Archive | May 2025

Feed the Birds

May31
The flat light of dusk shows off the brilliant blues of the mountain bluebird.

Do you remember that song Feed the Birds, from Mary Poppins? The old woman on the cathedral steps feeding the pigeons touched me profoundly at the time, and the song is probably the first to embed itself in my young brain. Its message was formative for me.

I was surprised to see a northern flicker using the birdbath, but both male and female have become regular visitors.

Last year I put out this copper birdbath (I think it was last year, maybe the year before). Every morning first thing I turn on the hose to rinse it thoroughly and refill it. But I haven’t fed seedeaters for a decade, ever since the kittens came, because it wasn’t fair to bait the birds in knowing the cats would hunt them.

Be careful what you ask for. I’ve always wanted evening grosbeaks but even a decade ago when I last fed the birds they never came. This year, they dominate the feeder, and perch in the peach tree.

A few years ago, with censure from the phoebes and some serious discouragement from me, Topaz learned not to hunt birds. Now she’s getting old and slow enough she rarely hunts even mice. So after I saw Ruth’s Bird Buddy, and had been longing for birdsong in my days, I started feeding again.

House finches bring the earliest and most lovely song to the yard. The juvenile male above is starting to come into his adult plumage, and will soon resemble the gorgeous red adult, below.

Why did I start feeding birds again when there’s a bird flu crisis? Well, it’s not really affecting songbirds, but because of the scare I think some people have taken down backyard feeders; and beyond that, humans have destroyed and poisoned enough bird habitat, erected enough glass skyscrapers, and loosed enough domestic cats to kill more than three billion birds since 1970. Across all species of North American birds, the average breeding population has declined by nearly one third. The least I can do is feed the birds.

Finches are among the families especially hard hit by this devastating species decline.

The past couple of years I’ve seen an oriole show up at a hummingbird feeder once or twice, but not stick around. So last winter, anticipating, I purchased an oriole feeder. I put it out a few weeks ago when I learned they were in the area, with some nectar and an orange, but no visitors until yesterday: I only discovered that when I checked the orange this morning and saw that it had been picked clean. After having to rescue too many bees from the nectar I had emptied that, but I put out a fresh orange half, and some organic grape jelly, and waited… and waited…

…and waited, all day. I had to go inside for awhile late afternoon, and when I came back outside before sunset I saw half the orange had been scooped out. I sat down again with husband camera. Within a few minutes, here came the Bullock’s oriole to feast! The gratification of watching this gorgeous creature enjoy the fruit was well worth the wait. I’ll try for better light tomorrow.

The elusive western tanager also made a fleeting appearance last week, slipping into the juniper and slipping out while I was on a zoom meeting I had taken outside because it was too fine a day to stay in. As I sat with camera to eye and continued to participate in the meeting, Ana asked if I had seen the Netflix show ‘The Residence.’ I knew immediately why she asked, and I’ve been laughing for days delighted that I reminded her of the detective obsessed with birdwatching. If you haven’t seen that mini-series yet, I highly recommend it.

More Claret Cups

May27

We just missed the last light again on this one though we went straight to it after my Monday evening meeting. But there was still plenty of light filtering through trees on other claret cups as we picked our way south through the woods.

This sighting led to a patch of them, and the light kept shifting on this largest one as we angled around for different views.

I’m so grateful for spring, and sunshine, and having the mobility to be able to wander aimlessly for an hour in the evening. Pain is so terribly constricting; the absence of pain is utterly liberating.

Wild Things

May25

I’m grateful for the kindness of neighbors this weekend. I needed to borrow bacon for Zoom Cooking with Amy, so I called over to Pork Central and while I was there picking up bacon I borrowed a hummingbird feeder. I had to take down the oriole feeder they were using because the holes are too big and too many native bees were drowning in the nectar; these hummers are territorial, and kept coming back to the empty hook admonishing me.

The honeybees have arrived at last, en masse, to bring the pink honeysuckle to buzzing life.

Today I realized I wouldn’t have enough bird seed for the new feeder to last until the sacks I ordered from Grand Junction arrived, so I called the Hitching Post in town to check their holiday hours. “We’re actually closed today and tomorrow,” she said, “but what can I do for you?” I told her I was out of bird seed and I thought they were feeding babies, but they could wait a couple of days. She said she’d be downstairs for a little while if I wanted to come get some. This great little store I’ve mentioned before, always has one of anything you could possibly need, and they were so generous to open for a moment for me today. I thanked her profusely, and gave her a hunk of Teddy Roosevelt clove cake I’d baked last night when I picked up the seed.

I’ve been grateful watching the frogs’ eggs develop day by day, the little black blobs taking the shape of tadpoles. My calculations were off, though: I didn’t expect them to start hatching until tomorrow, but they actually started Thursday night. I spent all day Friday watching and filming, and got a good first-sunburn-of-the-season to show for it. Since then I’ve been wearing long sleeves, and watching in awe as the egg mass empties one cell at a time.

The tiny tadpoles break free of the mass and spin around for a minute before latching onto the curly rushes with their tiny teeth. Over the past few days one nest has emptied almost completely, and the other larger nest is more than halfway done hatching. Video to come.

I’m grateful for sunshine on red flowers in the dry woods. The other evening this patch of scarlet gilia caught my eye as we walked toward home on the Breakfast Loop. Then this evening we chose to walk the Medium Loop to the canyon, and a flash of red drew me up off the trail into a cactus patch.

The prickly pears aren’t blooming yet but the claret cups are! It feels early, they used to bloom in June. In just the few moments after my first glimpse from the trail, clouds moved in and shadowed the flowers’ glow by the time I reached them.

Along the rim the little buckwheats are in bloom. Most of them are cream colored but there are a few with this sweet rosy hue. And farther along, another sunlit glimpse, another cluster of claret cups peeking out.

By the time we reached the cactus patch along the main trail home, the one I always try to catch in bloom, the sun had dipped low behind deep clouds. But now I know they’re all blooming I’ll be out again tomorrow chasing that little thrilling flash of red through the trees.

A mystery encountered: many small limbs broken off a young piñon pine. I didn’t stop long enough to look for tracks or fur, but I’ll check again well before dusk tomorrow. It doesn’t look like buck damage but it could be; or it could have been done by a bear. Or who knows? The forest is full of wild things.

Outer Chaos, Inner Peace

May21
The lilacs, the tattered Mourning Cloak, the day, all winding down…

What would it feel like if there were no problem to solve? I’ve been meditating with this question for a couple of days. I know there are plenty of problems to solve, big and little problems, from what’s for lunch to how we save the planet. There’s a huge problem with the regime dismantling democracy, decimating government services, and demolishing the middle class. which would be great to solve and we’re working at it. Millions of Americans! But way too many millions more simply have their fingers in their ears, heads in the sand, eyes closed to reality. We need to amplify the truth at every opportunity.

There’s a big one coming up on June 14. But before that, there’s a massive threat to every American who is not a billionaire, and that’s most of us, in this “big beautiful budget bill” being voted on imminently. Make some noise! Medicaid is on the line, along with countless other programs that benefit most Americans. Our local healthcare system, Delta Health, could be gutted, along with most rural hospitals in the country. Learn more anywhere anyone is telling the truth, and Jessica Craven’s daily newsletter, Chop Wood Carry Water, is a great place to start. This bill is savage and wrong. So yeah, there are problems to be solved.

But what if, just for fifteen or thirty minutes each day, you could restore your nervous system with a deep, conscious rest during which, just for that short time, you could let your mind quit trying to solve problems? It’s been helping me.

I woke this morning to discover a hard frost overnight had burnt these lovely potato sprouts photographed just last night. Most of the scarlet salvias also died back.

Today is a perfect of example of how practicing this effortless mindfulness helped me sustain inner peace. After discovering freeze damage in the garden, I rushed off this morning for a ten a.m. appointment the provider had scheduled for noon; I let it go, did some other errands first, and came back later. Great news from Phil’s: the collaborative car fix last week is sufficient! But it was one glitch after another besides that, a couple of long delays, a couple of places closed on Tuesday; and, while taking the scenic route because I had time, a traffic jam. I kept my sense of ease, humor, and patience through it all. Just a day unfolding instead of a series of problems to solve.

I appreciated the care the movers took extricating the van from the tight spot, and instead of fretting about the delay I thought how grateful the homeowners on each side of the road must be.

Along the way we stopped at the town park so Wren could stretch her legs, and I looked for the stumps. A couple of huge trees had recently been cut for safety reasons. I know the guys who did the job, and admired the clean flat surface they left behind. I recalled one of them telling me how they got harassed while they were making the park safer. Later I counted the rings as best I could from the photo and was not surprised to pass one hundred.

Even so, I was sure grateful to get home to my little sanctuary. I had food in the fridge for lunch, repaired hearing aids, a new library book, a morning’s adventures with my values intact to reflect upon, a good zoom meeting, and a pond full of frogs to relax with.

Wren examines the day’s catch from the smart feeder on her iPad.

When the day’s work was done, I decanted the lilac cordial. It fizzed a lot when I opened the jar and poured, but then it settled down.

I’m sorry to report that it tasted primarily of weak honey. Lilacs, lacking any essential oil, are notoriously challenging to preserve. I suppose there’s a faint floral note, and it was light and refreshing on ice. And it sure looked lovely in the late evening sun.

Little Thrills

May17

I slept late and lingered in a sweet dream where my mother, my grandmother, and Auntie Rita were all waiting for me in a hotel lobby. It was wonderful to hug them each again, and then gather them all into a loving group hug. The rosebuds I’ve been watching unfurl in super slow motion for two weeks had burst open by the time I checked around ten this morning. It’s the first cultivated rose I’ve had in twenty-five years since my rose bonsai met its demise with a housesitter’s neglect. I picked this Sheila’s Perfume cultivar from the rose tent at Afton’s largely for its extraordinary aroma; a big bonus was the colors.

The next thrill arrived down at the pond where equally suddenly a huge ball of frogs’ eggs showed up this morning. I’m pretty sure they weren’t there yesterday. A mama frog in the rushes right above the nest may have just finished laying them.

The potato leaves have been working their way up through the soil for a week now, but it’s still a thrill to see how much they’ve grown. I also spotted a tattered Mourning Cloak butterfly and a Western Tiger Swallowtail in the fading lilacs, through the kitchen window.

We went back down to check on the frogs’ eggs this evening and mama was nowhere near them. I must have seen frogs’ eggs before but I don’t remember it; I don’t think I’ve ever seen them here. My curiosity piqued, I looked up the life cycle so I’d know when to expect tadpoles. Nine days is the average, according to one article, so I know how I’ll be spending my Memorial Day. I’m grateful for all the little thrills this Saturday offered.

Fierce Feminism

May16

“Our glorious, gasping, wounded world is reeling from many budding catastrophes. Among the most crucial and least acknowledged: our collective amnesia. We have forgotten who we really are: sacred vessels of a sentient cosmos—not just us humans, but also the stones, rivers, foxes, oak trees, wetlands, microbes, everything.”

This opening paragraph from Rob Brezsny’s weekly astrology newsletter introduces a beautiful analysis of the tragic results for our planet of millenia under the thumb of the patriarchy. “It’s the operating system of empires and corporations, the not-so-covert programming behind clear-cut forests and strip-mined mountains—and the code that ensures women’s bodies are controlled and exploited.”

I’m feeling more and more fierce these days about toxic masculinity and the abusive relationship we’re experiencing on a national level. So I enjoyed reading a fierce feminist fiction this week called Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling. It’s perversely refreshing to read about women doing a little retaliatory violence to the patriarchy instead of the disturbingly pervasive male violence against women that saturates so-called entertainment these days.

Meanwhile, I’m finding moments of happiness barefoot in the kitchen baking muffins, and nurturing the planet in my tiny sphere in my own feminine ways.

House finches and evening grosbeaks are among the regular visitors at the new smart feeder. Their songs and conversations brighten the days even more than their colors.

Good Neighbors

May13

The lilacs keep on giving. I’m trying this simple recipe for lilac cordial. One cup of lilac blossoms, juice of one lemon, half a cup of honey, and a liter of distilled water, shaken daily for a week. I put it together last night. We’ll know more later.

I’m exploring with some friends if there’s a distinction between gratitude, and living gratefully. We met tonight to discuss that, among other things. It may be as simple as the difference between a noun and a verb, but it deserves some unpacking. One thing I was grateful for this morning was being able to call my good neighbors and ask 1) for an asparagus refill, and 2) to borrow their garage and tools so I could fix my car. Though probably any of my neighbors would help any other in a pinch, I’ve had unpleasant encounters with a couple of them recently. So I was doubly grateful that I could call and leave a message with those requests, and it was my lucky day. Mary called me back in three minutes, having just come in from collecting wild asparagus along the fenceline, and Fred was already moving his truck out of the shop.

Why I needed to fix my car is another story, but the under-bumper-guard was ripped off and dragging. Fred examined it first, but I wanted to fix it myself. The Trans Handy-Ma’am always says, “You’re worth the time it takes to learn a new skill.” And now that I can get down on the ground I want to do so at every opportunity. And, as I heard a drag queen say the other night, “Of all the opportunities I’ve had in my life, this one is by far the most recent.” So with Mary handing me bolts and Fred’s new socket set and Wren supervising, we got ‘er done: the car is now safe to drive to Phil’s for a professional opinion and long-term solution.

I returned home with a pound of fresh wild asparagus, blistered it some in olive oil, laid it gently over sliced cheddar in a warmed spinach tortilla, and drizzled it with my new secret sauce: mayo, Grey Poupon, and balsamic vinegar. Then I piled on some chopped romaine, and some heirloom arugula that’s colonized the flagstone patio, rolled it up, and toasted it.

Despite the wind, I enjoyed lunch on the patio with a new Kindle book, and then played ‘Wren catch’ with the crunchy asparagus and romaine ends. It really was my lucky day. Things didn’t go quite as planned, but under the circumstances they couldn’t have gone better. I’ve felt waves of warm fuzzies wash through me all day, for having good neighbors, good communities, and good conversations. As well as a good dog, and a promising science experiment in the windowsill.

(Click or double click to play video)

Lilac Therapy

May12

There’ve been years when I didn’t spend a moment with the lilac patch; when I was too busy moving too fast from one thing to another to do more than snip a flower cluster to bring inside once or twice during the fleeting bloom season. One year the weather was cold, wet, muddy and the season was so short I missed it completely. What was I thinking? All that time I wasted…

This year, I’ve been grateful to be able to spend hours a day for days in a row doing Lilac Therapy. This is a scientifically proven approach to calming the fuck down. I move the folding chair into whatever patch of shade is available for the time of day, and sit. I read a little, write a little, text someone now and then, do a Wordle… get up now and then and move a sprinkler, refill my water bottle, return to the chair. Mostly, though, I just spend a lot of time breathing. I wish I could smell on the exhale as well as the inhale.

When I hear a big enough buzz I’ll pick up the Husband Camera and capture a few high speed shots. The Holy Grail for the Husband Camera is a hummingbird sipping lilac nectar, but I’m happy for a butterfly, or even a bumblebee. I reflect on my sadness that I’ve seen only one or two honeybees, that there’s a paucity of bumblebees as well, but comfort myself that there are lots of smaller native bees. I try not to be attached to outcome. That’s not the point of Lilac Therapy.

Resting in open awareness of senses is the point. Mindful of breath, scent, sound, colors, textures, shapes, warm sun, cool shade, the caress of the breeze, cool fine powdery clay under my soles, frogs calling down at the pond, jays cawing, finches singing, and swallows silently zipping overhead; clouds streaming, gathering, spreading in bluebird sky and bluebirds dropping to the ground for bugs. Breathing. Aware of thoughts, feelings, sensations arising, flowing, ceasing. Resting.

Wren digs herself a spot in the sunshine and rests there. Then she gets up and digs a little spot in the shade and rests there. Then she moves back to the sun. We are constantly thermoregulating. Sometimes she hears or smells something and leaves the fenced enclosure to chase it down, then returns when she’s ready.

Topaz slips through the spaces between wires, coming and going as the mood moves her, also moving from shade to sun to shade; mostly shade. There’s an occasional frisson when she wants on my lap, but Wren’s envy response is calming after three years so Topaz sneaks in some lap time.

As a culture, we do not value true relaxation. (Not the way cats do.) We value vacations, adventures, competing, fun, collecting experiences of the world, but we don’t really value doing nothing, simply being. The more I sit in the ephemeral scent of these flowers, the deeper the layers of tension slowly melt. I repeatedly give myself permission to stay here.

A clearwing hummingbird moth vies for the blooms with various bees, beeflies, and flies.

Just when I think Okay, I guess I’ll go inside and wash some dishes, another waft of sweet scent washes over me, or a tiger swallowtail flits by so close to landing, that I decide to stay just a little while longer. Surely she will land on her next pass.

An orchard bee buzzes a digger bee. There’s more excitement than one might expect, sitting with lilacs; more attacks, near misses, and midair collisions. Every now and then the Husband Camera catches one.

The tiger swallowtail never lands, but a checkerspot shows up and leads me on a merry pursuit around the patch, wanting to land high in the center where it’s hard to catch her. But we do. Even with the help of Audubon, Kaufman, iNaturalist, and the World Wide Web, I can’t determine whether she is a Variable Checkerspot or Edith’s Checkerspot. It doesn’t matter. Either way it’s a great way to wrap up an exciting, restful day.

Hanging Out with the Lilacs

May8

After a full, good day of work we made time to hang out with the lilacs this evening. All the right conditions have come together this spring to cause lots of blooms at all levels of the shrubs: tall older growth, short slender new shoots, and everything in between.

I set up a folding chair in the southwest corner of the exclosure and simply sat and smelled. There wasn’t much insect action at that hour. The breeze was soft and sweet, and the little mammals each enjoyed the time in their different ways. Wren snoofled and snuffled around, while Topaz sat, stretched, rolled, a little apart in a last patch of sun.

Lilac bloom doesn’t last long: this annual phenomenon embodies the essence of impermanence. I make a point to savor it as much as possible while it’s happening.

Where’s Wren?

Flowering Trees

May7

I’m grateful to see quite a few baby apricots that survived sequential deep freezes in early spring. And grateful to see the first-year cherry sapling buzzing with so many different species of native bees.

I’m grateful to spend time with the lilacs and their bees, and to perfume the house with fresh blossoms clipped daily; and grateful to see the crabapple continue hosting butterflies and bees.

And back to the cherry tree, because I just can’t get enough of it. I’m grateful for the warm sunny days that preceded the past two days of rain and hail: grateful for the moisture, and that the hail was small and brief and probably didn’t do much damage to anything in the garden.