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.