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The Right Tool for the Job

Aug19

I’m always grateful for the right tool for the job. This morning seemed perfect to plant some fall seeds: There was rain last night to moisten the soil, and more rain expected over the next few days. We’ve likely got a couple of months or more til the first freeze, and some of the crops I planted can go into early winter under mulch. I got my handy planting ruler and set to work putting in lettuce, mixed greens, cabbage, carrots, and beets. Though I watered them in this morning, I’m grateful for a lovely rain this afternoon because nothing nourishes them better. Once they start to sprout I’ll cover them to keep the grasshoppers from devouring everything. Hope springs eternal. We’ll know more later.

Months go by without a ruler crossing my mind, and today two very different rulers popped out of hiding. Long before my dad was a Colonel, he was an engineer. His sister married an engineer, so my Uncle Charlie who recently passed away was also an engineer. Cousin Melinda was telling me about her father’s slide rule and I said it sounded like my dad’s, which I kept because… well, because I liked it. She sent a picture of her brother holding their dad’s slide rule, so I got the Colonel’s out of its nice leather case to compare them. Just alike! Down to the location and color of the name. We guessed maybe they were both Army issue… or maybe they just all looked like that from the 1940s. Wren thought it looked like another toy for her to add to her collection on the floor.

I have no clue how to use this ‘simple analog computer,’ but it’s a beautiful tool: elegant, smooth, precise, and clearly at one time the right tool for a variety of mathematical calculations. Closer examination of the tool revealed the manufacturer’s name (Keuffel and Esser Co, NY, founded in 1867 by two German immigrants); a serial number I think (660673), and the model number, 4081-3. I’m grateful for Wikipedia where I learned that K&E manufactured slide rules from 1891 – 1975, when pocket calculators rendered them obsolete. I also learned that “The K&E 4081-3 Log-Log Duplex Decitrig was a mainstay for engineering students and practicing engineers in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.” (I’m enjoying exploring the value of Curiosity, #40 on the List.)

And finally, among many other things today, I’m grateful for the first ripe tomatoes from the garden. I sautéed some garden green beans with chopped onion and walnuts, added everything to a pile of torn romaine, and topped it with a yogurt-mayo dressing using Penzeys Creamy Peppercorn base. So simple, so delicious!

First Apricot Harvest

Jul31

Wren surveys the fruits of her labors this evening. She did a great job supervising and letting me know when I dropped one. Haven’t weighed the baskets yet, but I’m grateful for the first apricot harvest today, and plan to make some jam tomorrow.

Here’s the tree after our evening’s picking, by far the largest apricot crop ever on this precious tree. Most are not ripe yet, but the birds are already marauding some. Time to make space in the freezer!

Laugh at Myself

Jul21

I was so grateful this morning to see the first praying mantis this summer, a young European mantis, according to iNaturalist. I accidentally swept it off a pepper plant with the watering wand as I dislodged some grasshoppers. Hope I didn’t interrupt its meal or its hunt, but I’ve no worries for its future as there are a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand hoppers for every mantis.

I’m grateful, with a hearty laugh at myself, that Jimbo the Drag Clown from Canada won RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars Season 8. Her final competitor at the end was one for whom I experience an irrational and totally subjective aversion.

The Earth’s climate is rapidly approaching or has already arrived at Tipping Point; political chicanery and corruption are at an all-time high in this country, and white nationalism is on the rise around the world; everyone suffers from something, and most of us are suffering right now with anything from heatstroke to war to plantar fasciitis. And I’m grateful for a TV show that gives my attention a vacation once a week, an escape into an alternate reality, where I can appreciate human creativity and laugh at myself.

Dinner Out

Jul16

This spicy coconut corn soup is delicious! I’m emptying out my freezer to make room for any garden produce the grasshoppers might leave for me, and had just enough frozen corn to make the recipe. I also had a can of coconut milk in the pantry, and most of the other ingredients. I’m out of fresh garlic but have some Penzey’s garlic granules, ¼ tsp = 1 fresh clove; out of fresh ginger but guessed how much powdered. I’m grateful when I can whip up something simple and delicious on a whim.

Then I took my dinner out to sit on the patio, where I was joined by the old doe. Maybe she’s got twins but I’ve only seen one fawn with her outside the fence. She knows she’s welcome to anything she can reach. I wish the deer ate grasshoppers! I heard a phoebe calling beyond the fence again tonight, have heard them ever since they left, and even seen one flying up to the deck a couple of times. I’m optimistic they’ll nest again. The rufous hummingbirds arrived yesterday, dominating the feeder scene. I’m grateful for dinner out and the delightful company.

Snow Peas

Jul12
I’m grateful for this beautiful creature who graces my life.

And I’m grateful for a bountiful snow pea crop, but I fear it will be short-lived. After just a couple of weeks it seems the plants have stopped blooming so I may have just a few small harvests left.

I’ve been using them in everything from stir-fries to sandwiches. Raw or seared in a pat of butter for just a couple of minutes they add a delicious crunch to a cheese sandwich.

Fledging

Jul10
Find the phoebe! Mama is in the picture, keeping watch over her little ones.

There are several reasons I wish I would go to bed earlier so that I can wake up earlier. This morning added another one to the list: I heard the phoebes after sunrise, but I dallied and didn’t get outside til 7:30. When I looked up at the nest–it was empty! They were all tucked in last night, and this morning, poof! Gone!

This didn’t happen in past years. They spent a couple of days in flight training from the nest, returning to it overnight. They hopped off the ledge onto various perches right around the deck, before staging into the trees just north of the house, and then later into the west woods. But this crew! They ‘flew the coop’ as a friend said, straight out the nest and… as I discovered a few minutes after my disappointment, right into the garden.

After I recovered from the shock of their disappearance, I turned toward the garden gate to go in and water the raised beds, and saw some fluttering… the chicks! I commend the parents. I can think of no better place for them to teach their chicks to fly and hunt. It’s full of grasshoppers, butterflies, and moths. I stepped back and watched for half an hour as the parents chirped, hunted, dropped down to feed babies; and as they flew together singing over the garden and the woods, demonstrating so many essential phoebe skills.

After awhile they had moved farther into the dog pen section of the garden, so I went in with the hose to water the beds. I continued to watch the parents but couldn’t see the chicks in the sagebrush and junipers in this transition zone between garden and wild forest. As I stood sprinkling the onions, I watched mama drop to the ground to hunt something, and she slipped through a gap under a chicken-wire plant cage stored in there: Suddenly she was frantically fluttering trapped inside the cage. I’m so grateful I happened to see it. I dropped the hose and ran to the cage, which has a flap on top that I opened, and she flew out.

Just as I got there she’d been trying to get out through the wire–which would have killed her if she’d gotten stuck. I immediately opened the other four cages. They’ve been sitting in there for more than a month. It had never occurred to me that a creature might get caught in them. You just never know what hazards you create for others!

It was so hot I stayed inside all day, but when I went out again this evening, I listened carefully, and heard the parents calling still from farther out in the woods. I’m so grateful for a successful fledging, and so glad I got to see some of the excitement from afar, and participate in a rescue so they didn’t lose a parent.

Old Storybooks

Jul1
Dorothy comforts Billina as they begin their unexpected journey together. Illustrations by John R. Neill

Yesterday I shared a dream with a friend who was in it, and revealed that the end of it likely came from the key challenge in L. Frank Baum’s storybook Ozma of Oz. She hadn’t realized there were more Oz books (Baum wrote thirteen more after The Wizard; even more were written by several authors after his death) and through the magic of technology she immediately downloaded the audio version of this one. I’m grateful for her enthusiasm to escape into it, which inspired me to pull my copy off the vintage book shelf and also enjoy it for my bedtime story.

Billina the talking hen frightens the Nome King

I got a hundred pages in pretty quickly last night, and then turned out the lights. It was easy enough to finish it in increments today, first with morning coffee as I ran a sprinkler and enjoyed the quiet morning in the yarden, and later in the shade after work. The feel of this old book, with its soft yellowed paper and faded smell, add poignance to my third or fourth reading of it. Originally published in 1907, this may well be a first edition as there’s no subsequent information in the front matter. I’ve had it almost sixty years. Despite some dated references, it feels surprisingly relevant.

I’m grateful to have it, to have been able to pull it off a shelf in my bedroom, where it rests alongside The Wizard of Oz, a complete Dr. Doolittle series, most of the Little Women books, and numerous other old and fragile paper and board storybooks. I keep them out of love and respect, because they are part of who I am, and besides who else would want them? Perhaps they’ll go to the dump when I die, but not until then. In the complicated life of an adult, in these complicated times, I’m newly inspired to turn to these classic storybooks for an occasional quick and happy respite.

Biko approaching some garden greens harvested just for him, after sitting still for a long while enjoying a sprinkler shower.
Study in Gold: Wren in Evening Light
Study in Blue: Wren and Full Moon

Quiet Morning

Jun30

It’s the same view as yesterday evening, only morning, and I’m grateful for a little bit of quiet morning time, with phoebes, coffee, Wren, Topaz, and my journal before starting the workday. Then again, an afternoon break in the shade. Summer vacation isn’t a solid block, like it was as a child, but it’s interspersed throughout slower, easier days.

Quiet Evenings

Jun29
Little Wren patiently watches a wasp she wants to catch.

I’m grateful for quiet evenings in the outdoor living room, as wind settles and air cools, nighthawks cree overhead, and phoebes hunt insects amid abundant flowers.

Mortali-Tea

Jun27

I’m grateful to have hosted today the first live event at my little retreat since 2019. The vision collapsed with the Covid lockdown and beyond, and is testing its wings this summer as it morphs into whatever it will become. Speaking of wings, because there were going to be six extra people here all afternoon, I cordoned off a Phoebe Zone to protect the nestlings but mostly to reassure their spooky mother who flees when anyone other than I walks under the nest. It was effective in reassuring her as she continued to fly in and out even as we filled plates with goodies and glasses with iced beverages from the buffet just beyond the ‘police tape,’ then walked the long way around to the shady seating in the fairy grove.

After making the rounds and sniffing for handouts, Wren settled herself for the duration under Ellie’s chair.

“Touching the truth of our finite lives in community,” was the theme of the three-hour workshop facilitated by Meg O’Shaughnessy, which included sharing thoughts and experiences, some short writing exercises, a few poems, and a provocative card game, as well as The Three Thoughts meditation which I was grateful to lead. The Three Thoughts, which can be a valuable daily practice upon waking, can be distilled into three words: Gratitude, Impermanence, and Meaning.

Some of the questions discussed by the seven women present included among other topics: why we came to this event, aging and diminishment, how we feel about deaths we have attended, how we would least and most prefer to die (while understanding we have very little control in most cases), where we are in end-of-life planning, advance medical directive and DNR, death with dignity, and all our STUFF!

Our last exercise of the afternoon, which we spent braving ninety-degree heat in 20 mph winds, was a game of Go Wish. Meg dealt each of us a hand of five cards, and we chose which we wanted to keep and which didn’t speak to us, and passed those to the person to our right. After several rounds, some snickering and bickering, the passing ended and we each shared one or more of the cards we had kept, sometimes elaborating on why and how these things mattered to us. Above is the hand I ended up choosing to keep: things that I think at this moment would matter at the end of my life.

I’m grateful to have had this time connecting with friends old and new, in this meaningful conversation about the inevitable trajectory of our human lives; indeed of the lives of all beings on this fragile, spinning globe.