Still Breathing…

Jul3

A week ago wildfires started in Colorado. Off and on, the mountains to the east are entirely obscured by smoke from the convergence of wind currents blowing through the Gold Mountain fire to the south the Snyder fire northwest on the border with Utah. Grand Mesa to the north is also occasionally invisible, and the sun is a red disk setting.

At times the smoke is mild, reminiscent of a campfire at a site across the campground, only pervasive and persistent, not wafting and shifting. Other times it’s an acrid stench that stuns my lungs. I’m grateful the fires aren’t closer, grateful I’m still safe at home, still breathing.

The Air Quality Index has been fluctuating between the 50s on the best nights to as high as 185. During the day it’s been hovering around 90 give or take a dozen, depending on how the winds have been blowing the previous hour. I wear a dampened mask to go outside and fill bird feeders, shift hoses in the yarden. The poor little birds! Especially the hummingbirds with their tiny lungs and extravagant heartrates.

Unretouched photo of a sagebrush glowing at sunset.
Smoke billows a few days ago from the Gold Mountain fire roughly 60 crow miles south of us.

This evening the West Elk mountains are under deep chiarascuro. It changes hour by hour, more or less dense, wind dependent. The good news is that the Snyder fire seems to have stalled at 30,000 acres and is now 95% contained per Watch Duty.

Last night’s moonrise

The bad news is, the Gold Mountain fire just north of Ouray has grown to 25,000 acres in six days. The 2500-acre Willow fire in the mountains above Aspen forced evacuation of an Outward Bound base camp where a friend’s son lives. He remains up in the mountains on an extended backpack with a group of teens and may not even know of the fire. Friends of a friend lost everything the other day in the explosive Aspen Acres fire southwest of Pueblo including their pets, and barely escaped alive. More than 11,000 humans have been displaced from that fire alone as of tonight. Hundreds of structures have burned. Fairgrounds around the state are open to house large animals evacuated from the paths of various wildfires.

Current Watch Duty map, at 9:21 pm MT July 3.

And there are a few more wildfires in Colorado. A week ago, there were none. Multiply every human that’s affected by these fires by pick-a-number, and guess how many other sentient beings have been killed or displaced. Most of these fires will be found to have been started by human activity, whether accidental or malicious. All of them are raging as wildly as they are because of human-caused climate chaos. Tomorrow will likely bring more fires across the region from idiots shooting off fireworks despite fire bans. Climate ignorance pervading the political sphere has only and will only exacerbate the threats to all beings.

And even in the midst of smoke and rage I’m doing my best to calm down and eat well. Here’s a creamy potato-cheddar soup I had for lunch the other day.

I’m furious about human stupidity. I’m grateful for the courageous individuals and teams who do their best to mitigate these disastrous consequences, from the local, state, and federal firefighters on the ground to the fired federal employees who got together to resurrect the Strump-shuttered climate.gov with a new website, climate.us, and everyone in between.

I’m gratified to see the desert willow in full gorgeous bloom just a few years after a freeze so hard I thought it was dead.

I’m grateful once again for Alexandra Petri, who writes about MAHA day at the Great American State Fair, an event which I’ve been only peripherally aware of with my limited intake of current events and what passes for news. I giggled all the way through, from her description of the Screamin’ Freedom energy drink to her interaction with a featured ‘legacy’ speaker who urged her to go topless. If you don’t laugh sometimes you’ll just cry.

Even though Amy and I swore off Instagram recipes, we both can’t stop. The other day I tried the rice-waffle with some leftover rice, mixed with a little rice vinegar and sesame oil. I used too much liquid since I fudged the recipe with only enough rice for one cake. It took forever to crisp up and didn’t hold together well, but it was tasty and fun enough that I’ll try it again with proper proportions. They topped theirs with sushi elements, but I just made an Asian tunafish salad based on this recipe with what I had on hand.

Also doing my best to savor the moments I’m able to be outside. The temperature this fiery week has been lovely, it’s just been too smoky to enjoy it except in small sweet snatches.

And when we can’t be outside, we make the most of being inside.

The Simple Art of Being

Jun24

Things I’ve been grateful for recently include discovering that the ‘new’ lens for the husband camera has been the wrong lens all along. It’s just never provided the same quality closeups (or any distance, really) that the original husband camera did with his original equivalent lens. (Imagine sufficient technical jargon here to explain why it was not the right tool for the job and move on.)

After shooting these images the other day, inspired and excited to bring my husband out to play for the first time in a long time, I ended the day feeling the same disillusionment that I have every time I’ve used this lens since I bought it. There was a cascade of reasons I didn’t investigate this sooner, among them the possibility that it was just me, unable to hold the camera quite as steady as I used to.

So I’m grateful to learn that it wasn’t me! And I’m grateful that I can return the whole setup. While this results in a financial hit, at least I’m able to trade in the lens, the camera body, and the other lens I bought six years ago and get back about 25% of what they cost me.

I may or may not get another camera. Except for photographing my favorite things, bugs and birds, the iPhone camera does well enough for what I foresee needing going into this next phase of my life. I’m no longer showing or selling large prints, I’m simply sharing online or creating small-scale projects like books or slideshows that don’t require the fancy components of a husband camera.

I’m grateful that I’m finally feeling motivated to simplify and downsize in a profound way; enough that I can contemplate relinquishing this pleasure and many more elements of this full and busy life. It’s time to release my grasp on things, conditions, relationships, drives, commitments, etc., that have added so much to my life but have become overwhelming.

Buddhism is often distilled into one simple phrase. The exact phrase varies from teacher to elder to practitioner, of course, but the gist is this: “From beginning to end, the path of dharma is about letting go.”

I don’t know if there is such a thing as the simple art of being, but I might be close to discovering it. It’s been a restful couple of weeks spent turning inward, spinning a cocoon, resting into my life as it is moment by moment, making deep inward contact with myself.

I’m grateful to those of you who read this blog regularly and encourage me to continue posting with your supportive comments. I’m grateful for the connections I’ve made and those I’ve deepened through this platform. I’m not walking away from Morning Rounds, but for now I won’t be posting as regularly as I have over the past five years.

Caterpillar of an owlet moth species photographed in the garden some years ago.

I attended an online retreat last weekend in which a dharma talk included a description of the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. It’s a great metaphor for many aspects of the Buddhist path, from faith and resilience and patience to impermanence and transformation.

The monarch butterfly by Joel Sartore, creator of the Photo Ark.

What resonated the most with me in that talk was the idea of imaginal cells. Once any caterpillar spins its chrysalis, it dissolves itself into goo inside the cocoon. It unmakes the caterpillar it was and with the provocation of imaginal cells it creates the butterfly it was destined to become. Right now, I’m the goo. It could be awhile before I know what I’m turning into, but for now I’m content and grateful to rest inside myself and let the imaginal cells determine the course of my transformation. Let me remember to be grateful every living moment of every day.

This Summer Day

Jun10

I’m grateful that the California poppies self-sowed this year and bloom with more vigor than those I bought last year. I’m savoring their remarkably velvet-looking petals, and how much the pollinators love them.

These are the pink snapdragons mentioned in the previous post. Just look at those colors!

I baked the sourdough a little differently yesterday after watching Paul Hollywood demonstrate plaiting dough. I started with the simplest variant, just twisting two strands together. This meant that the loaf wouldn’t fit the round dutch oven, so I baked it on parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and covered with another parchment paper. This allowed the dough to dry out a bit much making a thick dark crust, just a little overdone. Next time I’ll find a lid that fits, or use foil, for the first half of baking.

These two screenshots are from the app Watch Duty, which now covers flood conditions as well as fires. This is a great app! The image above is from yesterday morning around 8 am; below is from this afternoon around 2:30. The pink areas denote Red Flag warnings: high fire danger. The fire icons indicate various sizes and stages of wildfires. The lower house with the blue dot is mine; the one above is my friend Barb’s, and the one in northern Utah is my cousin Robin’s.

The Bee Hive fire southwest of Montrose, roughly 75 miles from here, started yesterday and was holding steady at around 180 acres this afternoon, with lots of air support. See the little purple planes? But note the difference in the maps in just over 24 hours. So many more active fires! I’m grateful for the folks who invented this app, and for the many people who provide information and reports to keep it up to date. I’m grateful to anyone who is willing to call out the drivers of climate chaos, like the fossil fuel industry and the banks that finance these greedy, immoral corporations. Check out this graph from Rainforest Action Network, and this article in The Guardian about the ‘unfathomable’ increase in banks’ support for the industry last year.

Where’s Wren? And, how many pollinators? I was grateful to catch this western tiger swallowtail on the native thistle right outside the front gate, and didn’t notice the native bees until I looked at the pictures tonight. It’s amazing they all came out so clear given how windy it was at the time.

The wind got stronger through the afternoon. I spent as much time as possible outside today, until it was just too hot and windy. Then I came in for a meditation, some work time, and wrapped up the day with our monthly Grateful Gathering. Keeping with the month’s theme, Live Fully Alive, we talked about connections with nature, with people we love, meaningful interactions with strangers (or friends we hadn’t met yet); we heard about a nonagenarian who said life is a blink in cosmic time and a grandmother who said it’s a glance out the window. We held the truth of the phrase “Death is certain, time of death uncertain” as we shared gratitude that one of us had survived surgery after a life-threatening emergency; and we savored Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

~ Mary Oliver

Biko, Wren and I hung out together in the shade under the deck for awhile this afternoon. Later, after the gathering, when it was cool enough, Wren and Topaz and I strolled the Sunset Loop and the Breakfast Loop. The wind was so strong I had to strap my hat, and the atmosphere was hazy. Before we returned home the smoke rolled in. I hurried the last hundred yards, gathered the sheets off the line, closed up the house, and turned the air purifier on high. At bedtime, it’s still smoky out, and I’m grateful it’s cool enough inside to leave the house closed.

By the time we got home from the walk, most of the California poppy petals had blown off, but I got this shot earlier just as they started to fall. The penstemon blossoms are starting to fall also, and were blowing like cherry blossoms as we came inside. Life is a single bloom.

Breathe, a lot, and slowly

Jun7
Penstemon palmeri everywhere you look… Another quiet day in the garden, catching up with householder tasks like laundry, dishes, cooking, in between watering, savoring, tending the plants.

How many pollinators? I’m grateful to see such diversity and numbers of pollinators making the most of the abundant garden. Coreopsis is also flourishing this year.

The first ripe strawberry surprised me this evening. I got another surprise last night right before bed. When I turned off the TV I heard rustling in the mud room, big rustling in some packing paper. Wren and I tiptoed over and I shined a flashlight in the corner. In a fraction of the time it will take you to read this, a large furry shape emerged from the paper sending my heart into my mouth as I thought squirrel! but it was only Topaz. Whew! A little on edge, are we? Back to the garden, I finally got the little tomato starts into their permanent beds. I’m grateful they grew so well from seeds Chris n’ Dave sent me, so I’m trying their Florida ‘Mickey maters’ again now that climate chaos has warmed up our growing zone from a low 4 to a solid 5.

I got the carrots thinned just in time, and handed the thicker of the thinnings to Little Wren to munch. But I did save the nearly true carrot one for myself. In the background, a thriving yellow snapdragon that overwintered: First time every any of them have made it through, and a lovely pink one also regrew.

I’m grateful for a restful, nourishing weekend with lots of meditations in nature; an extraordinary dharma talk from Roshi Joan based on her recent essay, Mutual Belonging: Compassion and Social Responsibility; and plenty of time to catch up with myself. I’ve been moving too fast. One health challenge after another, the simple fact of aging, the cascading polycrisis, the ephemeral beauty of this precious place, all coalesce in this urgent sense that my days here are numbered. It felt good to just breathe, a lot, and slowly.

We were overdue for a sunset loop walk, and as we sat on our usual log, our usual curious neighbors made their way over to visit. After a brief hello, they all turned as one and filed away. Shortly after we turned toward home a big cold wind blew in and sent the horses into a gleeful gallop. Let me remember to be grateful every living moment of every day.

Apologies

Jun6
A female oriole showed up at the hummingbird feeder so I quickly pulled out the oriole feeder and hung it.

Apologies for the cryptic post the other day! Thanks to those who were paying attention and inquired about it. It took awhile to figure out what happened. The day before my most recent post, I had tried to post some photos from the WordPress app on my phone, with the title ‘Attention.’ No text, just some pictures. The next day I saw that it had not gone through, so I added a few more pictures and posted ‘Surrounded by Life.’ Somehow, a few days later, the empty ‘Attention’ post showed up out of the ethers.

The sad finale to the robin nest, found on the patio later the very day I reached into the nest to find it empty.

The oriole came to its special feeder after a couple of days, and the male flew by, but then they were gone.
Where’s Wren?

The little dog alerted me to a mouse in the pantry the other night. I couldn’t bear to kill it, so I brought in and baited the live-trap with a pinch of havarti stuck on with a peanut butter smear. In the morning an adorable big-eyed deer mouse fluttered around when Wren woke it. I was pretty sure where it came from and how it got in the house, so I released it back home. Then I made sure the screen door was latched or the glass door closed so it couldn’t sneak back in through the gap that occasionally opens with a breeze. Old doors.

The Palmer’s penstemon is wild this year. I was happy to hear from a friend to whom I’d given seeds a few years ago: “THANK YOU SO MUCH for the Palmer’s penstemon seeds! They’ve exploded this year!! And the pollinators love them.”

The next night the mouse was back. This time I released it up at the woodshed, hoping it would find enough distraction there. The next night it was back again. Again I released it up the hill, and then watched all doors like a cat all day. Wren fixated in the pantry again, so I guessed it was back. I have no qualms about killing mice but it’s getting harder to do it.

I don’t even mind the mice themselves, it’s their… residue. Especially in light of recent hantavirus news. (And, shades of the nightmare I went through after the Housesitter from Hell.) One little mouse doesn’t pose much risk of the virus, but does leave unfortunate traces, everywhere. So I set the snap trap.

That night when I went up to bed, Wren pointed to the curtain rod over the French door onto the deck. There was a mouse on top of the drape! I opened the door and tried to shoo it out, but it escaped into the stairs.

The next morning, there was our little mouse friend, dead in the trap, his bright big eyes wide open. I set him atop a fence post for a bird to carry off. Apologies.

I’m grateful for so many bumblebees, all over the penstemon. This is the biggest one I’ve ever seen.

Imagine my surprise the next night when once again there was a mouse atop the upstairs drape! Where are they coming from? How many more?

This morning at the pond was rich with wild life. A garter snake cruised the edge, an ash-throated flycatcher hunted from above.

The pond floor is covered with tiny tadpoles, and last year’s frogs are growing. I spotted this one before Wren did. I’m not sure she even saw it until it jumped while she drank.

May all beings be well, and happy. May all beings be safe and free from harm. May all beings awaken and be free.

Thanks to my friend Ted Leach for sharing this quote. See his blog for what Wilson meant by these three observations.

Surrounded by Life

May31

Today in the garden. I was unable to tear myself away from my safe place this morning to brunch with friends. I hope they can understand and forgive me some need that I don’t fully understand myself. But I made the most of a quiet day at home — I almost wrote ‘alone’ except that I’m not alone here. Just look. Surrounded by Life.

Same tree above and below, different times of day, different angles. We spent a good hour yesterday morning wandering the woods with our infrared phone camera. I’m grateful for technology and terrified of it at the same time. I heard today from a reliable source that bots sicced on Reddit users were six times more persuasive in changing humans’ minds as other humans. This is how it is right now. So I turn back to what’s real. The forest. The garden.

Meet the Trees, the second in a series of Meditations with Nature, will be a half-day retreat here on Saturday, June 13 from 9 am through noon. Some meditation experience is helpful but not necessary. If you’re in the vicinity and the weather holds, come enjoy the garden and the forest with me. Registration closes June 9.

After that thought-provoking soul-nourishing walk communing with ancient junipers in the morning, I baked margarita cupcakes in the afternoon. In the latest installment of the Birthday Cake Challenge, I took these treats to some margarita-loving friends, an amazing couple who share the same birthday. We sat on their deck enjoying gin-and-tonics looking out across the West Elk Mountains. I didn’t tell them what flavor the cupcakes were, intending for them to guess. I was tickled pink when I saw him take the tiny lime slice and squeeze it over the frosting as though it were a cocktail, before he even knew it was one!

There was tequila in the buttercream frosting as well as lime juice, and a lot of lime zest and juice in the cakes, which I brushed with tequila as soon as they came out of the oven. Highly recommend. And lots of leftover frosting! What to put it on next?

Frog Rescue

May28

As always, I am ever so grateful for morning coffee with a sweet treat. It’s especially sweet these days, on the patio with the fragrant jasmine on one side, and busy hummingbirds on the other, the mountain vista beyond the blooming garden. Just this past couple of days all the June flowers are starting to open. In the woods, the claret cups have been blooming for weeks. They are so early I almost missed them. Grateful I took a couple of long walks last week, before plantar fasciitis curtailed our strolls.

Last week I noticed the robin did not fly when I opened the door. Then I noticed there was no robin at the nest all day. I waited a couple of days then used a stepladder to hold my camera over the nest. I feel very sad that they abandoned their eggs. I’ve seen one of them back at the bird bath a few times, and hope they have a spare nest going somewhere else.

“When we see someone suffering, whether they are physically injured or suffering a significant loss, we instantly have compassion regardless of how we felt about them just moments before. Imagine how you would treat others if you knew, not only that they may not be here tomorrow, but also of the suffering and hardship they have had to endure in their lifetime.”

MLP Daily Guidance May 26, 2026

I wondered why this butterfly was motionless as I took its picture. I moved it with a light touch to get a better angle, and didn’t realize what was happening til I saw the picture. I couldn’t save this butterfly, nor would I have even tried: The spider deserves her hard-won meal. I did feel a rush of compassion for her.

Wren stalking a bumblebee

I saved a frog from a snake today. Not something I’d normally interfere with but I couldn’t not this time. I’d been sitting by the pond enjoying a glass of cool tap water and reading on Kindle while Wren wandered around sniffing and looking for frogs. A movement caught both our eyes and I asked her to leave it. We watched a scene under a slab rock on the rim that neither of us — well, I can’t speak for her, with her keen senses she probably knew what was going on long before I did — but I couldn’t quite see well enough through the screen of curly rush and in the dark under the rock to be sure what was happening. The motion had been sudden, and I heard a frog. As I watched, I could see the frog move incrementally toward the light, and it was calling. But not a regular call, it sounded urgent.

Not the drama scene of today, but an update on the eggs. They’ve all released their tiny tadpoles but I’m not seeing them in the water like I did last year.

I wondered if a snake had it, but I could see most of the frog. It hopped forward a couple of times incrementally. Then it seemed to retreat. Then it hopped forward and flopped over onto its back, legs splayed. Maybe its foot was caught between rocks? I stepped around the pond and reached down to take gentle hold of the frog; only then could I see the snake holding onto the frog’s foot. It was a smallish garter snake; the frog was good-sized. Yes, the snake deserves its meal also, but given the size discrepancy and starting with the foot, it would have been a long, slow, agonizing death for the frog. Holding her in my right hand, I touched a left fingertip to the back of the snake’s jaw and pried ever so gently. In a second it let go and the frog flipped out of my hand and flew two feet to plop into the water. In that moment I felt more alive than I have in weeks.

I invested in some food-producing shrubs last week, including two honeyberries, a Saskatoon serviceberry, and a Chicago hardy fig. I misheard on the radio that Lance was growing one outdoors that survived that hard freeze last month, so I planted mine in a raised bed yesterday morning, carefully relocating the tulip bulbs I displaced. Then I called into the show last night realized my mistake: around here people grow them in greenhouses. Oh well! I did read that they should be able to survive winter in this zone by wrapping in blankets after they shed their leaves in the fall. Maybe I’ll decide to dig her up and pot her to bring in. We’ll know more later! I snipped off the four little figs she had so she could send all her energy to growing roots.

I’m grateful for the feral chamomile blooming among the flagstones, and its light scent in the evening.

For the Hummingbirds

May21

There must have been a burst of migration that afternoon last week. I took the empty feeder inside to clean and fill it, and when I came out they mobbed me as I neared the hook, darting at the red base even as I carried it upside down. There was a similar frenzy at both main feeders yesterday, all day and especially in the evening. It had been cold, overcast, and rainy all day with a little burst of hail. With the blossom schedule all screwed up from the couple of exceptional freezes in the last month, and the general upheaval of climate chaos, the ancestral nectar sources for all kinds of pollinators are out of sync with migrations. This is one of the main reasons I commit to feeding hummingbirds. I figure we owe them.

Black-chinned hummingbirds are usually the first to arrive at Mirador, and for years have consistently shown up around April 25. This year they arrived a couple of weeks early. As soon as I heard one I went inside and mixed food with one cup of boiling water and one-quarter cup of white granulated sugar. This is the best approximation we can make for them. Honey, or any other kind of sugar, is NOT HEALTHY for them. Take my word, or look it up in a reputable bird resource. These are tiny creatures with fast metabolisms who are very susceptible to pathogens. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, my go-to for all bird questions, says this about hummingbird food:

“Food coloring is unnecessary; table sugar is the best choice. Change the water before it grows cloudy or discolored and remember that during hot weather, sugar water ferments rapidly to produce toxic alcohol. During hot spells, change your hummingbird water daily or at most every two days. Your feeders will attract far more hummingbirds if you also grow appropriate flowers attractive to them.” 

And this about the Black-chinneds specifically:

“The Black-chinned Hummingbird’s tongue has two grooves; nectar moves through these via capillary action, and then the bird retracts the tongue and squeezes the nectar into the mouth. It extends the tongue through the nearly closed bill at a rate of about 13–17 licks per second, and consumes an average of 0.61 milliliters (about one-fiftieth of a fluid ounce) in a single meal. In cold weather, may eat three times its body weight in nectar in one day. They can survive without nectar when insects are plentiful….. At rest, heart beats an average of 480 beats per minute. On cold nights they go into torpor, and the heart rate drops to 45–180 beats per minute. Breathing rate when resting is 245 breaths per minute at 91 degrees Fahrenheit; this rises to 420 breaths per minute when temperature drops to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Torpid hummingbirds breathe sporadically…. A Black-chinned Hummingbird’s eggs are about the size of a coffee bean. The nest, made of plant down and spider and insect silk, expands as the babies grow.”

The next hummer to arrive is the Broad-tailed hummingbird.

“A jewel of high mountain meadows, male Broad-tailed Hummingbirds fill the summer air with loud, metallic trills as they fly. They breed at elevations up to 10,500 feet, where nighttime temperatures regularly plunge below freezing. To make it through a cold night, they slow their heart rate and drop their body temperature, entering a state of torpor. As soon as the sun comes up, displaying males show off their rose-magenta throats while performing spectacular dives. After attracting a mate, females raise the young on their own.”

You can hear the male Broad-tailed’s trill amid the buzz of all the wings, and catch a glimpse of their magenta throat feathers. This video is from that frenzied afternoon last week. For the last couple of hours before dark yesterday there were well over a dozen birds at each of the two main feeders. I’m grateful that some of them moved on with a more temperate day today.

So I checked with Dr. David Inouye about my hummer feeder protocol, and was glad to know I’m doing everything right. And maybe more meticulously than is strictly necessary, but I don’t want to take any chances. Here’s what I do:

  • Keep the feeders sparkling clean! Early in the season I don’t fill them completely, so that the food doesn’t sit around and ferment or grow cloudy. I prefer clear glass feeders with reservoirs that come apart completely so that I can thoroughly clean them with hot water and various sized bottle brushes. David said if you see anything questionable, scrub with a mild bleach solution or a little detergent and rinse thoroughly, and let dry completely before refilling.
  • Soap can leave a harmful film. Audubon Society recommends soaking feeders with mold or mildew in a vinegar solution. But you should never let them get that far! Even the tiniest bit of visible black on the glass or the portals signifies a potentially deadly threat.
  • Boil tap water for a couple of minutes.
  • While it boils, I put ¾ cup white table sugar in a quart mason jar, using a metal canning funnel. Then I fill the jar to the shoulder with boiling water (also via the metal funnel). This results in the right 1:4 sugar water ratio, roughly ¼ cup sugar for each cup of water, and fills the jar.
  • I stir with a dedicated sterling silver spoon until the sugar has thoroughly dissolved. Silver is said to have antimicrobial properties. It can’t hurt. I don’t wash the spoon with soap but rinse it afterwards in very hot water, and then stand it spoon-side up in a pint mason jar where I also keep the bottle brushes, brush side up.
  • Let cool completely. If I’m not going to use it the same day, I refrigerate it, but so far this season I’ve been making just enough to fill the feeders daily, a couple of them twice, so I just leave it on the counter with a lid on.
  • Bring in the empty feeder, rinse all parts thoroughly with very hot tap water, and brush all parts every other day. As summer heats up I may end up brushing every day. Yes, it takes some time, but they’re worth it.
  • Fill the feeder partly or completely, depending on how fast they’re drinking it, and hang it again.
  • Make sure the ant traps have water in them. This time of year ants aren’t an issue, but later in the summer they’ll climb up, down, and into the feeders, sometimes even clogging the holes. It’s better for everyone if a few of them drown in water while the rest are deterred by the obstacle.
  • Sit outside and enjoy!
  • Repeat as necessary.
  • I leave the feeders up in autumn until roughly a week goes by without seeing a hummingbird, and even then I keep an empty on hand for awhile and a cup of fresh nectar in the fridge for any stragglers. I also make sure that I have nectar flowers blooming all through the fall. One year in October there was a little tired hummingbird sitting on the stem of an Agastache sipping from a flower.
  • At the end of the season, I disassemble all the feeders and soak them in a 10% bleach solution for awhile, then rinse with clean water and let them dry completely. Then I box them all up and store them for next year.
  • Have I forgotten anything?

The cloudy glass at the top of this feeder is simply condensate after the hot water rinse and nectar refill that just happened. Some experts recommend letting the feeders dry completely before refilling, but honestly, even as obsessive as I am, I don’t have time for that!

Wren is very proud of herself after finding Biko so we could bring him in for another cold night.

No AI was used in making this post! Rebecca Solnit wrote recently, “‘The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.’ ― Hannah Arendt, and people who share AI slop are those ideal subjects. You all have the capacity to not do this. To choose to value the distinction and not to help break it down.”

Victoria Sandwich Cake

May17

In further bird news, an American Robin is nesting above my back porch light. She flies fast each time I come out the door so I’m learning to open it more mindfully. After I sat awhile at the patio table I was able to catch her on the nest. I love the new life incubating amid the reminder of impermanence.

I’m grateful for fresh rhubarb from Neighbor Fred, and organic grocery strawberries, and Cousin Mel’s suggestion that I make strawberry-rhubarb jam, her favorite. I set to work this morning on another Birthday Cake Challenge, a Victoria Sandwich Cake. First, I made the jam…

Then I baked the sponges, which couldn’t have been easier. It took longer to find a recipe online for this classic British tea cake that didn’t use self-rising flour, which all sources say is impossible to correct for altitude. But I finally found one essentially the same as Paul Hollywood’s but with all-purpose flour instead, and I adjusted the baking powder for altitude. The sponge wasn’t perfect, but next time I’ll adjust flour and liquid to lighten the crumb.

The classic cake is filled with raspberry jam, but why do it the easy way? Strawberry-rhubarb was delicious between the golden sponges made with duck eggs and caster sugar. More caster sugar is sprinkled on top for a delicate crunch.

The birthday girl and friend showed up right on time as one rain squall departed and a wan sun peeked through the clouds. We enjoyed tea and cake at the pond, and a long overdue visit for the three of us.

I’m grateful to have shared this sweet, long-overdue visit with two vibrant women. We’ve talked about it for a couple of years and it finally came together at the perfect time. While they strolled the garden as I made tea inside, they spotted a Lazuli Bunting. I’ve only seen a couple in the yard in all my years, but I saw one a few days ago and it was also caught by Bird Buddy’s camera, which I was grateful to discover since the distant image on my phone was dismal.

Okay, this image isn’t great either, but I blame that on Apple Photos’ inability to retrieve a still shot from a video. At least it conveys the gorgeous colors of this delicate migratory songbird.