Kale Show Offs

 I love it when I plant something new in my garden, and it way out-performs my expectations. Enter the spectacular ornamental kale. How the species escaped my horticultural attention till now, I don’t know, but it did. I wish I’d taken a photo of these four little people when I first planted them last fall. Then only 6-inches tall, they were bushy, low, and all green. I chose them to finish out the back corners of the four raised boxes my brother Dan built for me a few years back. (That’s a post all its own for another day.) The tags said each kale plant would produce showy white foliage, and my nurseryman confirmed they’d be a nice backdrop to the snapdragons I was putting in the fronts of the boxes. That's all I knew at the time, but I bought them.

That was October. In November and December they bolted into 2-foot tall beauties with showy white foliage indeed. Bright white and 12-14 inches across, they look like a huge flower with a pretty border of green leaves all around the outside. I was beyond satisfied with their late fall growth, and I fully expected them to die out during the winter.  

Wrong. They soldiered on through our mildish December and January freezes and are STILL catching the eye of anyone who glances out my kitchen window. I learned they’ll continue showing off until the snap dragons bloom later this spring, but they won't survive our hot summers. AND, they're edible! Will we eat them?  Maybe, before high temperatures bring on their demise.

Meantime, I’m getting ready to hire a former first grade student of mine to turn our yard into a native species garden. I doubt if ornamental kale will make the cut, hailing from Europe as it does, but I’m enjoying it while I can. 

~dkm 3/4/24

Cedar Waxwings Galore!

Friends,

Warmer weather and a whistling flock of cedar waxwings (called an “ear-full” or “museum”) invited me outdoors yesterday, strengthening my resolve to return to daily outdoor longsitting and more regular blogging. You will hold me accountable, will you not?  

I'm a more whole being when my outdoor longsitting practice is indeed daily, as opposed to when I think I have time for it. I can't rightfully call it meditation, because I work to pay attention to (and wonder about) everything around me, but like meditation, it lowers my blood pressure and returns my equilibrium amid the busy-ness of life. One hour of longsitting, or even just fifteen minutes, is a worthy expense for the lift of energy it brings.  

So, thank you, dear cedar waxwings at the backyard birdbath––for prioritizing my to-do list!

 The more prominent sound in the video, of course, is not cedar waxwing whistle. It's caucophony of redwing blackbird, overpowering the pale sweetness of the waxwing whistle. Large flocks of both species are here in north central Georgia at this time of year. According to my monthly backyard birding journal of the past few years, the blackbirds are here from mid-November to late-February, the waxwings only in February and March. Both will soon be gone, enroute to their preferred nesting habitats further north. 

This means it's almost time to start watching for the mating shenanigans of our year-round residents, including my perennial favorite, eastern bluebirds.  

I learned today that the red waxy wing-tips, after which cedar waxwings are named, come from their near-exclusive diet of red berries, and that when the dreaded parasitic brown-headed cowbird lays its eggs in a cedar waxwing nest, the nestlings often don't survive, because cowbirds can't survive on fruit alone. Way-to-fight cowbird piracy, cedar waxwings! 

 The greatest gift of retirement is the time to learn about such wonders of nature. And wonder-of-wonders, heard at the end of today's longsit: a nearby murmur of mating bluebird. Ahhhhh. Spring. 

Be well, y’all!

~dkm 2-10-24