Born Free

Heading home today, my husband and I saw what looked like a classic Land Rover, circa 1965 or so, pulling onto the street in front of us. The sight made me remember how romantic Land Rovers seemed to me when I was a girl (not that I’d ever seen one in 1960’s Fort Myers Beach, Florida): they were part and Parcel of Born Free (okay, who else is old enough to remember the movie or the book?), lighting out for the bush, and rescuing and bonding with wild animals. The possible downside of encouraging wild creatures to trust humans did not occur to my ten-year-old self, only the wondrousness of such an adventure. Wolves (Mara of the Wilderness), lions (Born Free), wild horses (The Island Stallion)—my future no doubt involved work with such creatures, who would pick me out from other humans and bestow the approval not generally available from my elementary-school classmates.


These forty-plus-year-old fantasies had not entered my consciousness in decades, but the sight of a classic behemoth brought into focus the contrast between the life imagined and the life lived, one probably common to most middle-aged people. Whatever my imaginings might have been in those days (and it becomes harder to remember them, or to remember the child I was), they almost certainly did not involve tenure, retirement planning, and a house in a 1950’s suburban development in a small city in the industrial heartland of West Virginia. Surely I was meant for wild adventure, surrounded by animal companions and the occasional human with whom I would engage in intense conversations that involved extensive quotation of poetry, preferably by firelight. That is not the life I have. Or is it?

To be continued...

An unexpected visitor

Today's "wow" moment: just before dusk, there was a white-crowned sparrow on the ground below the feeder containing millet seed. He also helped himself to some chickweed that had gone to seed. The light had faced too much for a picture to work, but the markings on the head were unmistakeable. 

How wonderful to be able to be a stopping point for these little guys as they make their way back to the boreal north.

The back yard we won't have

Old-field succession is attempting to occur in our little patch of suburbia. The two white oaks in the back yard had a definite mast year; we've been crunching acorns underfoot since October, and not even the infamous North Parkersburg Deer Herd was able to eat them all. What this means is that there are now several hundred four-to-six-inch oak seedlings spreading out to catch the sun in every appropriate spot in the back yard, which is MUCH too small to hold several hundred fifty-foot white oak trees. I've also noticed a good selection of wild cherry seedlings, a smattering of dogwoods and sugar maples, and one lonely white pine. Obviously, our yard wants to revert to the Great Eastern Forest of which it was once a part.

While I'm tempted to let nature take its course (hey, watching baby trees grow is more fun and less work than mowing grass), I suspect the neighbors would object.

What April showers hath wrought

• Rapidly-growing turfgrass (and not enough time to mow it)
• The first spring beauties we've ever had (yay)
• Several outcroppings of dog-vomit fungus (yuck)

May Day!

It's been a while, (okay, a long while) since I've been to any sort of wild pagan celebration of the May. At my age, any personal fertility is long gone (and not missed), and I have no desire to cavort around midnight bonfires on hilltops in a celebration of the life force. I also think Robert Herrick's advice to the virgins (to make much of time) is pretty funny; he seems not to have realized that there are plenty of diems left to carpe even for us old folks. But this May is pretty spectacular, so after a long, cold, discontented winter, fertility is worth celebrating.

 Given that I'm a fan of tall grass (and not a fan of mowing any more than absolutely necessary to keep the weed police off my back), our back yard is a favorite place for birds to seek nesting materials. The grackles are particularly funny as they leap up and down with their preferred pieces of whatever before finally deciding to fly off with their choice. With the amount of birdsong I'm hearing and the amount of birdseed going into the feeders, I suspect there is a fair amount of nest-building going on in our trees. The neighbor has already spotted a wren making use of her hanging birdhouse, so we are likely to have lots of activity on our block.

The Oriental poppies are wildly enthusiastic this year. Despite having their original soil  covered up when the regrading was done last June, and despite (or perhaps because of?) the digging done for the foundation repair, they are now officially attempting to take over the entire front planting bed. Their outrageous orange blossoms are visible from the end of the street, and they display their fringed sexual parts in a most flagrant way--no subtlety about them, and they're gorgeous!

And the back yard is turning into a tree nursery. I had always read that any unmown field in these parts would attempt to rejoin the Great Eastern Forest, and I believe it. In the old dog run, in the shade garden where there's not enough grass to mow, in the meadow bed, and in the parts of the yard where mowing has not yet happened, we have quite a tree nursery. Of the species I can identify, we have seedlings of white oak, wild cherry, white pine, ash, sugar maple, sweet gum, crabapple, and LOTS of dogwood. What we'll do with them all, I don't know, but Mother Nature has decided to be profligate with the gift of trees this year.

Despite all the bad news about our planet, there's obviously life in the old girl yet. 

Sun!

Whenever the sun comes out, spring in the Mid-Ohio Valley is so beautiful that the idea of living anyplace else seems ludicrous. The dogwoods are going crazy, the neighbors' azaleas and lilacs have burst into bloom, and outrageously-orange Oriental poppies are trying to take over our front yard. If it weren't for the little matter of tree pollen, I'd probably live outside.

Gifts from the Universe

Today's gifts:

A downy woodpecker at the suet feeder



A house finch on the sunflower feeder



A pair of goldfinches

Spring beauties migrating down the bank from our neighbor's house

A baby dogwood!