Redwing Blackbirds

Apr26

This piñon jay braved the snow last weekend and was surely grateful for the new ‘premium’ feed with a higher proportion of sunflower seeds. In more freeze news from The Colorado Sun about that devastating night, many orchards of the famous Palisade peaches squeaked through with some damage, but it appears that “Most of Delta County had 100% crop loss on all fruits….” That’s our county, our precious organic fruit capital of Colorado.

Redwing blackbirds take flight as Wren interrupts their feeding on one of her routine patrols.

I promised a story about a black bird, but first I want to share this philosophical essay by an anthropologist friend about her own black bird story. I’ve been reading it in small bites, as it’s dense and loaded with meaningful inquiry. I’m personally fascinated with Karen’s exploration of “the self,” which touches on so much of my own mindfulness and Buddhism studies. Then came the darling and ultimately heartbreaking story of Hercules, a starling she and her family raised one summer. I cried. This is followed by a deep dive into linguistics in several more sections covering umwelt, metaphor, naming, deiectics, and a few other concepts exploring the nature of reality for humans and other living beings. Like Hercules, for example. What I love about this essay is how thoroughly it represents my fascinating friend. She and her husband have ranched in this valley their entire lives, and he’s a retired veterinarian: non-human animals have been their constant companions since they were born. If anyone can figure out how non-humans experience life, my money’s on them.

Between last weekend’s freezing weather and this weekend’s rainy chill, I met a few goals in the garden. Wren is exhausted after supervising the planting of the last six perennials in amongst irises in the Tortoise Border. These great cages move around as necessary, and here they’ll keep deer from ripping the tender new plants out of the ground, and give the transplants a chance to root well and grow strong this year before being left to their own devices next year.

Some notable lunches this week have been salads with homegrown perennial lettuce and feral arugula, dressed with chopped pecans, cheese, poison fish, and homemade honey mustard dressing.

On Thursday I’d had enough of this lingering earache so I called our local audiologist. She insisted I come in right away so she could do an impedance, measuring pressure in my middle ear to determine if there was an inner ear infection. There wasn’t, which was a relief, so investigation continues. Meanwhile, I was profoundly grateful that she rushed me in, and I thought on the beautiful drive over how grateful I am for this community treasure. She lives in a pastoral vineyard on the edge of the next town, with her office downstairs. There was a lot of traffic on the twenty-mile drive, about twenty cars altogether both directions. It’s a pleasure to drive there, and to park in the shade of an old tree, and be treated like a friend. She always takes time to explain things, and in this case recommended that I do the Valsalva maneuver each morning to make sure there was no pressure buildup in the middle ear. That, it turns out, is pinching your nose shut and blowing as you would to equalize pressure driving over a mountain or in an airplane. Turns out it can also quickly restore an abnormal heart rhythm, but not always. You probably have to blow harder for that than she showed me, and it can backfire, so don’t play around with it.

Yesterday Wren helped me plant potatoes. I’ve been moving these feral violas as I need the space in the garden beds, planting them randomly in borders or patio pots. I’m grateful they’ve self-sown so profusely, just like the lettuce. Then I sliced the end off a fresh loaf of sourdough and enjoyed a deconstructed cheese sandwich for lunch. Later we all took a nice long ramble through the woods with our imaginary infrared lens. It was Wren’s Arrival Anniversary, and we celebrated her being here at Mirador for four years!

And now, at last the black bird story. It’s short, but it cracks me up to even think about it. I told it to Ellie the other day and we both enjoyed a good long belly laugh about it, just as I did when Neighbor Fred told me, in his consummate, wry style. We have a lot of redwing blackbirds in our yards these days, a cacophony of them as Mary says. When Fred came to prune the apricot we stood and watched them at the feeder for a few minutes. “We had a friend from Australia visiting once,” he said, “who was real interested in the birds here. We were sitting outside and he said ‘What’s that black bird over there with the red wings?’” We both started laughing. The punchline says itself.

And then today, it rained off and on all day. It was glorious. There might even be mud tomorrow. I was glad I chanced to look out the window in a momentary break in the western clouds to catch a rainbow cast over the canyon.

Yesterday’s quote from the Waking Up app

While there’s plenty to worry about, I was grateful to spend a weekend immersed in home and yard maintenance, restorative relaxation and meaningful connection. Instead of pointless anxiety. Tomorrow, I’ll step up again and start taking action, while still cultivating equanimity and perspective. Wishing the same for you. We’re in this together.

Still Grieving After All These Years

Apr23
We’ve several times walked past the juniper where the squirrel was hiding the other day without sight nor sound of it, but I did want to show the context. I held the camera over the hollow where the dead snag comes forward out of the twisted trunk. Amazingly, this tree, hundreds of years old, is still alive.

I’m assured by the Worms that the apricot will probably survive the freeze. It never occurred to me that it would suffer in last weekend’s cold snap, because it was thoroughly leafed out. I called in to As the Worm Turns this evening, and learned that apricot trees all over the valley suffered the same fate. All the leaves are dead. Above, I noticed they were drooping the second day AF (after freeze); below, yesterday, beyond drooping they are drying up, along with the embryonic fruits. Lance and Lulu have never seen this before either. We all moved here roughly thirty years ago plus or minus. An orchardist called in right after I did, and reported that they lost everything, peaches, grapes, you name it. Everyone is optimistic, though, that the trees themselves will survive, and we’ll know more later if they’ll leaf out again this year.

It was time to strain the lilac blossoms from the sugar on Sunday, but they did not want to sieve. They must have been too damp when I mixed them in, and they weren’t pretty so I didn’t want to keep them in with the sugar, so… I brought my science mind in and dumped the whole jar into a pot with half as much water. The blossoms floated to the top, I skimmed them off, and boiled until…

Voila! Lilac syrup! It’s as thick as honey, I could have taken it off sooner, and it is just as sweet as honey, too.

My dear friend and teacher Cindy would have turned my age tomorrow had she not died almost two years ago. She left behind one bereft daughter, some precious friends, and many grateful and grieving students. As I usually do I sublimated my grief about her illness and death until it started to surface late last year. I find myself thinking of her more often, her insights, lessons, and example informing my work and life more consciously than I acknowledged at first. Everyone has their own way of grieving, and even my own is unique to each loss, but in general I tend to close down around it for awhile and then it seeps out over time. I do a lot better with it now than I did twenty years ago during my Decade of Loss during which my mother died.

It’s been 22 years since she lived her last spring. Really, time flies whether you’re having fun or not. Even before she was sick, I cherished this picture of her. It’s an old print that suffered water damage, which I scanned and optimized. She was younger then than I am now. She and her sister and their old high school friend Lucy (with husbands tagging along) had met for a long weekend reunion at some woodsy resort in West Virginia. Here she’s reclining on the bank of a creek with her cocktail, looking as happy and relaxed as I’ve ever seen her. I thought of her as I grieved Cindy this week, and felt compassion for her daughter who was so much younger than I when she lost her mother. All these feelings swirled up as I was reading this article that came in The Atlantic email yesterday, “On Losing a Daughter,” which brought to mind a dear friend whose daughter died just over a year ago, leaving three young children. I can’t imagine a worse grief for a parent, except I can and it’s one reason I chose not to have children. Just in case. Reading of this woman’s singular grief, thinking of my friend who lost her daughter, imagining Cindy’s daughter’s emotions as her mom’s birthday approaches, my own grief for my mother surged. All the grief of mothers and daughters swelled and swirled together in me. And the recognition that this little whirlpool of these particular mothers and daughters is a drop in the bucket of global grief, mothers and daughters just one current in the vast, bottomless ocean of human griefs.

Michael and me as Carmen y Miguel, c. 2000

Anniversaries can be hard, especially birthdays and death days. The grief cascade actually started last week when John’s birthday came around and I thought about him a lot, missing him, missing Boyz Lunch, and feeling for his surviving partner. And then the anniversary of Todd’s death just a year ago came a few days later, and my heart was with his surviving partner. And then out of nowhere came a wave of grief for Michael, who died that same horrible summer of 2020 when Raven, Ojo, Diane, and Auntie also died, and everyone’s world changed with the massive Covid casualties, especially those whose loved ones died of it.

And the grief this week just keeps coming. A dear friend had to euthanize her dear old big dog last week. He had lived a good long life but that is cold comfort in the moment when the utter absence shocks and wracks and keeps on shocking for days, weeks, months. In my awareness of and compassion for her grief, the loss of Stellar the Stardog rocked me again, in gentle waves, much calmer than the tempest that accompanied his passing.

Griefs can’t be compared. But they can crack our hearts open to empathy, compassion, and more love, with time. And they have no timeline other than their own mysterious meandering path, with steep hills of struggle, long lulling valleys, and all terrains in between. I still mourn the sweetest black cat Ojo, and have come to a revised demise: as Paul suggested last fall, it’s far more likely that he was killed by a great horned owl than by a mountain lion. I was reluctant to accept that hypothesis, but given all attendant conditions it does make more sense. It doesn’t help the grief quotient, though.

I worried this morning that I might have lost his sister Topaz. We’d started out the gate for a walk and she was right behind us. I didn’t look back for awhile but it’s not unusual for her to take a shortcut and catch up so I kept walking. Then I heard a shrieking screeching that stopped abruptly. Wren took off in a beeline back toward the house, and I followed with quick steps. She was nowhere to be seen. There was no evidence of foul play, but no sign of her. I stood by the gate and called in all directions, walked back toward the woods and called, nothing. If she were out there she’d have come. It was late in the morning for an owl but not necessarily too late; and there’s that little fox that’s been passing through frequently. The sound could have been a magpie screaming at a cat, a cat screaming at a magpie, a cat screaming at a fox, or a fox simply screaming. Or any number of other options. I was gonna be late for an appointment, so I had to keep moving. Maybe something had scared her and she’d run back to the house. I checked the front door, then the back. Whew! She was lying by the back door as if I were late for her. Whatever happened, it’s one of those rare circumstances where we actually won’t know more later.

There are some animals that trigger grief in me any time I see images of them: polar bears, penguins, elephants, and gorillas among them. This is Fatou, 69, the world’s oldest gorilla in captivity, in the Berlin Zoo, who showed up in The Atlantic’s photos of the week. I can only imagine what kind of grief she must experience. Probably solastalgia.

But really I think the grief train started while I was reading Against the Machine. It came up in conversation with a dear friend last night who was responding to my post about it. Paul Kingsnorth broke my world view, I told her. That book shattered the last of my illusions, pulled the scales from my eyes, as it were. I’ve been grieving the world I grew up in, and thought we could still maybe save. I’ve been swimming in the grief of solastalgia for weeks, months, years. Earth Day is a great occasion to mention it. Solastalgia is “the experience of chronic trauma, longing, or hopelessness due to negative or distressing changes to the home or ecosystem you are still in due to the impacts of climate change, weather events, fire, or other environmental factors…. With solastalgia, the home you are longing for can’t be returned to—it is there but not the same.” I’m grateful there’s a word for it, and grateful that this feeling is being addressed in Tricycle’s annual online Buddhism and Ecology Summit, which I’ve been participating in this week.

And, in the midst of awareness from within this sea of grief, I am bouyed by profound, uplifting gratitude for the number of people I can call my dear friends. And each day I’m noticing and savoring beauty, moments of joy and laughter, and the company of animals both wild and tame. The ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows: Can I be grateful for all of them? Next post, a story about a black bird…

After the Freeze

Apr18

The lilacs out the window on Friday morning. Note the decals on the kitchen window, iridescent through birds’ eyes, to curb or hopefully prevent window strikes. Overnight it went down to 15℉. As anticipated, this morning the cherry blossoms and nascent fruits look finished for the year. Oh well. The magnificent yellow columbine at the cherry tree base took a hard hit but will likely come back from the center. Everything else in the garden looks stressed or wounded but I’m optimistic that all will survive. I covered them again tonight.

Yesterday was a perfect day for a grilled cheese sandwich: cloudy with blowing snow all morning and bitter wind even after the snow stopped. The high was barely above freezing. Melted dill havarti on rosemary-garlic focaccia with thinly sliced red onion, lettuce, mayo, and a splash of raspberry jam offered tasty comfort at lunchtime. And it was a perfect day to finally bake the orange marmalade brownies I’d been considering for a long time.

I’ve never really liked orange marmalade, and I thought maybe this recipe would make it palatable for me. It was simple to make, and I must say, delicious. But I doubt I’ll be spreading marmalade on toast any time soon.

This day dawned sunny and crisp and then warmed up into the 50s. The brownie went beautifully with my ritual maple-vanilla latté and morning fiction. It felt good to share the bake with my neighbors, so Wren and I made a quick run up the driveway and then around the corner to make deliveries. Not only did I feel good about sharing, but I got to return home with surprise bonus bacon! Which went right into today’s cheese sandwich: lettuce, cheddar, and bacon with mayo, mustard and raspberry jam.

Of all the articles I read online this week, by far the best was this hilarious article on The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America. It provided a wonderful balance to the majority of the other headlines. I’ve been working with Discernment this month, and considering deeply what media I ingest. Why, I wonder, is 90% of the news and entertainment about horrors, when in actual fact, most humans spend most of their time–maybe as much as 90%–doing good, kind, generous things, and simply aspiring to be good, kind, happy people? Media coverage of the species is terribly skewed toward bad behavior, and by over-representing violence, betrayal, destruction, hatred, rage, etc., is invariably influencing the zeitgeist. Too bad. One more good reason to focus on gratitude and living mindfully.

Preparing to Freeze

Apr17

I baked a sourdough focaccia yesterday thinking I would freeze some portions for later. It was delicious even though I forgot to spread it in the pan before going to bed so it overflowed the bowl overnight. I worried that it wouldn’t rise enough in the pan to be soft. It wasn’t perfect but it was perfectly fine.

After today’s cheese sandwich I’ve got enough for three more lunches. I didn’t need to worry about freezing any.

We took a short slow walk yesterday afternoon to check out the early flowers, knowing they might freeze back in the next couple of nights. Did I mention that I thought I heard the first hummingbird a few days ago? I quick went inside to start nectar water on the stove, pulled out the box of feeders and cleaned one with dilute bleach and let it dry while the nectar cooled, and put it out a couple hours later. This morning I saw the first male black-chinned hummingbird at the feeder. Time to get the other feeders ready to go out Saturday morning. I did bring in the one feeder for tonight with the freeze forecast.

Wren checked out the numerous Townsendia scattered along the sides of the trail. I played with Hipsta Impressionist again to see what I could get with its random filter. I especially like the second one, how it smeared a petal like impasto. But I prefer the original unfiltered photo below over all the variations.

Wren had run ahead of me and Topaz and I heard the sharp alarm call of a critter, but I couldn’t find it. She was running back and forth near this tree, and it sounded like the cry came from the canopy. I listened from all angles, as Wren was doing; it sounded high, it sounded low, it sounded even as though it came from another tree. Then there was a buzz to it. We finally narrowed it down to a hollow in the base of the trunk, and Wren seemed determined to tear it apart. I barked at her to leave it, and aimed the camera in but couldn’t tell much, so set it to 5x zoom with flash. Right as I snapped the picture Topaz shot out of nowhere hissing at Wren and startling me. Thankfully Wren cowered instead of attacking. But then they were both obsessed with the trunk and I discerned it was best to hurry us off. Only after I got them both well away from the trunk did I check my hasty image:

Today’s adventure took a different turn. There’s a freeze warning for tonight, and a hard freeze warning for tomorrow night. The garden is so far along I worry I’ll lose a lot. The cherry tree! I’m grateful that I caught some of As the Worm Turns on my drive home from my annual checkup yesterday.

The gardeners were discussing ways to protect fruit trees from freezing. The valley orchards will be at high risk tomorrow night, and I feel for the fruit growers. I wish for all their orchard-warming techniques to succeed. One way they mentioned is to spray foliage with kelp spray, which strengthens cell walls among other things. I didn’t catch the details, but did drive up to the Hitchin’ Post this afternoon to pick up a bottle of FoxFarm Kelp Me Kelp You seaweed plant food. I mixed the kelp with water in my pump sprayer and saturated the cherry tree foliage and pretty much everything else I’m concerned about. If it doesn’t help protect them from the freeze at least they’ll be well fed when they come back.

I spent the entire work day preparing to freeze. It started when I decided to make lilac scones. The second round of lilacs were only half open and I expect to lost most of them tomorrow night. I brought in some more blooms for the vases, and harvested a basketful to make lilac sugar. I couldn’t find the recipe I used some years ago, when I just plucked the flowers off the stems and incorporated them into the dough, so I looked up recipes again. That’s where I learned about lilac sugar and lilac syrup. I’m not sure whose recipe I’ll use for the scones whenever I get around to baking them, but making sugar and syrup I’ll have lilacs preserved for months to come and many uses.

I decided to make the syrup first, but after rinsing, drying, and plucking petals for an hour I didn’t think I had enough for syrup, so I opted for the sugar. It calls for 1 cup lightly packed petals to 1 cup sugar. By the time my packed petals met an equal volume of sugar I realized I had packed them too tightly and probably could have pulled off the two cups for syrup, but by then it was too late. They were all shook up.

I had to add more sugar to achieve an equal ratio. Now the petals steep in the sugar for three days, and I’m supposed to sift them out, but I think I’ll just make a batch of scones including petals first. Then we’ll see what happens with the rest of it. So, the lilacs are prepared to freeze, I’ve done all I can to preserve them.

Then I set about recycling the distilled water bottles from the mechanical room, which I save for just this purpose as I fill the solar batteries through the year. I cut the bottoms off them, and in late afternoon as it clouded up and the temperature dropped, I set them over all the new perennials I’ve planted in the south border and in patio pots.

Then I fluffed old hay over all the garden beds filled with tender pea shoots, strawberry plants, nascent rhubarb, delicate carrot tops, baby kale, flower sprouts, and garlic leaves. I also covered a few areas with an old blanket and black plastic. As I moved through the day I clipped any remaining tulips, jonquils, and the flowers from the new perennials since they’ll freeze Friday night anyway, and gathered them all in a couple of vases. I am now finished preparing to freeze.

Delicious Weekend

Apr13

It’s unfortunate that major media expends so much energy rehashing bad news, when there is actually a lot of good news happening every day. I’m grateful that Jess Craven publishes Extra! Extra! every Sunday to elucidate the good news that shows an undercurrent of positive, hopeful change in this country.

I made an interesting chicken and cauliflower soup over the weekend. It wasn’t simple or exactly delicious, but did introduce me to a tasty trick. The chicken thighs were seared in the pot first, then the crisp skin pulled off and roasted until it was “shatteringly crisp,” and crumbled on top of the finished soup.

I was grateful for a splendid success in the Birthday Cake Challenge. Not only did the cake turn out beautifully, but I acquired some new skills. Unintentionally, I learned how to make sweetened coconut shreds out of unsweetened flakes. There was no sweetened coconut in the store so my dear resourceful personal shopper purchased unsweetened flakes, above.

Locating instructions was the hard part; once I found them it was easy. I pulsed the flakes a half cup at a time for just a few seconds in my coffee grinder—it was a great excuse to give it a thorough cleaning. Then for each cup of shreds I dissolved a quarter cup of water and a teaspoon of sugar in a saucepan, took it off the heat, and stirred in the coconut. But first, I experimented with one cup replacing white sugar with maple syrup. Confident in the technique, I spread that out to dry and use later, mixed the remainder with white sugar, and set it aside for morning.

Then I baked the ‘Upgraded German Chocolate Cake’ from Sally’s Baking Addiction. I usually just fudge the high altitude adjustments, but due to my recent baking record I followed them all precisely, using the table on King Arthur’s website, tweaking flour, sugar, liquid and leaveners as well as baking temperature and time. The sponges were perfect.

After they cooled completely and before heading to bed, I stacked them with their parchment papers between layers so I could store them safely under the cakestand lid to prevent drying out or interference. I didn’t think Wren or Topaz would get to them, but better safe than sorry.

Sunday morning I enjoyed the cherry blossoms again, and a quiet read with Wren during coffee.

And then I started on the frosting. I toasted the pecans, beat the eggs, measured the coconut and brown sugar, and cooked everything to perfection in plenty of time to let it cool completely and chill for an hour in the fridge. Then I commenced construction.

But I couldn’t let it go at that. The day before I pulled out a bag of frozen apricots from the last bountiful year and cooked a quick compote with a bit of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice. The consistency was perfect, and I hid it inside the frosting between the first and second layers. After all, the cake was to celebrate the apricot king!

I finished assembling the cake in time to check in at Cousins’ Zoom, and then delivered the cake next door right on time. It was precarious. Frosted, the cake was just too tall to fit under the lid so I grabbed a spare cardboard box and braced the stand with more cardboard, leveled the box on the back seat, and Wren and I drove around the block slowly.

Neighbor Fred has been pruning and consulting on the apricot tree for however long it’s lived here, neither of us can recall, but at least twenty years. I’m forever grateful for him. He seemed happy with his cake.

And after we each enjoyed a piece of it, Mary sent me home with a generous tithe that will see me through the next few mornings’ coffees. Now, who’s birthday is next, I wonder?

The Week in Flowers

Apr12

I’m grateful that the little cherry tree is doing so well in its second year, filling up with blossoms like a grownup tree. This was taken early in the week. (Where’s Wren?) And grateful that the tulips are opening all over the yarden. Though I’m a little disappointed to realize, as I’ve noticed over time, that tulips don’t actually do much for native pollinators. So I’m not going to buy any more, but I will nurture these that grow here now. Next fall maybe I’ll look into native bulbs that might actually nourish our regional bees.

It’s been a joy to plant the little perennials I bought last week, in a couple of south-facing borders, and in some patio pots. This creeping hummingbird mint will grow low and spread, and should be more successful in this climate than the various others I’ve tried over the years, which just don’t tolerate our cold winters.

More of the native wildflowers are blooming in the woods this week.

Here’s the cherry tree today, with a little bit of iPhone “cleanup” to remove the distraction of the stabilizing posts and cords. If you don’t look too closely you hardly know it’s been altered.

It’s hard to capture the full effect since the tree is so small, but it’s magical to see in real life, its delicate blossoms like sunlit lace, and tiny native bees darting among them. And I’m grateful for my little kitchen light stand with succulents, and bonsai rosemary, lavender, geranium, and bitter orange, with a sprig of lilac in an ancestral bud vase. I’m grateful for flowers.

And I’m grateful for some contributions from friends after my post about the wild cost of war, including this from the NYT which should be available without a paywall: A ‘Silent Victim’: How Nature Becomes a Casualty of War; and this incredible video of an Iranian spider-tailed horned viper, unique among snakes with its astonishing adaptation to lure prey. Virginia shared the photo below of 168 Pairs of Shoes in their current rainbow configuration at the Grand Mesa Arts and Events Center in Cedaredge.

It hurt to hear from my dear accountant that I need to pay the feds something by next Wednesday, but fortunately not a lot. At least I can share my displeasure later by participating in May Day Strong, “Workers Over Billionaires,” by not working, not spending, and joining in some kind of resistance action. You’re all invited to the party!

“When you know better, do better”

Apr8

Freeze damage report: not all was lost. Most of the tulips still bloomed, and the lilacs look good. Some iris leaves turned yellow at their tips, the crabapple blossoms all shriveled except for the twigs I had brought inside, and it looks like almost all the tiny apricots froze dead. I’m not optimistic about a peach harvest.

But the cherry tree is just waking up. This was taken Easter Sunday, and today blossoms are starting to open. If they can survive next week I may have a nice cherry harvest. In kitchen news, I tried an instagram recipe in which grated fresh parmesan is whisked with hot pasta water and butter to make a creamy sauce for the pasta, but mine turned into a bowl of string cheese and water. It still tasted good but was kind of hard to eat. Another insta-fail, why do I keep trusting those reels? Or maybe I did something wrong, it’s possible.

I was grateful to my Neighbors yesterday for Wrensitting while I went to my new dentist in Montrose for the day. Dr. Bloss is on the Board of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT), a global network of dentists, health professionals, and scientists who research the biocompatibility of dental products, including the risks of mercury fillings, root canals, and jawbone osteonecrosis. I’m grateful for her professional care, and that we have this incredible resource in the region. I’m also grateful that she and her assistant got on board with my photographic documentation of the adventure.

I’d been contemplating removal of my mercury fillings off and on for years, but let myself be lulled into complacency by the prevailing attitude of US dentists and the FDA. Mercury amalgams were outlawed by the EU last year, and are scheduled to be banned by WHO by 2030. After the dentastrophe I experienced last summer, in which two molars with mercury amalgam were ground down for crowns with great cheerfulness, no mention of the mercury, and zero safety protocol, exposing me and the dentist and assistant to significant mercury vapor, I decided to get rid of the rest of it once and for all properly. This is what that looked like:

Dr. Bloss and her team use extensive protocols created by IAOMT, including full protective gear for themselves and for the patient as well. That’s me under her green hands, with one tooth isolated behind a rubber dental dam. There was a small suction device under the dam, a large vacuum over us, and highly specialized tools to suction the amalgam out as she ground it. My nose was covered with an oxygen mask and the rest of my face protected as well. I was given a vitamin C and charcoal rinse and drink before and after the procedure. I felt safe. In contrast, during the grinding by the dentist last year, I felt really uncomfortable inhaling and swallowing tooth dust even without realizing it was full of elemental mercury. This is what mercury amalgam removal done wrong looked like last summer:

Ten months later, I still have big ugly feelings about what happened last summer, but I’ve come a long way in letting it go now that the discomfort has largely dissipated. I wish I’d known better back then, but as Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

I stopped at Afton’s on the way home for some garden center therapy, and treated myself to this beautiful magic carpet spirea, with its russet spring leaves emerging. I wanted an accent shrub for this full-sun spot where rinsing the birdbath every day gives extra water. A couple varieties of blue mist spirea are doing well in other parts of the garden, but I was entranced with the prospect of pink flowers and dramatically changing foliage through the seasons. I also picked up a few more colorful perennials that I’ll find joy in planting over the next couple of weeks. I remember a time when I thought planting flowers was wasteful; that was before I understood the importance of gardening for pollinators. Now that I know better, I do better, gladly and gratefully.

The Wild Cost

Apr5

I continue to follow developments in the disastrous illegal war that the Liar in Chief chose as a multi-purpose ruse to distract from the Epstein files and other corruptions while also enriching himself and his sycophant cronies through weapons investments and market manipulation. The costs are glossed over by the government and complicit legacy media so I’m grateful there are some people keeping track. Twenty hours and twenty minutes into it, as I write this, the US government has spent 42 billion of our tax dollars, and adding $5000 every second on this real-time clock. What a bitter, bitter pill it was to deliver paperwork to my accountant last week.

“168 Pairs of Shoes” video from No Kings Day 3, Paonia, Colorado. 15 minutes

The human cost rises daily as well. It started dramatically with the slaughter of innocents represented above in Virginia Unseld’s moving tribute 168 Pairs of Shoes. Her next installation last Friday at a Methodist church presented the shoes lining the sidewalks to the steps, where they formed the shape of a heart.

photo courtesy of Virginia Unseld

The human cost is grave, the financial cost is staggering, but what about the wild world? Who is talking about the environmental cost? I’ve only noticed one person on my social and news networks making noise about it, environmentalist drag queen Pattie Gonia.

So, I’ll talk about it. It’s taken hours of searching online to learn that there’s a paucity of research on the subject; however, what research there is concurs: War is bad not just for children but for the whole wild world. I also looked into the wildlife of Iran. One of the first hits was an article called “Conservation Policies in Iran: Protecting Biodiversity and Endangered Species” from November 2024.

We savored a long ramble through the woods this Easter Sunday, playing with the infrared Bucktown Pack on my imaginary camera.

It states that Iran’s unique geographical position at the intersection of three major zoogeographical regions—Palaearctic, Oriental, and Ethiopian—contributes to its rich biodiversity. There are many endemic plants and animals, which means they occur nowhere else. “The Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests are UNESCO World Heritage sites, recognized for their exceptional biological diversity and ancient lineage…. Additionally, Iran is home to many threatened and endangered species, such as the Persian leopard, the Asiatic cheetah, and the Caspian seal. These species are crucial for maintaining ecological balance and health within their respective habitats. However, the rich biodiversity of Iran faces numerous challenges, primarily from habitat loss due to urbanization, agricultural expansion, and industrial development. Climate change exacerbates these issues, affecting water availability and altering habitats, which further threatens the survival of many species.” This article doesn’t mention war, because that wasn’t a factor when it was written.

For pictures of Iran’s endangered species, see this list in Animalia. Many of them are aquatic, including several species each of whales, sea turtles, sharks, rays, shorebirds, and the Indian Ocean humpback dolphin. The list also includes the mammals named above, as well as the Siberian crane, Steppe eagle, Kurdistan newt, Latifi’s viper, and the Persian onegar, a subspecies of Asiatic wild ass endemic to Iran with a population of around 700. A full list of Iran’s 156 endangered species including corals, fishes, insects, and at least one plant, is here.

I did find a few articles that touch on the environmental impacts of war, like this from the US Army War College, and this from The Revelator, but most of them come back to focus on the harm that war does to the environment from a human perspective. All agree, though, that war, particularly bombing, wreak havoc on the wild world as well. From a table in a waste management site, bombs release toxic chemicals into the soil, reducing fertility, harming plant growth, and contaminating groundwater; explosions contaminate water bodies, affecting aquatic ecosystems and drinking water sources; they clear large areas of vegetation, displace soil, destroy habitats, and disrupt ecosystems, leading to biodiversity loss; they generate intense noise, causing stress and injury to wildlife, disrupting animal communication, navigation, migration patterns and food chains. They force animals to flee their habitats, removing or destroying key species. The list goes on.

A Brown University article states that The U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s single largest institutional consumer of oil – and as a result, one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters. War is destroying the planet faster than any other single factor in climate collapse. That’s my own claim, but it has an air of truthiness to it.

This article from Action on Armed Violence is one of many that highlight our interdependence with animals. “Though animals may be directly killed or injured by the use of explosive weapons, the impact to their environment appears to typically be the more concerning factor, particularly through habitat loss and human displacement. In Syria, for example, it was recently reported that water buffalo in Hama countryside have been highly impacted by the continued use of explosive violence in the region in recent years. Not only have water buffalo become direct casualties of the bombardment, but much of the land has become unusable, and farmers and their buffalo have been displaced by the shelling…. The total number of water buffalo in the area has decreased by two-thirds compared to the pre-conflict level by 2017.”

It continues, “Landmines and other explosive remnants also have a long history of environmental impact. They have directly killed many animals, including for example elephants in Sri Lanka, snow leopards in Afghanistan, tigers in Cambodia, gazelles in Libya, camels in China, and water buffalo Vietnam. While these have been documented in the past, there is little current research on this issue and the scale of the impact.”

The most comprehensive article I’ve encountered is this Canadian review on the effects of modern war and military activities on biodiversity and the environment, which posits, “Dramatic habitat alteration, environmental pollution, and disturbance contributed to population declines and biodiversity losses arising from both acute and chronic effects in both terrestrial and aquatic systems.” It details devastating effects of aerial assault, naval operations, terrestrial war, nuclear tests, military bases and training, chemical warfare, and more.

Toes-up time under the Ancient One, Wren reclining against my legs.

Among other findings, “The numerous explosive techniques and tools at the disposal of army forces during ground warfare have left a legacy on landscapes across the globe by leaving large craters, shrapnel, and contamination, thus devastating many ecosystems across the biosphere. Landmines applied during active ground warfare have left a lasting legacy on the environment and still remain a major threat to biodiversity, even decades after being deployed.”

After offering a paean to the benefits that military technology has contributed to environmental and conservation science, the article concludes, “…it is evident that warfare’s impacts on ecosystem functioning are indeed overwhelmingly deleterious. The impacts of conflict, nuclear weapons, training operations, and chemical contaminations all contribute to both reductions in the populations of local flora and fauna as well as reducing species diversity in the affected ecosystems. Impacts were demonstrated in a number of environments with a diversity of taxonomic groups represented with war resulting in both acute and chronic impacts on the ecosystem.” It illustrates the impact categories in this figure.

“Creations are numberless, I vow to free them.” This is the first line of the Zen vows that I repeat any time I participate in a Upaya teaching. Just imagine the numberless creations, from spiders to rodents, domestic cats and dogs, chickens, lizards, snakes, common or rare and unique life forms who are getting obliterated with every bomb of every war.

Yesterday I finished reading Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth. It was a difficult and challenging read. Though I disagree with some of his assertions, notably those regarding introspection, and those on human sexuality and gender, his thesis that “techno-industrial culture has choked Western civilisation and is destroying the Earth itself” resonates brutally with my observations. “From the First Industrial Revolution to the rise of artificial intelligence, this book shows how the hollowing out of humanity has been a long game—and how our very soul is now at stake.” I will be pondering this book for a long time. Trump’s frivolous war on Iran is a consummate example of Machine culture from every angle at which you examine it.

If you’re still with me, you might want an antidote to this post. If so, check out Jessica Craven’s Extra! Extra! good news post today.

Feral Arugula

Apr4

I’ve been working on a hard post to write, about the costs of war, human, financial, and to the wild world. But I wasn’t able to focus on that today, so instead, by popular demand, I’m sharing some happy eye candy. The first goldfinch of the season and a couple of piñon jays were among Bird Buddy’s captures this past week. It’s time to focus on gardening for birds, with helpful tips from Cornell Lab of Ornithology and also the Audubon Society.

We enjoyed a nice rain shower on Wednesday, which rinsed the dust off the feral heirloom arugula thriving among the flagstones, so I harvested a bowlful.

I’ve been adding it to salads along with the perennial lettuce that’s been creeping toward cutting size since December. How marvelous to be able to gather fresh greens again!

With a big bag of fresh feral arugula in the fridge I’ve been adding it to everything. I made an arugula and green pea frittata with cheddar and mozzarella and topped it with fresh chopped chives from the windowsill pot; and added arugula to a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich the next day.

I woke Thursday morning to a lush green yarden, with the last of the storm clouds crawling east over the mountains, leaving a nice top up of the disastrous snowpack. I knew it would freeze hard that night and didn’t know what would survive, so in the afternoon I cut some tulips, jonquils, forsythia, and the one lilac cluster that was just starting to open, and brought them inside.

The snowfall Thursday night caught me off guard. Wren ran quaking from the bed when we heard heavy rain and a little thunder, but I gathered her in under the covers and held her tight, and very quickly the rain stopped. Or, the sound of the rain stopped, as I realized when I woke disoriented by the view. It took a beat to understand that the rain had quickly turned to snow, and left a welcome couple of inches on the ground. The temperature had also dropped to 20℉ (-6.67℃ for my fortunate international friends). I was glad I’d salvaged some flowers.

By afternoon it had all melted, but the damage was done. There will be no peaches from Mirador this year, few lilacs, and likely no crabapple blossoms at all. I was grateful that I’d cut a few budding twigs, which I arranged in a little Ikebana tray inherited from my mother, so at least I can enjoy a few spectacular pink blooms.

Today, a dear friend reminded me of the joy of Hipstamatic, so I spent a little time diving back into those imaginary films and lenses, and captured this image of the crabapple twigs with my new Impressionist pack. I used a little more of my precious time on this day that will never come again playing with Hipsta outside in the afternoon, but I’ll save those images for another day.

Lessons

Mar31
The wild plum has rained the last of its petals in the winds, and now following the apricot erupts with tender green leaves. But last week, I caught a few lovely pollinators in its fulsome flowers, including many painted ladies…

I remember asking Marion one time, decades ago, with a distinct whine, “Isn’t anything ever not a lesson?” She was older by thirty years and wiser by far, but I don’t recall her response. All I know is that I’ve learned in the interval that every living moment is always a lesson, or can be.

… one gorgeous sphinx moth…

I’m grateful that the Colonel gave me a solid foundation in using tools and the gene to enjoy solving engineering type problems, and the confidence to tackle all kinds of household situations. I’d suspected a propane leak at the tank for a few weeks when I noticed a faint odor as I walked past one day in late fall but I promptly forgot about it. A few weeks later I was home when the tanker driver arrived with the next monthly fill, and asked him to please check for a leak. I watched his bubble solution, and I didn’t see anything either, so we left it at that. But by the end of January I wasn’t convinced, and when a different driver came I mentioned it to him. He did a bubble spray test and confirmed that there was a tiny leak at the very old regulator, and said “I’ll send M to replace that.”

… a single Great Purple Hairstreak, which is almost impossible to catch with open wings…

Last week I started wondering if M had ever come by and meant to call the company to inquire, but once again I forgot. I did not inherit the genes for executive functioning. So yesterday when T returned, I was outside reading in the freakishly mild weather, and went over to greet him. “I see M hasn’t been here yet,” he began, and we chatted for a long time, only partly about the leak. He mentioned that the price per gallon went up, and I said, “That’s what we get with war… and a government in chaos,” which I think I get political action points for saying, and he didn’t respond. He still didn’t think the leak was bad enough to be affecting my bill, “only if you’re baking a lot of cookies every day,” he said… Little does he know.

… and many magnificent Red Admirals.

“Funny you should mention that,” I said, then asked if he’d like a cookie, and he kept chatting, about how he seen a coyote over there one time and too bad he didn’t have his gun then, and from there it devolved into how many coyotes he’s shot through the years, “seven in one day!” he proudly proclaimed; he spoke about cattle camp and losing calves to coyotes, then moved on to speak about a lion no one ever saw who was hunting deer on a particular ridge. All the while, my heart was sinking further, and my lungs were choking on exhaust from the truck, and I was starting to wish I hadn’t offered him one of my last cookies.

“That’s interesting,” I said, “but I can’t breathe the exhaust any longer, so I’m going in to get you a couple cookies, and I’ll be back in a minute.” When I took him the cookies he said he thought he might have enough dope in the truck to replace the regulator right now, and he’d just have to turn off the gas to the house for a little while, and did I have an on-demand hot water heater? No, but I figured if I didn’t use the hot water it should be ok, but really that was a lesson right there, which I keep learning over and over again, which is to ask more questions, don’t assume I know anything about something I know nothing about.

I had just been coming in to make lunch when he arrived, so I went back in to start that. The last of the curried cauliflower cold with mayo, plus an egg and some bacon, yum, I was looking forward to it. The bacon was cooking perfectly until it wasn’t, almost done, but then no flame. Duh. Again with the executive function issue. I knew not to use the hot water and was very careful as I washed my hands after putting the bacon in the pan to use only cold, but I failed to make the obvious connection that I couldn’t use the burner either. I went back out to see how things were going, and to ask if I’d need to do anything with the stove once the propane was back on, and we had another incomplete conversation which reassured me.

This week’s Birthday Cake Challenge started off well!

After he left, the burner lit effortlessly and there seemed to be hot water. Although it did seem a little less hot, but I let myself ignore that symptom, because every time I turned it on to wash my hands or a dish or two it was still hot enough. Surely the boiler couldn’t keep it that hot overnight if it wasn’t fueled. But after a couple hours of yard work this morning, I had to face the truth as I stood under a warm shower gradually cooling. I’ve never had to light that particular pilot, and thankfully it didn’t require getting down on the dirty utility room floor and contorting myself to stick a match inside a small opening whilst pressing and holding the red button. Grateful it was also a piezo starter. It lit right away, and flared up when I turned the dial, and it’s been happy hot water all afternoon.

The batter looked perfect in the pan.

But the other water heater, the one that provides the radiant floor heat, that of course was also out, and that’s the pilot I didn’t want to face, so I just turned it off til fall, grateful that there’s plenty of firewood since it’s going to get cold again for the next week, and grateful in a perverse way for the freakishly mild spring that’s likely to resume after that, and grateful either way for the forecast moisture. I never thought I’d be grateful for Mud Season, but here I am eagerly awaiting it.

Sadly, more lessons were learned after baking…

So many lessons in the last two days! Excellent practice listening to his murderous pride with as little judgment as possible and much more open-heart than I could have before mindfulness, understanding his perspective, feeling kindly toward him, feeling grateful that he fixed the leak. And then letting it all go once it was over, rather than perseverating. But wait, oh, it was after that that I walked in grief the rest of the day. Okay, so but at least I didn’t feel blame or anger or hatred, and I did cultivate compassion and loving kindness, so that’s progress.

… including perseverance!

Some other lessons revolved around the Year of Birthday Cakes Challenge, among them that I really need to practice bake ahead of time for each new cake I try. Today’s epic fail was technically a Technical Challenge rather than a Signature or a Showstopper, as the birthday girl asked for a specific kind of cake. It seemed easy enough: a lemon bundt cake with raspberry filling. And in Bake Off Technicals there’s no tossing a failure into the bin, you have to present something to the judges. So when (after following instructions to the second) I turned the cake out after ten minutes leaving the bottom fifth attached to the bundt pan, it turned into a salvage operation. One lesson was “ten minutes exactly” isn’t enough time to cool a cake in that pan. Maybe it would have held together after another five or ten minutes cooling in the pan. Or, maybe not. Other lessons I’m learning are non-attachment to outcome, and humility.

The final offering, of which I kept half and made her promise not to share it with anyone else. I gave a verbal IOU for a good cake some other time.

Among today’s successes, I count maintaining equanimity, compassion, and good humor; recognizing repeatedly that I am not my thoughts; and creating an absolutely perfect loaf of sourdough.