Spring Chores, and the Birds
What a day, what a day… beautiful, mid-sixties, sunny. There’s a bit of a breeze, but even with the temperatures below seventy, it feels good.
All plans for today have seen fruition, except, of course, for the scrubbing and washing of the van. It’s a new addition to the tools of this family; the black Toyota pick-up that had been my traveling friend for the past three years has been retired. In it’s place is another Toyota, a more practical seven-seater “mini-van” in pristine white which has provided proof positive that the bugs are much worse this spring than last. Many have met their death on the front bumper and windshield, their blood the glue that has held them fast. The automatic car wash would not budge them, and my goal today involved scrubbing them off and convincing the children that, yes, it is warm enough to have an impromptu car wash in the front yard. If I was really good, I may have convinced them that a Karate Kid workout was fun, too, and get it waxed, though as George pointed out, Christopher wasn’t doing very well at whitewashing the fence (raking the clumps from the freshly tilled soil) for Jade, and after planting my herb box, I wasn’t sure if I had enough in me to pull it off, either.
I have two rows of basil, two rows of parsley, one row of oregano and a row of lavender planted. I’m hoping that last year’s dill crop dropped enough seed to return for another showing, and though I read on the pack of coriander that it was “winter hardy,” I saw no signs of it. I’m already dreaming of sauces and salsas, finding a better recipe this year that’s not so vinegary (the salsa), or not quite so salty (the off batch of sauce).
The sage returned with a vengeance, and it’s now thinned, all the woody growth and that which had already gone to flower (and pretty flowers they are!) cut back. Instead of trying to harvest some of that growth, it’s been added to the compost pile…
…which is growing by leaps and bounds! We didn’t let up on the composting all winter, though at times, most of our kitchen scraps were unbleached coffee filters full of grounds. With so little snow, many days it looked from the mudroom window that we were growing a winter crop of mushrooms or some other wide, white fungus. Sage cleared up around the trees and the other tight spots that George couldn’t reach with the tractor, filling the push mower bag many times, so now it looks like one of the Mayan pyramids I saw on the History Channel, before it was reclaimed from the jungle. Only of course a little smaller.
The lilacs are on the wane, my Mother’s Day rhododendrons are reaching full bloom and I found, in the weeds, my bee balm from last year, as well as some violets that have sprung up from my flowerpot deadheading last year. I even let the sunflowers, dropped by birds at my feeders, live there among the other stragglers, although if they do anything, I might have to sacrifice them so that I can still see the feeders in the pines.
Speaking of feeders, a Baltimore oriole (now officially known as a “Northern Oriole”) tried sipping from the hummingbird feeders on the porch yesterday. I had just moved the oriole feeder out onto a shepherd’s hook I bought at the feed store. It’s in residence beside another Mother’s Day gift, an Audubon-endorsed cedar feeder with suet cages on either end—one, a bluebird mix for the songbirds and another, a citrus mix for the orioles. I’m holding hope that they find it. I watched two of them, both males, dive-bombing each other by the pines at the side of the yard, then disappearing into the woods. I’m hoping they come back.
Also yesterday, I filled the little aluminum house-shaped feeder with black oil sunflower seeds, noticing that the bigger birds seemed stay further away from the house in the willow. GK made the feeder, I’m told, when he took a stab at normal Western Pennsylvanian boy stuff and took a shop class. It scares me to think of that young man wielding sharp tools. But he made a good feeder, and after filling it, I sat down, perhaps eight or ten feet away, to watch a robin in the unnamed wild tree-like bush beside the willow. While I sat there, amused that the robin’s call sounded like a small dog’s yips, two tufted titmice landed in the willow. I watched while they pecked seeds out of the feeder, took them to a nearby branch, and then held them between their claws and pecked at the seed to open it. They both danced around, taking turns at the feeder, calling to each other in a Rod Stewart-like call. I wrote it down in my bird journal. I’ll have to look to see what nonsense words I assigned to their calls. It wasn’t anything like what the Sibley’s guide suggested. But it’s what I heard.
This morning, or this afternoon, rather (I pointedly recorded “12:32pm” in my bird journal), Sage spotted a rose breasted grosbeak in the pine below the feeder. I have no idea how common they are in these parts, though the Audubon guide shows this as the southernmost reach of their territory. It was a beautiful bird, the red patch on its breast brilliant and the black of its feathers nearly blue.
I wondered if the bird obsession would continue, having begun last year? Two years ago? I can’t remember now, only that for my birthday, George gifted me with a beautiful black leather-bound journal to record them and the Sibley’s guide. Anyway, these things don’t often hold my attention (e.g. rose breeding), but the bird fascination has, if anything, increased. George commended me a few days ago on my efforts bringing such a variety of birds into the yard, where before, they had been merely passers by, resting on their way to other, more suitable habitats. Daybreak comes now as I might imagine it in an aviary. There’s a lull mid-morning and again early evening. Perhaps that’s naptime, or nest sitting time, or hatchling tending time in the bird world. Otherwise, I very often find that if it’s quiet when I take up my station on the porch, I need only sit and wait, and they begin moving about, almost as though they’re performing for my benefit. Singing for their supper? Who knows.
I seem to have developed so many new phobias lately, but the old Alfred Hitchcock inspired bird phobia (I’m sure there’s a name for it) is gone. Now, it’s a game to see how close they’ll allow me to get to them before reminding me of the boundaries between them and me.
Till later...
All plans for today have seen fruition, except, of course, for the scrubbing and washing of the van. It’s a new addition to the tools of this family; the black Toyota pick-up that had been my traveling friend for the past three years has been retired. In it’s place is another Toyota, a more practical seven-seater “mini-van” in pristine white which has provided proof positive that the bugs are much worse this spring than last. Many have met their death on the front bumper and windshield, their blood the glue that has held them fast. The automatic car wash would not budge them, and my goal today involved scrubbing them off and convincing the children that, yes, it is warm enough to have an impromptu car wash in the front yard. If I was really good, I may have convinced them that a Karate Kid workout was fun, too, and get it waxed, though as George pointed out, Christopher wasn’t doing very well at whitewashing the fence (raking the clumps from the freshly tilled soil) for Jade, and after planting my herb box, I wasn’t sure if I had enough in me to pull it off, either.
I have two rows of basil, two rows of parsley, one row of oregano and a row of lavender planted. I’m hoping that last year’s dill crop dropped enough seed to return for another showing, and though I read on the pack of coriander that it was “winter hardy,” I saw no signs of it. I’m already dreaming of sauces and salsas, finding a better recipe this year that’s not so vinegary (the salsa), or not quite so salty (the off batch of sauce).
The sage returned with a vengeance, and it’s now thinned, all the woody growth and that which had already gone to flower (and pretty flowers they are!) cut back. Instead of trying to harvest some of that growth, it’s been added to the compost pile…
…which is growing by leaps and bounds! We didn’t let up on the composting all winter, though at times, most of our kitchen scraps were unbleached coffee filters full of grounds. With so little snow, many days it looked from the mudroom window that we were growing a winter crop of mushrooms or some other wide, white fungus. Sage cleared up around the trees and the other tight spots that George couldn’t reach with the tractor, filling the push mower bag many times, so now it looks like one of the Mayan pyramids I saw on the History Channel, before it was reclaimed from the jungle. Only of course a little smaller.
The lilacs are on the wane, my Mother’s Day rhododendrons are reaching full bloom and I found, in the weeds, my bee balm from last year, as well as some violets that have sprung up from my flowerpot deadheading last year. I even let the sunflowers, dropped by birds at my feeders, live there among the other stragglers, although if they do anything, I might have to sacrifice them so that I can still see the feeders in the pines.
Speaking of feeders, a Baltimore oriole (now officially known as a “Northern Oriole”) tried sipping from the hummingbird feeders on the porch yesterday. I had just moved the oriole feeder out onto a shepherd’s hook I bought at the feed store. It’s in residence beside another Mother’s Day gift, an Audubon-endorsed cedar feeder with suet cages on either end—one, a bluebird mix for the songbirds and another, a citrus mix for the orioles. I’m holding hope that they find it. I watched two of them, both males, dive-bombing each other by the pines at the side of the yard, then disappearing into the woods. I’m hoping they come back.
Also yesterday, I filled the little aluminum house-shaped feeder with black oil sunflower seeds, noticing that the bigger birds seemed stay further away from the house in the willow. GK made the feeder, I’m told, when he took a stab at normal Western Pennsylvanian boy stuff and took a shop class. It scares me to think of that young man wielding sharp tools. But he made a good feeder, and after filling it, I sat down, perhaps eight or ten feet away, to watch a robin in the unnamed wild tree-like bush beside the willow. While I sat there, amused that the robin’s call sounded like a small dog’s yips, two tufted titmice landed in the willow. I watched while they pecked seeds out of the feeder, took them to a nearby branch, and then held them between their claws and pecked at the seed to open it. They both danced around, taking turns at the feeder, calling to each other in a Rod Stewart-like call. I wrote it down in my bird journal. I’ll have to look to see what nonsense words I assigned to their calls. It wasn’t anything like what the Sibley’s guide suggested. But it’s what I heard.
This morning, or this afternoon, rather (I pointedly recorded “12:32pm” in my bird journal), Sage spotted a rose breasted grosbeak in the pine below the feeder. I have no idea how common they are in these parts, though the Audubon guide shows this as the southernmost reach of their territory. It was a beautiful bird, the red patch on its breast brilliant and the black of its feathers nearly blue.
I wondered if the bird obsession would continue, having begun last year? Two years ago? I can’t remember now, only that for my birthday, George gifted me with a beautiful black leather-bound journal to record them and the Sibley’s guide. Anyway, these things don’t often hold my attention (e.g. rose breeding), but the bird fascination has, if anything, increased. George commended me a few days ago on my efforts bringing such a variety of birds into the yard, where before, they had been merely passers by, resting on their way to other, more suitable habitats. Daybreak comes now as I might imagine it in an aviary. There’s a lull mid-morning and again early evening. Perhaps that’s naptime, or nest sitting time, or hatchling tending time in the bird world. Otherwise, I very often find that if it’s quiet when I take up my station on the porch, I need only sit and wait, and they begin moving about, almost as though they’re performing for my benefit. Singing for their supper? Who knows.
I seem to have developed so many new phobias lately, but the old Alfred Hitchcock inspired bird phobia (I’m sure there’s a name for it) is gone. Now, it’s a game to see how close they’ll allow me to get to them before reminding me of the boundaries between them and me.
Till later...
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