Wrens

When I bought my first house, my mother gave me a birdhouse. It's a tiny little white wooden house hanging in my Rose of Sharon which was, at the time, the closest thing I had to a tree.

It has hung there for three summers. Generally, I find myself too busy to stop and admire whether or not the birds have decided to nest in it. In fact, it is so close to my neighbor's fence that my neighbor is generally more 'in the know' about what is residing in the little white house than I am.

Over the past two years we've acquired two cats as well. A larger male tabby named Lex and a small black and white female we named Harlequin. They generally do not get along well, preferring to reside on different floors of the house when they can, so one can imagine my surprise when I spotted both of them sitting in the windowsill which overlooks the patio and the Rose of Sharon.


I decided to venture out to the patio and watch for a little, much to a little wren's chagrin. It took me awhile before I could visually locate the chatter, but I soon realized it was either the male or female wren in the Rose of Sharon complaining about my proximity to the little white birdhouse. I had a seat so as to appear less threatening.

For thirty minutes I watched as male and female wren took turns coming to the house and feeding the babies. In the quiet of the afternoon I could hear the children raising their little voices, enthralled at hearing a parent near the house. It reminded me of walking into the classroom at the end of the school year when spirits are high and the students are all excited for the last days.

I haven't seen the little wren-lings yet. I just know they're there. I'm hoping if I'm diligent, I'll get the chance to see them when they first come out of the little wren house into the light of day.

Barefooting

I hate shoes. My grandmother tels me it is a genetic predisposition - the loathing of shoes. She prefers barefoot as did her mother before her. It must've skipped a generation since neither of my parents are really preferential to barefeet.

I think I just like the texture under my toes. It's not that I enjoy walking on the hot cement in bare feet in the summer, but I love the feel of cool grass, or the heat of the beach sand under my feet.

Even moreso, I think I like the feel of cool dirt or mud. I feel like I can just dig my toes into the wetness of it, take root and become some unmoving tree.

I wear my sandals into fall and I'm the first to break them out in the spring. I want the least resistance between the soles of my feet and the breath of the earth.

Cancer - Nature

When we talk about cancer as humans, we immediately view it as a perversion of nature, of the natural order of things. It's a growth, something malignant, it's terrible, it destroys. Cancer is an uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. It invades the body like a virus, but it's not necessarily a virus. Some even travel the body creating cancers in various places. It is the body turned against itself.

This is the basic component of living things, the cell. It is in plants, animals, insects, fungus. It blows around as pollen in the breeze. Cells are in the lakewater - protazoans, planeria, surface skimmers, algae, fish. Cells are everywhere in nature.

But is cancer nature?

It's caused by abnormalities in the cell's genetic makeup. Something in the coding goes wrong (wrong... is it really wrong or just different?), and the cell becomes this terrible thing, replicating and destroying.

It's caused by all types of diet imbalances or viruses or drug use, but does that make it any less natural?

I've talked about Jeff before - in my horseback riding journal entry. He was diagnosed a few weeks ago with a rapid brain cancer - the kind of thing that would make me panic, that makes me want to panic for him. He's 51, healthy enough, and one of those human beings that everyone knows not because he's over the top, but because he's one of the most humble, kind, caring people one would ever meet. Even those adjectives do him little justice.

Jeff has gone from the initial shock to acceptance with the kind of grace that is only told in the likes of religious fiction such as The Bible. He smiles humbly, without questioning "the Lord's plan" for him, and knows well that he may not live to see fourteen months or four years or tomorrow. He's gracious for the condolences, the people showing up in tears at his front door in disbelief, and he's gracious for the life he's had and the life he has left.

Is this nature? Is cancer, a bringer of doubt and death, something we've quickly categorized as wrong - an abnormality - a destroyer of life - is it as important to the world as rainfall and the change of seasons? No... is it as important to the human race as the air we breathe?

I cannot begin to know even though I begin to question.

Mosquitoes

Nothing works at repelling mosquitoes. It's true.

We went as far as dumping citronella wax on our ankles and we still were bit.

Note to self - explore this further at a later date... when I'm itching mosquito bites.

Damn bastards.

Not my Hydrangeas

In front of my small suburban home is a row of hydrangeas. We purchased the home in March, when they were still twigs poking up in front of the porch. As the leaves flushed out, I began anticipating the blooms. Blue? Purple? Pink? It all depended upon the soil.

As I started yardwork, and the buds began forming on the tips of the branches, passers-by started saying hello. A neighbor leaned over the fence and remarked, "Those are the most beautiful hydrangeas in all of Hanover." I started at them a moment, smiling, nodding, and remarking, "Thanks."

But for what? I had not planted them here, and though I have a front lawn, I park in the back, use the backdoor, and only occasionally sit on my front porch.

Two days later, a Mennonite lady walked by while I was ripping out rampant spring onion and remarked, "Every year, I take a picture of my grand daughter in front of those hydrangeas."

What was I supposed to say? I had yet to see the plants bloom, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to invite some random woman to take pictures in front of the house that I'd bought and paid for.

With slight hesitation, I responded, "Well, you're welcome to keep doing that once they start blooming." And she responded as if relieved with gratitude and thanks.

I pushed my bandana back, tightening the my ponytail with a tug, and continued weeding.

When they bloomed a week later, my lawn was host to blue fireworks and shades of purple and pink, like cotton candy in petal form. I snagged my own camera, and though I have no grandchildren, I began taking snapshots.

Over the course of the following weeks and months (as hydrangeas' blooms last all summer) I had several neighbors and passersby stop, take pictures, pose in front of these plants.

I wasn't the one that planted them. They're not my hydrangeas. I own the home, the land they grow on, but they are everyone's hydrangeas, and the woman who passed, leaving this home to sold, they are her hydrangeas, and I think she left these hydrangeas to everyone.

Mulch

I want to take a moment to explore the concept of mulch. It comes in several varieties at the home improvement store. Having worked there, I recall pine bark, hardwood, died hardwood (in red and black), natural cedar, and treated mulch which usually contained some type of weed deterent to keep weeds from growing up through the mulch. I recently discovered cocoa mulch which is made out of parts of the seeds of the cocoa plant. It's a nice dark color and when first put on the ground it confuses the neighbors because they think you're baking brownies. Even yet, there is non-roganic mulch made of rubber. Is that something we really want to be throwing around the ground? It is an oil product after all. It'll never decompose, so it is somewhat economical, but the lack of decomposition will take away from the nutrients in the soil.

In the South - namely Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, they use pine needles. The long pine needles are used over areas that are needing mulch almost exclusively and sold in large bales instead of in bags or in bulk trucks.

Why? I've always wondered why the south uses such mulch, but the north has such a variety. Moreover, why don't we just use the natural leaves that fall around the yard and rake them into the gardens for mulch.

A wise gardener plants the perennials so close that mulching becomes nearly unnecessary. Is this the wisest and most economical decision?

Why mulch? To cover the ground to prevent weeds - but it also adds to the manicured look, a sign of wealth? Mulch also helps the earth retain moisture and keep from erroding and washing away, leaving one's plants as dry little twigs.

What a strange invention - mulch. http://web.extension.illinois.edu/springfieldcenter/iclgarden/060401.html - Dave Robson links mulch back to the ancient Egyptians. It's difficult to argue that the Egyptians didn't need mulch in their location. It was, after all, a desert for the most part.

Robson also explains that mulch is a sign of civilization. How remarkable, that the rise and fall of civilization could be based on mulch.

Roadkill Chronicles: Part 2 - Pet Kill

Nobody ever says much about the pet kill when they’re in the car. Sometimes, a traveler with a heart will mutter an ‘awwww’ at the corpse of someone’s cat or dog, but for the most part, it seems as though a silent cringe tenses at the shoulders of the bystanders or by-travelers as they pass such a dead animal.

When I was 16, my mother made me get my license. She pretty much abducted me from all my previous plans and drove me to the licensing place. A few weeks later, when I was leaving the school on a Friday amidst the rush of other shouting high school students, the smell of burnt rubber, the squealing of tires, a black cat crossed my trajectory. A pile of teenage traffic behind me, I mentally froze as I was speeding down the suburban road, unable to take my foot off the gas pedal. I wavered in my steering trying to straddle the little cat, his pleading, stunned green eyes looking up to recognize a red 1989 Honda Prelude zooming at him, but it was too late.

The all too familiar and tragic “thump-thump” left me clenching the wheel, one eye still open and searching the rear-view mirror for the remnants of the cat. Half of him remained standing, half of him flattened – he was dragging himself off the road. I even caught a glimpse of a few gasping walkers who had seen the incident happen, but I could not bring myself to stop. Again and again, I told myself there was no little girl waiting for her little injured black cat to come home –it was probably just a stray.

Why was it that I visibly cringed, and I evaluate my maneuvers of that day even now with criticism as that’s the only domesticated critter I’ve ever mowed over in my car. I don’t review hitting squirrels or rabbits with such distress. I dare say I take some pleasure in hitting the occasional tree rat because they infest my neighborhood.

At a dinner with a friend, I mentioned having seen several dead dogs along the interstate on my trip to visit her in Allentown. An animal lover and a vegetarian, she remarked that she says a prayer for every dead animal she sees at the side of the road – domesticated or otherwise – but that she takes extra care to pray for the domesticated animals. Nevermind the fact that this woman probably spends more time praying than driving on long trips, but why do these domesticated animals fall so near and dear?

There’s nothing quite so chilling as seeing man’s best friend lying, somewhat crushed, next to highway 9. Has nobody noticed he’s missing? Or is there is little boy wondering the neighborhood, posting signs on every streetcorner and knocking on neighbors doors?

It seems to me we care the most for the things that affect us most immediately. It is the dog and the cat which greets someone when they come home if there is nobody else there to greet them –not a possum or a rabbit or a squirrel. We see these animals in such quick passing most of the time that we rarely notice them when they’re alive and give them a shorter shrift when we pass their decaying bodies on the roadside.

Sometimes I want to travel the countryside with a shovel and bury all of these little critters in “Johnny Appleseed” style. Of course, then the little boy or the little girl pining for their missing pet would never discover that they’re Fluffy or Fido has been mowed over by a passing vehicle, but maybe it would be better that way.