Category Archives: Nature

Leaps of faith, acts of hope

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Spring’s first crocus arrived yesterday in the back yard, a bright purple beauty that, astonishingly, is still around today. Astonishing because our wild rabbits seem to love crocuses (I know, croci, but really?!), and the purple ones are their favorites. You doubt me? Years of experience have taught me that the rabbits’ dining preferences are an exact match for my aesthetic ones. They love a purple crocus flower best, followed by a white one, and least of all the yellow, which sometimes get left in place when all the others have been devoured. As with most things in my garden, I don’t begrudge them, though I’m always sad to lose the cheery crocus blooms, which are for me a true sign of spring.

Inside, my seedlings have begun to sprout, sending delicate stems stretching up from the dirt to remind me that life goes on. I’ve planted mostly vegetables and greens inside: kale and kalettes, chard, summer squash, basil, spinach. In addition to the raised bed, they’ll fill pots on the patio alongside edible flowers like marigolds and nasturtiums. I’ve started sunflowers indoors this year, too, a first for me. This is an experiment because the critters usually get whatever sunflower seed I direct sow outdoors. Again, I don’t begrudge them; even this year there’s extra seed left over, plenty for everyone. What else will I direct sow? Beans, lettuce, herbs, bee balm, and other seeds I can’t remember without hauling myself out of this chair right now to look.

Spring is my favorite season, a renewal, regeneration, start of the new cycle of life. It always cheers me, and this year I think I’m trying to escape the world by turning my eyes to the garden. I’m looking for reasons to be hopeful, and nature always provides.

It’s election season, which means postcard-writing season for me, and this year that has been an act of hope more than one of faith. I don’t know that I trust in the electoral process right now, but I refuse to surrender it. And so yesterday I dropped 100 postcards to swing-state voters through the mail slot at the Post Office that the current federal government wants to shut down. (That’s fewer cards than my usual contribution, but I’m plagued by a repetitive stress issue in my writing hand right now and wasn’t sure I could commit to more than 100.) Mailing GOTV postcards is always a joyous moment for me, and this year a somewhat defiant and very determined one.

Today I’m grateful for:

  • People who love and organize
  • Spring sunlight
  • A single purple crocus

Hawk watch

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Thursday was the day I started looking up at the treetops while walking, hoping to spot nesting Cooper’s Hawks.

We have them in the neighborhood, and we’ve had nests within a couple blocks of our house for the last two years. The right time to spot the nests is when they’re first being built, before the leaves grow in and obscure the view. By late spring, when the babes are born and starting to grow, it’s hard to see those nests through the foliage if you don’t already know where they are.

Thursday was warm and sunny, and I realized while out walking that this should be close to the time of the year when the nest-building begins. Perhaps a bit early, but better to start looking early than late. So upward went my eyes.

I haven’t yet spotted nesting hawks. But on Friday my search was rewarded with the discovery of a pair of nesting crows. I don’t think I’ve ever seen crows build a nest before, but there they were, two black tails wiggling together in a tree joint way up high, then one flying off southward and the other lifting off 10 seconds later headed east, both to return later to wiggle again side by side. Now that I know where to look, they’re easy to see.

As the March wind blows

I’m sitting on my front porch as I type, enjoying spring’s warmth and the bright, filtered sunlight of a partly cloudy day. The neighbor children are out, tossing baseballs and riding scooters, and winter seems truly banished even while the weather forecast threatens snow for tomorrow. The lilac has sprouted just the tiniest green buds, the forsythia seems from a distance to have done the same, and the tulips have shoved through the ground to soak up the light. Today is the day I’ll start seed pots indoors, filled with anticipation for the delicate seedlings to appear. Outdoors, I’ll leave the mulch of fall leaves untouched to protect everything that might be growing and sheltering beneath it.

I start my day grateful, for nature in all its glory and fury:

  • Sunlight
  • Warmth
  • Newly sprouted buds
  • Songbirds all around

The world around me is in chaos, and I’m worried about the state of my country and the future of our most vulnerable neighbors, our children and their children, not to even mention myself. That worry is ever-present these days, and I struggle to find a balance that lets me get through each day without ignoring what’s happening in the society around me. Looking to nature helps, but doesn’t make the worry go away. Nature and our actions are intertwined, and even as I carefully tend my own small place in the world I see the warning signs that show the damage we are doing on a much larger scale.

A view from the porch

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Just like that(!), the tree seemed to fill with catbirds. I couldn’t see a single one, but my ears told me they were there, and then my Merlin app confirmed it. The catbird is one of my favorite birds—social and talkative, pretty in a quiet way. And not usually particularly shy, but today’s were. Perhaps a migrating flock?

Because they drew my eyes up to the tree canopy, the catbirds did me the favor of showing me a flitting, frolicking flock of goldfinches, who were uncharacteristically quiet. On the move almost constantly, they skipped from branch to branch, back and forth, and it took me some minutes to make out their brilliant yellow plumage.​

Too long away

I haven’t sat out on the porch since before Tank died. This was his spot with me, and Rolo’s with and before him. We could sit for hours, them watching the world go by (Rolo) or sleeping (Tank), me reading or working. I think it’s no coincidence that I’ve returned now, when suddenly there’s another dog to accompany me. The new guy, Elwood, isn’t 100 percent comfortable yet on the porch, but then he isn’t really 100 percent comfortable anywhere, yet. It will come. He’s settling in more every day, showing more and more of his personality, claiming new spaces for his own.

Dogs, birds, books, neighbors. That’s what the porch is for, and my favorite times to be on it are during the spring and fall bird migrations. Tonight’s migration forecast is “HIGH” (Thanks, BirdCast!). I wonder who I’ll see!

Fledged

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The hawks are well and truly gone. Yesterday, believing they had left the nest the day before, I walked past to check (of course) and found that I could see much less of the nest than I had previously. One adult bird was up there, facing away from me and doing … something. There was its head moving, its tail bobbing a bit. But there didn’t seem to be any young birds. I heard one hawk call from a tree somewhere nearby, but that was it.

Today, another check. High, high in the sky a raptor soared above me. In the nesting tree, no birds. In fact, no nest.

No nest. It’s gone. Our nest of two years, that I watched a pair build last year, is no more. I don’t know if the young birds damaged it while trying to fly, if a storm hit it, or if the birds actively dismantled it because they were done.

I must read more about Cooper’s hawks. I want to be an informed neighbor, a good neighbor. And of course I hope they come back next year. I’m pretty confident they’re still in the neighborhood, but where? I must read more about Cooper’s hawks.

Flowers, not hawks

On the bright side, my milkweed and day lilies are in full bloom, together, a lovely combination. The hydrangeas, too, are thriving. And the bee balm and sweet peas that I put in last year have taken root—finally. I have tried both before with no success.

Yesterday I spied the bright red of a milkweed bug flying through the flowers some distance away from me. Its color gave it away; it was too small to identify otherwise at that distance. What a delightful surprise it was. I usually see them happily settled on the plants, sometimes massed together, rarely a single one in flight.

Ah, summer in the garden. If only the vegetables would thrive so well. This year’s lot seems somewhat sad: only one tomato plant with any flowers (and a meager couple they are); the basil scraggly but trying to recover from nibbling by bugs—probably our cicada emergence—at the start of the summer; no blossoms yet on the beans. Even the dill seed decided not to germinate (or perhaps got eaten?), so I had to put in a couple of plants later on. I’ll hold out hope, though, for a recovery.

Fledgling

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Today may have been the day the fledglings flew.

I’ve been watching the nest—a Cooper’s hawk nest three blocks away—closely for the better part of at least two weeks, hoping not to miss the fledging. In my wildest dreams, I would be right there when one or more of the babes flew for the first time. Realistically, I think my main hope was to monitor the situation and know—or nearly know, as much as possible without actually seeing—when it had happened.

I missed it last year. After weeks of watching the nest, from its construction, to Mama Hawk sitting it by herself first for weeks, even before having eggs to warm (they really do this!), clear through to little heads peering occasionally above its rim, I was on vacation when the fledglings flew. It was a needed and happy vacation—almost certainly Hound Dog’s last one, and he enjoyed it—but I was sad to come home and find the nest emptied, defunct. Sadder than ever I would have imagined.

So with Hound Dog unable to travel anymore, and his people no longer willing to leave him in anyone else’s care, I’ve pinned a lot of hope on being around for this year’s fledging. The hawks are back at the same nest for a second straight year. (I say “the hawks,” but I’ve no idea whether it’s the same birds, young who were raised in the nest last year, or an entirely different pair that happened upon it and found it. What I do know is that it has been occupied with Cooper’s hawks yet again, more joy for me.) And I’ve been watching it closely, walking past multiple times each day, once even making The Husband stop the car so I could get out and check the view on the way to some outing or other.

This past week or two has seen a lot of activity. The adults have been perched just outside the nest most of the time, sometimes seeming to feed the babes but often just perched, as if there weren’t actually enough room inside for them anymore. Two to three days ago, I saw a pair of youngsters perched on nest’s edge, flapping a bit, probably testing out those wings, while one of the adults called out from a nearby tree, perhaps encouraging them to soar.

I haven’t actually seen any of the young (and how many are there, even?) fly from the nest. But this morning when I went past, I saw no birds at all for the first morning in more than a week. I did hear one hawk call from nearby, but the nest looked empty. Had they flown? It seemed likely. From my vantage point down below, of course, there’s no way to be sure, but…

This afternoon, as I stood chatting with my neighbor outside our two houses, a young hawk flew overhead. One of the babes from my nest three blocks away? I think so. It’s the first time all summer that I’ve seen a hawk on my block, and it was a small one. I’ll keep watching that nest, but I think our little family might have lifted off.

Though I’m uncertain about the hawks, there’s no question that a hummingbird just made its daily pass among the branches of the large tree on my tree lawn. I never knew before that they would feed in trees, but this one does a fly-through every day, hovering branch to branch in apparent search for food. My lilacs also attract hummingbirds when in bloom, and the trumpet vine in the back yard is in full glory right now, so we have plenty of nectar for those long beaks.

The plants feed the hummingbirds. The hummingbirds feed my soul.

Today is also the day that I finished Tracy K. Smith’s memoir To Free the Captives. More than memoir (not that memoir isn’t enough!), it’s an exploration of racism and Black history and shared history, and a (perhaps) prayer for progress and equity and healing. It reads often like poetry, almost one long prose poem, as much as the series of essays that it is. It’s moving, thought-provoking, challenging, and I expect I’ll be thinking about it for quite some time.

This has been memoir month for me, as the book I read immediately before this one was Knife, Salman Rushdie’s memoir of the 2022 knife attack that nearly killed him. I’m still thinking about this one, too, as well as about expanding my list-of-books-I’ve read-by-Salman-Rushdie. It’s been a long time since I read his fiction, the last time being my second pass through Midnight’s Children, courtesy of my book club, and I miss it. I’m reminded of seeing him speak about his writing and free speech as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival—hardly seems possible that was nine years ago, but apparently it was.

Ringing out the year

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I have so many things I want to write about today! Reading, the end of this seemingly endless year, the deer that visited our front yard overnight while we slept…

Let’s start there, with the deer.

I took this photo thinking it would be a Wordless Wednesday post here on the blog. Then I got up this morning and wrote it into my #frontstooppoetry for the day. So, words, which means not wordless.

My husband and I saw this in the snow when we opened the gate from our side yard to head out to the sidewalk for our first walk of the day yesterday.

#frontstooppoetry by Kim Kishbaugh Who were you? / Doe, fawn or buck / who nibbled from the lilac / and left this / single hoof print / in the snow? (Dec. 31, 2020)

A single deer had walked right into the branches of our front-yard lilac tree, and from there we couldn’t tell where it had gone. Right on through? Maybe, but the tracks on the other side were definitely a rabbit’s. Either a rabbit obscured deer tracks, or the deer backed out the way it came. We could see only about three hoof prints, so it’s possible this deer used the sidewalk and veered into our yard only for a quick snack. I’ve seen it happen in the daylight. I know lots of people consider deer pests; to me, they’re graceful and beautiful creatures, with whom I’m generally happy to share a garden. It brightened my day to know I had hosted one in the wee hours.

Reading out the year

Lots of my friends are tallying up the books they’ve read this year and sharing the numbers on social media. Not me. I’ve found reading difficult this year. Oftentimes I’ve found myself too anxious to focus on reading anything longer than a poem, and for a short while leading up to and following Election Day, I couldn’t even read poetry. As a friend said to me recently, my relationship with books has been a troubled one. On the bright side, I’ve actually read more poetry books than usual this year. Among the ones I finished the year with was The Abridged History of Rainfall, by Jay Hopler (McSweeney’s Press), which is absolutely super. One poem in it, Elegy for the Living, is so heartbreakingly beautiful that I was compelled to read it aloud for the Twitterverse:

My unread book pile grew the other day when a friend emailed to ask if he had loaned me a book that he couldn’t find. He had not, but I’m pretty sure I own the book, and I thought, “If I can find it and have already read it, I can just pass it along to him”—an elegant solution to get him the book he wanted and clear one object out of my too-cluttered life, don’t you think?

You can probably tell already that this didn’t work out as planned.

I, too, found that I couldn’t track down this book, which for all I know might have decided to take a forbidden vacation with its sibling of the same name from my friend’s book collection.

But in the process of looking for it, I came across three other books that I had forgotten I had and really do want to read: two murder mysteries and Joe Biden’s book about the death of his son Beau, Promise Me, Dad. So those vaulted directly to the top of my next-read pile. The good news is that I’ve just finished reading one of them. Care to guess which one?

As we’re counting down the days to Inauguration Day 2021, and I’m looking forward to change in the White House—and, I hope, the country—it seemed appropriate to end 2020 with Biden’s memoir. I took the rediscovery of this book as a sign that the time was right to get to know my next president a little better. I’m glad I did. Although, of course, I cried at the end. So be forewarned.

Next up is one of the murder mysteries, a little lightness to start the new year.

My husband’s political advent calendar

Speaking of lightness, the new year, and the countdown to Inauguration Day…over on Escape into Life my husband, renowned cartoonist Phil Maish, has created a post-Christmas advent calendar to count down the last days of the current White House administration. Each day he opens a new door to show a new cartoon. Day 25 will be Inauguration Day.

Here’s yesterday’s cartoon, the most recent as I’m typing this but probably not the most recent as you’re reading. So here’s the growing archive of all open doors.

Ending the year on a high note

After the overnight snowstorm that revealed the deer tracks yesterday morning, we had an utterly gorgeous day today, sunny and clear and crisp. The husband and I took a nice walk, to and through a neighborhood park, and I couldn’t resist taking a few photos, including the one at the top of this post. It was a simply perfect winter day; I couldn’t have asked for a better one to end 2020. We’ll be spending our New Year’s Eve the way we like best: watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies and trying to stay awake until midnight. Tomorrow’s lentil soup is already made, and the traditional Swedish rice pudding will follow it up; if I recall correctly, we started 2020 without either of those good-luck staples, and look where that got us.

#frontstooppoetry by Kim Kishbaugh - Winter Storm Morning It felt rather good / to shovel off all the crap / of 2020 (Dec. 30, 2020)