Letter From Birdland

NUT BY NUT

2012-02-20T13:05:00.000-08:00

IN BIRDLAND THE LACK OF A REAL WINTER IS BEGINNING TO BE A DISAPPOINTMENT. The warm, clear days are beautiful, sure, but I can't seem to dress for the weather, and I think we only had a fire in the wood stove once. I'm not sure it will be cold enough again to fire it up, and now it seems like a big waste of iron and space. I've been mulling over the difference between “putting things up for winter,” and hoarding. In the fall I collected baskets full of walnuts that fell from the tree in my yard, and bit by bit, have been shelling them. It's a lot of work—husking off the hulls (and dying my fingers a deep brown) and then cracking off the hard wooden shells. The outer husks come in various degrees of freshness, from a bright green (which still dyes my fingers dark) with a sharp, crisp scent—to a damp deep brown smelling of soil and rotting off the inner shell, leaving brown-black, sandy, wet crumbs all over my hands. Sometimes the hulls have dried to a firm, papery texture, and many of these I can slice with my nut-picker and open the halves with my thumbs, but often I have to just put them in the nutcracker, dried husk and all.

It's slow work, but I enjoy it. I generally watch a movie, or, better yet, listen to the radio while I'm picking the nuts—you have to keep a close watch, because even a small shard of shell in a bite of walnut is hard on the teeth. I freeze the nut meats, because they go rancid so quickly. Right now I have a half gallon in a jar in the deep freeze, and a smaller plastic container in the fridge freezer. I'm proud of my work, but over the holidays I got busy with other projects and put the nuts aside for awhile. When I finally returned to them, I brought up a half bushel up from the basement, where I had stored them. These were now dried, grey pods, and I set to work.

Imagine my dismay when the first one, then ten, then all but a few opened to reveal...no nuts. The shells cracked easily, but the meats had dried out to thin mahogany colored bits of paper. The essence of the nut—the oil, the flesh, the flavor—was gone, leaving only a paper cut out to remind us that the nut was there. All my hoarding was wasted.

I'd been using the nutshells to mulch my path up to the front door. Walnut trees give off toxins that kill other plants, and I'm not sure whether the toxins are in the shells and husks. I didn't want to add these to my regular compost for the garden, so I decided to use them where I don't want plants to grow. The walnut gravel makes a nice, brown texture on my path, but you can't walk on it barefoot. Nutshells are sharp! I sadly took my bowl of shells out and spilled them on the path, thinking how the nuts I have in the freezer will have to last me until fall, and, oh, how I love to bake with walnuts.

In the yard I still had a small pile of nuts left over after I had filled my two bushel baskets, but they had been outside all winter, such as the winter was this year. I didn't have much hope, but a few days later went out and collected them. These had mostly lost their hulls, and appeared damp. I thought I'd give it a try, and pulled out my heavy-duty nutcracker. Remember my dismay at the ruined nuts? Reverse it! These were fine. Fresh and plump and aromatic and sweet. I have learned that sharing with the squirrels in my yard is better than hoarding, at least when it comes to walnuts.

Store in Beauty; Share in Peace; Blessed Be.

LIVING FENCE

2012-02-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

The hedge

A NEW SEMESTER BEGINS A NEW PLAN, and an 8 o'clock class means I'm up before the sun. Yesterday on the way to town I turned the corner toward the east and found myself headed full into a rosy glow reflecting off of some dappled clouds. As I approached the hill, the hedge on the edge of the field rose up, creating a stark silhouette tangled in the dawn. The sun was still below the horizon, and I could only drive forward, wishing I had time to stop and stare, or at least take a picture.

I've been thinking a lot about hedgerows lately. We have so few left now, but my grandmother once told me that they used to edge all the fields. This was when farms were diversified and after the harvest, you let your cows and probably pigs out into the field to graze and glean. A few farms nearby still do this, and we drive past cattle, heads lowered to munch in the stubble of the fields, but these fields are fenced with mostly invisible electric wire. Time was, these fields were fenced with hedgerows that were “horse high, bull strong, and hog tight.” I always wondered about that. The remaining hedges around here might define the border of a field, and filter a sunrise in a lovely way, but a hog could certainly mosey right through a hedge row. I'm sure a horse and a bull could too.

I'm up before the sun.

I don't remember when or how I learned that historically, these hedges were trimmed to keep the growth down at the ground level, the rambling, thorny, curving branches tangling into an impenetrable thicket. I've been thinking for awhile about planting a living fence, hoping that “hog tight” might also be “goat tight” for my future goats (Remember Hester Pryne and Dewey Dell? Hester and Dewey are probably not even born yet, but someday I'll bring them home to a nice little goat shed and a pasture fenced in Osage Orange.) The autumn before last I walked out to the back hedge of our field with a basket and brought it back full of hedge apples. Have you seen hedge apples? They are like big, green oranges which may be the root of the name, “Osage Orange.” They have a sharp, fresh scent and a sticky, milky sap that is supposed to repel cockroaches and other bugs, though I haven't had much luck with that. I read that a good way to get the seeds out of the dense fruits for planting is to leave them in a bucket of water over the winter. The freeze-thaw cycle is supposed to turn the whole thing into a mush, and then I'm not sure what you do—plant the mush or pick the seeds out. At any rate, the squirrels in my yard devoured them all, and this fall I never did get out to gather more. I wonder, though, if I were to walk out now, whether I'd find that the squirrels left me a few that I could gather for seeds to plant in the spring.

I found the full text of a historic pamphlet on www.osageorange.com: “Growing Bois d'Arc Fences” by Robert C. McMurtrie. It gave precise directions for everything from collecting seeds and cultivating them, what to do when the shoots come up (he lays them down flat to the ground and weaves them into a fence “as one would osiers in wicker work,”) to pruning and maintaining the living fence. I couldn't find the date on the pamphlet, but found another source, published in 1914, which quoted Mr. McMurtrie's instructions in full. After three years of careful work, McMurtrie tells us, “..there was a good hedge, sufficient to turn ordinary cattle, as it seemed. Certainly in all subsequent years it was impervious to man or beast. And it has a foundation as firm as a fence.”

My life goes in fits and starts.

My life goes in fits and starts. I lay out plans, and squirrels come to chew on them. Tomorrow, the sun will come up a little bit sooner, and I will try to get going a little earlier, to leave time to linger at the hedge, maybe snap a picture or two. In the afternoon, if it's not too cold or wet, I'll take the dog and walk all the way back to the hedgerow, just to see if the squirrels left me anything for my living fence. Either way, it will be a nice walk.

Weave Beauty; Cultivate Peace; Blessed Be

Birdland Writing Retreat Registration

2012-02-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

Birdland Spring Writing Retreat

April 21, 2012

Registration Form

Name ______________________________

Address ____________________________

City, State, Zip ______________________

Phone ______________________________

Email_______________________________

Lunch choice (please mark one)

□ Ham and Cheese

□ Turkey Bacon Wrap

□ Vegetarian Sandwich

Please return registration form

and personal

check payable to Birdland Book Arts

Early Bird price: $45
$55 after March 17th (Postmark date)
to:

Birdland Workshop —Mary Lucille Hays

1185 E 1900 North Road

White Heath, Illinois 61884

Limited scholarships available. Email for details.

(Note: You may also cut and paste this form and send it in an email to letterfrombirdland@gmail.com and use the PayPal donation button for the fee.)

THE NATURAL ORDER

2012-01-24T07:22:00.000-08:00

Gifts from the flock.

IN BIRDLAND, WINTER HAS FINALLY SETTLED IN FOR A VISIT, but it came late and by the time it arrived, the days were already growing longer. Although it is cold, the spring seems almost on the horizon. Look! Here comes Groundhog Day, my favorite holiday: The day we can decide for ourselves whether we will suffer six more weeks of Winter, or celebrate the six weeks of the coming Spring. Or, maybe we can even celebrate the remaining weeks of Winter as we anticipate the Spring.

Leaden clouds march across the sky.

Today the sun shines off and on.

Today the sun shines off and on. Leaden clouds march across the sky, and maybe we will get more snow. The little bit left on the ground is embedded with a thin layer of black topsoil, Illinois' riches, blowing across the Midwest. The goldenrod stalks still stand in the meadow, maybe emitting or reflecting a little bit of warmth? The snow has melted in little circles around each bunch of stalks.

She now understands
the natural order of things.

The chickens were eager to be let out of the coop this morning. The defroster under their water dish had quit in the night, and their water was frozen. They poured out of the door and ran to the little pond, only to find it frozen. I figured out the problem pretty quickly and ran to get them a temporary bowl of steaming water until I could figure out what went wrong on the de-icer. Meanwhile, Ursula kept her distance. We have finally solved the problem of our chicken chasing dog. After some very focused behavior modification, she now understands the natural order of things: that the red rooster is the undisputed king of the yard. She used to think his protective stance was a game, and sadly, she had so little respect, and such quick reflexes, that when he would fly at her in attack mode, she would grab him and run around the yard with him in her mouth. Great fun for somebody! Not so much for the rooster.

Now, however, she keeps her distance from him. This is a very recent development, and last week, when the flock stayed inside for several days, protected from the bitter, frigid wind, I worried that she might forget her place, and indeed, she did. I opened the coop from the top to gather eggs and feed the flock, when the little black and white speckled hen jumped out. Ursula was after her in a flash. I yelled and started to run after them, but then the red rooster emerged and flew to the rescue. As soon as she saw him, Ursula immediately sat down by a tree and nothing could entice her to move, not spilled chicken feed, not the frisbee, not the rest of the hens streaming from the coop to scratch in the yard. The red rooster strutted around her, and she looked demurely at her paws. When he was satisfied that Ursa would do no mischief, he left her and joined the hens. My dog sat quietly until I finished my chicken chores and then followed me back toward the house. I didn't let her in, though. Her new job description includes keeping at bay the hawk who's been picking off my hens, one by one.

You look closer and see it is
standing above a clutch of.
brown, speckled eggs.

Today, a frigid wind blows from the north, carrying crystals of snow. Not enough to stick, but tiny crystals that hit you in the face on their way south as you go down to collect the mail. Inside, a few minutes later, you find comfort in cozy things. You put the kettle on for tea and soak garbanzos for tonight's supper. You put on a pan of eggs to boil for Nanny's Purple Eggs. You sit down with your tea and enjoy the postcard that arrived today from Russia. It has an odd looking bird on it, and you wish you knew what kind, but the name is printed in Russian. The bird has green wings and a majestic crest; a black mask and bill, and orange legs. Its tail is squared off, like a chisel. You look closer and see it is standing above a clutch of brown, speckled eggs. You sip your tea and think about the wide world and all it holds.

Sip in Beauty; Anticipate Peace; Blessed Be.

CIRCLE OF LIFE

2012-01-16T19:13:00.000-08:00

WINTER HAS FINALLY COME TO BIRDLAND, AND FIERCELY IT HAS COME. Only a few days ago I saw a mosquito. I didn't think anything of it, until I realized it was January. Apparently the little bit of flirting we'd done with winter hadn't been enough to interrupt their life cycle this year. They have been going along in the mild, short days, hatching, feeding, laying eggs, avoiding the minor frost. It was a little bit scary to wonder if we were ever going to get a really hard freeze. Yesterday it seemed to come, bringing snow and blowing it around into swirling, driving furies. This morning is pretty monochromatic. The grey sky muffles the snowscape, and I have to squint to see where the sky meets the edge of the field.

The chickens have been confined to the coop and run for two days. Yesterday was too blusterous (Chickens don't like wind, but don't always have the sense to come in out of it until dusk, so we leave them in the coop on windy days.) and today they are drifted in. They are snug and warm, though, and generous with the eggs this cold morning. We gathered four. The wind has sculpted the drifts into sinuous hills, a graphic picture of the shape of the wind.

This sudden winter reminds me that even the cold, sunless, lonely parts of the circle of life are necessary and good. A few weeks ago, while my boys were home for the holidays I was fixing breakfast and happened to look out the kitchen window in time to see a gang of turkey vultures in the distant field. I said aloud, “I wonder if there's a carcass out there.” I couldn't see what was attracting the birds, but it was not just one or two of them. I was occupied with waffle batter, and the boys were enjoying coffee in their jammies, so their father put on his shoes and walked out to the field to see what the commotion was about. Michael returned shortly to tell us it was a young deer. “It's really beautiful,” he said. “After breakfast we should all walk out to see it.”

It lay in the stubble of beans.

We couldn't tell what had killed it, perhaps it was wounded by a hunter or a car? Perhaps illness? It's hard to believe that starvation would take a deer this year, though their numbers are increasing, and after the harvest food would be more scarce. It lay in the stubble of the beans, its head thrown back, its hooves muddied. Dylan knelt and focused his camera. My middle son is an artful photographer. I think the camera helps him focus on ordinary things to find the grace in them. We didn't say too much out there in the field—just stood quietly for a bit, and then walked back to the house. When we reached the driveway I turned back. The vultures had returned to their work.

A few days later, Ursula raised the alarm. My puppy is kind of a chicken, but always lets us know about any disturbance or intruder. I went to the window and saw a big, red tractor in the field. Jim and Sean were out to finish the work of the birds. I was a little sad, but of course they needed to remove the deer before applying fertilizer in the coming weeks. When I looked again a while later, the tractor was gone and so was the carcass. I was glad, again, that we had walked out as a family to honor the cycle of life and death in our clumsy way.

This morning, back in the winter time, I watch from the window as Michael throws the frisbee for Ursula. Her muzzle is sugared with snow crystals and her excitement is palpable. She trots up with the frisbee (which is really the plastic drip tray of a flower pot that she stole) and drops it at Michael's feet. He lets it sail and she carefully watches the trajectory of the flight and bursts into a run like a greyhound from the starting gate. She catches the frisbee in a wild explosion of snow spray, and trots it back to Michael for another round. I watch for a moment more, thinking with wonder of the cycles of life and death, frisbees and snow, and the dance of a little black dog and a big man in a brown parka.

Begin in Beauty; End in Peace; Blessed Be.

WILD WINDS

2012-01-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

The clouds sail like freighters to the East.

IN BIRDLAND A BITTER WIND BLOWS FROM THE WEST, and yet we have picked today to attach the protected chicken yard to the winter coop. It is both very important, and very foolish to do it today. Important, because without shelter from the cold wind, the chickens will surely get frostbitten wattles, combs, and feet, even though I coated them with vaseline a few days ago. Foolish, because, covered in plastic, the chicken run is essentially a giant box kite without the kite string. Michael built the run in the basement and covered it in chicken wire. He asked me to help him carry it to the yard to cover in plastic, and we soon discovered that he forgot to measure the door. He had to partly disassemble it to get it outside. I reminded him of the story of his father building a boat in his basement and discovering that they couldn't get it up the steps without taking out the railing. His mother wouldn't allow it, so he had to cut the boat in half.

The wind makes a sound like a buzz saw.

By the time Michael has put the chicken run back together and covered it in plastic, the big wind threatens to carry us to the next county. It is an enormous wind. Dark clouds of blue grey cover most of the sky, only a little bright turquoise showing through as the cloud sail like freighters to the East. The wind has a sound like a buzz saw and my hair whips around my face as I try to hold onto my end of the structure. Michael has come armed with a staple gun, a drill, and some screws. The plan is for me to hold it still against the wind, while he joins it to the coop proper. The chickens have gathered to watch. It is nearly chicken dark, but they are leery of us, blocking their door. They huddle down near a clump of grass near the peach tree.

The chicken run is essentially
a giant box kite without the string.

We secure the snug yard to the front of the coop. They will need to learn a new door to go in to their dinner and their roost. They are puzzled and circle around the coop, suspiciously looking into the new door, one at a time. We try to herd them in, but they are wary, and every time they get close to the door, they veer away at the last minute. I go in and get a scoop of food, sprinkle it near the door, and then pile the rest right inside. They begin to take the bait. My brown hen even hops in and begins to pick at the pile of pellets, but then startles and hops out again. I suggest that we leave them alone. The sun is going down, and either they will figure out how to go in by themselves, or we can go back in a few minutes and catch them easily in the dark. We warm ourselves in the kitchen with hot tea, and return to find them huddled again in a clump of weeds against the wild wind. We catch them without too much trouble, and pop them in the coop.

They are suspicious of the new door.

Inside we begin to prepare dinner. I am baking the overnight dutch oven sourdough bread that Chad taught me while he was home. My oldest has taken a new interest in cooking and baking, with great success. I loaf the dough and let it rest on the counter while the oven preheats. The groaning of the wind grows louder. We put in a movie and settle with our supper on the couch. The lights flicker, then dim, then go off altogether. The first power outage of the winter, and we are not surprised, but not prepared, either. We sit quietly in the dark for a moment before getting up to fumble with candles, matches, and flashlights. Soon we have a cheerful glow in the quiet room. We start a fire and call the aunts to see how they're doing. Yes, their power is out. No, they don't need anything. I transfer my half-warmed dutch oven to the top of the stove and pop my loaf of dough into it. Ellis pulls out his phone and starts a long-distance chess game with Chad by candlelight. The brothers spent a lot of time playing while Chad was home last week. We sit at the table and Michael suggests reading Cannery Row. The smell of bread begins to fill the room with warmth, and the story curls through our minds. When the lights slam on an hour or so later, we are startled out of our peaceful world, but snuff out the candles one by one to save for next time.

Warm in Beauty; Illuminate Peace; Blessed Be.

THE CUSP OF THE YEAR

2012-01-01T07:21:00.000-08:00

IN BIRDLAND THE CHICKENS ARE GETTING USED TO THEIR WINTER COOP, BUT IT IS WARMISH AND RAINIY. They give us two eggs every day, a large brown one and a smaller white one. They’ll likely double that once we turn on the lights for warmth, but so far, their body heat in a closer space is a fine furnace. Soon enough the longer days will trigger more eggs with or without the lights. The upside on the unseasonably warm weather is that they can still find plenty of greens as they graze the yard in the daytime. I haven’t had to keep them in for the cold at all yet.

It’s hard to count chickens when they’re moving, but I think we have ten left. Yesterday, Michael called me into the kitchen and had me look out the window. High in the maple tree perched a big hawk, stark in the naked branches. The flock had taken shelter under the forsythia bushes below. I hurried outside, but the hawk had flown off. I still ran around the yard, windmilling my arms and shouting for good measure. I hope come spring we have enough hens left to set some eggs and increase the numbers again. The predators never get the roosters. The one time my little rooster got carried off, he came limping back across the back field a few days later, much the worse for wear, but still protective of his hens.

Here, on the cusp of the year, I like to think about new plans and new beginnings. In the Solstice—the longest night of the year—hides the hopeful seed of summer. That’s why it’s my favorite holiday. It’s dark; the days are short; but they can’t get any shorter. The sun will return. Gardening catalogs have been arriving for a while and I pour over them, planning. This year, how about the little cedar boxes that Cody envisioned for me so long ago? Or those tomato trees made of wooden slats—tall pyramids to provide structure for the unruly growth of July and August? Now, at Barb and Dave’s house they double as Christmas decorations, strung with tinsel and tiny lights. Or a salad table, like Susan and Brian have? I look to my friends for inspiration.

The first of January brings thoughts of resolutions, and I have a growing list. My friend, Sue, tells me that in Korea, people add a year to their age on the New Year, no matter what day they were born. She tells me, the kids welcome counting their age on the New Year, but “when we get older, we don’t like it.” She says this with a playful smile and I laugh to think how many many more New Years I have welcomed than she has. Eventually we learn to appreciate that growing number again. I tell her that by her reckoning, I would have had to wait for 11 months to celebrate my last milestone Birthday. Maybe an excuse for another party on January 1^st?

The New Year brings me more organization—for a while, at least. Maybe just thinking about the opportunity to start fresh is therapeutic? All I know is that we have a new pantry shelf to hold 50 lb. bags of flour and rolled oats. I’d been talking with my friend, Sheryl, about our common desire to take more control over our food choices. One idea was to start a buying club, where we make quarterly orders together from a whole foods distributor. The first order came and a new pantry shelf was in order.

This morning I awoke to the smell of fresh crepes, Ellis’ specialty. Apparently he has resolved to “beat Zelda in one day.” This required early rising to greet a morning guest, and fortification in the form of a fancy breakfast topped with blackberry preserves and yogurt. I slept late, but found him and his good friend, Landa, in the kitchen making provisions for their long day of adventures in the Kingdom of Hyrule. I went about my own day, in the Kingdom of Birdland, enjoying the gentle music of the Ocarina drifting through the house.

Greet Beauty: Determine Peace: Blessed Be.

GREET BEAUTY; DETERMINE PEACE; BLESSED BE

CHRISTMAS IN BIRDLAND

2012-01-01T06:58:00.000-08:00

IN BIRDLAND, CHRISTMAS MORNING IS A QUIET AFFAIR

WHEN I SEWED THAT FIRST STOCKING,
I CUT IT SMALL ON PURPOSE.

IN BIRDLAND, CHRISTMAS MORNING IS A QUIET AFFAIR. Gone are the days when small boys would pry us from the bed before daybreak, while we laughingly feigned a surprised sleepiness. Come to think of it, the sleepiness was authentic. This year Chandra is home from the West coast and Dylan has stayed over from town. Having my two oldest sons home for a little while is the best present I could hope for. They'll each sleep for a while longer. Even Ellis seems to have learned that whatever's under the tree will still be there if he sleeps in for a while longer. Following a long Christmas Eve tradition, the big boys helped my youngest write Santa's note (this year full of teenaged wit tinged with some helpful dietary advice) and lay out a platter of cookies and a glass of milk. I went to bed long before the low rumble of conversation and laughter stopped and the lights went out one by one.

SHE NEVER LETS ME LIE IN BED LONG

This morning I lay in bed for a little after waking, long enough that Ursula came in and damply nosed my hand. My dog must hear me stirring, or perhaps listen for a change in my breathing when I waken. She never lets me lie in bed long. She has ideas about frisbees and breakfast, but I have a date with a turkey and a 400 degree oven. I let Ursa out and grab half a cookie from the plate on the buffet. What's left of the cookies is mostly a crumbly mess. Santa has left his own response at the bottom of the boys' note—a bit petulant this year if you ask me (not that I blame him after that crack about his waistline).

HAVING MY SONS HOME IS THE BEST PRESENT I COULD WISH FOR

I see the stockings have been filled. When I sewed that first stocking over 30 years ago, I cut it small on purpose. To my mind, a stocking should hold an apple, an orange, a few nuts and chocolate treats, a toothbrush and dental floss, and maybe a small surprise. Some years I wish I'd cut it a little bigger, but mostly I think it's just right. I glance at the modest pile of presents under the tree. This year was a little lean, and I took the opportunity to go back to basics and be creative. Can there be anything more comforting a soft pack of fresh underwear and socks on Christmas morning? I also wrapped up some Lord of the Rings special edition DVD sets I got used, but like new, at our local computer repair shop. I labeled them “for the geeks in the house” and that could pretty much fit all of them. I thought we could have some family movie nights while my boys are here. I also knit a bunch of long scarves with leftover yarn. I put them in a basket to make a game of letting each one choose their own (an idea I stole from one of my knit and nurture friends). I am still hoping for inspiration to strike about the rules of that game, but I'm sure it will come. I go to the closet and pull out the five pairs of slippers I made as a last minute addition to the gift pile.

The pile under the tree is still modest and I am reminded of a Christmas at my mother's when my older boys were small. We were wrapping presents on Christmas Eve, and my mother was feeling a little down. Like most young grandmothers she wanted to give her grandkids fabulous presents and make “the best Christmas ever” for all of us. Looking at the humble collection of presents we were wrapping she thought she had failed us somehow. My sister came up with an idea to increase the number of presents under the tree to cheer my mother up. It started with the phone book. She wrapped it up in paper and put someone's name on it. When my mother wasn't looking, we would grab random items to wrap: a teapot, the scissors, a coffee mug, towels from the bathroom, a cookbook, my brother's glasses. The pile of presents grew until we ran out of wrapping paper. The counterfeit presents were mixed with the real ones, and the next morning these were first met with puzzled looks, then incredulous laughter. It really was “the best Christmas ever.”

I grind coffeebeans and begin cutting up bread, onions, celery, for stuffing the turkey. The house fills with the warm aroma of coffee and Michael joins me in the quiet morning to help with the turkey and wait for our boys to wake up.

Present Beauty; Receive Peace; Merry Christmas

LITTLE BIRD IN THE BIG CITY

2011-12-16T06:36:00.000-08:00

TONIGHT WHEN I WENT OUT TO SHUT THE CHICKENS IN, DARKNESS ENVELOPED ME. I think the moon is still waning some from full, but the cloud cover snuffed all illumination from the sky. No moon, no stars. I hope you'll pardon the cliché when I tell you I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I tried it: held my hand out in front of my face and after a moment or two I could see a ghostly outline of a hand, pale grey in the inky blackness, but I could have imagined it. It was raining a little, but fairly warm for December, and I worried some about tripping on the way out to close up the coop, but didn't go back for a flashlight. I felt what was left of the soft mulch pile under my feet—not so much a pile anymore, but a cushioned layer at the end of the lane—and hoped I was walking in the direction of the coop. I held my hand out, feeling for chicken wire, and was almost there before I saw the faint outline of the galvanized tin roof and heard the soft chuckle of the flock settling in for the night. I stood for a moment appreciating the velvet dark.

A short walk to many places

, It was our recent trip to the city that made me notice the darkness at home. Chicago doesn't seem to get dark. All night long a muddy glow pushed in through the window. At home, when the moon is full I wake often to find my bedroom full of a silvery light, and sometimes find it hard to get back to sleep. This light was different. The moon's trip across the sky makes the light coming in my room fluid. I can tell how soon morning will come by the angle of the light. When I see the silver disc hanging over the chicken coop, I know daybreak is near. In the city, the light is static. The same angle, the same intensity, every hour of my wakening.

But enough about insomnia! This all sounds like I don't like the city, when, in fact, I had such a good trip that I need to remember what I didn't like. We packed Ursula into her soft crate for the long drive. A few pit stops along the way and we arrived at our Uptown destination. We had come to do some work and enjoy some of the city's offerings. Our home in the city is a short walk to the beach, to the dog park, to a supermarket and to many small owner-operated shops. After a walk with Ursula, we went to an Indian grocery, where we bought a box of some rich and aromatic chai masala. 100 tea bags for the price of two 20 bag boxes at home. Next stop, the grocery where I maintained my country mouse status by being too slow at that newfangled ATM they have up there. While I was taking my time, reading the directions, the machine got impatient, sucked up my card and shredded it. At least they gave me my money first, so we went on to a couple of poetry readings. In a blue room with a swordfish on the wall, one poet read his translations of a few of Petrarch's sonnets, and sang I Fall in Love too Easily. Next a woman, the featured poet, read a prose poem set on a small farm in New Mexico. In the narrative, the speaker couldn't bring herself to kill her turkey, so her friend wrapped the one she killed for herself and put it in the trunk of the speaker's car. Her work was respectful and engaging and fresh. I'm inspired to look up her name so I can read more of her work.

The next evening we went to another reading in an Irish Pub before heading home. There we splurged on a plate of bangers and mash and let the words and songs wash over us. I chickened out about reading my own poem, then chickened back in once the readers began. I read badly, and plumb forgot to tell the funny back story that I planned while I was waiting my turn. We ate and drank and laughed and visited with other writers during the break. I let the poems take me to their worlds and then drop me back down in the pub. They were ephemeral, made of breath. We sat in the warm pub and listened to the rise and fall of the rhythms and rhymes and reasons. I feel inspired to add a new rhythm to my life. To join this gallant community in breathing out inspiration each month.

Travel in Beauty; Recite Peace; Blessed Be.

I let the poetry take me to other worlds....

The poems were ephemeral--made of breath...

FIRST SNOW--FIRST EGGS

2011-12-09T18:19:00.000-08:00

WE GOT OUR FIRST SNOW IN BIRDLAND THIS MORNING, just a gentle sifting that had stopped by the time a blue light crept into my bedroom to tell me I'd better get out of bed. I let Ursa out and she stopped at the front step for a moment to sniff curiously. My dog is no longer a puppy, even though I call her that most of the time. This will be her third winter, so snow is not new to her, though it must be a deeply buried memory.

JUST A GENTLE SIFTING
OF SNOW

CHICKENS THIS WAY -->

My spring chickens, so tiny when they arrived in June, have begun to lay. Usually that happens when we put the lights in the hen house for warmth, but lately it's been warm enough without lights. That will soon change, and we'll find time this weekend to put up plastic and plug in the Christmas lights that do the double duty of warming and decorating the aviary. Most days I find 4 eggs, two white ones and two a deep brown. It's so nice to have my own hens' eggs to eat again. The yolks are so golden, not like the pale yellow yolks from a grocery store egg. I love the flavor, but even more, I love knowing that that flavor comes from the varied diet my chickens have—scratching all day in the yard, eating grass, dandelions, curly dock, Shepard’s purse, thistle, any bugs or grubs they can still find, and even the kitchen scraps I put out for them. Soon the snow will cover this smorgasbord, and the greens will go dormant and brown, but for now the yard is still a fresh green. I love the connection to the land my chickens give me—direct from the yard to my table. The bowl of fresh eggs on my counter reminds me of the Hobbit's riddle: “A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.” My bowl has both brown and white eggs, and I like the combination. The mail-order chicks we shared with Abby and Daniel so long ago were the “Rainbow Layers Mix.” This summer the predators took half of our share, and we have about a dozen left. Only two colors so far, but I hope some of the others will come into lay and give us more variety, especially of browns.

SCRATCHING ALL DAY IN THE YARD

The brown eggs are beautiful, but I know the color of the shell says nothing about the value of the “golden treasure” inside. The nutritional composition of the eggs has everything to do with what the hens ate and nothing to do with the outer covering. Still, the grocery stores demand a higher price for the cartons of brown eggs. You can also pay a premium for “cage free,” “free range,” “natural,” or “organic” eggs or meat. Here, let the buyer beware. You only need to google a string of words, “cage free range egg debate” to see that this discussion is very complex. Factory farms might do the bare minimum to get away with the “cage free” label (sometimes even achieving the rich, yellow color—and perhaps flavor—through the use of feed supplements. It is the carotene that occurs naturally in the grazing diet that gives that color, nutrition and flavor to my chickens' eggs, and you can add that to the feed.). According to the USDA web page, the definition of “Free Range” or “Free Roaming” is this: “Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside.” Note that they don't specify how long. All day? Five minutes? And what does “allowed” mean? That there is a tiny door to a yard that a hen might wander into? Are these assurances enough to warrant the pricier “Free Range” label? The USDA doesn't give a legal definition of “Cage Free” but the technical name for this is “high density confinement.” A google image or video search of this term is interesting, but it might put you off your dinner.

A BOX WITHOUT HINGES, KEY, OR LID,
YET GOLDEN TREASURE INSIDE IS HID.

In Birdland, “free range” means my chickens have the protection of the coop from dusk to dawn (or at least my interpretation of “dawn,” which is admitedly loose). During the day, they wander all over the yard, tails up, beaks to the ground, as they graze nearsightedly for their dinner. The best assurance you can get for good quality, humane poultry production is to buy your eggs and meat from a local farm or CSA that you could go visit if you wanted to see where your dinner comes from. Check www.localharvest.org to find your sources of locally grown food.

GATHER BEAUTY
FUND PEACE
BLESSED BE

O CHRISTMAS TREE

2011-12-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

MY FATHER AND HIS SIBLINGS PLANTED THE CHRISTMAS TREES UP BY THE CORNER CEMETERY UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF THEIR GRANDFATHER, PAYNE HEATH. I imagine Great-Dad giving stiff orders, tossing bundles of bare-root white pine seedlings into 8 piles, kneeling in the soft earth to straighten a crooked tree, bending slightly to pat one of my aunts on the head, stifling arguments amongst the kids with a firm look. I am, of course, idealizing the story, but I can clearly see the patriarch with his grandchildren in the sun on the terraced land. My great granddad was a learned man, and I’m guessing that my father inherited his love of nature and of teaching, from him. I’m sure that tree-planting day included lessons in soil make-up, tree identification, agriculture, and history. In those days, the farm had fences and hedgerows, but they, along with the terraces, were plowed under long before I arrived on the scene. Only the terraces hidden in the piney woods remain.

My dad once told me that selling the Christmas trees was to furnish college tuition for the grandkids, and were to be harvested the year I was born. My dad was the oldest, my youngest uncles not much older than I am. Unfortunately, that was also the year Great-Dad died—he and I shared a mere six months on this planet—and the trees never got harvested. Instead they quietly grew to great heights of 40 to 50 feet.

I remember the first time I saw them as a child. One Christmas my father brought us out to cut our tree. Perhaps they were not as tall then as they are now, maybe only 20 or 30 feet high, but to my eyes they were giants. You cut a tree, and then top it. To me it didn’t matter that the branches were crooked and showed a lot of bare trunk, or that it was not really shaped like a Christmas tree or that the needles were too limp to hold an ornament; going out in the snowy woods to cut a tree was quintessentially romantic. I think we probably did this only once when I was growing up, but when we moved out to the farm we continued the tradition.

The piney woods were an artificial monoculture—by now they have grown into a little more diversity—but I loved them. They have an aura of an enchanted grove. Regular rows of great tree trunks curving along the terraces, dark and cool (even in summer); and dreamy, cushioned by a foot of rusty red needles, scented by sticky pine sap, it’s quiet in there. They grow so close together that the light doesn’t get in. They’re green only at the top and you feel like you’re deep in the interior of the forest. I say we are thinning them since they’re so crowded, but at the rate of one a year, I’m not sure the plot will ever be thinned by our Christmas tree habit. Along the edges the undergrowth blocks access and you have to find the secret entry. You walk back to the edge of the bean field and step carefully over the downed barbed wire, balancing the chain saw that was carefully sharpened for this ritual. Everyone looks up, craning their necks trying to see the shape of the treetop from below. You try to find one with room to fall, but even so, they usually get hung up on another tree halfway down. When that happens you cut the felled trunk again, as high as you can reach. Sometimes you have to cut the trunk three times before the top finally comes crashing down in a splash of needles and cones. Then you top it, hold it up to check the shape (though we rarely reject a tree once we’ve cut it—checking the shape is mostly ceremonial), and drag it back to the car.

Once home we stand it in a tub of water and weight it down with bricks and stones, balancing the trunk carefully. We wrap it in garlands and strings of lights, hanging the strange ornaments we’ve collected over the years. We hang stockings by the wood stove and string up Christmas cards in all the doorways. I’d like to say that this year we had hot mulled cider and cookies, but our decorating was accompanied only by chamber music on the radio and me, reading some of the more interesting letters inscribed in the Christmas cards, explaining to Ellis who sent some of the older ones—friends we may have lost track of before he was born. I smile at the messages, the pictures, and think fondly of these friends, enjoying my annual visit.

COLLECT BEAUTY
PERSIST IN PEACE
BLESSED BE

TRIMMING AND CLIPPING IN BIRDLAND

2011-12-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

MULTI-COLORED FEATHER TIPS, SWIRLING AROUND ME

IN BIRDLAND WE'VE BEEN SPOILED WITH THE MILD WEATHER. Yes, it's damp. Yesterday it rained the whole dang day. We went ahead and turned the furnace on, but it hasn't been cold enough yet, to warrant a fire in the wood stove. If we light a fire when it's above 30 degrees, we roast, and have to open windows to compensate. This is just as well, since we haven't yet replenished the wood pile for the winter. We have dipped a little into the frost zone, a couple of times, and the peonies, tomatoes, and most of the chrysanthemums are now brown and dried, waiting to be trimmed away to make room for next year's growth. The asparagus is a feathery bush of gold, and I need to cut that down too, and burn it, to keep the patch disease free. This year the wild asparagus that came up volunteer in the old pony pasture did much better than the tame asparagus by the grape arbor, so I want to make sure to tend to that patch, especially.

CLOUDS AND JET TRAILS
PAINTED BY THE SUNSET

Earlier sundown means I drive home just before dusk, when the sky is still glowing but the earth is dark. I love the silhouettes of the farm-scape against the still bright sky, clouds and jet trails painted by the sunset. This is also chicken dark, and I have to hurry if I want to coop all the birds. About half the flock meekly follows the old rooster into the coop, clucking and scratching on the way. The others like to perch high in the apple tree, and look down over the aviary. They are getting picked off one by one. A few nights ago we lost another lovely Maran pullet. I counted one fewer in the morning, and found only her wing at the foot of the tree, spread like a beautiful fan with a deep brown pattern, a stump of bloody bone at the base. I used to hose the renegades out of the tree and shoo them into the safety of the coop, but now they perch higher up, out of my range, so yesterday before I let them out in the morning I clipped their wings, and not just figuratively. I grabbed my shears and went into the aviary, grabbing those who usually roost in the trees (mostly the bantams, which are lighter and can fly higher). Of course the old rooster didn't like me bothering his hens one bit, kicking me and stabbing at my legs with his sharp spur. I grabbed him and tossed him outside so I could attend to my chore.

He regained his dignity and began circling the aviary in concern, trying to get back in to rescue his fair ladies, as I grabbed them one at a time, and clipped their wings. You only need to clip the primary feathers on one wing; the resulting imbalance makes them incapable of effective flight (not that a chicken's flight is all that effective in the first place, but some of mine can clearly fly pretty well). They can still use their unbalanced wings to augment a jump of a few feet into the roosting tree in the aviary, but the tip top of the apple tree is now out of their range. A bird's wing is almost all feather. I wasn't worried about cutting flesh, but you do have to take care not to cut too low on the feather itself. First, check the underside of the wing to make sure the quill is white, not dark, almost black. A feather is living tissue and when it's growing, the quill is full of blood. The cutting, itself, is no problem if you can catch a chicken and stabilize the wing. I used my old hair cutting scissors. It was a windy day, and as I clipped a line of feathers from each bird, the wind swirled them around in the coop. It was like being inside a snow globe, multicolored feather tips swirling around me, then getting blown up against the chicken wire. It made a pretty picture against the brown, fall day. I finished my task and then opened the door to release them into the yard. The rooster checked them carefully and I watched them run toward their station under the lilac bush, to begin their job of scratching, picking, grooming, and carefully turning over mulch.

I stood for a few minutes, enjoying the wind and the day and the now calm murmur of contented chickens scratching in the yard. Then I went inside to get ready for work.

Walk in Beauty, Work in Peace, Blessed Be.

A TALE OF TWO WALNUTS

2011-12-05T10:20:00.000-08:00

MANY YEARS AGO, WHEN WE FIRST MOVED TO THE COUNTRY, THE YARD WAS ALMOST TOO MUCH FOR US TO HANDLE. The house, itself, needed a lot of attention, and we agreed that first year, to tend to the house and let the yard work out its own details. We didn't consult with the yard to see which direction it might want to express itself, and we ended up with the jungle themed landscape, a forest of fifteen foot high ragweed, which cast a mysterious green light over the pathways to the house, to the barn. Chandra was five, and one day, helped his papa trim away some of the weeds. Michael was cutting down the tall stalks with pruning shears while my oldest “helped” by going all machete on the surrounding weeds using a stick as his blade. At that time we had no squirrels in the yard. I attributed the deficiency to the skills of the mighty huntress, Isis, but since then I have witnessed plenty of squirrels who manage to survive the dogs, and I realize now that the real cause was the absence of nut trees in the yard. Yet, somehow, a walnut had fallen into the weeds and sprouted. When Michael came upon the nutling, he carefully trimmed around it and carried on. But instead of a future tree, Chandra saw a worthy adversary of his own stature. Whap! Whist! Shoop! And the victor went on in search of new challenges. The little walnut tree lay on the ground, wilting and forlorn. As Micheal tells it, the tree was pretty well decapitated, and he figured it was gone, but somehow it sprouted anew, or maybe the damage was not as great as Michael feared. At any rate, the little tree grew straight and tall until the time when Chandra left for college, it was a real tree, growing above the housetop and helping to shade and cool us in the summer and break the wind in winter.

About five years ago, the little tree produced nuts for the first time—just a handful—but it was enough to bring the squirrels to our yard, and Isis spent the last few years of her life tolerating them, while Ursa chased them madly around. They would frustrate my puppy endlessly by scampering up the trees, leaving her barkety-bark-bark below. Each year brought more nuts and more squirrels. Now the tree is perhaps entering its prime. I have collected bushels and bushels of walnuts from that one young tree. In the evenings I crack them carefully, with my heavy-duty cracker, which I sent for online. I've cracked so many that the bolt holding the spring mechanism split in two, and I had to replace it. A 60 cent bolt to repair a $70 nutcracker—the best money I've ever spent.

I think of Chandra's tree as I pack a box to send him for his birthday. It's hard to figure out what to send him, since he got so big and tall and can buy whatever he wants. Also, he recently told me about his ambition to pare down his the material stuff in his life, so I decided to go back to basics. I remembered what my friend, Emily, said when I gave her a basket of fancy chocolates for her birthday long ago: “I love consumable presents!” I went to the international food store and wandered around with a shopping basket, picking up items that I hoped would delight him: a little pot of lime blossom infused honey, a can of pulpitos (the little octopi we used to eat in Barcelona), a package of bagel-shaped sesame biscuits the size of a half-dollar, and packed in a tight cylinder of cellophane, and some fancy chocolates. At home I added some granola bars I made, plus the recipe, and a bag of walnuts from his tree. I added a note asking him to watch for shells. I try to be careful, but even with care I sometimes find some tiny shards of shell. Walnut is a hardwood; might as well be made of rock.

And now I wait with glee to hear that his box has arrived. It's scheduled for the day before his birthday. I think of him opening these modest little gifts, and contemplate how I want the gifts I give to delight, not burden my loved ones.

Give in Beauty; Share in Peace; Blessed Be.

JUGGLING BALLOONS

2011-12-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

DID YOU EVER TRY TO KEEP A BUNCH OF BALLOONS IN THE AIR? We used to play at birthday parties, a kind of juggling where someone would pull back on the knot of a balloon to launch it. Propelled by its own elasticity and tension, it would rise quickly, maybe to the ceiling, and then slowly descend. The trick was to keep it from sinking all the way to the floor, and whoever was closest would bat it back up. The more the merrier—more people, more balloons, more colors. We would try to keep five, six, seven balloons in the air, a slow motion, rainbow hued juggling game. I think we called it, “don't let it touch the ground,” something creative like that. I can still see the translucent colors, hear the soft, musical plunk of the batting of the balloons. Sometimes we'd see a rhythm, an order—as one balloon rose, others would sink, but size and shape and power of the launch would each affect the speed of various balloons.

I think of those balloons these days when I have so many in the air. A couple of green ones, which are my home and my yard, a sunny yellow one for my friendships, a somber blue one for work (perhaps the most complex one, with smaller, multicolored balls on the inside for the separate rhythms of my working life: reading, writing, teaching, paperwork, meetings—all moving in different patterns and speeds), a red one for my family, an orange one for bills, a white one for exercise and health, a couple of luminous ones for special things like art and spirituality. If I consider just one balloon, the game seems easy. After all, the bills are each only due once a month; I teach one class three days a week, the other two days; I only clean house before major holidays, two—maybe three times a year. On its own, each balloon sinks slowly. But considering them all together, the pace becomes frenzied. Is it any wonder I lose track? I must think I exist in couple of parallel universes. Why else do I (embarrassingly often) find that I've double booked. “Sure, we can all paint the house on Sunday.” “Why yes, I'm free on the 20^th. for dinner at your house. I'll bring dessert.” If I'm lucky, I will notice the double booking before Saturday the 19^th. What's almost worse is when I hit a balloon into the air and simply lose track. Last weekend I got an email from my sweet friend, Joanne. Do I have time for lunch or a coffee visit? “Of course I do!” I typed back from my home computer. “I just need to peek at my conference schedule. I'll let you know when I can meet as soon as I get to the office tomorrow.” I even starred her message so I could find it easily when I opened my email again. I drove to town, doing my best to keep those balloons in the air—planning my week's assignments and my Monday lecture as I walked to campus. I made lists, reviewed concerns, and gathered colors and scents. I passed a small flock of fat, grey and white sparrow-shaped birds. They had collected in a leafless tree growing very close to a brick wall. I tried to take their picture, but they got suspicious when I stopped and fumbled in my bag for my camera, and I found myself focusing on empty branches. Moments later, in the amphitheater next to the retention pond, I saw a hawk tearing apart its prey—pulling pieces with its beak. It too, shunned an audience, and flew with its victim to another flat rock several yards away each time I pulled out my camera. In the end, all the pictures were blurry, and I went on to work. Mondays are always full of activity, and I was tired when I found myself walking back through the park at the end of the day. The hawk had fled.

Thursday I was making yogurt and happened to think fondly of Joanne. “It's a good thing,” I thought “that we're getting together soon.” I poured the heated milk into the yogurt maker. “Wait,” I thought. “I don't think I got back to her about when I had time to visit.” I went to check my email, and found the stars had long since sunk to the bottom of my inbox. I searched, and found her message from (gasp!) nine days ago.

Luckily, my friend has a generous spirit, and charitably overlooked my confusion. We had a lovely potluck lunch in my office. She supplied the PBJ; I brought a pasta salad. She kindly accpeted my apologies and I gratefully accepted her forgiveness.

Juggle beauty; Pass the PBJ; Blessed Be.

A DAY IN BIRDLAND

2011-11-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

IN BIRDLAND THE FIELDS ARE SHORN OF CORN AND BEANS. The air is crisp and chill this morning and the sky is bright blue, and empty, save the puffy white stripes of the ghosts of trips above the prairie, crisscrossing towards Chicago, New York, San Diego, St. Louis, Atlanta, all from parts unknown. Ursula tugs at her leash as we walk toward the aviary to let the chickens loose below, to cluck and strut in the yard for the day. Perhaps a traveler will look down from the window in the sky to see us, tiny bugs crawling along my green patch of lawn. My dog is friendly with the chickens, but a little too rambunctious. Maybe someday they will run together, but not today. Tomorrow it will rain, but we don't realize that yet, and go right ahead and do the laundry and hang it out on the line. Who knows how much longer we can hang it without freezing our fingertips. We hang the first load, and then, what the heck, start a second load too, of towels and bedding. Sometimes we have a little too much confidence in our ability to finish a project.

We hang the first load,
and then--what the heck-- start
a second load, too.

The harvest is in, but Jim and Sean are out in the fields again, the big tractors crawl across the stubble in the distance, pulling tanks of fertilizer. Farmers are always busy, like bees. I hang socks and jeans and dish towels, and they dance in the breeze while the tractors crisscross the fields, and the jet trails dissapate above. The mellow weather and the gentle wind make me feel optimistic, and I go to the basement to pull red tomatoes from the upside-down vines I hung under the stairs last week. They were green when I hung them, but they ripen one by one, so quickly that I have to make sauce every other day to keep up with the basement harvest. I use the lazy, crock pot method—quarter them and puree in a blender with half an onion and a clove of garlic, pour into a crock pot with herbs to slowly cook down to a thick sauce. If I weren't so lazy I would have jars of sauce lining my pantry shelf, but instead I pour it into plastic containers to freeze. Not as picturesque, but easy-peasy. The smell of tomato sauce fills the house and makes me think of pizza, so I start some bread dough, and then the rich, yeasty aroma adds to the party atmosphere. I get lonesome for my sister, so I call her. The next thing I know, I'm walking down the road toward the grass waterway, we chat about our plan to send cookies to the kids next week. Ursula tugs at her leash and I let her lead me, so involved in my plans that I don't notice when we turn into the waterway. Suddenly I see we are in the field, and my dog is rooting up fallen ears of golden corn from the stubble and husks. I pick up a few snaggle-tooth ears, trying to carry them in the crook of my arm as I juggle the dog leash and the phone. I find more—too many to carry back—I'll have to bring a sack next time. I'll toss these ears in the yard as a treat for the chickens, maybe shell some it for winter. It would look nice in a jar.

Chicken Dark

I realize it is chicken-dark—that time of day when the chickens go in, and we turn back toward the house, going right across the field still talking with my sissy. If I hurry I can use the corn to lure the chickens back into the aviary for the night. Just yesterday we lost Michael's favorite chicken. I noticed she was missing and found a pile of light brown feathers under the apple tree where they like to roost. They go after the corn, and I count my feathered friends. I can never remember exactly how many we have, and anyway they're always moving, so I have to count like a chicken: Two roosters: check. Two barred rock, one little silver spangled: check. Only one :( light brown one left: check. Two white leghorns: check. Three French Hens (I don't know what they are, but that's what I call the three sisters): check. Yep. All there. I latch the door and let Ursula off leash. I make a fateful decision that I will regret in the morning, to leave the laundry hanging so Ursa can chase the frisbee in the darkening evening.

Count Beauty; Collect Peace; Blessed Be.

CHICKEN DARK

2011-11-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

CAN ANYTHING BE MORE SATISFYING than getting the last chicken into the coop as the sun is going down? About half of our chickens prefer to roost high in the apple tree, so we have to encourage them in all sorts of ways to come into the safety of the aviary. One big encouragment is, of course, food. I feed them some in the morning, then let them out to scratch in the yard and they snap up all sorts of snacks—bugs; greens of Dandelion, Clover, Queen Anne's Lace; Apples; the meats of Walnuts that have been cracked by squirrels or by being backed over by the car. In fact, the flock spends the bulk of their days quietly grazing, tails up, beaks to the ground, making satisfied clucking sounds. Still, when they see me walking toward the aviary with a big, galvanized metal scoop, they'll come running. And if you haven't seen a chicken run toward you, you should come out at feeding time.

Sammy Runs

“Chicken Dark” is what we call the time of day when the sun is about to set and the chickens head back to their coop while they can still see. Chickens really do go home to roost, but we sometimes have a difference of opinion about where “home” is. In the mornings, after Ursula has had her run, I prop open the aviary door and let the chickens out for the day. For now we can either have free-range chickens or a free-range dog. Maybe someday we'll have both, and one of these days I'll tell you about our journey toward a peaceable kingdom at Birdland. The birds have their day in the yard, while Ursula watches from the window. With careful supervision (preferably by at least two of us) she can play fetch. She is increasing her vocabulary and learning the fine distinctions between “frisbee” and “chicken.” She is also learning impulse control, and we can see it in her eyes when she is about to bolt, and take off to the chicken side of the yard. Most of the time we can redirect her, but occasionally, chaos ensues, and we run for the garden hose as a defense of chicken territory.

The flock spends the bulk of their days quietly grazing, tails up, beaks to the ground,
making satisfied clucking sounds.

In the evenings, if I can get home before chicken dark, I carry another scoop of food, and most of the flock will follow me into the pen. A few stragglers will circle around the aviary, and this is where an extra person can help. One person can hold open the door, while the other herds the flock clockwise around the aviary. With each circle, a few more slip through the door to safety for the night. The old, red rooster gets curious and tries to come out, and that is where a rake is convenient. It's a trick to block his exit while encouraging the stragglers to come in.

If we wait too long, half a dozen of the hens will be perched in the apple tree. A few will hop down when they see me coming with the scoop, but 3 or 4 will hop up a little higher into the tree. In summer, the leaves provide a little shelter from the weather, and hide them from predators. But now the leaves are falling. We have a variety of chickens, and though a sharp-eyed owl would probably see the moonlight glinting off of the beak of one of the brown hens, we have two white ones who like to roost in the tree. Even to my failing, human eyesight they look like bright neon signs that say “Free Lunch” to any nighttime predator. The flock has thinned since they began this habit, so I do my best to discourage it. Sometimes the ruckus below gets them curious enough that they will fly down and get caught up in the frenzy of snack time, but sometimes they pretend not to notice. That's when the garden hose comes in handy.

Roost in Beauty; Shelter Peace; Blessed Be.

RAIDING THE NEIGHBORS' TOMATO PATCH

2011-10-25T20:01:00.000-07:00

Birdland is full of Fall.

BIRDLAND IS DAMP AND CHILLY AND FULL OF FALL. Leaves fall, walnuts fall, rain falls, temperatures fall. Night falls early and the day comes late. Last Monday I lay in bed and convinced myself that it was so dark when my alarm went off that surely it was time to set the clocks back again. It was nearing 7, and the sky was just lightening. But when I got up to check, instead of finding I had another hour to get ready for work, I discovered we still had a few weeks left of daylight savings time, and this morning I had to pay with my hopeful thinking by rushing to get ready for the day.

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but this year I just didn't have it in me to garden. Instead, I've been keeping my eye on the tomatoes at Barb and Dave's house. They have the best tomato patch with assorted varieties. Big, chunky salad tomatoes, summery grape tomatoes, sugary cherry tomatoes. I've invited myself over to help keep them picked, and they are very generous with their bounty. The vines always seem to be full of fruit in all stages of ripeness. We've been keeping an eye on the weather, too, hoping to strip the vines just before the first frost. This afternoon I received a frantic text from Barb, asking me to come by and pick. We're supposed to get our first frost tonight. I had told her about my method of ensuring a winter's crop: just before the frost, cut the vines and hang them upside-down in the basement. The vines die, but the green tomatoes slowly ripen, and we have red tomatoes into January. They tend to get a little wrinkled on the outer skin, but they taste at least as good, or better than, grocery store tomatoes. Barb told me she wasn't going to have time to harvest, so I should go and cut all I want. I picked up Ellis and his friends and drove to Barb and Dave's. Their oldest son was home with a cozy fire, and I popped my head in to tell him I was raiding the garden. “That's what it's there for,” he said. I raided the kitchen, too, for a salad bowl and some plastic bags, and first set about picking the red tomatoes, and there were plenty. I left a big bowl of all varieties on their counter, and we filled several bags to take home. Tomorrow we'll have fresh tomato soup.

The sun was setting and the air was crisp. The fruit was cold, too, and the chill was beginning to seep into our hands. The boys thought we had plenty of tomatoes, but the hard work was ahead of us. Barb and Dave's tomato patch has lovely wooden cages, pointed at the top, like tall pyramids, and painted green. The bushes grow tall into these cages, sometimes two plants together, so that big beefy tomatoes are intertwined with the cherry or grape tomatoes. Pulling out whole plants was impossible, so we began cutting off branches and piling them into the back of my car. The boys were glad when the car was finally full to the top, but the work was still not finished.

At home I drilled hooks under the basement stairs and bundled the branches together with string to hang from the hooks. I used to hang whole plants, roots and all, from ancient nails in the joists. It worked well, but the roots brought in a lot of dust, and the plants were so big that picking the ripe ones was sometimes difficult. I hope that hanging bundles of branches will make picking easier.

Yellow Pear Tomatoes

When I finally finished it was dark, but I still wanted to gather the walnuts I've been stumbling over on the front walk. I did it mostly by feel and gathered about a bushel. I thought about how much I love the Autumn when we can reap what we sowed in the spring. And if we didn't have time to do our spring sowing? Our world is pretty fertile. We need only look around to see what is provided for us by the trees and by the generosity of neighbors.

Collect Beauty; Garner Peace; Blessed Be.

THE HEART IS AT THE CENTER

2011-10-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

Searching for the Center.

IT'S A RAIN-ISH DAY, AND WALKING TO CAMPUS FROM MY CAR IS LIKE WALKING THROUGH A MIST. I have a rain jacket in my bag, but it's not even worth pulling it out. I am enjoying the cool dampness on my face and on my hair. I cross the street and the dark pavement is slick and shiny. Golden and orange leaves are flattened against it like Autumn stickers. I'm on my way to teach, and I should be planning for my classes, but instead I'm thinking about last weekend's retreat at Lake Sara.

Shag-Bark Hickory

I got to sleep in a luxurious room in a lake house called “Sara's Sanctuary.” The next day, a dozen or so women would join me to write, draw, walk around the grounds, eat, and share tales and strategies. They arrived around nine, and I tried my best to introduce them to Birdland through stories and pictures. Since I write these letters regularly, the act of writing has become a practice for me, something that gives my life rhythm and rhyme, and a reason to slow down and take a careful look at what is going on around me. Through this writing practice I have begun to create a quiet center in my life, one that nurtures and sustains me. I tried to share that with them and encourage them to locate their own centers. We did some childhood drawing exercises, and seeing all the different riffs on childish landscapes was fun. One woman grew up in the Pacific Northwest and drew the same snow-capped mountains I used to draw, with letter “m” birds in the distant sky. Prairie girls have a similar picture vocabulary, it seems, but I don't remember drawing saugaro cactuses, as another woman drew. One woman drew a big, smiling sun and edged the page with intricate borders and ribbons of text. Another asked for pink crayon, and drew what looked like a Seusian truffula tree, with pink, windswept foliage. We shared our drawings and talked about the personal connections we each felt with these archetypal worlds.

The surface and the depths.

After a delicious box lunch (mine was a hummus wrap) we split into small groups and went out to walk around in the woods and down to the lake, letting our cameras lead us to colors and textures and shapes: the unruly bark of the shaggy Hickory tree; a tan acorn in its brown cap, nestled in a bed of leaves; blue rippled water with trees, clouds, sky reflected in the depths, leaves sailing on the surface, stones beneath; women on the dock, talking about travel; a Hobbit hole in the base of a tree, the ancient root flowing out in brown ripples, like a river; the three leaflets of poison ivy, turned yellow and more virulent; my retreat journal laid on the dock, manilla colored poplar leaves surrounding it; a martin house on a tall pole, caught in a prism of sunlight.

Martin House

We walked and photographed and talked and then went back inside to write, each finding a private nook to record our reflections and write our own letters. The day was sunny and warm, and we found ourselves in pockets of conversations, spread around the big house, on the porch, in the living room, in the kitchen. I am grateful for the sharing of ideas and artistic communion on such a lovely day, with such a lovely group, in such a lovely space. I taught a few “parlor tricks,” ways to strengthen our writing, easy to do once you know the trick. They taught me that the simple act of gathering together with the intention of creating and sharing can help us carve out a space in our lives to fill from the center. That center can gently spread outward, like ripples on the surface of a pool.

Center in Beauty; Ripple in Peace; Blessed Be.

KNITTING CAMARADERIE

2011-10-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

WHEN YOU MAKE A MISTAKE, DO YOU TINK OR FROG? Late Tuesday afternoons you can find me at my knitting group at the Brown Bag Deli just off the square. I meet with a wonderful group of women to knit and share patterns and yarn and needles, passing jokes and wisdom around the table. Sometimes we put two tables together. We have a lot of Susans.

This week Sheree taught us some new knitting terms she learned. To “tink” is to carefully un-knit, one stitch at a time, keeping the work on your needles as you go. (“Tink” is “knit” spelled backwards.) To “frog” is to pull out whole rows at a time (rip it; rip it).

It's fun to see what everyone is working on each week. Barb seems to create free form patterns, a stuffed giraffe for her grandson, a scarf she somehow knit around the corner, like a log cabin quilt pattern, instead of in straight rows. She's not sure where the pattern will lead her and she asks advice for the next block. Paula and Sheree have been making scarves lately, each with her own complicated style of lacy yarn-over design. Paula gave me her pattern, as well as some yarn she was tired of, and now I'm making one too—a pink wool-acrylic blend, which I think I will give to my niece. The Susans all seem to be making sweaters for babies and young children. I think on of them is making slippers: huge, bulky woolen ones to be felted down to a reasonable size.

I took a little poll, asking what everyone does about mistakes. Susan G. said, “It's scary when you start taking all the stitches off! One time I frogged it, but usually I tink it.”

Susan S. said she usually asks Sheree to fix it, but she also takes it to her husband, “and he will tink, but he can frog too.” Frogging can be scary, but it can also be exuberant. Unraveling several rows is satisfying, the pull lending a textured, almost musical, tension to the yarn, which comes out kinked like an old fashioned telephone cord if it has been locked in the stitches long enough.

Susan H. swears, and then she makes up her mind to embrace her fate. She leaves the mistake right there and calls it wabi-sabi. This reminds me of my pottery teacher. When someone's pot blew up in the kiln and spewed shrapnel into the rest of our pots, he'd say, “Look at these zen marks. Aren't they great?”

We all know what Sheree does. She'll say, “Does this look like a mistake to you?” And we all say no, but she is not convinced and keeps asking. We each reassure her that it looks fine, but the next time we look, she is quietly frogging. When she doesn't know what to do she takes it town and hands it over to Bev, who can fix anything.

Our lovely Paula never makes mistakes. She was making fun of herself when she said this, but we really don't see mistakes in her careful work. She used to be very impulsive. Cuss! Rip! Now she thinks about it, analyzing where she went off track, but she still frogs it out. She and I both tried the same new modification of Granny's dishcloth, and she told me she started over about five times before she produced the lovely, lacy washcloth I saw and tried to emulate.

Me? I usually just keep knitting. My patterns may be irregular, but if the pattern is complex enough, I can pretend it's simply variation on a theme. The only exception is when I make the mistake not out of carelessness or dropped stitches, but because I haven't really learned the pattern. In that case I'll tink until I get back to where I know what I did wrong, and begin again.

Knit in Beauty; Tink in Peace; Blessed Be.

THE AUTUMN PALETTE

2011-10-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Artichoke

Curley Dock

IN BIRDLAND THE DAYS GROW SHORTER. Mornings are chilly and damp, and often shrouded in fog. The grass has greened up after the long summer's drought, and I still haven't pulled out the mower for that last trim. The palette has shifted again, and now the yard is full of shades of yellow, as if gathering the last bit of golden sun to get us through the winter. Jerusalem Artichoke bursts from the old grain wagon west of the house, and spikes of Goldenrod line the lane. It's not all yellow, though. Two different kinds of wild asters are scattered through the yard. One has bunches of tiny white flowers, like stars bursting from within a bush of delicate greenery. The other has broad leaves and a taller stance with pale lavender-blue flowers, a little bigger than the white ones. All of these come up volunteer in the wild, unmown parts of the yard, but we have some tame flowers, too: a dark pink Sedum from Gayle, who is so generous with her plants. These line my path to the barn and will toast to a rosy russet and then to a rich brown as winter comes. On the path is also a Chrysanthemum of deep burgundy. Its spicy smell reminds me of my grandmother's yard, where they always grew in four colors. Nanny never let me leave her house in the Autumn without taking home a big bunch of Chrysanthemums. She would wrap the stems in damp paper towels and aluminum foil to keep them fresh all the way home.

Autumn Field

I walk out for a closer look at the sunny flowers towering over the old grain wagon, and I find a Daddy-Long-Legs nestled (kneeling?) in the center of a Jerusalem Artichoke blossom. He is either drinking the dew or munching on the pollen. But it's not all flowers blooming, either. Some are done with all that. The Hollyhocks that bloomed ever higher up the stalk in bright colors all summer long, are now dried seed cases, like little round cheeses wrapped in brown paper, holding next year's flowers in a package. Black-Eyed-Susans are now only the dark eyes, having shed their bright petals to scatter to the wind. The Curly Dock has put up its spikes of intensely brown seeds, and I cut these to add depth to a bouquet and offset the bright colors of the flowers, or to hang upside-down in the parakeets' cage for a treat.

Black Eyed Susans are all eyes

Gayle's Sedum

The fields are drying, too, and Jim and Sean have cut most of the corn. My walk down the grass waterway is still green, but no longer sheltered with walls of corn on each side. Now, instead I can see clear to the fence-line and beyond. I suppose anyone can see me now, too, walking down the green road with my black dog. I kind of miss my sheltered lane, but it will come and go away again, as do all things in Birdland. The beans are drying to a pale brown, and will soon be dry stubble in the field.

Tonight it's windy, and a sliver of crescent moon hangs over the bean field. It is low and vast against the dark sky, like the silver earring of an immense Goddess. Tonight I feel a little lonely, thinking about the fading summer and the coming winter. The Autumn will wisely lead us to Winter with her gifts of nuts and apples and wood smoke and sweaters and cozy evenings with friends.

Preserve Beauty; Affirm Peace; Blessed Be.

Hollyhocks Gone to Seed

FALL HARVEST

2011-09-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

TWICE THIS WEEK I'VE AWAKENED TO A COMFORTING FOG. The grey blanket muffles the landscape, and we can't see past the clothesline. It feels like the world has disappeared, leaving only domestic concerns. The shroud lends an intimacy to the yard, and tiny droplets of water hang in the air and hit me with their coolness as I walk out to the aviary to carry food to the chickens. I know this fog will burn off in a few hours, but I enjoy how it softens the landscape and brings everything closer, shrinking my world. I feel protected.

The illusion won't last and by the time I drive to town for work the fog has lifted, but caught in the roadside weeds I see thousands of spiderwebs, floating discs hanging from sprays of goldenrod and seed heads of grasses. The spiral patterns are made visible by the dew beading each thread. They sway gently in the wind, and I remind myself to keep my eyes on the road, but I am mesmerized and continue to steal glances at the bejeweled garden as it slides by.

I get to town a little later than usual, and have to drive further from campus to find parking. That's okay. I discover a new route through a neighborhood thick with hostas under the shade of elderly trees. I find a yard that is all garden, bordered by roses with beds of vegetables in the center: tomatoes and chard and cucumber frames and raspberry canes. It has a cheery sign that says: EAT YOUR YARD! I decide that this gardener is my hero. I pass another yard that is really an orchard; pears and apples litter the sidewalk, and I hope the owner won't mind that I picked up two apples, one yellow and one red, for my lunch today. Plenty remain on the trees, and even on the sidewalk. They were both bruised from their fall, but delicious. Tart, and full of sunshine. Maybe one morning I'll knock on the door and ask permission to collect the windfalls for apple butter.

And then I remember that the recent passing of the Equinox means more than sweaters and early sunsets. It begins the fall harvest, and walnuts drop from the trees and roll around in the yards in various stages: some round and bright yellow, like rough tennis balls; some ripening to a deep brown and black, the hulls flaking away; some already peeled down to the wrinkled wood, and suddenly I know what I'll do when I get home. The young walnut in my yard is dropping its own harvest. I'll gather those nuts and sit out at the picnic table peeling the hulls and dying my fingers a deep, oily brown. Last fall I bought a nutcracker sturdy enough for walnuts, and gathering nuts is a satisfying job for a crisp fall day. The strain of the lever; the sharp crack of the nut, like a shot; a dishtowel to catch flying shards; the careful picking of the nutmeats; the growing hoard in a cobalt blue bowl.

The nutcracker looks like a medieval torture device, with a long lever, springs, and gears. The rhythm and squeak of the machine will mingle with the call of birds and frogs, the satisfying murmur of chickens scratching, the rustle of leaves. The shells of walnuts will join the mulch under my picnic table. I think about making pesto and chopping nuts for scones and cookies, maybe enough for a nut pie! I walk a little faster under the Autumn sky.

By afternoon, the fog is just a memory and I have shed my sweater. I open the window in my office to welcome the cool breeze that filters through the hackberry tree outside. I have work to do: papers to grade, classes to teach, students to guide, but my mind wanders to the jars of walnut meats I will put up for my winter baking.

Gather Beauty; Harvest Peace; Blessed Be.

CHICKEN ON THE LOOSE!

2011-09-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

AUTUMN SEEMS TO BE BLOWING THROUGH BIRDLAND, and I haven't quite got the hang of a cool weather closet. I pull out a sweater but find myself at the soccer game wishing I'd chosen a jacket and maybe gloves. It's suddenly damp, too, and the grass is greening up, and growing after its long weeks of stagnancy. I think I'll mow once more if I can remember how, and then put the mower away until Spring.

The chickens have outgrown the aviary, and I need to transfer them to the garden coop before long. The garden coop needs a new door, which I bought several weeks ago, but is still sitting in the basement waiting for a coat of varnish. I also need to build new nesting boxes for the inside of the coop. The idea is to slowly transition them back to a free range lifestyle. I've been letting them out in the late afternoon with Ursula on the leash. She tries to be good, but she is a bird dog at heart. On the leash she seems curious and friendly, but still tries to tangle with the big rooster, who baits her constantly, though more than once she has grabbed him by his hackles and run around the yard with him. I believe she is only playing, but her play is pretty rough. He can still manage to get away from her, but I'd rather she learn that chickens are not toys.

This morning as I was carrying food to the chickens, a little Barred Rock pullet dashed out the door as I stepped inside. Ursula was out, but occupied. I always spill a little food for her midway between the house and the chickens, to distract her from racing around the aviary, upsetting the flock. I scatter the pellets on the path, and she is quite occupied with snuffling up every last one of them, so when I realized catching the chicken would be a two person effort, I shut the door and snuck up on Ursa instead. Luck was on my side and I was able to grab her and walked her into the house before she realized the little chicken was out. “Walking” her into the house is harder than it looks. She wasn't wearing a collar, and she's too big for me to carry, so it was an awkward dance. We made it to the kitchen door, and then I called for reinforcements to retrieve my little stripped chicken.

The trick to catching a chicken is not to panic. Ursula and Ellis can outrun a chicken, but even that takes some doing. I don't stand a chance of winning that footrace. Chasing is no good. It's much better to use psychology: what does a chicken want? The chicken feed I just brought out to the coop. All of her sisters and the two roos are gathered around the feeder, clucking contentedly and greedily pecking. She wants in on the fun, but now the door is shut and she doesn't see how to get back home. If one person holds open the door and discourages the others from escaping, it's an easy matter to walk slowly counter-clockwise around the aviary, herding her toward the open door. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries, but eventually the chicken walks in, the door swings shut, we go back to the kitchen to finish our coffee and start our day. Maybe some long sleeves, a sweater. Do I need a jacket? I look up at the overcast sky. An umbrella, just in case.

Coax Beauty; Pursue Peace: Blessed Be.

TOWARD ETERNITY

2011-09-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

FIFTEEN SPRINGS AGO TWO NEW FAMILY MEMBERS JOINED US IN BIRDLAND. My youngest, Ellis, and a small, golden puppy. Isis, a Shepherd mix, looks more like a collie with some Golden Retriever stirred in, but her mother was a Shepherd. Ellis and Isis grew together, playing and learning. Ellis learned to hear and speak and walk; Isis learned to sit and stay. She never did see the point in playing fetch. (“You want that ball? It's right over there. Don't you see it?”) Ellis developed a sense of humor and Isis perfected her fine motor skills: she could open the kitchen door by jumping up and using both paws to turn the handle. She was also an expert thief. She once pulled a whole pie off the counter where I had left it to cool. She had snapped up a quarter of it before I realized it was gone. Once after a family dinner, I went in to clean up the kitchen and saw that someone had already put the ham away. “How nice,” I thought. Next day I wanted some to make sandwiches, but couldn't seem to find it in the fridge. “Where did you put that ham?” I asked everyone, but got only puzzled looks. Nobody remembered putting it away, and it was not in the fridge. A mystery. A few days later I found what was left of it carefully buried under some hay in the machine shed. She had somehow spirited it away outside without being seen. Later that night she had tummy troubles, and we got confirmation of her guilt. Apparently she ate the string netting that surrounded the ham.

Ellis learned to ride a bike and Isis learned that bikes coming out of the machine shed meant a good, long run. We all learned that we had to trick Isis into coming inside before getting bikes out if we wanted to go far. She loves a good run, but in later years her range grew shorter and shorter. She was getting pretty deaf, too, and slept pretty deeply, so sneaking away for her own good was getting easier and easier.

When we got the chickens, she had to learn not to chase them, and soon became a fearless protector of the birds, doing her part to keep predictors at bay. She has killed many a possum, at times even bringing down large raccoons. We could always count on Isis to keep coyotes and deer out of the yard as long as she could hear them. As she got more and more deaf, we began to find more and more sign of sneaky visitors to our yard. Isis began to get a little grumpy, and when we brought home a small, black puppy, like a little bear cub, Isis did not welcome her. The idea was for Ursula to help with the chicken protecting duties, but it took a while for Isis to warm up to the idea, and Ursula still can't always remember if the chickens are to be protected or chased. Eventually, though, the dogs became fast friends, and Ursula would encourage Isis to awaken from her deep slumber, and go outside to meet the morning. By afternoon Isis would lose some of her stiffness and my favorite time of day was coming home to see two dogs running down the lane to greet me, both tails whirling as they frolicked and cavorted. I could almost believe Isis had found the fountain of youth as she gamboled and frisked to meet my car.

On Wednesday, only one black dog ran to greet me. I worried a little about where Isis had got to. I looked around the yard, checked my aunts' garage—during last week's afternoon thunderstorm she had wandered in there and got locked in—but the garage was empty. At supper-time I called my high-pitched, squeaky yip—the only call she can hear—but she didn't come trotting around the corner for her dinner as I'd hoped. Poor Isie has been failing for a long time, and I knew what I signed up for fifteen years ago. But I thought one morning I'd find her curled on the living room floor in a deeper sleep. It's not like her to wander by herself. I looked for days, but our house is surrounded by acres and acres of corn and beans. On Monday we found her in the grass waterway, farther than she's walked in awhile. We sat in silence considering how she is already returning to the eart. She chose a peaceful place to lie down for her last nap. I'm grateful for all of her years of friendship and faithfulness. Rest well, Sweet Isie.

Ursula still looks for her in the mornings, and doesn't like to be left at home alone. Soon we will have to think about company for her, but not quite yet.

Walk with Beauty; Rest in Peace; Blessed Be.

A CHANGE IN WEATHER

2011-09-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

IN BIRDLAND WE'RE BACK TO DROUGHT CONDITIONS. The grass is crispy and not much is blooming, just the Rose of Sharon and a few lingering islands of Queen Anne’s Lace and Black Eyed Susans. The Jerusalem Artichoke waits in bud, and I think the next rain will encourage it. Then we’ll have a celebration of yellow outside the west window. Sedum has mild, green bunches of blossoms, ready to turn gently pink, then slowly roasting to a rusty red. The last rain topped off my rain barrel, but yesterday I was watering something and got distracted. When I went out later to fill my watering can for the inside plants, I found I’d forgotten to close the spigot and emptied all the precious rainfall into the yard. You don’t miss your water ‘til your rain barrel runs dry.

The heat has affected our schedule, too. Ellis’ school is on early dismissal, and soccer practice has moved to 6 AM. I got a rare chance to be awakened by my youngest, instead of the other way around. We drove to the soccer field and got there before the sun. We glimpsed a part of the morning we rarely see. A neighbor’s machine shed door open wide, light spilling out into the yard—I don’t think he’ll be in the field today, but his work keeps him busy nonetheless. In town a man pulled his garbage can to the curb and hurried back to his house to get on with his morning. A few doors down a woman stood in the yard with her little white dog, waiting patiently as the dog sniffed around and carefully chose the perfect spot.

A little later in the day, walking to Campus is like taking an expedition through a toaster oven. A small breeze blows, but it's a hot one and offers no refreshment. I look down the block for shade, planning my route by the number of trees on a street. Although I have been through this cycle many times, the heat addles my brain. I do know that pendulum will swing, the wheel of the year will turn back, but at the same time I've lost faith and I can't imagine that walking to work will be anything other than pushing through air so heavy and swampy that it feels like a physical barrier. I know that just around the corner is sweater weather, but the only corner I can see is when the sun goes down and gives us just a little respite. The weather forecast offers slivers of hope, possible showers, but always tomorrow or the next day, and these dissipate or pass us over before tomorrow arrives.

At home we open the windows as soon as the evening cools, and slam them shut in the morning as soon as it begins to heat up. We try to lock in coolness, and keep out the humidity, with a little success. I was in the kitchen, cracking ice into a bowl, when I happened to look out the window. The trees were dancing, and I somehow knew the breeze was a cool one. I ran outside, and sure enough, a cool front was blowing through. We scampered around opening windows from the top of the house to the bottom. With our double hung windows, we pull the top sash down and push the bottom one up. This pulls in the cool air, while the warm air escapes at the top. The draft cools off the entire house in no time. With the windows open we could hear the wind, and then, something even better. Thunder! A storm was blowing in. The sky darkened and the rain rolled across the bean field. It poured for about ten minutes, and then, just as quickly as it came, the sky in the west brightened and the storm moved eastward, chased by some fluffy white clouds and a blue sky. It wasn't a lot of rain, but enough to green up the grass a bit, and coax a couple of twinkling little asters into bloom. More will follow in the next few days, especially if we get a little more rain.

Dream in Beauty; Bloom in Peace; Blessed Be.

A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

2011-08-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

BOTH OF MY DOGS LOVE A WALK, but our evening route is too long for Isis, so Ursula and I have to sneak away. In Birdland, our walks down the grass waterway—a wide, green ribbon of short grass curving between the cornfields—give me a chance to see how dramatically the drought has affected the countryside here.

Of course, this time of year the corn is always drying out, green fading to brown, but the ears are usually swollen, showing golden kernels where the husk is pulled back by wind or nibbled on by deer. Now forlorn ears hang from the stalks, showing gap-toothed through the brown paper of their wrappers. Some years are like that, and it makes me think of other agricultural systems, like Community Supported Agriculture, where the risk of a low harvest is shared across the community. The grass is still showing some green but any barren ground has cracks wider than I’ve ever seen them—two and three inches across, and so deep that I think I could drop a penny down and hear it hiss when it hits the earth’s molten core. The rain we got last week would have been enough in normal times, but it didn’t even close up the cracks, just rounded off the edges at the surface. They still run deep into the dark earth.

The wheel of the year has turned again so that we get respite from the heat in the mornings and evenings, but midday is still hot. School has started, and my walking takes a different rhythm, providing food for thought. City walking takes me through a sequence of deliberation that I began many years ago, when I first started parking my car off campus to enjoy easier parking and a brisk walk to my office. My walks take me through various scenes and I’ve witnessed changes in the landscape, some for the better, some for the worse. Some days my route winds through some lovely, curving walkways away from traffic and buffered by natural plantings and waterways. Other days I walk through neighborhoods where more and more I see front lawns dedicated to native plants rather than tightly mowed grass. Once last week I came upon a yard fencing in a flock of Rhode Island Red chickens and Buff Orpington Ducks, right there in town. The poultry was happily grazing, oblivious to the people on the sidewalks. Only a soft, satisfied clucking brought my gaze to their yard. We wouldn’t have seen this ten years ago. All this is a pleasant progression for my decade of walks.

On the other hand, I see more and more litter in the streets of Campus Town. I see more cans for recycling, but move in day brings larger and larger piles of discarded furniture at apartment complexes. One truck-sized dumpster sat next to an empty building overflowing with mattresses, cushion-less sofas, lounge chairs, appliances. Another pile sat next to it, even bigger than the dumpster and I wonder where it all came from and where it will go. We have programs for recycling and re-using and sharing the paraphernalia of our transitory existence—the web community, Freecyle, and the University Y’s Dump and Run program come to mind—and yet we seem to generate more and more rubbish every year. I wonder if the basic problem is a disengagement between what we buy and what happens to it when it is no longer useful to us. When we acquire a new toy, gadget, furnishing, do we pause for a moment to consider the cradle to grave impact our purchase will have? Do we consider the cost of disposal (not just our monetary cost, but the cost to the community of filling the landfill or abandoning things in an empty lot)?

My walks meander through different topics and last night I found myself talking to my sister on the phone. She was on the West Coast, I was walking in the dark toward the grass waterway, looking up at the stars. It was the clearest night I’ve seen in awhile, the waning crescent of the moon nowhere to be seen, the Milky Way splashed across the sky in a broad spattering brushstroke. As we were saying our goodbyes I said, “Wait, I have to tell you about the stars. The Milky Way is just beautiful tonight.” She said, “That’s wild. It’s still daylight here.” We chuckled together about this for a moment, I under my starry, starry night, and my sister watching the golden sun sink into the peaceful ocean. Then Ursula and I headed toward home down the dark waterway.

Walk in Beauty; Wonder in Peace; Blessed Be

REVIVING NAKED LADIES

2011-08-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

TODAY BIRDLAND IS PLEASANTLY OVERCAST. The sun winks through grey cloud cover once in awhile. I stepped out to grab the laundry off the line and saw constellations of dark raindrops in the dust. But when I reached the laundry, it was no more damp than this morning's dew had left it. (Yes, I left it out all night. Again.) We got rain last week, but the parched earth swallowed it up and asks for more. I've always liked this kind of sky once in awhile. It feels a bit like the protective feeling you get walking under an umbrella, or sitting in a tent listening to the gentle rhythm of raindrops. I'm hoping that gentle rhythm will come soon. I rigged up a hopeful mini-rainbarrel—the bucket from an old dehumidifier under the downspout to siphon water through a garden hose into my little pond, which is going dry.

The Ghost Lilies, which have been reticent this summer—only a few blooming in stunted fashion here and there—had a party after last week's rain. They have popped up from all their secret spots, soft pink clusters of trumpets calling the bees with their gentle fragrance. They remind me that it's time to indulge my fascination with them—the ultimate reminder of invisible, subterranean forces that eventually blossom. I hope you are not tired of hearing about Ghost Lilies by now, because I'm not sure I'll ever be through with them.

Do you remember them? They have many names, and I've collected a few new to me in the past couple of years: Magic Lilies, Surprise Lilies, Vacation Lilies, Resurrection Lilies, Naked Ladies. They are like pale pink Amaryllis, emerging in the spring as a nubbin the size of your thumb—a tight bundle of leaves lined up like the pages of a tiny, green book. Then they grow like Jack's beanstalk, inches per hour, until they are a like a giant spray of leaves of grass, up to your knees. Except for their growth rate, they are unremarkable, just naked leaves that bravely collect sunshine for a few weeks, then, as suddenly as they came, they collapse in a yellowed heap and disappear until you see no trace, even of the wilted leaves.

We go about our summer business—weeding the garden, repairing the chicken coop, driving kids to soccer practice and swimming pools, paying bills, working, peeling peaches, trying to keep cool—and forget all about those green leaves. Then one day, when you least expect it, you walk out to the chicken coop with a scoop of food in each hand and there comes the first Ghost Lily of the summer. It wasn't there yesterday, and now it is. No leaves, only a crisp stalk with a tight cluster of elegant, long buds, like fingers. Tomorrow they will be twice as tall, and open into pink bells, long slender stamens topped with anthers full of golden pollen. One long pistil waits for the bee. Tomorrow, more stalks with more buds will follow, but look deep into the blossom. Down in the center of the bell the pink fades to a bright yellow, as if a golden light is shining up the stalk with fiber optics. And who's to say it isn't? Do we know what goes on deep in the earth in that secret bulb below? Something magical and transformative. I once dug a bunch of Ghost Lilies to spread around the yard and was surprised at how deeply I had to dig to find the bulbs. More than a foot. I was surprised at how crisp and bright the bulbs were, all the way through. (I had cut some with my shovel.)

Now play the part of the bee. Put your nose right into the bouquet and breathe in. The flower will give you a gift of fragrance and dust your nose with golden pollen. Let's sing a song of gratitude to the flower, the bee, the darkness and the light. Each part of the cycle is important, especially, perhaps, the quiet, dark, underground part. Gathering thoughts, sunshine, beauty, fragrance, creativity—ready to emerge when you least expect it.

Gather Beauty; Inhale Peace; Blessed Be.

BENEFICIAL INSECTS LIKE NATIVE PLANTS

2011-08-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

IN BIRDLAND, WE HAVE A RESPITE FROM THE HEAT, but not the drought. I'm jealous of the rain that Champaign had the other day, where it “poured.” I can hear my grandmother's voice complaining that “rain on pavement never did anybody any good.” Here we haven't had a drop for weeks and the yard is dusty. The flowers that have it in them to bloom anyway are shy, with spare, small blossoms, their leaves drooping. Ghost Lilies tentatively emerge, half their usual height, the flowers smaller, tighter, only weakly fragrant. Shrubs show signs of stress. But at least it's been cool the past few days, the humidity rising up to the sky to fall as rain far away.

This morning I went down to visit my aunts and they invited me to pick peaches. My little peach trees are all barren this year. We had a cold snap when they bloomed, and I didn't see any bees. My pear tree only has a handful of fruit. I was surprised that my aunts' tree had peaches. Their tree has always offered an abundance of sweet, plump peaches every year, occasionally taking a year off to rest. A spring gale broke off the best half of their tree, and when I went out to survey the damage, I didn't see any peaches set on, but it fooled me. Instead of a wheelbarrow, we used a couple of grocery bags for our harvest, filling each about halfway. My Aunt Kate shook the heck out of the tree, while I tried to pick up the peaches before Ursula got them. They look just like her rubber ball, and she thought she had hit the jackpot.

The sad little harvest, while better than the nothing I thought we would get, reminded about the workshop I went to in Ames, Iowa last week. It was called “Conserving beneficial insects with native plants,” and offered by Iowa State University. The first speaker, Dr. Lisa Schulte, introduced me to a new way of thinking about our place in nature called, “Ecosystem Services.” Scientists have been using this model for awhile, but it was new to me. At first the term put me off. It sounded kind of corporate to me, like an economic term, rather than one describing nature, as if ecosystems were just put here to benefit human society, and isn't that attitude how our ecosystems got to be such a mess in the first place? But as she spoke, and showed her slides, I began to understand that acknowledging the goods and services that seem to come “free” from nature might help us acknowledge that we'd better take care of the sources of these services. For example, the bean fields outside my window are pollinated by wild pollinators. They come, as if by magic, and we harvest the beans without a thought for these seemingly “free” services. However, I know in some places farmers pay beekeepers to park hives in their orchards. Here, at least, is an acknowledgment that pollination services are worth money. What if we had to pay bees, or even hire people to pollinate the beans in our fields? Our wild pollinators do it for the pollen and the nectar, but if we don't protect their habitat, how will we attract them to our fields? Another speaker, Dr. Mary Harris, said, “It's a tough life out there for pollinators.”

What can we do to help reestablish populations of wild pollinators? We can provide diversity of native plants in our gardens, roadsides and yards. Even on our farms, according to Dr. Harris, “diversity of crops themselves can help pollinators." We can think about the needs of the pollinators. What do bees need? They need floral resources for food—pollen and nectar, throughout the season. That's how a diversity of plants can help. They need nesting spaces—undisturbed soil, wood, even hollow stems, like those left over from Day Lilies after they've bloomed, can provide shelter. Really, they just need nature. In my own yard I can encourage wild Asters and Black-Eyed-Susans that come up in my yard, banking some of the ecosystem services (pollination services, yes, but also more selfish ones. I can pick some of those flowers for my table, saving $5-$10 to fill each vase. I get spiritual benefits, too—stopping for a moment to smell, or appreciate the colors in the sun). In our yards and in our farms, even in our roadsides we can consider diversity of plant life, which supports diversity of pollinators. As we viewed slides of diversified farms, I began to imagine our own grass waterway—the lovely, green, well-clipped road through the fields built to preserve the soil—as a prairie waterway, or a bee road, hosting myriad native plants and pollinators. Imagine.

Diversify Beauty; Imagine Peace; Blessed Be.

THE ROAD TO WYOMING

2011-08-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

But I promised you a ride on a horse, didn't I?

OUR CAR CAME BACK TO BIRDLAND A LITTLE THE WORSE FOR WEAR—we found a small ding in the windshield about halfway. I meant to have it fixed in Seattle, but forgot all about it until I was ready for the return trip. Then I saw it had become a full-blown crack. But in one way our car came back a tiny bit better. When I bought it and put on my new license plates, I discovered that one of the screws that holds the front plate was broken. The corroded screw prevented a new screw from attaching. I knew I could get a special tool and dig it out, but had been putting it off. If I tightened the good screw, I could straighten the plate for a while, but after driving through several states, the vibration would set it askew again.

At a rest stop in Montana, I returned to the car to find Ellis talking to a man. My youngest is a little shy, so I was surprised to see him visiting with a fellow traveler. They shook hands as I walked up to the car. “I'll be right back,” said the trucker with a smile. True to his word, he returned with a plastic fastener. He threaded the plastic through the plate, and pulling it tight, he sliced off the end with his pocket knife. “Better than a screw,” he said, proudly, and hopped back into his truck. Once again, I'm awed by how a brush with a stranger can enrich a community—sometimes a rooted neighborhood, sometimes a linear community of travelers. My license plate has been straight all the way home.

But I promised you a ride on a horse, didn't I. Back in Wyoming, after visiting the foals, my friend, Claire offered to introduce Ellis and me to Pockets, a gentle gelding. We are not experienced riders, maybe 5 or 6 trail rides between us, but Claire's calm advice and instruction reassured us. Ellis was first, so I got to sit back and observe. I noticed Claire's respectful manner toward the horse, even down to the vocabulary she used to teach us how to let Pockets know what we wanted him to do. As she spoke, I began to understand that her method of riding and teaching was based on respect, even reverence, for the animal. I noticed how communication between the rider and the horse (rather than a set of assumptions on the rider's part—that if I yank the horse's head this way with the reins, he will go this way; If I kick him harder he will trot.) was paramount, and the key to that communication was careful and respectful observation.

She had us notice Pockets' ears, one cocked back. She said it meant that he was paying attention to Ellis, waiting for cues. This seemed natural, and reminded me of child rearing. By “respect,” I don't mean that she lets the horse do whatever he wants to do. She made it clear what kind of behavior was acceptable, and gently corrected him when he got too pushy. I came away with the idea that the rider needs to be assertive. When the horse lets us know he is waiting for prompts, we have a responsibility to prompt him. I told Claire I wish I lived closer, so I could take lessons from her, and we sat for a moment, wishing.

After the lesson she rustled up Chris, her husband, and he gave us a demonstration of some of his training methods. They give clinics at home and away. After seeing them in action, I'd love to invite them here. We sat in chairs just outside the arena and Chris brought an unbroken horse in, an older mare. He told us that horses are social animals, and communicate with each other through body language. Having someone yank on a halter to tell the horse to go somewhere is kind of a foreign concept, but they're smart animals, so they can learn it. However, it is simpler, and more respectful if we can learn the horse's language.

I'm thinking the road to Wyoming isn't so long after all.

Of course, I'm paraphrasing and adding my own emphasis, also writing a few weeks after the fact, so I may misrepresent some of their ideas. Neither of them said the words, “horse whisperer,” and I forgot to ask them how they feel about that term, and whether they would use it to describe what they do. But I swear, Chris got an untrained horse to walk in a circle with a small, but assertive gesture. He got her to set her feet in a certain way (like they do in a show?) just by looking at her legs. At any rate, they made me want to learn more about horses, and I'm thinking the road to Wyoming isn't so long, after all.

Respect Beauty; Communicate Peace; Blessed Be.

Head East Young Man

2011-08-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

FOR OUR LAST NIGHT IN SEATTLE, CHAD MADE CHANA MASALA FOR US, and naan on the grill. My oldest is an ambitious cook, making the dough from scratch, turning the flatbread on the grill with tongs. The meal was delicious and next morning we packed ourselves back into our little car and headed east to do our drive in reverse. Going out of town on I-5 we had a last look at the city where even a chink in the pavement becomes a garden. One small triangle of soil at the corner where Olive Way goes over the interstate is a wildish patch that looks weedy at first glance, but a closer inspection shows it has some kind of golden Asters in bloom and something with delicate stalks of lavender gray petals. Hollyhocks stretch up to the sky with their tight, green buds that look like tiny Vidalia Sweet Onions. This patch is behind a chain link fence and surrounded by concrete, which juts out over the cars speeding by below. On one of our walks I showed it to Chad and he said that nobody tends it. “Probably it just grew there, or somebody seed bombed it.” I said, “I know. That's the point. Gardens just grow here for no particular reason.” Then I went home and googled “seed bombing.” Turns out it is a form of guerrilla gardening.

Ellis drives across the plains.

On the way home we did the longest leg first, across the state of Washington and the thumb of Idaho, then through the long state of Montana, which is aptly named. We passed the exit for Anaconda, where my grandmother was born. Anaconda is an old mining town, and I could see the smokestack in the hills. I have at home a copper spoon with a picture of that smokestack, proclaiming it the “World's Largest Stack.” I regretted not taking that exit as soon as we passed it. When would I travel this road again?

A few miles later another sign marked the exit for the road to Opportunity and Anaconda. This time I took the opportunity to visit the land of my grandmother's birth. We had to backtrack about seven miles, but it was worth it to see the rows of close set houses and imagine my grandmother walking here as a child one hundred years ago, looking up at the smokestack in the hills. It was worth it to call my mother from the grocery story there, and say, “Guess where I am?”

"The World's Largest Stack"

We decided to sleep a little in Montana, and then continued on to Claire's ranch in Wyoming. On the way to Seattle we stayed with my childhood friend, but did little more than wrinkle up her sheets. This time we arrived in time for lunch and I asked to see the new foals she had been facebooking about. Claire's ranch home is in a natural bowl formed by the rolling hills. A road of red clay leads up to her house. I imagined we'd walk over one of these hills and find a little paddock with the horses. But this is a cattle ranch, and this is Wyoming. If Claire's house were at Birdland, the horses would not be in a pasture in the back 40 where I could see them from the kitchen window; they'd be up at the ball diamond in town, and we'd have to drive there to see them. We got into the truck and drove out through two gates, Claire hopped out to open and then shut each gate, until I suggested that Ellis could do it. My youngest got an introduction to a wire gate, which is not common in the Midwest—simply fence wire stretched between two posts, one of them moveable so you can walk it across the drive and let the truck through. The foals were just 10 days old. One was a little skittish, but the other we could pet a little.

After the visit, Claire offered to call up a horse we could ride, and I thought I was in heaven. But my goodness, look at the time! I've got chores to do, so our riding adventure will have to wait til next time.

Journey in Beauty; Ride in Peace; Blessed Be.

SEATTLE TREASURES--Readers Respond and Request

2011-08-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

Seattle really got people's attention--especially the donuts. I had more email and letters in response to the Seattle columns than any other. Most were interested in places to eat. Here are a few:

Top Pot Donuts We went to the one on 5th street, since we were on our way to the needle, but the web page shows other locations including one on Capitol Hill. They also tell the fun story on the web page of how they got their name. My son says they have "the world's best donuts" but I have only tried the Old Fashioned Maple Iced. It might qualify, but more research is needed. (To help fund this important research, please see the sidebar.) ;)
Phở Cyclo Café I've been there each time I've visited, and always enjoyed my lunch. The first time I had a lettuce wrap, and didn't realize until I was on the way out when I saw someone eating one, that I should have used the lettuce like a tortilla. Oh well, it was still delicious. Murals on all the walls open your view to a street scene, complete with other shops and restaurants, street signs, pedestrians, and cyclists. I'm happy to suspend myself inside the belief that I'm really eating lunch on a sunny day on a Vietnamese street.
B & O Espresso on Capitol Hill--here is where I had my first Seattle Breakfast last year. The pancakes with real maple syrup were just what I needed after my long trip.
And don't forget to check out the Victrola Coffee Roasters (several locations. In some you can see them roasting the beans through a window to the roastery.)

but honestly all my meal memories are running together into one big bite of deliciousness. Here's the thing about eating in Seattle. You'll find lots of international restaurants, and not too many national chains (except, of course, for coffee.) If you want Denny's or Applebee's you have to go to a suburb; we were very happy to stay in the city.

Do you have suggestions for places to visit in Seattle? Good food or quirky artwork? We'd love to hear them. (It's easy to comment here!) Or, if you have specific questions, please enter them too.

Art on the Walls; Art in the Streets

2011-07-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

SEATTLE IS QUITE A BIT COOLER THAN BIRDLAND AND I'M GLAD I packed several sweaters. Ellis has taken to wearing his brother's fedora. My youngest would fit right into the Seattle fashions, especially with guidance from Chad. While my oldest worked, Ellis and I had to find our own amusements. Luckily Chad had provided us with a hand-drawn map. On it a star marked the restaurant that Chad proclaimed “the world's best donuts,” so of course we had to make a detour and see for ourselves. They had pretty good coffee, too, and 40 foot ceilings with simple but elegant maple shelves full of books up to the top. It made me feel smart while I ate my donut—the most delicious old fashioned maple iced donut I've ever eaten. But I don't think anyone reads those books. They were nicely bound, and sharply lined up, but I think they were decoration. They looked like sets of encyclopedias picked up at yard sales. Chad says that they are standard décor for coffee shops.

After the donuts we went to the Seattle Public Library, where people do read the books. Chad put the library on our list because he wanted us to see the unique architecture, and it was a little like walking into an industrial Hogwarts. The fourth floor is all red—the walls, ceilings, floors—and seems to be made of molded fiberglass with smooth, glossy walls and weird hallways. No book shelves on that floor; it is all meeting rooms and we wandered around through curving hallways until we felt like we were stuck in a dream. In one wall was a plexiglass window bolted over a hole that looked like it was smashed in the wall. Inside we could see faces projected onto big egg shaped, so the eggs themselves seemed to be making faces or engaged in silent conversation. On the other side of the wall was an escalator, and we watched people going up and down in pursuit of knowledge. Most floors had tables and tables of computers, and most computers were occupied. We went up to the top and discovered an atrium. People were reading in the sunny room in comfy chairs or at the tables arranged around the central stacks. We discovered there that the floors seemed to spiral down, so you could follow the square down, browsing the stacks along the way, perhaps all the way down to street level. We took the escalator, so we could see the egg heads again from the other side. Yep. They were still talking.

Back on the street we make our way back up to Capitol Hill, but we keep our eyes open because in Seattle artwork is everywhere, from the manhole covers which have whales and fish stamped into them to the yellow bricks laid into the bridge. The bricks are stamped with words of poetry written by local high schoolers and glazed with clay dug from the site of the bridge. In Chad's neighborhood is a colorful mosaic of broken crockery and china plates surrounding a tree between the sidewalk and the street.

Chad calls us from work to ask if we'd like to go to the rock climbing gym, and of course we do. I sit on the padded floor and crochet while I watch my boys ascend the blue wall with the color coded toe holds. Different colors signify the degree of difficulty. Chad's friends are there too, and they all share encouragement and hints for each problem. (A particular path up the wall is called a “problem.”) In Seattle, even the climbing gym has a garden and I wander over to the deck to check out this one—burlap bags filled with dirt hold tomato and basil plants. The sun is beginning to set and the breeze blows lightly over my face, and I watch my boys helping each other solve problems.

Ascend in Beauty; Descend in Peace; Blessed Be.

A COMMUNITY OF GARDENS

2011-07-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

I'M THINKING ABOUT BIRDLAND AND WONDERING about rain and heat and bugs there. Here in Seattle it's sweater weather, at least until afternoon, when I shed my sweater and carry it around until evening, then put it back on. We had one evening of negligible rain, more like walking into the mist next to a waterfall than actual rain. The longer days, rich soil, and damper climate is good to the plants, and we find flowers twice as big as those at home. Daisies as tall as a 7 year old child; generous Roses the size of my grandmother's china tea cup nestled in in its saucer. Our first day, Ellis and I were on our own, as Chad, my oldest was working. We decided to walk down the hill to the Market, and a block from Chad's house we found an organic community garden.

The lot is dedicated to mixed beds of vegetables, herbs, and flowers, with a winding, cobblestone path leading to a small shed and composting bins. Each plot has its own personality, some with naturally shaped raised stone terraces, like small hillsides and cliffs, others with rectangular wooden, waist-high beds of railroad ties. Lilies grew next to Kale and Chard; Raspberry canes arched amongst wrought iron chairs and stone birdbaths. Crisp lettuces waited freshly in rows and Foxgloves stood guard. When I asked Chad about the garden he told me there was a waiting list, and no wonder. I would wait a long time for a chance to garden there. Luckily, it is open to the public for wandering, if not picking. (Signs ask visitors to respect the gardeners' harvest.)

When we'd had our fill of colors and scents we continued on to the waterfront where the market is bustling. We followed the brass hoof prints, but didn't find Rachel the Pig. We found a pig down by the waterfront, sitting on her haunches, smiling, waiting to be admired, but I wasn't sure it was Rachel. In the market I bought the bouquet I'd been thinking about since my visit last year. Sweet Peas, Gerber Daisies, and rusty red Lilies. The bouquets are wrapped in plain, white paper, standing in vases and packed with water in a plastic bag. I carried them plus the sweet yellow cherries I bought all the way back to Capitol Hill, and they didn't wilt at all. You can get bouquets of various sizes: $4 to $10. The four dollar every bit as lovely and crisp as the ten dollar bunch, maybe only a little smaller.

That evening, Chad took us to a pizza restaurant with a wood fired oven. We sat in view of the open oven door, and I could see the flame dancing inside. The oven was a large, tiled hemisphere with an arched opening. I watched them pull our pizza from the oven with a long handled paddle, called a pizza peel.

Next morning, Ellis and I were on our own again, and we took the opportunity to walk down to the Space Needle. The view from the top was nice, but most fascinating to me was the blacktop yard of the nearby music museum. From above we watched a pick up game of basketball, some kids doing tricks on the stairs, jumping over the banister, one even doing a back flip. We kept circling the needle, admiring the view, looking for various landmarks, but I kept returning to that blacktop because painted there was also a labyrinth, the same pattern as the one I visit in Crystal Lake park. At first nobody was using it, then a child ran across, stopped in the center and came back to the start. A couple more kids came, and then a woman with a stroller. She left the stroller on the edge and slowly began walking in. Soon 5 or 6 people were walking the pattern at various speeds. Watching from above is nearly as satisfying as walking the labyrinth yourself. Several walkers makes the experience dynamic. Of course when we descended I told Ellis we had to find the labyrinth. It is painted in electric orange on black, and from up close you can see that the paint is chipped. Walking the pattern on industrial orange paint with Nirvana blasting above from the billboard advertising the music museum is a different experience from walking at home on cobblestones surrounded by a fragrant garden. As I walked, I gathered energy from the music, from the basketball game, from the children still running up and down the spiraling path, from my center. I thought about how I can find a labyrinth here or at home, about how I carry my center with me wherever I go.

Walk in Beauty; Work in Peace; Blessed Be.

FAR FROM HOME

2011-07-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

BIRDLAND IS FAR FROM HERE. 2241.6 miles to be exact. Who would have thought that Ellis and I could get in the car one morning early, and drive drive drive for three days and then a little more, and end up in Seattle? My youngest drove at least half the way, probably more, and I'm sure that when we do the math we will find that he's more than fulfilled his fifty hours of practice driving for his license.

The first leg of our journey was the shortest, and we spent the 4^th of July in Ames, Iowa with Elaine and Matt. It was good to see them and their sweet daughters. We arrived in time for an afternoon swim and fajitas on the deck with their friends, where I got to hold a tiny baby. We drove into the campus to watch fireworks. We were still in the central time zone, but so much further west that the fireworks didn't begin until after 10 when the sun finally set. We parked in a the stadium parking lot and sat in the grass median watching families set off sparklers while we waited for the colors to light up the dark sky. Afterwards we stayed and talked and watched kids race through the grass while waiting for the cars to file out of the parking lot.

I had expected Iowa to look a lot like our corner of Illinois, and it did in parts, but also had rolling hills. We saw more silos and more picturesque barns, and drove past lots of windmills in the fields. We also saw them being trucked in parts—one gigantic blade at a time, like twisted wings of jets laid on the bed of semi trailer trucks.

After taking advantage of Elaine and Matt's kind hospitality, we snuck out in the morning. I was trying not to wake the girls and went out the back door and nosed around their yard until I found a gate in the back fence just under their lush grape arbor that is dripping with green grapes, the vines climbing up their roof. I was glad I found the gate, or else I would have missed their sweet little vegetable bed at the side of the house. We got back in the car and continued driving west. We had a long drive through South Dakota, which had very rolling hills that mess with your sense of distance. The hills are green, but covered with a smattering of sage colored plants, stones, and sometimes cows and sheep. The cows on the far hills are tiny, sometimes the size of a jelly bean. I finally figured out that at home if a cow is more than two miles away, we usually can't see it, since the land is so flat. But in the hill country, we can see much farther, so the cows themselves can appear much smaller. It took me awhile to understand it was cows gathered on the hillside, and not some kind of rabbits or prairie dogs. Along the interstate was plenty to look at and we saw a tiny roadside chapel, and one rest stop was really a museum dedicated to Lewis and Clark's expedition, and Native American culture and tradition. It had an observation deck made of a keel boat, and a teepee and beadwork.

On to Wyoming, where we stayed with my friend, Claire and her husband, Chris. I don't know where I get the gall to email people I haven't seen in so many years and ask if they can put us up. Claire inspires my admiration for living her dream. She has always loved horses, so what does she do? Moves out west to live on a ranch. She makes the most lovely leather work: saddles and chaps. I actually got to see a pile of saddles in her house. We left early the next morning for our last leg, but not before she invited us to stop by on the way back. I was so glad because I hope we'll have time to get a better look at her leather work, and walk out to see the new foals.

The last leg through Montana was the longest, and we'll try to do it in two days on the way home. Driving through the mountains is best and safest when you are not so tired. We couldn't quite make it all the way to Seattle, and pulled off on a rest stop just inside Washington for a nap. When I woke, the sky was just getting light I took some pictures of the windmills surrounding the rest stop, and when I turned to get back into the car I could see Mount Rainier to the west, floating like a ghost above the horizon, pulling me toward Seattle and my firstborn.

Travel in Peace; Move in Beauty; Blessed Be.

REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING

2011-07-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

AT THE MOMENT I'M TAKING A BREAK FROM YARD work to sit in the shade by the aviary, which is still full of chicks. They are adolescent chicks now, at the gangly stage, feathered out and growing, but not fully chicken shaped. They are alleged to be all pullets, but we'll see. I chose this spot, in the shade of the ancient apple tree to sit in the chairs my friend Barb found on the curb one day. We had plans, but our coffee date got sidetracked when she spotted a couple of white wicker rockers. She called me and said, “You like to dumpster dive, right?” and we drove over and somehow stuffed both chairs into the back of her little car.

They are perfect for this spot. I wanted to sit peacefully by the chickens to help acclimate Ursula to them. She tends to get excited and race around the aviary, while the lone rooster baits her. I came armed with dog biscuits and the clicker, and after only a little redirection, she is now quietly sitting at my feet, helping me enjoy the shade and the breeze.

Earlier this week I got a surprise call from another friend, another Barbara, this one in from Upstate New York. Many years ago, she brought me a little yellow puppy, and always asks about Isis. Isis' brother, Jack still lives in New York with Barbara's family. I've heard that dogs have long memories, remembering the scent of a person they haven't seen for years, and I believe this. Isis is near the end of her days. She is deaf and arthritic. She still loves a walk, but even going as far as the cemetery up the hill exhausts her now. If I want to take a long walk with Ursula, we have to sneak away. Isis no longer sheds her winter coat, so that we have to get her a summer cut, but I can see that she still loves Barbara. Isis can be rather standoffish, and generally won't allow a stranger to touch her. But she put her sweet nose right up into Barbara's face, slowly wagging her tail in loving recognition. Barbara's son, Cameron, drove out with her, and Isis remembered him, too. They reminisced about the day Isis was born, April Fool's Day, fifteen years ago. Barbara was glad to see Isis. She said she might not get another chance to visit her, and I know this is probably true.

But Isis is not the only one getting old and decrepit. I offered my friends a drink, and tried to think of some little snack to offer, but they snuck up on me and I wasn't prepared. Suddenly I remembered that the last time I made a pie, I put away in the freezer some little mini lemon treats I made with the leftover crust and lemon curd. These are fun to make, like little jeweled pastries you can pop in your mouth. I told my friends the story of my last pie while I arranged the snacks on a little plate and put them into the microwave to thaw. We caught up a little. I heard about Cameron's job in Chicago. The timer rang. I checked the pastries and they were still a little cold, so I put them in for thirty more seconds. In thirty seconds anything can happen. An egg can begin to hatch. A pie can begin to burn. A friend can tell a story or give a hug or wipe away a tear. An old woman can walk out of the room, forgetting that she put the pastries back into the microwave. Somehow we ended up in the yard again, talking, talking, talking. Suddenly Barbara looked at her watch. They had to get back on the road. A couple of quick photos, hugs and kisses, and they were gone.

Hours later I find the pastries in the microwave and think of my friends driving north, hoping that Isis will hold out for one more visit. Next time I will bake a whole pie.

Visit in Beauty; Recognize Peace; Blessed Be.