Singing a Song of Love

Like a warrior I am fighting to reclaim my time.  The quick sands of volunteerism slurp away at my ankles and I find I must use both hands to find a guiltless hold and step away firmly and walk to the knoll at the crest of the hill.  I live with someone for whom being busy is the same thing as breathing, and thus, I must dance alone some days.  For me watching the morning unfold and pruriently watching the evening undressing for bed is what fills up my breath and banks my fire.

On this early lime-green spring morning after the buckets of rain, I can still hear that male prothonotary calling and calling for his love.  His ardor is a little weaker, but the drive for reproduction is compelling.  He is not shy around us hopping from branch to branch at the edges where the woods meet the yard in his desperation to find that mate.   He even pauses at the top of our broken umbrella, looking for love in all the wrong places.

He is so handsome and has checked out several of the bird houses in between his arias.  He even started to bring mosses to the little woven bird house that hangs beneath my rain monitor on the front porch forcing us to use another door for our access to this house.

I feel like a matchmaker wanting to find him the lady of his dreams, and truly am a failure as I have no power in that venture.  We all want to help when there is that longing for love and companionship in a fellow living being, don't we?

There was a brief carnival-of-color conversation yesterday when an indigo bunting came by to sing and landed not far from the bright yellow prothonotary on the fence line.  They chattered back and forth ever so sharply.  I was holding back my dismay until I saw his brownish/gray mate perching nearby and relieved that he at least is getting some loving this spring.

The dots in the photos above are their wedding confetti thrown from the blossoms of the wild cherry trees.

The bunting navigates from its winter home in Central America by using the stars at night just like a sailor.  Both the prothonotary and indigo bunting are not strangers to the woods in this area, but they are truly novel things to see in my yard.  Is this my reward trying to use natural controls and natural methods in my gardens?

I read that the bunting is not really blue but reflects blue light from microscopic structures in his feathers.  Are not birds miracles and mysteries in so many ways? 

I am hanging on to these next few weeks with tenacity, since all too soon the song birds will have nested, raised their young, and moved into the far woods for their quieter summer lives and will be much harder to find and watch.

No, and Yes!!

I am taking a 'spring break' this morning for one hour to post this post.  Then I am off again for the last push of the season on duties before summer arrives this week like that sweaty eager boy from basketball practice and I wonder regretfully why I let another spring get away from me.

I miss most being able to take time to breathe and smell and smile.  Those of you who have slow days with time to let thoughts tumble like die until they rest and you rest, I am envious.  My days such as these are just around the corner...just out of sight...just must learn to say "No."

Below are three of my columbine volunteers.  It seems the columbine have volunteered everywhere this year, including in beds where I do not remember planting them.  I think I was told they cross pollinate before they revert to type, but that does not seem to be happening with any truth in my yard this year, as I have a large variety.  I must have purchased a bag of crazy seeds years ago!

 
They just glow in the late afternoon sun.

Taking Time to Breathe

Rushing here and there, loading and unloading automobiles, keeping eyes to the grindstone. Then yesterday hubby sticks his head in the kitchen as I put away food and mentions we have a prothonotary in the woods on the side of the yard.  To the average person, this does not sound like much news.  To the average bird watcher, it is perhaps, at most, an interesting comment.   To Tabor, this is really exciting, and a perfect excuse to push the pause button in my crazy life these days. 

I saw my first prothonotary in 2009 and watched it as I ate lunch in a canoe that rested at the side of a river. It is a big deal to see the first of a species that others have know about and have seen forever. I am always a little behind the times and last to the banquet served up by Mother Nature.  If you go to the link above you will see that my photos were very small that I posted, belying my excitement at that time.

Throwing milk into the fridge, I grabbed my camera, hubby grabbed the binoculars and we began a bird-watching feast.  These birds nest along rivers in the holes of trees and I have never seen them in my yard...EVER!  (Yes, photos are noisy, grainy and not up to National Geographic standards...but I was soooo thrilled to see him!)

If it was not for his loud and piercing song of love, we would not have been able to zone in on him in the lime green jungle of spring.

He hopped from tree to tree in search of his mate.

Tra 

"Hey, Babe, where are you?"

"Tra, la, la, la la!!

Pausing on occasion to groom his lovely yellow-peach chest so that if she stopped by he would be looking HOT!

Pausing every once in a while to give me the eye as I snapped my camera.

Flying the eve of my house and facing the river giving it all he had.

Finally a bit exhausted and pensive as he rested on the stem of my clematis lost in thought about where to fly next.  Still looking HOT!

Virginal Blushing

Spring is always a virginal transition. She comes in delicate, blushing, eager but ambivalent, all at the same time. We try to rush her and prepare our space so that she can feel more than welcome before we jump for joy and clap loudly in her face.  But then we are embarrassed by our boorish behavior as her father, the rain, thunders and flashes his sword, and blows hot and cold, reminding us of her tender beauty and her magical ability to change the season and her delicate ephemeral presence.  He angrily reminds us to treat her with the majesty she deserves.

Above are the shy and delicate blooms poking out everywhere of that redbud tree that several years ago volunteered to grow right next to the compost pile and now stands above my head.

Fruit trees wearing their lovely jewelry that only lasts long enough for pollinators to get their first meals of the season and then shed each petal like confetti at the end of the party.

 

And medicinal plants such as lung-wort (Pulmonaria) bring forth their tiny bluebells and pinkbells and ring them out in celebration under the shade of the dogwood tree.

And not to be forgotten in her soft mauve cape, the lenten rose bows low to the Princess of Spring and welcomes her with the dignity she deserves.

(Sun is breaking out today after three days of rain, thunder, one tornado threat and 7 inches of rain...May first has some promise after all.)

A Gift or Two

Some have challenges this month that need some peace of mind and this is what I hope to give to you.

Reflected Light

Photography is many times about the light.  If you are lucky enough to live on or near water, or a river or a lake or the ocean, you can see that light being reflected back against the leaves at sunrise or sunset when you are gearing up for a new day or winding down at the end of another rich day can be magic.  One may not notice this beautiful reflection unless you take the time to stop and push that pause button.  

Robert Brady, who writes from a hillside in Japan, and whose recent post titled "Where the Light Plays" wrote about how the flooding of the rice paddies holds up a mirror to the sun-filled sky and the star-filled sky.  This post reinforces my joy of this bounced lighting.  (You can click on the link above and find that post if you wish.) 

A few nights ago as a storm was moving in across the water, and as the sun was setting, I looked up from preparing dinner, and as I so often do, gasped!  I turned off the burners, grabbed my camera and darted in bare feet across the painful gravel to attempt to memorialize what I saw with my naked eyes in digital form.

Below is spring in reflected light and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Ships in the Night

Some bloggers live within a few hours drive of me in another state.  I have actually driven by the hometown of one several times and never seemed to be able to detour and stop in for a visit!  I know I would find her at a scrabble table in the local hangout or dancing in the local pub.

Anyway, last summer I was hiking and photographing exactly where she and her husband had been this recent month and for some reason that struck a chord with me.  There is not a great deal of coincidence to this, but it does seem as if we are ships that pass in the night on this planet and except for blogging we would never know.

Below photos, sharing for her interest mostly, but hoping my other readers enjoy this place.  Peaks of Otter - the mountain in the distance.  As you can see, it was late summer.

This is one of the bridges leading to a walk around the lake.

Above is my grandson leading to the hike up to the PEAKS!  It was no small walk for this old lady and many moments for heart attacks with little ones.

And here is my family up above looking back at the lodge where we had eaten lunch!  Does this look familiar, Colleen?

Update!  This mountain climb was begun with a bus ride up to near the top and the last part of the climb, no small effort, was what we actually did!!

Life Goes On

No, my family name is not Hood.

I was walking out to the bluebird house to drop some dried meal worms on their doorstep as a house warming gift.  While they are not crazy about dried meal worms at this time of year, they will eat a few.  They had nested here last year and except for one crazy event with a black rat snake that we had to haul away, they were able to bring up two new bluebirds.  I had not seen them going in and out, but I did see some grasses sticking out of the side of the door and since we had carefully cleaned all the nesting boxes, I was sure they had returned.  (Then again, bluebirds are notoriously ingenious and this could just be a fake nest.  They have managed to chase off the chickadees from building in other nearby houses!)

When I turned back I saw out of the corner of my eye a fairly large shadow of a bumblebee, but it made no sound.  Wow, I thought, he was really moving, faster than any I had seen this spring!  I turned and tried to catch him with my eye again and then this is what I saw below.  I took several shots, but Mr. Speedfast below was hard to catch in the colder morning air.  This is the FIRST of the season.  I am thinking about putting up another feeder nearby.

This month I also find my self almost daily tripping over this little fellow when I venture out either to the front yard or the back yard.  He has a varied range.

If you look closely you will see that something is wrong.  I am thinking it is my neighbors cat that has removed the tail feathers.  That is why I am almost tripping over the little guy.  He really has no "rudder" to fly.  I have read that these MAY grow back so I am placing little seed dishes here and there and a water dish for him.

Above he is hanging out with the female bluebird.  Glad they get along and she is not prejudice against the handicapped.

Above is what my white throats look like when they have a tail.  I am hoping he makes it, but if not, as with humanoids, life goes on in my woods.

Whiplash

Recovering from Mother Nature's surprising twists and turns, which happen most springs, and which I faithfully seem to forget is such a challenge.  Out goes the five foot potted Kaffir lime to adjust to sun and wind whipping breezes.  Out goes the other citrus, the Calamondin lime.   It is smaller and has been fighting a pest invasion for a year.  I was hoping the cooler nights would assist, but I had to bring it back in before I could spray it with an oil along with its big brother as a wind chilling frost was due to arrive.  I forgot the little and rather old geranium, but it survived the brief frost on the deck.  In spite of watching the weather I was still surprised to see a tiny layer of slushy white stuff on the deck the next morning.

I am not the only disgruntled one, though.  The cardinal flew to the bird bath and then back up to the deck table giving me the stink eye through the patio door.  I looked and saw the dish had been frozen over.  As if to emphasize he flew down to its edge and pecked at the hard shiny surface several times and then glared at me. I had taken in the water heater, of course.

That was two days ago.  Now when I see the sun and green grass I hop outside only to be reminded that it is still hanging at the 50 degree mark on the warmest of afternoons.  Back inside I go to get a scarf and sweater.

March may come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, but April is a schizophrenic diva with her own personal voodoo doll and an endless supply of pins. 

Bloody Tuesday

As my luck would have it, I got cloud cover in my part of the world during the lunar eclipse and resulting blood moon this past evening.  We really need the soaking rains that the cloud cover promises, and I am still waiting for that event as I write this.  But with the wonder of technology I was able to watch the eclipse live via computer and a link to the Canary Islands' observatory.  If one got tired of the British commentary in the background (which actually I did not) then one could turn off the sound and just observe the slow transformation of this heavenly body.

"The English proper name for Earth's natural satellite is "the Moon". The noun moon derives from moone (around 1380), which developed from mone (1135), which derives from Old English mōna (dating from before 725), which, like all Germanic language cognates, ultimately stems from Proto-Germanic *mǣnōn." according to Wiki.
 
"Mona" has danced with us in her separate orbit that began with a giant impact on earth...before you and I were born.  Even though my show was via a computer screen, her dance of the red veils was most romantic and exciting.  Eclipses always show the roundness of the gal which tends to get lost when we observe her flat and luminescent glow on most nights.

We become so small when we get to observe this vast universe in its magic moments such as these.  We have to look up from our telephones, TV screens, and Google glasses to see the world as it has been long before we began to change its patterns.  (And I do get the irony of that statement.)  And, of course, the moon has observed us all in our tiny dances and efforts and remains passive and beautiful in spite of our conceited attempt at moving mountains.

Grab Bags

Last winter just before our first super cold weather I found a grab bag of daffodil bulbs at the local hardware store.  They looked so neglected and sad, but they were cheap and even though I dreaded the thought of planting in the already cold and rainy weather, I knew that I would be rewarded in the spring for the effort.  My daffy bed is sparse, but hopefully in years to come they will grow into bunches and eventually drifts. Grab bags of bulbs can be such surprises.  And my late bloomers I planted two years ago are still in bud in another bed waiting to surprise me.   ( I just realized while editing these photos that I have my reading glasses on...so no wonder some of the photos are a little blurry!  Oh well, too lazy to go back and find the originals.) 

Mellow Yellow

The sun is shining today.  It is shiny and yellow and golden and lemon and all of those warm sunny colors.  The morning is cool but warming into that zeal of an afternoon perfect for gardeners.  I am in a glowing mood and decided to share some yellowness (blurry and sharp) with you.

This goldfinch in the process of changing his grayish feathers to that sexy gold.

Male Pine Warbler at the suet.

This photo was actually taken in Florida a few months ago, but I had to show him off.

Go ahead and sing it out Mr. Yellow Rump!