Perfection

Yeah, we all know . . . nothing in life is perfect.

Well, I beg to differ. Late last week we had an Absolutely Perfect Day.

The sky was a cloudless, brilliant blue. The air was ideally comfortable for bare arms and legs and feet, with a light breeze air-conditioning your skin in the event you moved around enough to perspire. No matter what you did, you were comfortable.

And everywhere you looked, the scenery was beautiful. Lawns and trees still vivid summertime green, with color tinges creeping in to signal the pending change of season. But it's not here yet -- wildflowers and garden beds were still in full bloom, with vegetables and fruits adding bright dots of color between the foliage.

Birds and butterflies still darted about in their own color show before packing up for migration. Crickets and cicadas added music to the air.

It was a perfect day for doing anything outdoors, from hiking and boating to sitting on the porch with a book. If you couldn't get outside, it was a perfect day to look out the window, and open all the windows wide, and curtains, too, to let all the air and color and light flow through.

In our complicated and inconsistent world, it's good to know that Mother Nature can proffer up a perfect day now and then. And a joy to be alive when it happens.

Carolyn Haley

Author: The Mobius Striptease (e-novel, Club Lighthouse Publishing)
Open Your Heart with Gardens (nonfiction, DreamTime Publishing)
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Editing Business: DocuMania (www.documania.us)

The green wave

Here it comes!

Peak summer, and the garden runneth over. This time every year I regret planting more than one of a given vegetable on a given day back in spring. Now I have too many snow peas, too many broccoli heads; in a few weeks will have too many beans; and by the end of summer will have too many tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. (I've never had enough red peppers, never mind too many!) At least with lettuce I've managed to stagger the crop.

As well, raspberry and blueberry bushes that came with the house are rolling into ripeness simultaneously. Hubby made it worse by starting a strawberry patch. We can't eat them all before they spoil and have run out of room in our freezer. How lovely to have enough to give away!

Meanwhile, the grass grows faster than we can cut it, the weeds regrow as fast as we can pluck them out, and certain perennials spread faster than they can be divided and transplanted. It happens that paying work peaks this time of year, so available time for picking and processing shrinks while everything expands.

Cruel irony that the best season is the shortest and most packed with demands and excitement. No wonder we always shake our heads in the fall and wonder where summer went!

Carolyn Haley

Author: The Mobius Striptease (e-novel, Club Lighthouse Publishing)
Open Your Heart with Gardens (nonfiction, DreamTime Publishing)
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Editing Business: DocuMania (www.documania.us)

Backyard ecology

I love birds, and feed them year-round in sight of my windows.

I love cats, have four, and let them out year-round.

I live in the country where predators that eat birds and cats, and raid bird feeders, prowl the area year-round.

How to keep everybody alive and well?

First, I cleared the shrubs away from the front of the house. That eliminated places for the cats to hide and ambush feeding birds. I also hung trellis netting over the exterior of as many windows as I could get to, which prevents birds from flying into the glass. These two acts have almost entirely eliminated bird fatalities. And bringing in the feeders every evening has eliminated raids.

Second, we trained the cats to come in at night, though it remains difficult to keep them in during the crepuscular time (dawn and dusk), which is the true danger zone. Nevertheless, we haven't had an injury or disappearance in many years.

Third, we have a lot of stuff around the property -- vehicles, construction material piles, scrap piles, tools, and equipment -- which partially serve as territorial markers that repress predator traffic (while giving prey places to hide). It's not foolproof by any means; after all, I see fox and coyote prints sometimes quite close to the house during winter, and during the year the fishers passed through, they roamed wherever they pleased. I dread the day they return.

Nevertheless, we've done what we can do to minimize opportunity for critters to kill themselves and each other. This includes using no toxic substances in the garden or yard. The rest is up to fate or vigilance. In reward, we harbor many species of resident birds, the cats are healthy and happy, and our human selves get to enjoy the whole.

If only that balance extended to the rest of the world!

Carolyn Haley

Author: The Mobius Striptease (e-novel, Club Lighthouse Publishing)
Open Your Heart with Gardens (nonfiction, DreamTime Publishing)
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Editing Business: DocuMania (www.documania.us)

Counting chickadees

Next time you need a change of pace on a wintry day, position yourself in view of a bird feeder containing sunflower seed and try to count chickadees.

Betcha can't!

I know, because I keep trying and fail. The way chickadees swoop back and forth to snatch a seed, the speed at which they do it, the multiple directions they come from at the same time, and the fact that they all look the same, combine to make a dizzying, zigzag, constantly changing pattern that forces you to look straight ahead, sideways, and out the corners of your eyes simultaneously in order to keep track of them.

It's frustratingly fun, because chickadees are about the cutest birds to flit across the planet. In wintertime, they hang out with all the other adorable gray-black-white birds -- titmice, nuthatches, downy and hairy woodpeckers, juncos.

All of these spread out in summer, but during the winter they concentrate around our feeders. I watch them through the window or from outside, feet or inches from the feeders. The chickadees are so bold they don't mind my presence, and make cheeps and beeps in response to my refilling their tube.

Some people get the birds to feed from their hands, but I've never succeeded in doing that. Just the other day, though, I got one to perch on the cup of seed I held out and pick one from it while looking me in the eye. Someday I'd like to configure a hat to hold seed in the crown and sit outside with a book to see if they go for it. Maybe this spring . . .

Many weeks to go before that opportunity. In the meantime, I think there are 10 chickadees in residence this year.

Or is that 8? . . . 12? . . . 6?

Carolyn Haley

Author: The Mobius Striptease (e-novel, Club Lighthouse Publishing)
Open Your Heart with Gardens (nonfiction, DreamTime Publishing)
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com

The relativity of hardness

When I was a suburban youngster, "hard work" meant applying yourself to school and chores, and following through on projects, and honoring the obligations of duty.

As an adult, "hard work" meant pretty much the same thing, extended into the employment arena.

It wasn't until spouse and I purchased a homestead in rural Vermont, and I undertook gardening and house-and-yard projects -- then, later, heating with wood -- that I learned a new meaning of "hard work." That's the kind that physically exhausts you into a heap and introduces minor injury into your life.

There's no value difference between these types of work and their degrees of difficulty. Hard work is hard work, in whatever form. But working in the physical realm has educated me in how other people live, and how our forebears lived, in away that all my school and office experience failed to do. It's become difficult to take things for granted, because I now know what's required to make them happen; and I deeply respect folks who labor for a living, because now I know how hard their lives can be.

Hard physical labor does have its rewards, in a sense of job-well-done, and increased strength, and sound sleep at night. You often see the fruits of your labors more quickly and directly than from intellectual endeavors. It's still just plain hard, though, and I can't say I love it. Nevertheless, it allows you to live economically, in that you don't have to pay people do everything, and you can get fit without having to buy time at a gym!

Carolyn Haley

Author: The Mobius Striptease (e-novel, Club Lighthouse Publishing)
Open Your Heart with Gardens (nonfiction, DreamTime Publishing)
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com

The true holiday

For me, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s roll into one big holiday on the winter solistice, time of the shortest day and longest night, after which days start getting longer again. In other words, “here comes the sun”!

This occurs regardless of what religion you ascribe to or calendar you follow, as it’s a phenomenon driven by the Earth’s axial tilt. Almost all cultures celebrate the solstice in one form or another and have done so since the beginning of human time.

Solstice is my Thanksgiving, when I wallow in gratitude for being warm and safe and fed and loved while winter rolls up its sleeves and gets down to business—leaving many a creature cold, endangered, starving, and alone.

Solstice is my Christmas, when I celebrate the ultimate gift—the return of light—and our creator, the universe, which is utterly reliable, relentlessly beautiful, and infinitely wondrous.

Solstice is my New Year, when I toast with loved ones the rebirth of the natural cycle, and make resolutions for the next round of seasons.

So Happy Solstice, everyone! May the new year bring peace and prosperity around the world.

Carolyn Haley

Author: The Mobius Striptease (e-novel, Club Lighthouse Publishing)
Open Your Heart with Gardens (nonfiction, DreamTime Publishing)
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com

Big, black birds

Crows and ravens
Ravens and crows
What's the difference between them?
Nobody knows!

Not true, of course -- that's just a little ditty off the top of my head to express the challenge in identifying these species from afar. They look so alike, I've had to learn them by voice and behavior. The first raven I saw, out West 15 years ago, matched the picture and description (huge, coarse, shaggy) in my Eastern field guide. But our local ravens look just like the glossy, sleek crows.

Recently I got a chance to see them together. I went outside one sunny, crisp morning and heard a cacophony round back of the house, in the woods up the hill. What seemed like dozens of giant blackbirds were screaming and flapping around an area I couldn't see. Their mobbing suggested either a territorial dispute or the presence of a predator. Since normally a half-dozen crows and a pair of ravens live in amity around our neighborhood, I deduced that they had cornered a hawk.

While waiting for the cause to reveal itself, I studied the blackbirds. Clearly, some were bigger; clearly, their caws and yells differed; clearly, their wing size, tail shape, and flight maneuvers jived with voice and size per the guidebooks. And, clearly, more crows and ravens live around here than I thought!

Presently, in a rioting crescendo, the mob swung in my direction and a red-tailed hawk emerged amid them. No question about identity there: The sun lit up his fanned tail in a brilliant russet. He perched deep in a tree while the hecklers continued until satisfied they had cowed him. Then the ravens circled away in pairs while the crows flapped off in groups or solo, and the land became quiet again. The hawk didn't dare move for a while.

All this I was able to observe without binoculars. So now, thanks to an accident of timing, I know the differences between ravens and crows.

Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com

The other November

Yes, November can be blear and drear. But it also has another face, caused by the same forces that often make it bleak and depressing.

The tumultuous skies and low sun angle sometimes combine to light up the world with gold and drama. Some of the most gorgeous moments of the year occur early or late in a November day. The starkness of the landscape, when illuminated by sun flaring below the cloud cover, looks more like a painting than reality and takes my breath away. Drab colors become vivid, clothing the naked world in beauty. Sunrises and sunsets take on hues not seen any other time of year.

Though temperatures drop below freezing at night and struggle above it during the day, the air is crisp and vivifying. It's the best time of year for outdoor work and play. You can exert without overheating, so your energy stays up for hours. And because nothing is growing, yet the ground hasn't frozen, you can undertake yard and garden or construction projects that would be miserable any other time of year.

If not for these benefits, I would dread November. Each day is shorter than the last, and the annual, expensive drudgery of keeping warm dominates daily life. But the onset of holiday bustle and the race to get things done before snow make the calendar pages flip by quickly. When the month is gone, I look forward to it coming around again just to experience those fleeting, gilt-edged moments that only occur in November.

Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com

These simple words from Thomas Hood, a British poet and humorist, say it all:

"No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruit, no flowers, no leaves, no birds--
November!"


Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com

The tidy bear

Back in the spring, my 11-year record of feeding the birds 24/7/365 came to an abrupt end, when I awoke one morning to find my feeders ravaged. My fault: We live in bear country, though we've never seen one, and nothing, not even a raccoon, has ever touched my compost pile or garbage cans, and deer walk right by my vegetable garden.

OK, I learned. I repaired or replaced the three feeders and have brought them in at sunset every night since. Well, not quite every night . . . I forget now and then. And 5 weeks after the first incident, the same thing occurred.

That first time, the bear demolished the hanging tube of nyjer seed (leaving a big footprint in the soft soil beneath it); bunted and emptied the triple-tube feeder of sunflower seed after breaking the pole supporting it in half; and ripped the suet feeder, which hung from an iron bracket screwed to the front of the house, right off the wall and made off with the whole suet cake in its metal cage. The second time, the nyjer and suet were untouched but the triple-tube was shattered. In both instances, many pounds of seed were vacuumed up without a trace.

Thereafter, we conscientiously brought in the feeders, and when we traveled we didn't put them out at all. When one of us traveled, the one staying at home brought them in -- until this month, when I was out of town and my spouse dutifully retrieved and rehung the big feeder each day but overlooked the nyjer tube. When I got home I noticed it missing and asked where he'd put it. Last seen hanging on its usual hook on the apple tree. But now, not there.

No debris, no tracks, no sign of disturbance anywhere in the yard. Hmmm. You don't just lose a full bird feeder! I replaced it yet again, this time with a little mesh seed sock instead of a pricey feeder. Then I went out of town again. He forgot again. And the nyjer sock disappeared again.

No debris, no tracks, no sign of disturbance anywhere in the yard.

So either some human is running around rural backyards stealing nyjer feeders, or some animal is lifting mine with human-like ease. The spring bear was a smash-and-grabber; is this a different bear, a tidy one, with prehensile paws? Or one who perfected its technique over a summer of practice elsewhere? Or do we have a particularly agile raccoon?

Regardless, the raiding should end soon -- both species hibernate for the winter, and the general consensus is that bears are down by November. I should be able to relax vigilance for a while. But they also say that bears have terrific memories for food sources, and we've just proven to be a reliable seed repository. So I'd better keep up the habit of bringing in the feeders every night if I hope to still have them in the spring!


Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com

To pine or not to pine

I have a love/hate relationship with pine trees; specifically, white pine, which grows like a weed in my yard.

Love: They offer year-round food and shelter for many bird species.

Hate: They offer year-round food and shelter for squirrels that ravage my bird feeders.

Love: They grow fast and tall, adding evergreen majesty to the landscape.

Hate: They shed vast amounts of copper pine needles twice a year.

Love: They contribute lightweight, hot-burning firewood.

Hate: They aren’t profitable enough in the marketplace for people to cut them down for you for free.

Love: They provide useful emergency survival food for humans.*

Hate: They get infested with pine borers for all the months the logs need to dry before burning.

This love/hate relationship has developed over the years I’ve been raking needles off the lawn and sweeping them off the deck, and plucking them out of my vehicles’ ventilation systems and interior. Previous owners planted a half-dozen white pines too close to the house, so that we now have 100-foot monsters tilting menacingly toward us while cracks slowly split their trunks. The clock is ticking . . . Will we find the money to have them removed before a high wind, saturating rains, or heavy snows bring them crashing through the roof?

(We can’t cut them ourselves because they’re too big and too close—a “technical” drop for which professional tools and skills are required. And I refuse—I absolutely refuse!—to spend a season cleaning up the overwhelming debris.)

The sad thing is, as much as I want those sun-blocking, needle-shedding, grass-smothering, sap-dripping trees removed, I’m already mourning the birds that will go away with them. One of my greatest pleasures is the avian traffic right outside my windows all four seasons. With the pine trees gone, those birds will not only lose great habitat but also have to fly across significant open space to reach the feeders. Many of them will move elsewhere, I suspect. So I’m hoping the trees stand indefinitely while I mutter curses below them.

Meanwhile, the clock ticks . . .

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* The new shoots, inner bark, young male cones, and needles are all edible. Needle tea, in particular, contains 25 times more vitamin C than the equivalent a mount of orange juice. Various parts have medicinal properties, too.

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Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com