it'll be back up to the 70s and sunny in a few days. Welcome to Ohio.

I'm currently in Cincinnati, meaning this blog is the only thing that's forced me to think about school. Nothing exciting in the school department to report about while I'm on the subject--just papers, projects, busy work. The usual. Maybe after I get the next few story assignments for the Lantern I'll have something a little more interesting to write about.

Things in Cincinnati, however, are busy as always, and slightly more enjoyable than school life. The Cincinnati Flower Show is coming up pretty fast, meaning the finishing touches are needed on our container garden exhibit. It's not the best exhibit that's been done over the years, but considering the number of other things that were going on this winter while we were trying to put it together I'd say it turned out pretty well. We'll see what the judges think.

In the meantime, I'm busy in meetings with my boss setting up both my independent study and internship this summer. Somehow we've got to fit a journalism internship into my interest in horticulture. It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole....but nothing's impossible. Although sometimes it's best not to try to force things. Everything has a way of working out in the end. So far it's looking like it'll work out---and maybe be some fun for me. We'll see.

Posted by blonde_gardner at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I'm back in Columbus again, and I have to admit, the spring weather makes everything a little better. Although Cincinnati definitely is little bit ahead of Columbus in the spring category.

Yesterday was great--the weather was beautiful, I had absolutely no school work to do and I was off of work for the day. Great. I ended up heading down to the river (the Little Miami river) to a place I've only ever known as "The Ruins" (because there's a lot of old stone ruins everywhere...not entirely that hard to imagine) with my mom and dad to collect moss. Yes, I did just say we collected moss, but I promise, it's not as crazy as it sounds.

My mom and I are working on a container exhibit for the Cincinnati Flower Show (starting April 19th) and we needed moss to fill in the empty spaces, and instead of ordering moss, why not just grab some off of your nearest collapsed building? So yeah. We collected moss.

And I've only been back for a few hours, but already school life's pretty busy again. I wonder how many countless hours I'm going to spend this quarter chasing down people to interview for articles. Or how many hours of my life I'm going to spend walking to and from ag. campus. Oh well. At least the weather's been more good than bad recently. Have I mentioned recently that I can't wait for summer break?

Posted by blonde_gardner at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A real quick update--

Sooo....I'm back in Cincinnati for the weekend for work. And loving the fact that I don't really have anything school related to think about. Except this blog.

Right now I'm debating what to fix the kids for lunch. There's not really any food in the house (memo to self--go grocery shopping) but lunches out with them tend to get kinda expensive (memo to self--go to bank).

Things here in Cinci are looking more spring-like than Columbus. It's about five degrees warmer and things are a little more green. I'd give it a little longer with sun and warm weather for full-on spring.

But my dog is barking at me right now (really, she's just standing there staring at me and barking her head off). I take it it's walk time. Which is always fun after rain. Nothing like a 135lb German Shepherd running around down by the river in the mud (memo to self--grab extra towels)

Posted by blonde_gardner at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)