Three Nice Mice

While visiting my daughter and her wife in Northern Vermont: 

These adorable creatures were huddled in the bottom of the compost bin when I opened it to dump in our kitchen scraps. I didn't have the heart to throw corn husks and sweet potato peelings on top of the cute little things, though they might have liked them. Instead I went inside for my phone, hoping they'd still be there when I returned. They were. And they posed for the camera as nicely as I could have imagined. 

Kodak moment over, I deposited the scraps in a different bin and recited a little poem about mice to myself, pleased I could still remember it.  It was first introduced to me in childhood by my quirky aunt, who was a professor of children's literature, and who is the model for a character in my unpublished middle-grade manuscript. I later used the same poem as a handwriting assignment on the chalkboard for my first graders. 

Chalkboard. That's giving away my age (as is my reference to the Kodak moment). When smart boards and iPhones came into our classrooms, I knew it was time to retire. 

If that's not enough, here's an even greater tell-tale example of my age: I can't help grieving that it is no longer in vogue to write clever, accessible, and easy-to-memorize children's poetry with rhyme and repetition like this one. What child wouldn't love "Mice," by Rose Fyleman?

MICE

I think mice

Are rather nice. 

        Their tails are long,

        Their faces small, 

        They haven't any 

        Chins at all. 

        Their ears are pink,

        Their teeth are white, 

       They run about

        The house at night.

        They nibble things

        They shouldn't touch,

        And no one seems

        To like them much.

But I think mice

Are nice.

                        ~by Rose Fyleman

Here's hoping the upcoming generations of educators will still recognize the value of rhyme, rhythm, and repetition for teaching children to read. 

~dkm 9-17-24 

Out 0f Season Backyard Camellias

Allow me to stray from my usual topic of backyard observations to tell a story about a watercolor painting by my dear artist friend Sheila, who left this earth too soon, in November 2019. One of my beloved inheritances from Sheila was a box of pastels and watercolors from her studio that her children were not able to take because of the sheer volume of her work. We sold some of them at an art show, I framed and hung some of them, but there are still way too many left to hang in any one person's home.  

When a Little Free Art Gallery went up not far from my house, Sheila's family and I agreed to begin posting the paintings there, one at a time, in hopes of spreading Sheila's art into the world for others to enjoy. The gallery, similar to Little Free Libraries, is a dollhouse-sized room mounted on a pole by a neighborhood sidewalk, made especially for sharing art.  

So, for the past year, about once a week, I've been placing Sheila's works in the little gallery. They are all unframed and most measure about 12 x14 inches. Every piece I've placed has disappeared within a week or so, leaving room for more. I've been curious to know who takes them but I've never been witness to any of the departures, until one day this week, when I was heartened by what I observed.  

 I parked my car and deposited in the gallery a beautiful 12x14 watercolor that Sheila had titled "Backyard Camellias." I wish I had photographed it, because to describe it as a few red camellias with yellow stamen in the centers on a background of green leaves does not do justice to its brilliance. 

After making my deposit, I latched the door of the gallery and walked to the post office across the street to mail a card. When I came out of the post office, I noticed a woman who looked uncombed, unwashed, and perhaps unhoused,  sorting through all the works in the little gallery. I wanted to run across to ask which ones she liked and encourage her to take the camellias, but somehow that seemed too invasive, so I waited and watched from across the street. 

I can't say why I was so moved by watching her, but something about that impoverished-looking woman carefully discerning which art she wanted touched me deeply. Once she made her selection, she glanced furtively up and down the street, perhaps unsure if it was okay to help herself to the art. As she tucked her selection inside her blouse, it flashed toward me long enough to see from across the street that she had indeed chosen Sheila's camellias and was protecting them from harm as she moved on down the sidewalk. 

I don't know if that dear woman had a place to display her newly acquired art, but it gave me joy to think about Sheila's handiwork bringing a measure of beauty to one who may have otherwise had little beauty in her life.  

~dkm 7-21-24

The Promised Story of the Four Raised Beds

My siblings and I were reared in a gardening culture in the middle of Kansas where sun was never in short supply. Full sun vegetable gardens were the rule in every side yard in our small town of Hesston, KS. If some gardens, like my grandmother's, displayed a few flowers, fine, but the main event was food production. We grew up helping in the garden from early spring to late fall. We ate home canned tomatoes, green beans, red beets, and pickled cucumbers all year long. 

Both my brothers now live in sunny places and grow vegetables, but my sister and I settled in urban areas where the shade from the tree canopy restricts our gardens to mostly flowers. My older brother Dan and I have had an ongoing debate about whether you can call a garden a garden if no vegetables and only flowers grow in it. I say yes, living in metro Atlanta, where graceful flower gardens reign supreme. But Dan is of the veggie school. 

He insisted the mere four hours of midday sun I got in my backyard between the loblolly pines would be enough to manage some shade-tolerant radishes and greens. So one visit eleven years ago, he spent a full weekend building me four beautiful raised beds that would allow me to prove his point.

I tried. I really did, as shown by these photos of my grandchildren picking the radishes we grew that first year. 

 But across the years, as the trees grew taller and the sun time decreased, I've reverted to 100% flower gardening, and Dan sends me his homegrown tomatoes in the mail.

 Still, I want you to know, Dan, how much pleasure your weekend project of 2013 brings me every year, showing off different species of flowers. If I thought they'd survive the trip, I'd send you some of this year's snapdragons in the mail. 

~dkm 4/30/24

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  

 

Fungi Wonderings

These odd looking mushrooms popped up in my backyard overnight. Might they be the fabled edible chanterelles? 

My neighbor, Ed, will know. He has tutored me in the fine art of chanterelle identification, assuring me of their safety and deliciousness when sautéed in butter or stirred into a nice gravy, but I don't trust my untested identification skills. 

If Ed gives them a positive ID, they're his. Sorry, chanterelle people out there. I'm not willing to risk it.  I’ve watched too many British murder mysteries in which poisonous mushrooms are the weapon of choice. 

Still, I am fascinated by the endless variety of fungi that show up in the yard after rain. By elegant arrangement, they break down dead organic matter for their own food, thus playing an important role in mother earth’s housekeeping system.

I like knowing that mushrooms are nature's consumers. I just don’t want to eat them. I'm quite happy allowing them to do their worthy work in the world uninterrupted. I've even imagined they could be hybridized somehow into an organism that decomposes plastic waste. Wouldn't that be an environmental coup? Meantime, I'm calling Ed. 

Several hours later:  

Ed confirmed that my backyard mushrooms were indeed chanterelles. He was happy to take them, but that begs the question: If someone harvests mushrooms from my yard and gets sick from them, would I be responsible?  Like I said, too many British murder mysteries. 

~dkm 9/22/23

Backyard Visitor

 Coyote in the back yard. 7:30p.m.  Skinny. Hungry. Sniffing in the grass and searching in the places where we saw a rabbit earlier that day. 

Blurry photos, taken at dusk from the deck and blown up. He was clearly aware of me.  

 I've never been afraid of anything in my own yard. But I'm thinking this will ensure that my trips to the compost corner in The Wayback will happen before dusk from now on. And I'll be burying the kitchen scraps quite a bit deeper.

~dkm 9-5-23 

Noisy Nestlings

BLUEBIRD UPDATE:

Once the parents finished building the nest in the new house, Mama laid four eggs on June 5th. 

She sat on the eggs faithfully for the fourteen days of incubation, leaving the nest only occasionally to find food for herself and stretch her wings. Often she peeked through the doorway to get some fresh air. 

Photo taken through the window
so as not to disturb her

The eggs hatched on Father's Day, June 18th.

Hard to see the new
featherless hatchlings.
Photo snatched quickly
whileMama was away.

Mama continued sitting on the nest for the first few days after the hatch, but left often to bring back food for her newbies. Soon she stopped sitting and began feeding full time, entering the house briefly each time she returned. Papa Blue helps with the feedings. They take turns ducking into the house every few minutes with their meal deliveries. 

Sometimes one or the other of the parents collects and removes a white fecal sac from the nest, which they carry away in their beaks. They often consume the fecal sacs themselves, for the nutritional value.

For further reading on this interesting tidbit:

https://madisonaudubon.org/blog/2018/7/30/into-the-nest-what-goes-in-must-come-out

 https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/ordway-lab/undergraduate-projects/northern-mockingbird-projects/why-birds-eat-fecal-sacs/

At first, the nestlings stayed low and silent in the nest, but within a few days they began squawking loud and clear whenever either parent arrived at the doorway with a morsel of food. 

Thanks to good parenting, the nestlings are growing rapidly. 

At 14 days old, they are strong enough to reach up to the hole to be fed.

 

The parents come more often now, feeding them from the doorway, poking their heads in, but no longer fully entering the house.

Mama:

Papa:

As for when the nestlings will fledge from the nest, guidebooks report a wide range of 15-20 days after hatching, so it could be as early as Monday July 3, or as late as Saturday, July 8. Whenever it happens, a

few friends and I will watch and cheer them on from a respectful distance. It's become a tradition. 

Stay tuned... 

~dkm 7-2-2023 

                                                                                                            

Nature’s Consumers: Fungi

Slime mold again! Growing this time on the seat of my already deteriorating backyard swing, helping it along on it's slow return to the earth. 

                                                                                                              

Makes me wonder if fungi could ever evolve into consuming plastics!  Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing!

Just thinking…

~dkm 6-18-23

Cooper's Hawk to the Rescue

On the sad reality of nature colliding with human civilization:

A louder than usual crash called our attention to the sliding glass back door. Tragically, a beautiful white-breasted nuthatch had flown into the glass and fallen to the deck beneath the bird feeders. We watched, hoping it was only stunned and would fly off again, as most do, but no. Its rotating struggle on the floor of the deck indicated a broken wing. 

Almost immediately, while we were still debating what to do, an ever-alert Cooper's hawk swooped in and lit ominously on the deck banister.  The image of stealth, he looked around in all directions before dropping to the deck floor beside the hapless nuthatch. More cautious observation of his surroundings, then BAM! He pounced and sunk his talons deep into his small prey. Again he delayed gratification, looking around. Once certain of no competition, he tightened his grip, spread his impressive wings, and took off with our pitiable nuthatch dangling from his feet. Fifteen minutes later I heard his distinctive cackle in the near distance.  

Was he proclaiming his lucky day? His easy breakfast?

Gruesomeness notwithstanding, he had made the best of a tragic accident and relieved us of the responsibility of tending to the problem. Still, what a grim reminder of just two of the many ways humans have invaded the world of the songbird—our feeders and our windows. We don’t want to take down the feeders, and we sure aren’t taking out the glass door, but I will be asking my friends at Wildbirds Unlimited if they have some effective window decals next time I stock up on worms and seeds. That poor spinning nuthatch still haunts me.  

~dkm 6-16-23

What IS This?

Anybody know?  Spied in the grass today not three feet from my feet while "longsitting" on the backyard swing for my daily hour. Curious!

Much as I hesitate to display my ignorance, I thought it was some sort of egg sac or gel. But when poked with a stick it wouldn't dislodge. It's growing from the ground. 

The “Picture This” app says it’s a stinkhorn mushroom, but it doesn’t look like any of the images of stinkhorns I found online, most of which looked more like the name of the genus they belong to: Phallus. I’ll leave you to look them up for yourself. Just google “stinkhorn mushroom.” Nature never disappoints 🙂 

Meantime, if you know the positive ID of this thing, fungus or egg sac, do tell in the comment section, and do please include your name. Backyard spectator wants to know.  

~dkm 6-10-23

Bluebird Nestwatch 2023

In the spring of 2021, an unknown predator, likely a raccoon, possibly a hawk, ate a nest full of four newly hatched bluebirds from the birdhouse in the back corner of the yard. I was horrified to find the damaged roof and empty nest, just days after the hatch. We repaired the roof, but no birds have nested in that house since, after having done so every year since 2010. And now the squirrels have chewed out the entrance hole to the extent that no songbird could ever feel safe in that house. Who can blame them? It bears the kiss of death.

So in March of this year, I hung a new birdhouse in a different location--from the eave of our house at the end of the deck. I doubted bluebirds would nest so near civilization, but I hoped for wrens or finches, both having reputations for nesting on porches. I found a few sticks in the bottom of the house soon after hanging it, but no further activity. Whoever started with the sticks must have chosen to nest elsewhere. 

The setting

Then one afternoon early in May I was sitting in that wicker chair in the photo, enjoying a cup of tea and a good book, when I heard the distinctive male bluebird murmurings of mating season behind my shoulder. Churrrr-chur-chur. Sure enough, a slow turn revealed Mr. Blue perched on the new birdhouse. Was he hoping to get lucky, or had he already been? As I watched, he flew away and returned immediately with a stick to drop into the house, then another and another. He didn't seem to mind my presence. 

After depositing enough sticks inside the house to declare his intention, he disappeared for a few more minutes, then, lo and behold, returned with the object of his affection, a handsome female, to show her his proposed location. Bluebirds! And I had a front row seat. Too bad my i-phone 12 camera was not up to the challenge, but I'll share what I could get. 

Mr. Blue presents his proposed location

He invites Ms. Blue to look inside

He makes his argument by
fluttering in and out of the house
and all around her.
She watches stoically.

He asks. She demurs. 

They discuss. 

He awaits her decision
 from the banister beneath the house
watching her every move

In the interim weeks I've seen them flying around the deck and feeders, but couldn't tell if they had built a nest in the box, until one day last week when Mr. Blue carried in sticks all day. All week I saw them both at the feeders more often. There is also a speckled newly fledged pair still being fed by Mr. Blue. Sometimes Ms. Blue comes to the feeder and "scolds" them gently, which surprises me, because I didn't think she could speak. Yesterday she chased them off the feeders and scolded me at the opposite end of the deck before she flew into the house and stayed there. This confirmed for me that she's sitting on the eggs of her second brood. I don't know exactly when she laid them, as I've been staying away from the deck, not wanting to disturb, but it was sometime in the past week. Today I took this quick peek in the house after I saw her make an exit. 

 

Bingo. Nestwatch 2023 begins. Expected fledge date: sometime near the end of June.  

It's a miraculous time of year.  ~dkm 6-5-23

Poor Thing

I honestly thought he was injured, when I saw him through the kitchen window.  He was lying on the floor of the deck, writhing pathetically, dragging himself across the floor, legs and wings all akimbo, a once handsome red northern cardinal. Had he broken his neck flying into the window? 

Oh but no. As I watched further, wondering if I had the guts to somehow put him out of his misery, it soon became apparent that, far from being injured, he was displaying himself to the object of his affection, the  lovely female cardinal on the banister. She looked as alarmed as I was---crest up, eyes blinking in an incredulous stare. Amazingly, that pitiable act of contortion on the floor of the deck outside my window was the cardinal's mating dance. 

Surely, I thought, the gal on the banister would not fall for this ridiculousness. Wrong. Fall for it she did, but not until playing a little hard to get, hopping along the banister, teasing him, looking over her shoulder, almost as if laughing. When he flew to her on the banister, having righted his twisted self, she flew off to a nearby branch in the cherry tree. He followed to settle on the branch beside her, suddenly the picture of health, She flew to a higher perch. He followed again. After repeating this game of cat and mouse a few times,  they flew off together into the woods... 

After it was all over, I couldn't help chuckling at that boy cardinal on the deck. I regret that thinking he was injured kept me from grabbing my camera until it was too late to capture him on film. Nor could I help comparing him to the males of any species, including my own, for the impressive lengths they go to in the pursuit of love. As my mother used to say in response to all manner of observations about life, "Thus it has ever been."   ~dkm 5-6-23

Photo Bomb Cardinal

 "How strange

 that Nature does not knock,

 and yet does not intrude."                                                                

                  ~Emily Dickinson

On a rainy day last week, after yoga, before our morning walk,

 the cherry blossoms beckoned us from the windows.  

One of the yogis, the good Dr. Pearl McHaney, 

stepped out on the deck to take a sweeping video 

of the annual March extravaganza.

 The cardinal did not knock.

~dkm 3-11-23

Backyard Lesson Learned Again and Again

How I missed the big thing beside it, I can’t imagine, when first I bent to investigate the small thing I saw in the leaves.  I even congratulated myself on my improved observational skills after fourteen years of nature blogging. The premise of the blog, after all, is what one can see for the simple act of paying attention. Time was, I mused, I might not have noticed this little patch of fur as I walked by. 

Leaning in close, I was already thinking it would become the subject of a post on how nature serves up mysteries one can never solve—like what sort of kerfuffle happened here––like who had been eaten in the foodchain such patch of fur represents–-like who was the predator and who was the prey? Perhaps a rabbit or squirrel had lost a battle royale and been carried off in the talons of an owl or a hawk. I often hear a barred owl hooting in the trees, and sometimes a lone red-tailed hawk screams overhead. Cottontail rabbits and gray squirrels abound in this Georgia backyard habitat. Those were the targets of my best guesses for questions that could never be answered with 100% certainty.

 

I practically had the post written in my mind as I pulled out my phone to take the photo, stepping left for a better angle. Imagine my surprise when that one leftward step answered this particular mystery loud and clear—or at least the prey half of it–– nearly causing me to trip and fall.  I still don't know how I could have been so blindly focused on a small patch of fur that I missed an entire dead possum adjacent, eyes plucked out, rib bones scraped bare, but I've revised my guess about the predator. Now I think it might have been a coyote or fox. We've seen both in the vicinity. 

In the header of this blog, I reflected that the simple act of paying attention outside has taught me to expect the unexpected.  If measured by the shock I registered at nearly tripping on a possum carcass, I haven't learned that bit of wisdom as well as I thought I had. Here's to continuing my education in the infinite classroom that is my own backyard. ~dkm

Ode to Persistence

We finally found the solution to our mama raccoon’s nightly marauding of the birdfeeders. It’s no small effort, but we bring the feeders inside at dusk and hang them out again at sunrise. By we, I mean Moe, and he does it without complaint as part of his daily ritual. 

Removing the feeders from the deck for the night is the only thing that keeps that raccoon from consuming the seeds intended for the birds. 

Cayenne pepper on the banister didn’t phase her.

Carabiner clips were no match for her deft fingers. She was somehow able to spring the springs to get the feeders off the pole and empty them.

She considered the trap-and-release plan a temporary setback.

Even a fall down the steps inside the trap didn’t deter her, nor did the night we chased her off and she had to abandon her kits. (We assume she came back for them after we left, because they were gone in the morning.)

Yet she keeps checking for the easy food source she once found here, as evidenced by these tracks in the morning dew on the banister. Aren’t they cute?

I’m not sure who is the more committed, Moe or the raccoon, but I watch and marvel and applaud them both for their persistence. 

~dkm 11/6/22

What IS That Grotesqueness?

Traditionally, most of us associate awe and wonder with the beauty of the ocean, but yesterday’s walk on the beach  (where we’re vacationing with siblings and spouses at Ocean Isle, North Carolina) served up a new kind of mystery altogether when I kicked it out of the sandy path through the dunes on the way to water’s edge. 

This ugly thing:

Disgusting words come to mind, by way of description, all of them far from any idea of beauty. It measures about 4x5 inches in width and length, and is about one inch thick. To the touch, it feels like rigid plastic and is very light in weight, as if dried. 

None of us knew what it was, but all offered suggestions of course:

1) An internal organ of some kind

2) A small dolphin’s head. See the jawline?

3) An organ out of an animal

4) Dried skin of an animal

5) “Wooks wike wibber to me,” (in reference to an old family story)

6) Maybe something human.You can see the nerves. 

7) Shoe leather

 I invite any readers to venture guesses in the comment section, or even better, are there any biologists out there who might offer a definitive identification?

Meantime, that old family story: 

   When my older brother, Danny, was very young, he hated liver and onions for supper. To encourage him to taste it one night, my dad told him we were having something new called “gland.”  Danny apparently took one bite and said, “Tastes wike wibber to me.”  

~dkm 10/15/22

The Lure of a Path

What is there more enticing than a path? And few are as welcoming as the one my daughter-in-law Lisa has created through the woods behind their house in Vermont. It has the features you want in a fine path:

1) The invitation of a slightly challenging entrance with a sturdy banister to help you over the ancient stone wall into the woods beyond. Lisa crafted the banister by wedging a fallen branch between adjacent boulders and tree trunks, sure and steady: 

2) A clear route into the unknown:

3) A loyal dog to lead the way:

4) Or two dogs, even better:

5) A good place to drop your glasses for Lisa to find on the next day’s walk:

6)  A bench for a momentary rest…

7) A tree trunk doorway from one level to the next:

8) A rotting foot bridge over a shallow ravine:

9) A new sturdy footbridge across a deeper wider chasm:

10) Natural branch borders to mark the way:

11) Pavers in muddy places:

12) A log to step over here and there:

13) A scattering of lime green ferns to give  you pause…

 …until next visit…

~dkm 10/9/22