Identified That Hawk

Finally! I identified that hawk that hangs around my yard and calls and calls and calls. Just looking at the reddish breast and bars on the tail was not enough for me to know for sure. I identified it by sound. I went to the Cornell Ornithology website and played the sounds of all the hawks with red breasts and striped tails. Clearly, it's a red-shouldered hawk. According to the website, red-shouldered hawks hang around rivers and woods and are known to talk more than any other hawks. Evidently! This one is talking all the time.

PS Tonight I've been watching the bluebird pair feed the baby in the bluebird house outside the kitchen window. I'm glad my opening the house door didn't scare them away.

River Roads

What an awesome evening! The weather is just perfect with a high in the mid 80's, a cool breeze, and a sunny sky. A coworker didn't have twist my arm very hard to leave work early and go for a ride on our bikes. Vrooom! Vrooom! Buzz. She has a Harley with loud pipes. She does the Vrooming and I do the buzzing. Away we went to Big Lake. We took the back roads past the Green Valley Nursery into Elk River, across those crazy railroad tracks on Main Street that form a W forcing me to head up, down, up and down in quick succession, and north along the Mississippi. We went past acres of potato fields. The potato plants are healthy and bulky and already forming blossoms. We went past pumpkin field and corn fields. Even though the giant sprinkler in the corn fields are 500 yards away we could feel the wetness hit us as we went by. A red tailed hawk left a light post as we went by and kept up with us for a short distance. We stopped to shop at the Shade Tree store. You'd think it was a garden store by the name of it but it's a motorcycle and snowmobile store. They sell clothes and parts. We returned on the far side of the Mississippi through Monticello. I could not believe the traffic on Hwy. 25 over the Mississippi. We had to wait a long time for the light to change. I guess I didn't think Monticello had much of a rush hour but I was wrong. We drove past the school and the hospital, following the river south into Otsego. We continued on through Dayton. We came to an awesome farm. The first thing we noticed was the smell of manure. Then we saw the barn stuffed with giant round hay bales. The last thing to catch our attention were the lovely pink and red hollyhocks standing tall against the white barn wall. We came through Champlin slowly. I've hard too many tales about speeding tickets in Champlin. What a great ride.

KNOCK KNOCK! ROOM SERVICE!!

After winning a bluebird house as a door prize and listening to the bluebird people speak about how important it is to check your bluebird houses EVERY week, I checked a bluebird house. I have three houses up and I checked the one outside the kitchen window. I've seen bluebirds and house wrens coming and going out of there. The bluebird speaker stressed how important it was to check the bluebird house every week. Otherwise, he said, you're just providing food for raccoons. He wanted us to throw out eggs from other species or kill sparrow or starling fledglings if we found them. I don't think I could kill a baby bird. Experts at the purple martin festival suggested gathering them in a bread bag and stepping on them or spraying some starter fluid in the bag. Ai yi yi. I can't even eat frozen chicken breasts. I really don't think I want to kill an innocent baby bird. Anyway, I checked the blue bird house. The nail hadn't come out of there in about 15 years and it was really stuck. I pulled and pulled. The bluebird house rocked back and forth with my efforts. After ten minutes of struggle I got the door open. I saw a nest in there. I was glad the house wren hadn't filled it up with little twigs. Some debris was stuck to the door and I scraped that off. I cleaned off the top of the nest. Eventually I saw what I took to be a dead body in the nest. I gently brushed it off with the blade of my screwdriver when the dead body moved and settled itself back into the nest. I saw a fledgling with blue feathers. It was alive! I was disturbing a baby bluebird. "AAAAk," I said to the little bird, "So sorry for disturbing you." I shut the door and put the nail back in. My heart was pounding. Now, why did I do that again? What is the point of checking those boxes every week? Checking the nests goes against everything I've heard all my life about leaving baby birds alone. But the bluebird expert said to do it. And he gets 5 or 6 fledglings out of every nest so I guess he knows what he is talking about. Bluebirds, unlike some other species, tolerate human handling. It's not true that the parent bird can smell human on a baby. Only vultures can smell. And some birds eat skunk so that pretty much proves they can't smell very well. As soon as I calm down, I might go check the other two bluebird houses. I can only take so much excitement in one day.

On a completely different topic, June 28 is the third anniversary of the beginning of this blog. This is the 1, 188th post. I've written almost once a day for three years. I've enjoyed writing for "Orange is My Favorite Color." The first post was June 28, 1997 and I wrote:

I want this to be a way for me to keep in touch with my friends and family. I hope

this will be a place to make and strengthen connections. I hope this blog will

make you laugh or snicker or roll your eyes or nod your head in agreement.

I believe the blog has kept me in touch with friends and family. I think I have made and strengthened connections. Have I made you laugh? Have I made you snicker? Have I made you roll your eyes? Have I made you nod your head in agreement? I hope so.

Purple Martin Festival

Yesterday a sibling and I attended the annual Purple Martin Festival in Otsego. The festival was held at a man's home. In his backyard he had several purple martin apartment homes and many purple martin plastic gourds. I believe he said he had over 30 mating pairs of purple martins. We sat on lawn chairs in the front lawn while purple martins flew back and forth above our heads-how perfect! The speaker was Kelly Applegate who is a wildlife biologist with the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwa. He has many purple martin colonies set up on tribal lands. The purple martin population has declined greatly in the past twenty years. I didn't know that. House sparrows and starlings are a threat to purple martins. These invasive birds will go into the nests and peck at the eggs until they break. This house in Otsego has a sparrow trap. I saw about 5 sparrows in the trap in the morning and about a dozen in the afternoon. I didn't ask what was going to happen to those sparrows but I got a feeling they were doomed. Blowflies are another danger to the purple martin fledglings. They advised replacing the nesting material with fresh pine needles when the babies are a week old and again when they are two weeks old. Purple martins migrate to Brazil. Some fly across the gulf of Mexico and others follow the land to Brazil. Before they leave us for the summer, they get together in giant roosts to fatten up for the trip. Using Doppler radar, ornithologists found the roost. The roosts were so large the heat and the liquid inside these birds showed up on radar. Turns out the roost is on Swan Lake in Todd county. The telephone wires around this lake sag with the weight of all these purple martins. The purple martin people arrange for pontoon rides during roost time. You can go out on the lake at sunset when thousands of purple martins descend to roost for the night. That would be something to see. Besides purple martins, there were talks about chimney swifts and bluebirds. This homeowner had a chimney swift tower. He just put it up this year and already he has a mating pair of chimney swifts in there. He played a recording of the chimney swift call to attract them. They are building a nest. He installed a nestcam in his chimney. He had a television set in the garage where we could see the chimney swifts bringing in sticks and gluing them to the side of the chimney with saliva. I saw them flying. My gosh, they have no tail at all. They look like a fat flying cigar. The bluebird group was there too. He really stressed the importance of looking inside the bluebird houses every week and cleaning out eggs of other species. If you install the bluebird house on conduit and re bar, the squirrels and raccoons cannot climb up there, especially if you wax the conduit once a season. At the end of the day I won a door prize! I won a bluebird house. This prize obliges me to get out there and look at the three bluebird houses I already have up.

HELLUVA Party

A friend of mine invited me to a party on Friday night. I knew it would be a good one because she is a HELLUVA hostess. Last time I went to her house she served me blue corn bread that I still dream about. Anyway, it was a HELLUVA party. She served re fried beans (made from scratch), Spanish rice, beef chimichangas and chicken chimichangas, salad, homemade salsa with chips, homemade pecan pie, homemade 3 layer chocolate cake with nutella in the filling, fruit pizza, fruit, and flan with caramel sauce. I had flan.I've read about flan in books but I've never enjoyed it in person before. Wow, it's worth writing about. It's a creamy thick custard that is not too sweet and not too eggy. And it not flan (rhymes with plan) but flan (rhymes with prawn). Due to the fact we got over two inches of rain in about an hour, the bonfire was cancelled. Also the horse and buggy rides were cancelled. See what I am saying? This was a HELLUVA party. About 50 people came. The bluegrass band and square dancing were not cancelled. While a banjo, mandolin and guitar played music, I square danced. I square danced! I haven't square danced since Offspring #2 and I went to a Girl Scout Leader appreciation night about ten years ago. It was fun then and it was fun last night too. We were crowded into the living room and bumping hips when we do-si-doed. Square dancing is good, clean, wholesome fun. After that we walked out into the misty landscaped lawn to get some fresh air. This party was one HELLUVA party.

Planning Ahead

Last week I was reading an organizational ten year plan. I thought it sounded good. Planning that far ahead seemed like a wise move. Then I thought of myself. I should have a ten year plan. In ten years, I will be at a major transition in my life or at least close to retirement. I've worked since I was sixteen years old. I haven't had much practice at not working. And I don't think about retirement at all. I don't know how much I'll get from social security and my other investments. I put money away but I don't pay attention to it. I thought I should really plan for retirement. I mean really plan; not just say I'll plan but really do it. The next day one of my IRA advisors called me and asked me to set up an appointment with him if I had any questions. Wow, talk about good timing. The day after that another IRA advisor called and said the same thing. Two calls in two days. I took it as a sign to place a call so I did. This evening I met with one of the financial planners. I showed him all my papers. Turns out things are looking pretty good. If I keep up what I am doing and live simply yet comfortably, I'll have enough money to last until I'm 100 years old or more. It's a comforting thing to know! Then he asked me, "Think about the future. You are retired. Every day is a Saturday. What things will you want to do differently?" My first thought was to get rid of dial-up and get high-speed internet. My second thought was to travel more. I wish I had $10,000 per year to spend on travel. He challenged my thinking. If I sell my home, I would have a big pot of money. I don't have to buy another home. I could rent and save a lot of homeowner expenses. I could rent six months in one place and six months in another. I could spend a winter in Texas, the next in Florida, and the next in Arizona, Panama or California. I could live in places where I could ride a motorcycle 12 months a year - just think of it! I am putting away plenty of money now but if I saved more, I could do more in retirement. He gave me a good feeling of security and lots to think about.

Breeding Bird Atlas Article

http://www.startribune.com/local/north/96727314.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

The Star Tribune had a nice article today about the breeding bird atlas. As of today, I have confirmed 16 species in my priority block in Ramsey as breeding. Love is in the air!! Let me see if I can remember them all - Canadian Geese, Blue winged teal, wood duck, Eastern Bluebird, Crow, Blue Jay, Chickadee, Robin, Wild Turkey, Red tailed hawk, Barn Swallow, Killdeer, Great crested Flycatcher, Chipping Sparrow, and House Finch. I have lots of probables (sandhill crane, rock pigeon, mourning dove, ruby throated hummingbird, red bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, pileated woodpecker, gray catbird, Northern Cardinal, Red winged blackbird, Baltimore oriole, American Goldfinch)and 35 more species observed. Confirming sixteen species as breeding is not the best but it's really not too shabby for a beginner like me. I want to do a good job on this project. What has helped me the most is talking to people who live in my priority block and asking them to keep their eyes open. Anyone can be a part of this project. If you don't want to adopt a priority block, you can still enter your observations. Go to MNBBA.ORG to get started. As for me, I am going to keep an eye on the east side of my house where I saw a pair of orioles attacking my local (Sharp shinned or Cooper's) hawk who was sitting in my oak tree next to the house. They struck the hawk's head until it gave up and flew off. Why did the orioles use their bodies to attack a hawk who could reach out and eat them? I'm thinking they must have a nest in my yard somewhere.

Do You Ever Feel Invisible?

It happened to me today. I felt invisible, silent, and unacknowledged. We were at a meeting. There was an issue. Research needed to be done. I said, "I can look into that." The next sentence was, "(Insert name of a man here), are you willing to look into that?" Did I just not say I would do it? I know I was heard because I saw the confused eyes of the other people at the table. An arm wrestling joke was made and the tension lifted. I was temporarily angry but it passed. There was a chance I wasn't heard at the far end of the table. Instead a feeling of gratitude came over me. I used to feel ignored and invisible very often. Too often. Unhealthily often. I have changed my circumstances so that now I feel invisible very seldom, less than annually. Now that I am (almost) always visible, I won't tolerate feeling invisible anymore.

Sunday Birding

• I am still working on my priority block for the breeding bird atlas. A fellow master naturalist and I got permission to survey the Boy Scout property on Sunday evening. We got there about 6 o'clock and continued until almost 9 p.m. We had our most luck on the nature trail that goes through a mixed forest, around an alder swamp, and right over a small wetland. We found an observation tower. We decided to climb the ladder to get up there. This thing is designed for boy scouts, not full adult women with arthritis. We made it and stood up there listening to all the bird sounds. I wish I was a better birder by sound. I heard robins, gold finches, pileated woodpeckers above the crows who would not stop talking. We heard blue jays. I said, "I think I heard an oriole." Two seconds later an oriole flies by us - score one for me. I heard a common yellow throat. We heard an owl in the distance but not enough to make out what owl we heard. After a while we climbed down and hiked on the path. My friend is an expert at trees and plants. She pulled a couple buck thorn trees and I was glad to see no thickets of the problem plant. We watched a song sparrow. He seemed to like being seen and perched prettily on an open branch showing us all his sides. As we watched him and talked, we heard a huge thrashing in the swamp just beyond the trees. It sounded like a bear in there thrashing around and going away. That scared the crap out of us. I'm sure it wasn't a bear but only a deer but I have never heard a deer make that much noise. We continued walking. We saw morning doves and cedar waxwings. We spotted a movement in the bottom of a scrub. The sound this bird made was mechanical and buzzy. We watched for about five minutes before we saw it clearly - a marsh wren. We walked along further and our view was blocked by taller shrubby trees. Suddenly we came on an open pond. "Maybe we'll see some shorebirds here," I said. Before we could view the entire lake, two momma ducks with ducklings and a green heron flew away in fright. Curses, why was I talking so much? Good birders should know when to keep their mouths shut. Ducklings confirm breeding and I need to know what kind of ducks these were. I wished we were sneakier. We watched the green heron for awhile. I thought one of the mother ducks was a blue winged teal but wasn't positive. We walked back to the car to get the bird book and documentation sheet. We came back quieter and smarter. We watched the mother ducks for a long time. This breeding bird atlas is hard work. It is much easier to just watch birds. Mother and baby ducks are not easy to identify because the male ducks get the colorful markings. The females are supposed to blend in. After watching the blue winged teal mother for a long time, I finally got a good luck at the blue spot on her wing. The second duck was harder. Her head shape wasn't typical but wasn't quite a merganser shape either. She had a distinctive white eye ring. Through the process of elimination, we decided she was a momma wood duck with her six ducklings. High fives in the wetland! We were proud of ourselves. We walked back to the car and drove to other spots in the park. Two more confirmed breeding species was good work for a Sunday evening.

A Summer Day

Yesterday was a perfect day to work outside and enjoy the season. I weeded the garden and tied up the tomatoes. I pulled buckthorn. Then I tackled anther chore - burning a big pile of brush. Of all the chores, I like burning brush the best. What other chore requires you to sit and watch the fire to all the work? Once in awhile I got up to move a branch but mostly I relaxed in the quiet stillness of a Saturday evening. While I sat I tried to identify all the bird sounds I heard. It's hard! I saw bluebirds, blue jays, goldfinches, chickadees, flickers, mourning doves, crows and robins. I saw a handsome pair of catbirds. This is a first for my yard. They're very unusual in appearance, don't you think? That hawk that is eternally soaring above crying was back. I WILL get that hawk identified one of these days. I just love unplanned days like this where I can wander about the yard and putter on projects. The grapevine that I planted in April has finally started to grow. I was about to ask for my money back on that thing. I planted it right next to my garden gate. I see my gate post has rotted at the soil line so that is my next project to work on. Here is a photo of the more traditional looking catbird. Notice their sleek gray body with black caps. They have some reddish colored vent feathers.

The Lacuna

I walked into the library a couple weeks ago and there, on display, was a Barbara Kingsolver book that I haven't read yet. It just came out. I've been waiting seven years for her to write another book. "Score!" I thought to myself as I swept it into my arms. I love Barbara Kingsolver books. I love her stories about people and the way she weaves biology and environmental science into the stories. I even like her non-fiction books. This one? Not so much. I read it all though and it got easier as I went on. At first I was tempted to give up because the story seemed so choppy; almost written by a uninterested bystander. The story is a collection of journals by a guy named Harrison Shepard. His journals are published after his death by his stenographer. Harrison is born to a distant father from Washington, DC and a gold digging Mexican mother who is more interested in her pursuit of the next richer guy than her own son. Harrison is bounced around from place to place. On his passive journey, he meets famous historical characters such as Freida Kahlo, Leon Trotsky, and J. Edgar Hoover. Oh, Barbara, get going on your next novel. Don't make me wait another seven years.

Invaders

On Wednesday I attended another chapter meeting for my master naturalist group. This time we had a DNR entomologist speak about Emerald Ash Borers and other invading species. She told us house flies were invasive. Mosquitoes are not. Even bacteria and viruses can be invasive - oak wilt for one. The problem with invasive species started on this continent when people from other continents came over. They brought all kinds of creatures with them; some on purpose and others accidentally. The problem is worse now with our global economy. Some things are easy to tell where they came from. Dutch elm disease is an example. Emerald ash borers took a while. No one noticed the little bugs at first. The damage emerald ash borers do to trees is not visible for a long time unless you peel back the bark. Experts suspect the ash borers came via wood crate. Crates are supposed to be fumigated and bark free but people do try to cut corners to make a living and we don't have inspectors at every port of call. The bark on two pieces of wood can be nailed together so they don't show. We have other ash borers here in Minnesota but they have predators that keep them in check. We were told to be ready to see streets devastated like we did in the 1970's when Dutch elm took all the elm. It's because of Dutch elm that we have so many ash trees on our boulevards. The wood from all these fallen ash trees is still good to use once the bark is off. If some enterprising mind could come up with a use for tons and tons of ash wood, a fortune could be made. Ash is a very attractive wood with markings much like oak.

Ride Like The Wind

Today I rode the motorcycle to work. Severe weather was predicted for late afternoon. I took a chance and assumed that meant after 5 o'clock. Riding in the rain puts me one rung up on the ladder of risk. That is one rung higher than I want to go. Plus rain hurts. Rain feels like hail. My head, arms and torso are protected but the legs can be painful until you're cold enough that your legs go numb. But I rode and I lucked out. The ride home was very windy though. The situation wasn't so bad on two lane roads. On four lane roads I felt the wind trying to push me into another lane and that was a scary. I compensated by going just a little slower. The thing is, riding to work makes my day much more enjoyable. I watched a green heron fly across Shenandoah Boulevard this afternoon. The ride in is fun. The ride home is fun. Even the time between rides is fun because I think about the fun ahead. My whole day goes better when I commute on two wheels. This morning I was reminiscing about some friends I had back when I was in high school and my first two years of college. We were a group of four; Debbie Y., Linda, Sandy and myself. Debbie had a big motorcycle. I'm not sure but I think it was a Honda gold wing. Debbie was a big, strong woman. Her Dad was a biker. Linda had a smaller motorcycle. I don't remember what kind. Linda had long, curly hair past her waist and she weighed 98 pounds when her hair was wet. The four of us would go on weekend motorcycle trips. We'd strap our gear onto the bikes. Sandy and I would ride on the back. In a couple weeks I will have had two years of motorcycling experience and I will not take a passenger. I don't have the confidence to do it. Debbie and Linda had the confidence to do it. One weekend we rode to Minneota, Minnesota. I remember our destination because the name of the town was so strange. If I remember right, Minneota is in the southwest corner of the state. I think it took us all day to get there. We went because we all worked in the same nursing home and one of our residents moved to that small town. We went to visit her. I believe her name was Jeannette. What a stir we must have caused - four young women blowing into town on motorcycles and camping in the town park overnight? We had a blast. Were we wearing safety equipment? I sure hope we were. If we had helmets they didn't have face guards because I remember washing the bugs of my face. My friend Linda wasn't as confident on the bike as Debbie. One time she was giving me a ride in St. Cloud. We were approaching Tenth Street preparing to go right and over the Tenth Street bridge. We were coming up a hill right by Munsinger Gardens. I believe that road is closed to Tenth Street now. Anyway, we were coming uphill to a stop sign and when we got to the stop sign we both tipped over to the right onto the pavement - just like the man on the trike on "Laugh-In," a popular television show at the time. What happened? Did she forget to put her feet down? I don't know what happened but we righted the bike and I hopped right back on having lost no confidence in her ability. We weren't hurt. I was young. I believe that was before my frontal lobe was fully formed. Where are those woman now? Do Linda and Debbie still ride? I haven't thought of them in years until today.

Hollyhocks

I planted five perrenial hollyhock plants next to the garage last night. I watered them and then the sky watered them some more. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they thrive threre in that sunny spot.

The Namesake

Have you ever enjoyed a book so much you decide to watch the movie and find everything is just as you pictured it in your mind when you read the book? This happened to me when I saw the movie "The Namesake." This movie is based on a book by the same name by Jhumpa Lahiri. I think she is an excellent writer. The story is about Gogol, the son of Ashoke and Ashira - Bengali immigrants to Boston. The story takes place in Boston, Calcutta, and New York City. Gogol feels hampered by his name and he rejects his Bengali heritage and distances himself from his family. As Gogol figures things out, his parents go on living, takes his distance in stride. I wish I had a friend like Ashira. She was a very compelling character. This was a good book and a good movie.

Play on Birds

I've become somewhat of a bird nerd in the past couple years. I've taken bird identification classes the past two spring seasons. I've gone on bird tours. I participated in the Christmas bird count. I memorized the owls for the owl survey. I've been to Hawk Ridge several years in a row. Now I am helping with the breeding bird atlas. I have a canary and four chickens. Ever since I saw a great crested crane in the fields of Africa, I've just really been into birds. Last night a friend from bird class and I went to a performance of "Play on Birds" at the Bryant Lake Bowl. Bird Chick (a Twin Cities blogger) performed with her non-birding husband. I laughed until I cried. This was a ROFL performance. She started out with a skit about how she got started in birding and she started sounding like she was confessing to a drug addiction. She started out putting food on a window sill for the starlings, grackles and sparrows. Soon she wanted a better feeder with higher quality birds. I could relate to everything she said. Another skit was about squirrels. She had a bird feeder prop and a puppet squirrel on a stick. She pantomimed playing a tape of a bird song for expert advice only to learn she was playing the sound of a red squirrel. I did the very same thing! I listened to that red squirrel for months trying to figure out what bird it was. She chased the squirrel off the bird feeders - just like me. When she brought that super soaker on stage I just about split a gut. I use a super soaker on my squirrels too! They have these new squirrel proof feeders with a counter balance device. The squirrels in her neighborhood have learned to get around that with team work. One squirrels hangs on the counter balance device while one eats and then they switch sides. Bird Chick and her husband did another skit about bird walks where birders will ignore the beautiful great white egrets and showy red winged blackbirds to focus on some little brown bird that looks like a knothole on a tree. They totally captured the sighting process that goes something like this: "See those three oaks there? Go to the middle oak. There is a branch about 2/3 of the way up. The branch is coming at you. About 2 o'clock in the tree there is a crotch in the branch." She was hilarious. One skit poked legitimate fun at the MOU - Minnesota Ornithological Union. This is a serious bunch of bird experts. She was hilarious in mocking the snobbery that goe on. She pokes fun at bird guides. I have a very simple bird guide that has only the basic birds and the birds are separated by color. The book easily fits into a pocket and the author's name is Tequila. Thorough bird guide books go by taxonomy instead of color and most of them are several pounds each. Bird Chick makes her point about bird guide books brilliantly, loudly, and with remarkable comic timing. There was another skit on how birders think they look and how they really appear. We birders think we look pretty cool (rap music plays in the background). How we really look is different (country music in the background) with our odd hats and our pant legs tucked into our socks. The final skit was about bird names that sound dirty. I about died laughing. If you are a birder you HAVE to see this. If you aren't a birder, you will like it too. The performance continues next weekend.

Weeding

This morning I moved my chicken run to a fresh stretch of grass. I weeded the garden. I know that if I can keep up the weekly weeding through June, I've pretty much got the weeding licked for the growing season. The chickens had the full run of the yard. While Phyllis, Meredith and Pamela stayed out, Kelly joined me in the garden. Kelly gobbled up the angleworms who were lying on top of the soil trying to get some oxygen like so much brown pasta. You know how when you eat long spaghetti you might have to suck at the pasta to get it into your mouth? That is what Kelly was doing with the worms. While she was eating, I was hoeing. I have a hoeing difficulty scale. Hoeing before planting is the easiest. You can indiscriminately grab at the soil and turn it up without worry or care. Hoeing before all the seeds have sprouted is delicate work. You don't want to accidentally hoe up some seedling. Hoeing when all the plants are up and identifiable is not as hard. But hoeing at the end of the season is also difficult because the pumpkin vines have run and live plants just get in your way. Today, while hoeing, a gnat decided to get up close and personal. It flew right into my eyeball and stayed there. I tried to blink it out. My hands were all sandy so I couldn't rub it out. A small gnat can be quite painful when you try to rotate your eyeball around. Eventually I had to go into the car and look at the rear view mirror to get it out. Most of the sweet corn is up. The peas, sunflowers, lettuce, spinach, pumpkin, and squash are all up. The carrots are not up yet. The stiff necked garlic is doing much better than the garlic I bought at the grocery store. My walla walla onions are looking good. 15/16 tomato plants survived the deadly cutworm. Those newspaper collars I put on the tomatoes really help keep the cutworm at bay. All four green peppers are growning but one of the jalapenos doesn't look like it will survive. The Brussel sprouts are looking really good after all this rain. My resident hawk flew overhead again while I worked. I think it's a sharpshinned but I'm not entirely sure. The female bluebird flew in and out of the bluebird nest. A tree wren fluttered nearby in the tall grasses. A chipping sparrow hopped around in the mowed area. Mourning doves were talking. A pair of cardinals flew to the deck to take a bath. Chickadees flitted around in the crab apple trees. Today was a good morning to be outside. If it was any sunnier, I would have wanted to ride the motorcycle instead of weed.

Native Planting

Today I worked with three other women on our capstone project for our Master Naturalist class. We were making the entrance to the Wildlife Science Center more attractive. We worked for almost three hours. We pruned, cut, pulled, raked, shoveled, hauled, spread, and planted. We pruned some trees and took out other trees completely. We covered a huge tarp with branches about 6 feet high. The place looks much better now. We improved the soil with compost and peat moss. We planted all native plants including ferns, wild ginger, solomon's seal, jacobs ladder, zig zag goldenrod, wild sunflowers, sedge, and columbine. It is truly amazing what four women gardeners can get done in a couple hours. The place looks great. We will return next month with newspaper and mulch. It is true that many hands make light work.

Red Winged Blackbirds

Red winged blackbirds were on my mind last weekend. A sibling said red winged blackbirds are her favorite birds because they remind her of a happy, carefree, summer day as a teen. Last Saturday morning I was standing on the shore of a wetland searching for shorebirds with a bird class. Across the wetland at the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge were a pair of sandhill cranes. The sandhill cranes were walking slowly and majestically as cranes tend to do, minding their own business, poking their heads down into the grass to eat. A male red winged blackbird flew at one. Sandhill cranes have a bustly rear end much like those fancy dresses in colonial times. The blackbird struck a crane right in the bustle. The crane was startled and jumped up awkwardly. The red winged blackbird did it again and then landed right in front of the crane in the grass. A male red winged blackbird weighs all of 2 ounces. The females are about 1 ounce. That is a lot of chutzpah for a 2 ounce bird. The crane ran at the blackbird and the blackbird flew off only to return and bop the crane in the bustle again. The crane and the blackbird were playing chicken with each other. We suspected the blackbird was defending a nest which the crane was unknowingly approaching. The crane and the blackbird did some more terrorizing of each other. I thought the blackbird had more attitude than it's size warranted. The next day was Sunday. I drove in Columbus Township on County Road 17. A red tailed hawk flew low right in front of my car and landed on a fence post next to the side of the road. As I drove by I saw another red winged blackbird strike that big hawk on the right shoulder just seconds after it landed. The hawk wasn't expecting it and nearly was thrown off the fence post. Again I was impressed by the attitude of this little bird. What had the hawk been doing that warranted such aggression - bothering the blackbird nest? So I decided to read up a little bit on red winged blackbirds. I've always thought their beaks looked a little different. The upper and lower beak don't come together on the face like most birds. Red winged blackbird beaks have most of their strength in opening rather than closing. They use the beak opening muscles to open grass seeds and other seed pods to get at the protein inside. They also eat bugs, dragonflies, and even frogs. The males have red and yellow patches on their wings. They can hide or show their military like patches as much as they like to. Mostly they want to be noticed. If red winged blackbirds were humans at a bar, they'd be the type of guy to seat themselves so they could watch their own reflection in the mirror. Oh, have I said too much? The female red winged blackbird does not have red wings. She is brown and speckled and spends her time in the tall grasses trying not to be noticed. The red winged blackbird song is "Cong-a-leeeeee!" When I hear them in the spring, I know the season has arrived. The males are known to be polygamous and will defend the territory of 10 females. But, like many animals where the male has a "harem," the female will mate with the bird(s) of her choosing. Many nests contain eggs fertilized by more than one male. They are known to be aggressive in defending their territory from other birds and animals but tend to leave humans alone. The nest usually has 3 or 4 eggs. The young are born naked and blind but are able to leave the nest after 11 days.

An Opportunity

I am excited to be able to paddle in the Friends of the Mississippi paddle challenge. I, with many others, will be raising money for the Friends of the Mississippi River by paddling 44 miles through the Twin Cities on July 24 and 25th. We put in at the Coon Rapids Dam and come out at Gray Cloud Island. We will go through three locks and camp overnight at Fort Snelling. I need to raise $250 in funds to participate in this challenge. So far, as of today, I have $95 collected which comes out to 30% of my goal. If you would like to support me in this challenge, you can find my name as a paddler at the http://www.mississippiriverchallenge.org/ Click on the "support a paddler" button and then look for my name. Or if you don't like to donate on-line, contact me directly. A friend and I will be using Offspring #1's canoe. 44 miles seems like a long way to go but it is all downstream. I am going to shop for a pair of paddling gloves so I don't get blisters. I'm sure the sights of the city will take our minds off the drudgery. Lets hope for good weather that weekend. I'd prefer the wind at my back, thank you very much.

Tooth Economy

This weekend my offspring were giving me a hard time about our thrifty tooth fairy. I'm not sure why they were talking to me instead of the kindly tooth fairy who flew in every single night they lost a tooth and snuck into their rooms to remove the bloody dentin and replace it with cold hard cash but they were. I said (to keep the peace) that the tooth fairy would probably accept their tooth money back but they wanted no part of that. They thought the one or two quarters they got for each tooth was an unfairly low amount. Can you believe it? They said their friends got dollar bills or even five dollar bills for each tooth. The average kid looses 20 teeth and at $5 a time, that comes to $100. Anyway, on Tuesday as I was about to start my weekly weight lifting routine, I came upon a little boy. He had a orange shirt on with the letters "Bugs Rule." He was missing two lower teeth. I told him he looked pretty young for a weight lifter. He told me he lost a tooth that day. "Really, " I asked suddenly interested, "Is the tooth fairy coming to your house?" He said the tooth fairy would come tonight. I asked, "What will you get for your tooth?" He told me, "This is my second tooth that came out. For my first tooth I got some braknockcurlers under my pillow." So I said, "You got binoculars for loosing your tooth?" He said he did. "What will you get for this tooth?" I asked. He didn't know for sure but he thought it might be money. So I had to ask, "How much money do you think you'll get for your tooth?" He said "I hope three." I asked, "Three dollars?" He shook his head from side to side and said, "No, three cents."

Still Alice

This novel was written by a neurobiologist about a woman named Alice. Alice is Harvard professor who studies the brain and language. Alice receives a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's Disease just after her 50th birthday. Sometimes information can be expressed better in a novel than non-fiction. Just like the book I read recently, "The Nineteenth Wife" told the story of polygamy, "Still Alice" tells the story of Alzheimer's Disease from the point of view of a person living with the disease. Alice gets forgetful. It's normal, right? Don't we all get forgetful? One day, while jogging her usual path through her Boston neighborhood, she can't find her way home. She recognizes this to be her neighborhood and she should know the way home but she just can't find it. Being incredibly smart makes it easier for her to hide the symptoms longer. She is accustomed to solving problems in more than one way. Alice has a husband and three children. None of them signed up for Alice becoming so sick so quickly. Alice was somewhat estranged from one of her adult daughters. As her illness progresses, she and the semi-estranged daughter become closer than they ever had before. Alice is smart. She knows what is coming ahead for her. She makes a file on her computer called the Butterfly file. In this file she asks herself five questions. If she can't answer the five questions, she has a plan to end her life. I won't say how this dramatic story telling technique turns out because I don't want to spoil it for you. This is a terrific book. I could hardly put it down. I'd read for a couple hours and then stand up to do something and I would feel just like Alice - confused. Our book club discussed the book tonight. Everybody liked it. The person who brought treats brought a lemon cake because with Alzheimer's, the first taste and smell to go away is lemon. Anyone who couldn't taste the lemon in the cake would know they had the disease. I passed on the cake. If I'm going to find out I have Alzheimer's, I don't want to find out at a book club meeting. If there was a test I could take to find out if I would end up with Alzheimer's, I'm not sure if I would want to know the results. Would you?

Cyberspace Holds Me Back

On Sunday I was busy working. It was about an hour since I petted the coyote and I was feeling pretty good. I had my cell phone in my pocket and it began to vibrate. I got 3 messages from confused people. One message referred to a text message I had sent on April 14. Another was a confused, "What are you talking about?" I hadn't sent any text messages for days. When I got home Offspring #2 said she got 6 text messages from me at 9 a.m. I hadn't sent any to her. Some of the messages she got from me were repeats of messages she had already received and others were new. Later that day I heard from another sibling and a niece that I had sent them confusing text messages. One of them referred to St. Patrick's Day in March. W h a t t h e h e c k! Why did my cell phone start sending old text messages on June 6? Where had all those messages been stored? Cyberspace? What triggered their release? Why were some messages held hostage while others were allowed to pass through? I can't make sense of this. I guess it boils down to "You get what you pay for." I pay for a super cheap prepaid phone that costs me $8.33 per month. And I still have hundreds of minutes left over at the end of the year.

Coyote Encounter

Today I went to volunteer at the Wildlife Science Center. I am helping spruce up their entrance by removing dead limbs (of trees, not animals) and putting in some native species. I spoke with someone there to get more direction on what they want. When we finished talking, she asked if I wanted to see her newest pet. In her van, inside a dog crate, was an 8 week old female coyote. She opened the door to the crate and I reached my hand out. She was SO cute. But just before contact, a survival instinct kicked in and my hand hesitated while my brain screamed, "What are you doing touching a wild coyote?" The staff saw my hesitation and said it was okay, "She's not nearly as scratching and biting as she was when I first got her." I touched her little head between her little coyote ears. I scratched her behind her left ear. I let her smell my hand while my fingers caressed her right front leg. Her little black snout touched the top of my left hand. I can hardly believe I had the good fortune to touch a coyote. I've always thought of coyotes as stealthy, intelligent, spiritual animals. They only show themselves when they want to be seen. And if I am lucky enough to see one, it's because the coyote deemed me worthy. In this case, of course, the poor coyote was in a crate and had no option on being seen but I still count myself very lucky today.

Summer Bird Tour

This morning we went on another bird tour at the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. This time we saw trumpeter swans, sandhill cranes, Canadian geese, common yellowthroat, yellow warbler, robins, killdeer, sandpiper, eagles, red tailed hawk, pheasant, Baltimore oriole, red winged blackbirds, grackle, orchard oriole, American redstart, lark sparrow, song sparrow, barn swallows, tree swallows, grasshopper sparrow, Eastern towhee, olive sided flycatcher, king bird, kingfisher, snipe, brown headed cowbirds, catbirds, turkey vulture, marsh wren, tree wren, cedar waxwings (building a nest), two loons (one with a baby on it's back), black terns, double crested cormorant, green heron, great blue heron, blue winged teal, wood ducks, Eastern bluebird and (a first for me) a least bittern (see photo). The rain fell lightly most of the morning but wasn't a bother. I learned a lot this morning - about birds, ferns, grasses, and wildflowers. It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning.

The Nineteenth Wife

I've read three books recently. The first two were so bad they're not worth mentioning. But "The Nineteenth Wife" by David Ebersoff was a good book. The novel addresses the issue of polygamy in the United States. The readers goes back and forth from the story of Brigham Young's 19th wife, Anna Eliza Young to a modern story of a LDS town featuring a charming boy/man named Jordan Scott. The author uses pieces of history and writings from the Mormon Church yet leaves you wanting more. He's an expert on knowing when to switch from Anna Eliza's story to Jordan's story. The author did a thorough job explaining why women put up with such a system. I've read other books about polygamy. I read Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven" just before the raid on the compound in Texas. But this book more clearly illustrates how the modern polygamy harms the women, the children, and society in general. These old men, righteous FLDS believers, are not supporting their families. They're collecting welfare payments from each "wife." The young men are banished from the society much like the young male antelope are banished from the herd to reduce competition for mating rights. It's crazy that this stuff is still going on in our society.

Is All Hope Lost?

Since January I've been paying attention to Lily and Hope. I'm a facebook fan of Hope. Hope is the daughter of Lily, a black bear in Ely, Minnesota. I watched the den-cam in January before Hope was born. Lily wasn't moving much but I could see her sides move as she breathed. I tried to slow my breathing down to match hers. I got dizzy doing that because she breathed so slowly. I watched the den cam on January 22 when Hope was born. I heard Hope's little cries and her snoring rumbling sound that she made when she nursed. I followed the story of Hope and Lily as they emerged from the den and started life in the woods. I saw photos of Hope taking her first steps. I read the blog the first time Hope climbed a tree. I read a couple weeks ago when Hope and Lily got separated for five days. I was happy to hear they found each other again (with some human intervention). Without Hope nursing for five days, Lily's breasts went dry. Now Hope and Lily are separated once again and possibly forever. Lily is three and she is not an attentive mother. What will happen? On her own, Hope will starve. Hope could be brought in a force fed with IV's - no life for a bear. She might learn to drink goat milk and other supplements but won't be able to be a wild black bear if that happens. My head knows Lily and Hope are just two black bears in the woods but my heart has bonded with them. I'm sad. Things are not looking good for Hope.

Sex and the City

I went to see Sex and the City (their newest movie) tonight with a friend. We've watched the show on television. We watched the first movie. Now we watched this movie. Lets hope there aren't any more because it's time to put Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda to bed. In the first five minutes of the show, at Stanford's wedding dance, Liza Minnelli was up there belting out Beyonce's song "Put a ring on it." I knew I had my money's worth of entertainment right there. Oh, Liza, she still got that magic going on. She may have been lip syncing to her own voice on stage but she still has the moves and the legs. She was working it like Beyonce. Wow, she is something. Per usual, Carrie is confused about love. Miranda is balancing work, her son, and her marriage. Charlotte is ever hopeful about true love and pretending everything is okay. And Samantha? Well, Samantha was more Samantha than she usually is. Picture lusty and outrageous Samantha in a conservative Muslim country and you know there will be trouble. This whole movie is decadent, wasteful and shallow. I hope no one believes it represents American women. But I enjoyed it.

I Forgot

I forgot how much paperwork can pile up when I take time off work. I missed 7 days of work and my mailbox was stuffed with paper. I have over 100 emails and 10 voice messages. I had one woman angry with me because I didn't respond to her messages right away. She left me a voice mail message but must not have listened to the part where I said I was out and would return June 1st. She also left me an email but didn't pay attention to my "Out of the office" message that said I would return June 1st. What else can you do? I think I didn't realize how busy I would be when I returned because, except for a weekend in Morris, I really didn't go anywhere. No doubt I'll be back on top of the work by Friday. I have no reason to complain - job security, right?