Confessions

 You know about cats and clean laundry. When I take a load of laundry out of the dryer, I arrange something over it to protect from burrowing. The back side of a bathmat, or the wrong side of a bedspread or table cloth does the trick. Then I fold the laundry and replace the protective cover. I carry the basket to the landing at the top of the stairs, where it commands a view of the bedrooms, the stairs, the front door, and the living room. It is prime real estate. The cats take turns napping on it, and little harm is done because the laundry is protected from fur. Now, it just happens that sometimes the laundry doesn't get put away immediately, in which case napping on the covered laundry goes on for several days. It seems little enough to make the cats happy and have clean laundry at the same time. Plus, it gives our beds a break. With all the cat towers in the house, positioned near excellent window views, the cats still love the beds. I have to admit I love my bed very much too. 

Meanwhile, I have gradually come around to my husband's way of thinking about what has been happening to the bird food I put out in the backyard. Sometimes the food disappears from the feeders very quickly. 

He says we have a juvenile sasquatch visiting the backyard. Little Foot, our friends have dubbed him. I suppose it could be. We have deer, fox, bobcats, raccoons, possum, armadillos, hawks, owls, and who knows what other predators. 

In fact, a few weeks ago we witnessed a rampaging deer running from the side of the house into the woods. It was barking angrily, and in front of it was a small light-colored creature that appeared to have been the neighbors' orange tabby cat. The cat had been spending a lot of time in the yard. I haven't seen it in the yard since. Probably the sasquatch and the deer teamed up on it. 

Crows

A family of crows have been showing their fledgelings how to get food from our bird feeders. We have several kinds of feeders, and they have been figuring out how to get something from each of them.

One crow parent has learned to fly up from the ground and get beakfuls of soft suet from a feeder designed for little birds. Another clings to the little wooden peg while she gets suet.

The tray feeder that has a roof over it is a tight fit for a crow, but most of the crows have figured out how to wedge themselves in and get suet balls and peanuts. It has been entertaining to watch the juveniles slide down the roof and wind up on the metal branch. They are trying to figure out how much jumping and flapping it takes to get in between the tray and the roof.

The young crows haven't really tried the "dinner bell" tray feeders. The parents are able to cling and flap enough to get food from those.

But yesterday one of the juvvies surpassed its parent and balanced on the small seed-catching tray of the seed tube feeder. It pecked seeds out onto the ground for everyone to share.

So it's quite the operation this year to see the crows gain food. It's challenging to get pictures of them because they like to think they are getting away with something, and if they see us look up at them they fly away. Years ago I resented how much food they were taking, but for a long time now I have been admiring of their ingenuity. And I have learned not to refill things too quickly.

Remember

This morning as I was taking my daily walk I encountered a young woman getting ready to run. She wished me "Happy Memorial Day" and then laughed, as if to acknowledge the irony of the "happy" part of her greeting. "And to you," I said. "Let's keep them in our hearts." She nodded and we went on with our exercise.

Yesterday I talked with my husband about family members who had served in the military. Our fathers, both, one in the navy and one in the air force. Uncles, great uncles, some for one tour, some career officers. And then there were the ones the family barely mentioned, or didn't talk about at all--the one who is buried at Shiloh, a foot soldier in the confederate army; the confederate colonel. As we revisit the lasting damage of that civil war, and think about our current and possibly fatal disagreements about how to proceed, my focus is on those of us looking for a way forward to heal together rather than further divide.

Good birds

We have been fortunate in the past couple of years to have seen several birds that are new to our life list. The excitement of identifying them and observing them makes all the feeder-filling and hiking rewarding. So here they are-- at the bird feeders, a Western tanager in north central Florida, where only a few have been recorded ever. That was three years ago in the spring. A painted bunting in January. A blue grosbeak this week. And today walking at Sweetwater Wetlands Park, more than a dozen bobolinks eating seeds in the tall grass. The sun caught the golden color on the back of their heads so they were easy to spot even though they moved around quickly.

I always enjoy the birds who are here all year, but it's nice to see a new one now and then.

Live oak smell

For years I have been walking around my neighborhood. It's a two mile loop from my front door. In one particular place, there is a large live oak, the kind that has multiple trunks that have fallen over and kept growing up from there. A big green octopus. Every time I walk by it, I think I smell Mediterranean cooking from the house across the street.

Then one day several months ago, I was walking by another house with several huge live oaks. It was a clear day after many days of rain. It was so humid that algae was growing on the street under the tree. There was that smell. It had to be the tree.

We have a live oak in our yard but I've never smelled Mediterranean cooking near it. It's a younger tree than the others and doesn't have branches reaching the ground and the area around it is more open to the breeze. The humidity doesn't gather under it like it does under the older trees. Perhaps that accounts for it.