Tag Archive | Big Freeze

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.

Boyz Lunch

May1
Roasted leg of lamb with Indian spices

Of the numerous things I’m grateful for today, including wise teachers and more tulips, I’m grateful for Boyz Lunch. I didn’t raise a family or even marry. There was never anyone I always had to cook for. Without cooking for children (the hasty routine breakfasts day after day, the packed lunches, the weeknight dinners week after week after week for years), I never got in the habit of three meals a day. I’ve just recently learned to cook for myself consistently. But I’ve always loved to cook for other people.

Frying cloves, cardamom pods, peppercorns and cinnamon…
… to pour over the yogurt-spice marinated lamb before slow roasting.

For about five years I’ve been cooking lunch for two friends, older gentlemen, or as they would say, geezers. They were meeting at a restaurant once a week; things changed, I started cooking, and enjoying the meal with them. The last time we dined together without masks was March 11 last year, the day before the country shut down. We put it on hold for a few months as things settled out, and in June we resumed lunches at a distance outside. At our first lunch back, our dear friend Michael was supposed to come too, but he’d been by then two days in the hospital; our next lunch we spent processing the news that he’d died that morning.

We met the rest of the summer two or three times a month and into the early fall while we could still eat outside. But then the big freeze came, killing so many fruit trees in the valley (as we learned this spring) and Boyz Lunch ceased for winter. What a difference a year makes: Many of our trees are dead from that fluke October freeze, including my almond tree. Some of our friends are dead. Many of my beloveds are dead. So much has changed, and I think, I hope, in a beneficial way. We need to learn to live more lightly on the planet, and this novel coronavirus woke many people up to that truth.

I tried my hand at Parathas, a layered Indian bread which looked pretty easy, but they delaminated while frying and ended up more like sturdy tortillas than flaky flatbreads. Oh well!
Tender spicy lamb, garlic mashed potatoes, salad with seared asparagus, avocado, and homemade ranch dressing, and sturdy tortilla…
… followed by cardamom cake with whipped cream for dessert, all enjoyed together on the patio in the incomparable fresh air.

We zoomed sometimes through the winter just to stay in touch, and today I am so grateful that we finally got to gather again outside, around the table, without masks, all of us with some supposed level of immunity. Recently our zoom conversations have focused on drought, and we circled back to that again today. Where would we choose to move if we had to leave here because of no water? John said, “I don’t have to think about it because I’ll be dead.” Philip and I concluded there’s really nowhere on earth we’d rather be. Where will the climate refugees go when it starts being the US southwest? They’ll go northwest, or northeast, north for sure where there will still be water. But we’ll stay here because it’s home, and take our chances. Then we started talking about The Water Knife…

I’m grateful we still have water. I’m grateful that we all made it through Covid – thus far. I’m grateful for the conversation, which is always interesting, and reassuring to me in an odd way. I’m grateful for the friendship, support, and help with firewood. And as much as anything about these lunches, I’m grateful for the opportunity to make delicious food and serve it to people I love who thoroughly enjoy it.