Long Haul

No photographs today; just imagine a black arm band. I said I wouldn't keep on and on about the crane family, but here's the last update.

Yesterday, after first light I went out to the pond to check on them. To my horror I found a huge alligator on the crane nest just finishing off the last chick. Bob and Emily, the parents, were striding around, bereft and twining their necks around each other. I knew there were so many dangers in this long process of creating new life. I worried about everything that could happen: cows stepping on the eggs, pond predators, vultures, coyotes, fire ants and of course, alligators.

At night I went to the pond to shine my flashlight across the water to check for gators. I never saw any of a size to be a problem. Sometimes I saw our neighbors watching too. We have all loved this spring of the cranes and we celebrated the hatching of the two chicks. One died for no reason we could discern, but I got to hold it and look closely at the amazing red down.
The alligator perpetrator died of lead poisoning within minutes of the crime I am glad to say, thanks to Warren. Bob and Emily have gone away, hopefully to a vacation spot somewhere. I hope they will return and try again next year to have the family they were meant to have.

This is the first day in two weeks when we have not had a lot of rain. Everything is green and growing. The vegetable garden is now past except for the tropicals such as peppers, eggplants and beans. Sweet potatoes and okra are yet to come. It was a big mistake to put in gourds. They have taken over everything and in the mornings I must disentangle their tendrils over the garden door to open it. What can one do with hundreds of luffa gourds?

We have both been sick with pneumonia, middle ear infections, and general crud, all of which keeps our energy down. But, slowly improving.

I am loving my newly renovated studio and have several painting projects underway. One is a beautiful cypress and oak bench Andy made as a wedding present for some young friends. I am painting the top of it with images of tomatoes and peppers. I am also working on a large painting of Quincy and Elizabeth. We have had visitors every weekend for months, but this upcoming one is all ours just to keep the momentum of recuperation going.

The Pond

After first light, in the dawn chorus of the birds, I head down to circle the pond. Always an adventure, I know that always there will be some of the familiars, and sometimes something I have never seen there before.

I check out the sand hill crane family who are elegantly strutting around the periphery with junior who scuttles behind and under them and frequently taps on their heads for food.

There are many wood ducks and Florida ducks and purple galinules paddling on the surface, oblivious to the alligators I know are there. The kingfisher flashes it's blue as it flies low over the water. Today I see a lone wood stork, a great blue heron, and the otter turning and splashing in the shallows. Five deer gallop across the field.

We have had major rain for the last two weeks so the pastures are verdant and we hope the Green Swamp is sucking it in. The vegetable garden is over watered from god and the tomatoes on the vine are splitting with so much moisture. The lettuces are bolting but the beans are so prolific that we give every guest a bag of them to take home. The tropicals- sweet potatoes, okra, peppers and eggplants will be our vegetables for the long hot days ahead.

I love this place, and as I look out the window at the moment I see an intense red sky to the west, promising more rain.

This weekend we had a visitor, our good friend Ann. Both Andy and I have loved this woman for decades. While Ann and I spent time in my studio, catching up as the torrential rains fell, Andy made a dinner that was the best ever!

First, we had squash soup from a volunter acorn squash that appeared next to the compost pile. He had put just the right amount of garlic and curry and cream into it. So creamy and delicious! Then we had his home made pasta pillows stuffed with collards from the garden and toasted pine nuts, topped with garden tomatoes and onions. To accompany, there was a side dish of green beans and carrots from the garden and a salad of light green lettuces and crispy cukes from the garden. Fresh baked bread Andy made, and we all indulged in butter. To guild the lily, we had dessert of an impressive lemon souffle! Hey, there is some good cooking going on in East Pasco! Michael Pollen would be proud.

Circle of Life

Quincy has just put six candles on his grandfather's birthday cake and he is ready for the huge salmon grilled by Jay in oversize collard leaves. The family has gathered for this seventieth birthday; everyone has been running around between the grill and the pool and the kitchen where my sister Maria is setting the table and vegetables from the garden are being prepared. On this evening, the regular cook, also the birthday boy, has been instructed to do nothing!

I am recovering my energy from a month of what turned out to be pneumonia and this weekend was perfect. The new floor in my studio is complete and very beautiful and for just this tiny instant the organization of the space is all inviting potential. It was a lot of work to move everything out, and then back in.

As the family and friends arrived I was excited to show off the floor. But I was more excited to introduce them all to the new born sandhill crane chicks, now three days old and tottering along with the parents who kept their little family close to the pond. Quincy was very interested to see these birds whose eggs he had watched for weeks. The fields were splendid after the recent rains and the birthday song was sung mostly on tune and certainly with lots of love.

The next day, the only people left were our friends Peter and Susie, both avid birders. Of course we all went down to the pond to watch for the otter and see the cranes and whatever else might be around. Deer were under the trees and a gopher tortoise was hightailing it across the field. After breakfast and a good read of the Sunday papers we went out on the front porch to watch the cranes on the brow of the hill. We could only see one of the babies but we thought it was lower and out of view. Through the scope we could see the parents picking at something. They seemed to be urging one of the chicks to move. Susie and I looked at each other, knowing instantly that something was the matter.

After a decent amount of time, maybe a few minutes, Susie went out to see what the problem was. Of course both of us were thinking about rescue, trip to a bird sanctuary, etc. The parent cranes finally left the area, followed by the other chick. Moving on. We found the troubled chick, now dead on the hill. We picked it up and looked to see what happened. This looked like a perfect baby, so incredibly soft with that thick down that seems like fur. What could have happened?

We left it under a nearby palm tree. Within minutes the buzzards came. The crane family of three was grazing near the pond.

I think I really knew that this perfect bird experience would be like anything else in the natural world here. Birth and death and nurturing, storms and drought and the beauty of life enough to 'stagger sextillions of infidels'

Birth Announcement

The first baby sandhill crane hatched late this afternoon! It has been punishingly hot and dry for days but those elegant birds stuck to their job, trading places twice each day. Sometimes it was so hot the bird on the nest would gracefully arise, step out into the moat surrounding the nest and sink neck deep in the cool water for a few moments. This is when I could see the two eggs I had started to think were duds.

Today there was red in the dawn sky and rain was forcast for the afternoon. I noticed that both birds were in close attendance. As the huge dark thunderheads rolled in I went down with my binoculars and there it was! The first chick. Her name is Roberta, after Bob, the dad. (I have no idea what gender this chick is, of course, and probably neither do the parents.) This is probably the cutest of all baby birds I have ever seen with the possible exception of penguins. This chick is very small, about ten inches tall and is covered with fluffy strawberry blonde down. Her fuzzy wings hang down like a baby's arms in a snowsuit with mittens. The mom, Emily, still has the other egg to hatch so she tries to keep the chick under her wings, but I see it peeking out from time to time.

I had to leave the scene when the thunderstorms swept over. When can I stop worrying about these birds? This evening with everything seeming new and green from the rain, I went back to see how the crane family had fared in the storm. Roberta was teetering on the edge of the nest, Emily was doing some housekeeping, flipping pieces of straw on the nest, rearranging things. Bob was poking at his chick to keep it from getting in the moat. Emily turned over the remaining egg, gathered in the chick and settled down. Bob was standing by for the approaching night. The birds don't seem to mind me watching them and let me get quite close.

In the distance of the pond an otter turned over and over in the shallows and the wood ducks with their wonderful colors glided among the water lilies. A kingfisher buzzed the water's surface. Only missing from this scene in the Peaceable Kingdom was my grandson Quincy who has been as interested as I in the crane family and who has spent so much time with me (and his plastic binoculars) looking at birds and the natural world.

The vegetable garden must appreciate the natural rain. This morning Andy brought great loads of hay to replenish the mulch. He took out all the huge collards, now with stems eight inches in diameter, and some of the broccoli gone to seed and threw them all over the fence for the cows. I tied up the gourds, tomatoes and cukes. Everything is like the Little Shop of Horrors, so large and fruitful. I found a zuchini bigger than a cricket bat and picked several pounds of beans and a bale of swiss chard. So far there are no major bugs on the tomatoes, always the biggest challenge. Discovering the screening trick over the lettuce beds was key to having lots of lettuce still for our salads.

Perhaps to morrow I will be able to have a photo of the baby crane. It was too dark when I last looked.

Saving Stuff

After stewing about it for many months I am getting a new floor in my studio. Three years of hard wear on the painted concrete has taken a toll. It will be covered with clean laminate and vinyl. The local flooring guy came by with samples and encouragement. This is the time in the bad economy to fix your personal infrastructure. People are eager to come and do the work and you don't have to wait months.

The clay room has to be cleared so I have spent some time moving out buckets of glaze, many tools, bats- all the stuff I need. The tables and shelves are now in the barn. That was the easy part. When I put it back I will try to have everything as dust free as I can make it. The vacuum has sucked up lots of brown recluse spider eggs, mice droppings, dead roaches, bits of cloth and thread, old peanut husks carried around by the mice.

The clean room (so called) where I sew, write and paint can have its population of furniture and computer components moved back and forth as the laminate is laid. The big problem is the filing cabinets! I have been procrastinating on this for years and I just kept moving them from house to house, place to place, vowing to clean them out when I got around to it.

What if I died in an avalanche? Or a tsunami? Would I hate to think of my progeny having to go through all this stuff? The time has come and so I am here blogging and procrastinating. I have put everything from six large file drawers out on my work table. I know that two drawers are still full of the journals I kept all my work life. I used this stuff fairly recently while writing a memoir. But the book is published. So can I decently throw the journals away? I have a large black plastic bag ready to dump them into. I think I can actually do this - tomorrow. But I get distracted by a journal entry, never used in my book. Shall I keep it? What about all the files of writing ideas?

There is just too much of the written word out there! I am not Mark Twain with unfinished gems some scholar will want to discover in fifty years. Yes, that stuff has to go. Think of how light it will be to have a sparse filing cabinet with practical folders of current tax and banking information, only the most pertinent paper from board meetings, current volunteer efforts, medical records, current information about the electronic stuff I use. (Get rid of the manual from a camera I owned five years ago! And get rid of old electronics no longer of any use.)

I think that the main thing about culling papers from your life is having a large dose of humility, and the practicality to go along with it. You have to ask yourself, "Would the world still go round without this?" or "Will I ever actually make the effort to figure out what to do with some one else's papers?" (Yes, I did go through my father's papers, maybe too quickly, but steady enough to realize he had some books ready for publication, and I made them happen.) But, I am ready to be through with saving the dust-catching load of stuff.

I will enjoy a morning of reading and keeping a few papers. I will happily discard old bank statements, and I will still keep a few files of letters and memorabilia from old students and family. I think I can throw out a huge amount of photos. I will not obsess about having an identity theft if someone at the dump paws through old records of teeth cleanings and vet visits for a dog dead for twelve years.

It hasn't happened yet, but tomorrow is a new day. I keep envisioning the new clean floor and I already have the canvass and paint to get started on a new project.

For those of you who are birders, the eggs have not hatched yet! The cranes,Bob and Emily are still on the nest. I saw the eggs this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow? I will be so sorry if those eggs are duds!

Waiting for rain

We are waiting for the rains. Every afternoon we are teased with the big dark clouds that don't deliver. Our fields and paths are dusty. The pastures are hoping to become green. We see the dawn with the sun trying to emerge into the morning through the mist.

When I drive to town, a few miles away, I pass the houses and trailers along the way that take the brunt of all the dust kicked up from the wheels of vehicles.

Living rurally, we pay attention to the rhythms of the weather. We worry about the dryness of the orange trees and we water what we can. I water the vegetable garden, our existence! Last night we had a celebration of vegetables for our friends. The garden is producing everything imaginable so we had platters of lettuce, beans, snow peas, beets, squash, eggplants, carrots and peppers. Our friends bring us fresh eggs and oranges.

The sand hill cranes are still incubating those eggs! I begin to wonder if they are duds? I went out with Lola, the dog, to check on them this evening. The mom, Emily, is still firmly on the nest, and her mate, Bob, is standing nearby. The ducks and the anhinga are nearby. Maybe soon?

The Cranes

Yes, yes, I know these images are not National Geographic quality. I have been so delighted and interested in the sand hill cranes' process of the courtship, nest building, and incubation on our pond this spring. So these are a few of my clumsy attempts to show what's happening. In the first photo the two large eggs can be clearly seen. In the next photo you can see Emily the female with her constant sidekick, the moorhen who keeps watch day and night. In the third picture, there is just Bob, who has just changed places with his mate. They look very much alike but Emily is a bit smaller and does most of the incubation. I have been able to get close enough to hear a strange low purring noise they make, a contrast to the wild loud trumpeting call when they greet each other or fly off to peck for food.

The bird books say that the eggs hatch after 28 to 35 days. Should happen at any moment as I calculate it. The buzzards are still hanging around and this makes me really nervous. Maybe by tomorrow there will be two more red heads around here. (Quincy is coming for the weekend.)

I think I have never been so 'in the moment' as I have been here during this amazing springtime. After the long cold winter plants behaved differently. We still have some oak trees dripping pollen, there are no mosquitoes and a very short firefly season. The hummingbirds and chimney swifts and whipoorwills appeared on schedule. The 'cold weather' vegetables are still prolifically bearing. We still have lots of broccoli and pea pods, and the lettuce, now under shade cloth, continues on. We are starting to harvest beans, chard, cucumbers, zuchini. Tomatoes look promising and so far have not been found by the hornworms. Lots of peppers and eggplants. The onions are up.

We continue to trap the critters who dig up the yard and steal the bird feed. Andy swears he will get a 22 and dispatch them. So far, we just take the full traps up the road and let the raccoons, opossums and armadillos go.

There are wonderful wild flowers in bloom but you have to look for them, as most are not large. When the rains start, we'll have all kinds of fungi, but now everything is as dry as dust.

When I get up in the morning I am always eager to be outdoors, checking things out, seeing the deer leaping across the far pasture with their distinctive breathy call, listening for the dawn chorus of dozens of birds I can't identify, looking for footprints in the sand of the creatures who were here last night.

I sit on the porch and read the local paper, then head out for some gardening or hanging out the clothes.

Then I love being in my studio working on something or other, and going up for lunch with Andy and my 'nap' on the couch with Lola, the dog. That's when I read the New York Times. Afternoons are for working in the studio. We have our routines! Even when Quincy is here he falls into our life. Such a pleasure to add a little boy bath and story time, or have a little guy at meals, or playing outside my studio.

In the late afternoon I bring Andy the day's vegetables from the garden. Salad? Beets? Snowpeas? I wash and prepare them for cooking, confident that the cook will do his best.

Late afternoons, we take our swims. The pool is yet very cold for me.

We are still having trouble with all the things on our calendar, trips to 'the city' and trips elsewhere. I hate the process of shutting up and locking everything for our trips away from here. When we come back and open the gate and start down that mile long lane with the overhanging oaks dripping with Spanish moss, I breathe a sigh of contentment. Home!

We are slowly making our way in this community, a pleasure. We volunteer in community efforts and meet a lot of interesting folks. Having loved my work life so much, I could not have imagined that another phase of life would be so compelling and satisfying. Of course, we still flop around in retirement somewhat. Our good friends, some still working, others retired, want to know how we can be content with the rural life?

How can I answer this? Perhaps, being elderly, I can at last do what I like. The voice from my mother's head gets ever fainter. Our marriage, after nearly fifty years, gets stronger. We have never talked to each other so much- from politics to poetry, agriculture and family. Music is very important to us, though we no longer attend the Symphony. We need live theater and art museums and shows. We need to see an opera in NYC every year.

And then, there is this magical and compelling place where we live. So I go and visit the cranes' nest several times a day, full of the wonder and fragility of it all. I am smaller than an ant, larger than the gibbous moon, and happy as a clam at high tide.