Grammar Gripe

Jan5

I can’t do it any longer. I can’t not say anything. I don’t want to offend people, or sabotage their world views, or judge them. I just want to enjoy being a living incarnation of the magnanimous force that created this universe and keeps it in eternal unfathomable motion. I just want to be a good person.

My dear friend gave me a shirt last year that says, “I’m silently correcting your grammar.” I am. Even though sometimes the rules are ridiculous, like punctuation inside or outside of quotation marks. I can’t help myself. It’s the one thing I can do. It’s the one thing that I love. I learned grammar like a fish to water, and therefore, I can play with it. As a writer, I can play with grammar.

But you? You news writer for NBC who wrote for Miguel Almaguer to say, “Downloaded more than a hundred million times, prosecutors allege the widely popular Weather Channel App was doing much more than giving users the forecast….”

Prosecutors were NOT downloaded more than a hundred million times.

Yet that is is actually, in fact, what Miguel said, with his grammar. There is no dispute about it, if you agree with the laws of English grammar: the prosecutor was not downloaded more than a hundred million times, The Weather Channel app was. That sentence, if you want to be educated about it, should read, “Prosecutors allege the widely popular Weather Channel App, downloaded more than a hundred million times, was doing much more than giving users the forecast….”

Now, how hard is that to understand? You should have learned that in sixth grade, NBC writer.

My contribution to Christmas Dinner was peach pie.

I pulled whole peaches from the deep freeze and microwaved them for two 30 second hits, mixing them up between, rolling the bottom peaches to the top, letting the top peaches slide down the inside of the bowl.

Peels and pits to the side for compost. Their skins really do slip right off, and they practically break in half. Still partially frozen but juicy, they’re so small I can put them in the pie shell in halves, pit-side down, round shining essentially fresh peach halves.

I did bake the bottom crust first. Having finally figured out to add a little more water at this altitude right off the bat, and mix fast but not too much.

My friend’s husband Steve was right: you have to use your hands; a pastry cutter won’t result in the right size butter inclusions. You need tiny, uniform pockets of butter (or butter/lard) to make the pastry flaky. That’s science. I don’t get it exactly but I’m beginning to experience it, and I believe experience is what makes a pastry chef, or anyone, an expert at something, whether they can explain the physics of it or not.

A nearly perfect peach pie: enough peaches to fill and round the pie plate, mixed with some sugar (not too much), and a palm-full of tapioca, stirred, and left to sit. Crusts mixed, chilled, and rolled; the bottom crust baked for around ten minutes with parchment paper weighted with beans; filled, topped, and baked, like, forever.

I think my new oven is not quite calibrated for my altitude. I think ten minutes at 450 degrees would be ideal. Then filled and quickly covered, crimped, and replaced in the oven for another ten minutes. Then, the book says, bake at 350 for 45 to 50 minutes. 50 minutes came and went, another ten, another ten, it took forever to even start to brown. Once the peach juice bubbled up inside the edge I took it out of the oven. Mmmmmm, the aroma.

Pastry baking science aside, how hard is it to comprehend that United States President Donald Trump flat out lied? He promised during his campaign, and was elected on the promise that, Mexico would pay for the wall.

It infuriates me that people, whatever their alliance, are not outraged, are not bombarding their Senators with phone calls and emails, exclaiming that this Shutdown is not good for America, and that Trump promised Mexico, NOT WE, would pay for any wall. He lied to you!

If every one of the nearly one million Federal workers who are working without pay, or not working without pay, would call their Senators and tell them whether or not they favor this Trump Shutdown, maybe, he says, for years, I bet that Congress would hear a whole lot more NOs than they would YESs. Every one of these people, whether they support or oppose Trump, counts on the income, purpose, and dignity of their job with the Federal Government. Trump does not speak for them. They speak for themselves.

This is a broken promise masquerading as some other closet monster. It’s monsters all the way down. The squirrelly (no offense to squirrels) course that this person’s chicanery and abuse takes is exceptionally skillful. The guy is a magnificent manipulator. And I’ve come to know some damned skillful manipulators through the years, even as recently as last summer.

Thanksgiving’s pie was apple/plum, both from last year’s harvest, in the freezer. I figured out the crust mixing physics that time, but not the cooking science, so it had soggy bottom, ick. Also, the apples were undercooked, too al dente for my taste. Otherwise, a good mix of cinnamon, sugar, tart apple, and more tart, but less of, plum, just a layer on the top.

Sorry friends, I didn’t ask your permission. But you kind of have to assume, knowing me, you might show up here one day. I love this picture. It expresses to me the ultimate in community. When I moved here almost 27 years ago, I could never have imagined how lucky I would become, how grateful for so much in my life. Every day that I wake up, I thank my lucky stars. For waking up at all, for the day ahead in this place, for community at ever-deepening levels.

So, that’s grammar and the president’s lies out of the way. Back to the allegation that TWC, our go-to weather source (and admittedly a drama queen of a station), has been illegally stealing our private information. “The app deceptively collected, shared, and profited from private location data of millions of consumers….” Miguel went on. Then he introduced the LA City Attorney, who said:

‘Think how Orwellian it is to have a third party you never had contact with know where you’ve gone for a therapist, for a date, for what you did last night…’

“Banking on TWC brand, the Weather Company, owned by IBM, operates the app… which manipulated users into turning on location tracking, using valuable personal data, for commercial gain.” Owned by IBM? Why should this be surprising? We’ve all signed those agreements we never read. We’ve all been complicit in so many ways in the prostitution of our privacy.

I’m sick of it, I tell you, sick of it. All of it. It is all I can do to get out of bed in the morning some days. But there is so much to live for, so much to get out of bed for, that I can sometimes set aside the incessant enervation of our species’ chatter, to enjoy the day.

Today, “another bluebird day across the state,” said Colorado Public Radio. It was spectacular. Blinding in its perfection. Every second with eyes open was a calendar photo. And the minutes and hours or portions of hours spent indoors with friends, or alone, were succulent every second. I could not be a more lucky human being.

So much I don’t have, yet so much more that I do. Let me remember to be grateful every living moment of every day.

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Rosie the Dog

Nov25

I cannot believe that it’s been almost two months since I posted. All the apples and tomatoes are harvested and processed, the fall garden chores are done, colors on the trees are gone, and we got our first snow yesterday, a whopping half an inch. It’s been so cold it’s still on the ground. I’ve been crazy busy working on several projects, not the least of which has been Rosie the Dog.

Rosie the Person and I were driving to town in her car. We were ranting about the Kavanaugh confirmation, and feeling helpless in the face of the corrupt, greedy regime in charge of our great country, which has always been great. There slogging alongside the road was a white dog, all skin and bones, and clearly in heat. “We have to pick her up!” I cried, and Rosie pulled over without a second thought. The dog jumped right in the car and curled up on the back seat. We went on to our engagement in town, and I dialed the vet right away.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to take her in, and after two hours of making calls, neither was there space at any local shelter or foster facility. I bought a leash and some flea shampoo, and on our way home we stopped by Doc Gallob’s, who was kind enough to check her out for any potential threat to my dogs. Besides being emaciated there appeared to be nothing seriously wrong with her. He estimated she is around a year old. We swung by Rosie’s house to pick up a crate, and set it up in my mudroom. As day cooled to dusk we stood outside soaping and rinsing the emaciated little pup.

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In the car after we picked her up, and below, a few days later basking in the sun.

I fed her half a cup at a time every couple of hours that night so she didn’t gorge and vomit. Freezing rain came after dark. The next day, Rosie and I drove her down to Delta to check out a place that said they might be able to take her in a few days. It was already clear to me that this dog was very sensitive and smart. The place did not look adequate. I committed to fostering her until we could find her the perfect home.

Mama Gallob called her Dobie, since that’s where we found her, in the dobies. I tried that, and Dobby like the house elf because it’s a cute name. I tried Pearl because she’s white. I tried a few other names out on her that first full day she lived here, and she did not respond to any. Then, I called her Rosie. She looked straight into my eyes and wagged her whip tail. (Her tail, it turned out, had gotten frostbite and she’s lost the very tip of it.)

The Delta County Humane Society foster mom, Carol, told me to feed her one cup every hour until she left some food in the bowl. That took about a week. At the time I spoke with Carol, she had seventeen puppies and four mamas in her kennel. I asked Carol how she manages to do it. She waved her arm at the kennels: “This is how. I don’t let them in the house. If I let them in the house, forget it.”

I spoke with a neighbor who fosters dogs and asked how she manages not to get attached. “You decide how many animals you can provide optimal care for.” I am topped out at two dogs and two cats, financially, emotionally, and in terms of time. So I decided that I would keep her til she was healthy and ready for a new home, and then let her go. It becomes harder every day to think of saying goodbye, but she does not have the life here that she deserves.

She deserves to live in a house and sleep on a couch and cuddle with a person any time she wants to; she deserves to have a person throw sticks and balls for her for an hour at a time, and run or bike with her up a mountain. She deserves to sleep by the warm fire, or in bed with someone, or under the desk. Here, she lives in the mudroom.

She’s got a large crate filled with beds and blankets, and she’s got her stuffed alligator. She has free time in the mudroom but prefers to stay in the crate even when she can be out of it. We had a mild fall until a week ago, so I was able to latch the screen door and shut the bottom half of the Dutch door to the house, and let her have plenty of time in the sunshine.

She goes outside every time I take my two dogs out, but sometimes she has to stay on the leash if there’s a cat outside too. The Dog People said she looks like she’s a pitbull/bird dog mix. You can see the possibility of both in her; or she could be some other mix. She raises a front paw like a pointer, she runs like the wind, and she growls like a pit.

When I brought her home I figured I could do whatever it took for a couple of weeks. She’s been here almost two months now. In that time, she’s settled in at a svelte 55 pounds, passed through what was almost certainly not her first heat, been spayed, and gotten all her shots. She has learned to come when she’s called, walk through the woods on a leash, and respond quickly to a barklike command when I want her to stop doing something like eating grass, or lunging after a deer. She’s very agreeable.

She is great in the car, and from the beginning has loved to go for a ride anywhere.

She is also a little possessive, though she’s getting better: of her mudroom, her crate, her toys, her food, and any food I might have if there’s another dog around. She and Ojo the black cat have taken a dislike to each other, and she isn’t fond of Raven either. So there’s some animal juggling through the course of each day. She loves Stellar and wants to play with him; that may be because he was a great comfort to her when she was in heat, or it could be because he’s the best dog in the whole world. She loves every person she has ever met and greets everyone with a gleeful wiggle. I don’t know how she would be with children, or in a home with other animals.

I suspect that once she is settled into her forever home and feels secure and thoroughly loved, she will be less possessive and even more agreeable; I suspect that she could be taught to get along with a cat, and with another female dog, or with a family’s pack.

But I think even more strongly that she would be ideal as somebody’s one-and-only pet. She wants someone to bond with her the way I cannot do. I cannot love her as I’d like to and as she deserves. I’m married to two older dogs, from a line I’ve known for 30 years, whose lives I’ve held since infancy. And I’m married to two beautiful cats who rule the roost and take up lots of time. I’m just having a little affair with Rosie the Dog, and it’s got to end when her true love comes along. But not until then.

She will be an immensely gratifying dog for the right person, and a frustrating dog for the wrong person. She is very sensitive, smart, and eager to please; she can also get obsessed with something, as she did with Biko the tortoise. She learned where he lived when it was warm, and she jumps into the tortoise pen every chance she gets to see where he is. She doesn’t realize he is in the laundry room now, for winter.

Rosie is the kind of dog that will return the love she is given tenfold. She needs someone who will love her unconditionally no matter if she misbehaves and needs a little training; someone who is capable of communicating with and understanding her smart self. She needs someone who is looking for a best friend forever, and is willing to make a lifetime commitment.

This afternoon at the top of the driveway.

The past few days, I’ve been teaching her to run alongside the car up the driveway like the catahoulas do. She has to stay on the leash because I’m pretty sure she’d take off after deer, and they’re everywhere. The first time she rode while I ran Stellar up the driveway she was obviously anxious. She thought I might be leaving him! But then she got comfortable watching him run, knowing we’d all come home together. On her first run she was a little confused about where to be, but by her second run she had it. She ran 20 mph up the quarter mile driveway, just flying through the field about six feet away from the car, slowing when I slowed.

Even though she doesn’t get much exercise here, she is still happy in the mudroom knowing I’m in the next room, or being with me and the other dogs in the yard, wandering around sniffing, chewing, chasing a stick or ball. She doesn’t like to give it up, though, when she’s got it, and has yet to learn to drop it. She has climbed both the 3′ yard fence and the 5′ dog pen fence, so she can’t be outside without supervision. However, after she climbed the yard fence at dusk, she came running when I called, and hopped back over into the yard. When she climbed the dog pen fence, she showed up wagging her tail at the back door. She wants most of all to be beside her person.

From the beginning, it has been a great practice in non-attachment to have this wonderful animal here and know that I can show her love but not hang onto her. She grows more attached to me each day, and I to her. The challenge is juggling compassion for her with knowing my own limits, and the limits of my household. We picked her up off the road because in a time of upheaval we can’t control, saving this dog was one thing we could do, one small being we could help when we otherwise sometimes feel so helpless.

Now she is ready to find her new home, and I am ready to let her go. I’ve inquired at Freedom Service Dogs in Denver, and they have a long list of requirements, some of which Rosie might be a little fuzzy on, but we may try to get her over the mountains to be evaluated to become a veteran’s service dog. I’m grateful for ideas of other placement services that might find her perfect person. Meanwhile, DCHS has put her profile up on Petfinder.com, and if you click on that you can watch a short video of Rosie the Dog in action.

Why I Didn’t Report That Rape

Sep28

… a spoonful of sugar…

It was the only one that happened to me, let’s get that out of the way. Was it violent? Sure, in a way; no knife or imminent gun, just brute force, and my willingness to submit without escalating the violence. There were plenty of guns in the house, though, and a temper that took them out on rabbits in the desert: the guns and the temper, he took them both out together, and with them took out some rabbits. Taught his little four-year-old how to do that, too, so I often wonder what kind of man that poor kid grew into. Maybe as macho a one as his dad, who, though, still retained a soft spot for his college (occasional, accidental) lover, another macho athletic man. But that kind of hypocrisy is another issue. (Or is it?)

I was raped in my ex-boyfriend’s bed within minutes of making it clear that I was breaking up with him. So why didn’t I report it? Well, I could just hear the arguments, because they were and still are pervasive in our culture. They’re already in our heads. (If you aren’t aware that you’re hearing these patriarchal voices in your head, you’re in even more trouble.) So that while I knew this was rape, I also believed that no one else would think it was ‘a serious rape.’ And we lived in a small, intense community in a rural outpost. I wasn’t willing to fight about it, it was best for me to just lie there and survive, then walk away.

In that case, the argument would have been similar to a wife claiming rape, maybe more insidious, and it was this: You went over to his house. You’ve already fucked him a hundred times, you can’t claim rape. Something like that. “It wasn’t really rape,” or “It wasn’t really rape.” The idea that if she’s already your woman, it isn’t rape. I say maybe more insidious than the argument against a wife’s claim, because an entrenched idea of ‘ownership’ remains a sad condition of marriage; with a girlfriend, the idea that no doesn’t mean no expresses an even deeper level of gender-based ownership, i.e., men rule women.

We saw this gender-based entitlement on vivid display in the second half of yesterday’s hearings. I personally could not watch, the heartrending snippets I heard in the morning having sent me into flight mode. But I listened and watched some evening news coverage, and saw the tempers explode and the spittle fly, and the ‘snarls of hatred and contempt,’ from Kavanaugh, Graham, and other angry white men. Somewhere in here is where the hypocrisy issue lies, claws nestled in those dark hearts. Are these really the people you want making the decisions that will affect your children’s, and your grandchildren’s, lives?

Women, if you live with a bully for a husband, or boyfriend, or father, you are living with abuse; if the man or men in your life belittle, degrade, threaten, slap or beat you, you need to see it for what it is. You don’t deserve it. You may not be able to argue or stand up to your abuser right now, but you can step into the privacy of your secret ballot this November, and every election, and say NO to the prevailing culture that now sanctions this abuse of a nation.

And now for some gratuitous beauty:

Life goes on, turn, turn, turn….

It helps to make time to appreciate beauty and the company of friends.

It helps to walk with dogs.

It helps to allow both joy and sorrow, love and rage, faith and uncertainty, in your heart at the same time; to practice equanimity… with ferocity, when necessary.

Living fire in the back yard, and in the ‘extended’ back yard.

Hummingbirds: an Ongoing Commitment

Sep16

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This Gaura has been as delightful a plant as any I’ve ever grown. Catching a glimpse out the window this morning I marveled at it again, dancing in the breeze in early September sun. I planted this a couple of times in the ground, but it wouldn’t overwinter, so I tried again this summer in a big clay pot. The combination of pink, white and red flowers has been spectacular.

It draws hummingbirds as well as bees, even though the hummingbird feeder is just five feet away. Nothing is better food for these tiny dynamos than actual flower nectar.

I’ve mentioned some tips about feeding hummingbirds in previous posts, but I’m motivated today to just tell all. A friend asked me the other day, When should I take down my feeders? She asks me this every year. Every year, I tell her, About ten days after you’ve last seen a hummingbird.

Really? I thought you were supposed to take them down so they don’t miss their migration. Somehow this Myth resurfaces every fall instead of the answer I’ve given everyone who asks me for years. The birds won’t stick around late just because you have your feeders up: in fact, even after your summer population leaves, migrants passing through will benefit from your feeders staying up and clean.*

It’s not just the feeding schedule that matters when you commit to sustaining a hummingbird feeder through the season. Every summer, I inevitably encounter ill-kept feeders at the homes of people who should know better. Some of you have learned to keep your feeders clean, and some of you haven’t. Next time I have to say something, I’m naming names! And yes, I am scolding. I can’t help it, it’s in my nature. I’ve been subtle about this issue long enough.

COMMITMENT

Everybody means well when they put out feeders. Despite our best intentions, as frail and fallible humans, we don’t always follow through. Feeding hummingbirds isn’t something you do at your convenience, because it’s nice to have the pretty birds around. It’s a commitment: You commit to serving the welfare of the birds daily, because otherwise you contribute to their demise. There are so many ways to do it wrong, and the consequences are dire.

Blue and red salvias planted in pots around the patio, when fed and deadheaded regularly, provide bountiful food for young hummingbirds migrating later than their parents, and learning to trust my garden as a reliable resource. I’ve learned it’s worth it to buy these tender perennials annually and tend them well, for the bountiful beauty they provide with both their blooms and their pollinators.

IMG_7334-131 IMG_7300-132 Caveat: exactly when to take down feeders is an art as well as a science; some people in the far north take them down at the first hard frost, or even earlier. This may be where the Myth originates. Places with year round hummingbirds obviously don’t need to stop feeding at all. I could send you straight to Audubon for all you need to know about feeding hummingbirds, but that would leave me nothing to say.

Here in the central latitudes of the continent, experience tells me to leave my feeder up for at least ten days after I’ve seen the last hummingbird, cleaning and refilling it as needed.* There is always a last hummingbird, sometimes after I’ve taken down the feeder, so I keep a jar of nectar in the fridge for a few weeks even when I think I’ve seen the last one, just in case of an exhausted straggler. I’ll make one cup, and if I don’t use it in a week I may make another cup. A small waste of sugar is worth a hummingbird’s life.

This time of year, I see mostly summer’s youngsters in my garden. They’re learning what’s good food and what’s not. They check out all the flowers, and don’t use the feeder nearly as much as their parents did earlier in summer. Many adults, especially males, are already moving south. These juveniles are exploring, gaining insight and wisdom, as they check out red honeysuckle berries and rose hips as well as salvia and snapdragons. IMG_7225-128 IMG_7329-130 Tending hummingbirds demands dedication. When you put out a feeder you initiate a real relationship with a particular population of little beings, the closest thing to fairies in our remaining wild world. Connie and John used to feed hundreds of hummingbirds of four species just a few miles south and a thousand feet higher than I live here. They were committed. They brewed gallons of fresh nectar a day, and their feeders never had a chance to get cloudy or moldy. The sound was amazing! They moved to Wisconsin.

NO RED DYE!

That shit shouldn’t even be legal to sell. Would you add an absolutely unnecessary red chemical to your every meal? No, you wouldn’t. Red food for hummingbird feeders is a sales scam, and hard on their tiny kidneys. Yes, they’re attracted to red, and that’s why feeders are usually red, but the food in them should be clear.

Once and for all, the best and cheapest nectar takes just a few minutes of your time. One (1) part refined white sugar to four (4) parts water. One to four, sugar/water, nothing else. You can put them both in the pan together, bring to boiling, and boil for a minute or two (no more!), or you can boil water in your kettle, pour it into the jar with the sugar, and shake the bejesus out of it until it settles clear, and you can’t see any sugar residue. The reason you heat the water is to increase its absorption of the sugar granules. There’s no need to cook it, as long as you make sure the sugar is thoroughly dissolved. Then let it cool to room temperature before pouring into clean* feeders.

I hear that hummingbirds don’t like to drink cold nectar, so maybe when you have refrigerated nectar you want to change your feeders at night. When they come to feed in the morning, the nectar is ambient temperature. On super hot days, nectar can spoil quickly, so change it every day or two even if they haven’t finished it. In early spring or fall, if it’s going to freeze at night, bring feeders in for the night and put them back out early in the morning so the food is there, not frozen, when they wake up.

*ALWAYS CLEAN FEEDERS!

You don’t have to scrub them every time you fill them, but you do have to rinse thoroughly in hot water, and swish away any sticky residue with a bottle brush or your fingertips, depending on the design of the feeder. Audubon recommends no soap, as the residue can harm them. Clean your nectar storage jars the same way you clean the feeders, every time you empty them.

You do need to rinse and refill more often during hot weather than in cool weather. And if there’s any sign at all of cloudiness in the nectar, or debris, or black or grey on the feeder, you DO need to scrub with hot water or a light hot water-vinegar solution, and rinse really really well. By the time you see that black stuff on the feeder, you’re already killing birds. It’s that simple.

An adult hummingbird who acquires fungus from your feeder carries it home to her tiny babies in their nest. She could die from it and leave them to starve, or she could transmit it to them. Or both. So keep your feeders clean. Invest in a bottlebrush or two, and get a pack of these perfect little brushes for the ports. It doesn’t take long for nectar to spoil in hot weather, and it doesn’t take you long to keep the feeders clean if you have the right tools for the job. I use really hot water if I’m cleaning a glass feeder, and less hot if I’m cleaning a plastic vessel.

OH, AND… CATS

I got rid of the feeders I kept for seed-eaters the summer before I started letting my two new kittens outside. It isn’t fair to bait the birds in when I’ve got cats that can’t help trying to catch them. I compromised on hummingbird feeders, cutting my three down to one, and kept that one mainly to supplement the flowers, which don’t always bloom at the right times anymore, another consequence of climate chaos. Last week I found the first dead hummingbird ever at my front door, and I think it was the one I photographed the day before, struggling to fly and feed.

IMG_6813-147 You almost never see a hummingbird sitting still to feed. This little one was crashing about in the flowers all morning, clinging to stems while trying to feed, and tangling in the potted plants, most unusual behavior. Was she too young? Or too weak, or injured, or what? Another hummingbird kept diving at her, and I first thought it was the usual mine!mine!-aggression they all display while protecting a food source or territory. But the struggling bird didn’t seem to mind the other one, and when I followed them into the honeysuckle (with binoculars) it looked as though the strong bird was trying to feed the weak one. Were they migrating together?

IMG_6857-145 Everywhere she flew this other bird followed, at times flying up underneath her as though for support or encouragement. Something was very wrong. It looked like the little slow one had a tuft of feathers sticking out where there shouldn’t be one, as though she might have an injury. It’s possible that this bird was snagged by a cat claw, or perhaps hit a window, or was in some other way compromised. It was one of those heart-wrenching moments when you wish there was something you could do but you know there’s not. Though she was flying badly she was still too fast for me to catch. And if I had, what then? So I left her to her fate, which I suspect was to be brought to my doorstep the next day, intact though darkly damp from cat saliva. I feel bad about that. These are the complex paradoxes that keep us dancing on our ethical toes.

Every choice we make has consequences, some (or most) of which we never fully know. Know that if you choose to put out hummingbird feeders, there’s only one right way to do it: Keep the feeders sparkling clean all summer, and keep them up til all the migrants have flown through your area. With habitat fragmentation, compromised migratory routes, and climate chaos all throwing anthropogenic challenges at these energetic little jewels, the least we can do if we choose to feed them is to do it right, helping rather than harming them. IMG_7232-140-141

Just Peachy, Really

Sep3

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One of my best friends this summer has been the peach tree.

With James and the Giant Peach entrained early in life, there has always been something special to me about peaches, and this tree itself holds such meaning. Maybe that story is also why I love bugs and all other living creatures. That story, and “Are You My Mother?”

One of the first fruit trees I planted here, over the graves of a dog and a cat, I planted in memory of a woman I loved, Daryl Ann. She died of breast cancer twelve years ago, and lives in my heart for all time. So it’s a special tree, the peach tree.

It took a few years before it made more than a few peaches, and even since has only produced a bounty of peaches once before. This year, against the freeze odds, it made so many! I thinned, as I’ve been taught to do, a few weeks after the tree itself shed almost half its first flush of tiny green fruits. I’ve paid particular attention to it since then, nurturing with extra food and water, watching the growth and ripening of fruits closely, monitoring it daily for the past month in order to catch the most peaches as ripe as possible before the birds get them all.

On cold snowy days in spring, hot sunny days in summer, the oppressive smoky days of high fire season, cooler ripening days, I’ve spent time with the peach tree, dusting early for aphids before they could cripple early leaves, thinning, communing, watering, weeding around, photographing; generally keeping company with the peach tree, hanging out with and appreciating it.

early summer

mid-summer

A month of smoke from wildfires

and finally, ripening!

Cocktails with the peach tree before first harvest

This summer’s first peach harvest, about a third of what was on the tree. I watched and waited every day, until after a big wind I saw a couple of peaches on the ground. That evening I picked every peach that would let go easily.

Plenty of peaches left, growing brighter every day.

The August Manhattan includes a dash of peach bitters in addition to the regular Angostura and the secret ingredient, and is garnished with chunks of fresh peach.

We made a peach pie with the last frozen peaches from two years ago, in anticipation of a fresh harvest. Thawed slightly sitting out, or 20 seconds or so in the microwave, the peels slip off easily and flesh pops right off the pit. Thanks, cuz, for taking pictures!

Silicone mat (thanks, neighbor!) makes crust rolling easy.

The second harvest from the tree, a bowl to share and a bowl to keep.

And STILL peaches ripening on the tree, irresistible after a light rain. Altogether I picked three big bowls, and a few in between, always only pulling those that gave up easily.

An early sign that I’d better get the last of them off the tree…

… and after birds, just a picked-clean pit. I did leave a couple of dozen on purpose for the birds, including one with a perfect view from the patio, so I could catch someone in the act.

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Last peaches, gifts for birds, glowing in the August sunset.

… the best part of the August Manhattan.

The peach tree finally at rest after a fruitful season.

Among the Cleome

Aug17

Cleome serrulata, Rocky Mountain Beeplant, wild relative of gardeners’ Spider Flower, is a magnet for native pollinator species as well as honeybees.

Someday, I will find the photo I took of acres of beeplant along the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument when I was a ranger there decades ago. Acres of it! Right next to the river, in a disturbed field. That was my introduction to this native medicinal, dye, and food plant. When I lived in a trailer here 26 years ago, I scattered a native seed mix, including Gallardia, Ratibida, Linum, and Cleome. Of those four, only the beeplant has appeared erratically. Some years there are many, some, like this year, few. Maybe it doesn’t like drought. This particular patch, essentially two large stalks, I let grow in the raised bed between the Mystery Tomato and the Bolting Leeks.

Certain times of day, much of the day, these flowers buzz with the camaraderie of multiple insect species feasting at the same table. What is wrong with us? IMG_6541-109-110 IMG_6330-101-102

I don’t know everything. But it looks like this tiny native bee is shaking or rubbing pollen from a Cleome stamen. Another series of photos shows a big yellow bumblebee stroking the underside of two stamens with her antenna, but for some reason they won’t export. Oh well.

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This juvenile Rufous hummingbird sips the flower, which simultaneously produces fruit and seeds as blossoms continue to bloom and ripen up the stalk.

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Two distinct colors of honeybees inhabit my yard, a range of light bees, and one dark strain.

I also don’t know the name of this bee, or even if it is a wasp. It’s over an inch long, and I only see it on the Cleome. It usually curls in on itself on these flowers.

Bye from the Beeplant

Young hummingbirds, this year’s fast-fledged hatchlings, seem to experiment more with the flowers than adults who’ve become accustomed to the quick-fix of the single feeder that hangs below the deck. They’re trying out the patio pots with red and blue annual Salvia, and the hanging baskets.

I mean… fuzzy wuzzy!

Next time, the Bountiful Peach Tree.

Amidst loss and chaos throughout the summer, in my personal life as well as in community and country, and around the planet, this peach tree has brought peace and joy. Nurturing and watching from the last snow, through leaf and bloom, drop and grow, these last weeks of ripening, I’ve savored this tree in far and away its most abundant year. It keeps reminding me what’s real. One fruit of the romantic debacle/deception is that it’s driven me deeper into the larger love of my closest friends, my community, and my garden sanctuary. Let me remember to be grateful for love and lessons, every living moment of every day.

On Fire

Aug4


Hummingbirds surf the desert willow as she continues to throw out waves of flowers.

Sunset the other night behind the western edge of Grand Mesa. Smoke from a distant fire… also some closer fires, including the Buttermilk Fire just ten or twelve miles away.

This is the first day in over a month that I’ve been able to spend a whole morning outside. I usually get to spend two, at the very least one day a week devoted to the yard and gardens. With oppressive smoke and heat outside all day and night these recent weeks, and inside flames, of love, fears, blame, I’ve been neglecting my garden, my center, my path. I am still learning to walk.

The patio pots are out of control, in desperate need of deadheading and trimming. Stellar can’t stand that I’m talking to myself about it and not to him. He flops onto his left side and rolls his head toward me, then tries to roll his bulk onto his back, pawing at the path and making little noises. Rolling after running and eating is dangerous, so I go to him, get up baby, such a fine boy… He comes to standing, shakes, leans against my knees as I fold over him rubbing his belly, my cheek pressed to his velvet ear, his chocolate cheek, murmuring love words as he emanates his whole-hearted response. I’ve been neglecting the dogs as well as the garden.

A light shower last night and an even cloud cover this morning gave hours of enjoyment and work, nurturing the place that gives me succor: pulling prostrate knotweed and bindweed from paths, deadheading rampant gladioli and snapdragons, cutting back early salvias and dahlias, pulling from cracks between flagstones the errant catmints; leaving thymes and gourmet salad-size purslane. All the pots are buzzing with bees and other aerial creatures. Below, honeybee drinks from abundant Gaura in the pink clay pot.

Honeybee prays for clarity on a smoky day

The sky has also been abuzz. The Buttermilk Fire at the west end of our mesa held my attention for a full week. I readied the Mothership for evacuation though I didn’t really think it would be necessary. This time. To date, around 750 acres have burned, mostly in wilderness piñon and juniper in steep canyons and ridges. Firefighters have contained 15% of the burn area and remain focused on keeping the fire heading south and east into the wilderness, protecting human habitations at the northeast edge and minimizing the threat of an ember rain.

One water chopper coming in empty just south of the house, on its way to the reservoir. Below, another heading back on the north side, carrying 2000 gallons of water in its bucket. We all, when we gather, speak of our gratitude for these hardworking women and men. People bring them treats. Little kindnesses matter in the midst of chaos.

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Honeybee treats herself to pollen from a dahlia, gathering as she wipes her face.

What blooms along the seam of the path and the patio foundation varies year to year depending on what seeds sow, what weeds grow, what gets mowed down by the tortoise, dogs, garden cart or hose in daily passing. I keep hoping snapdragons will self-sow here, as they do at Rosie’s house, but so far the seeds haven’t landed in optimum conditions. As I trim and weed around the patio I wear gloves and watch closely. There’s always a chance of a black widow, though they don’t tend to inhabit this kind of niche, they prefer a deep and secret place with little or no traffic of any sort.

Bumblebee on a snapdragon, maybe Bombus griseocollis, the brown-belted bumblebee.

A bee fly, Bombylius, feeds at the Gaura. This delicate beauty is a parasitoid, feeding in its larval stage upon the larva of a solitary bee, killing it. In a sense, a predator as well as a parasite. Who would guess, from its gentle appearance?

Leafcutter bees have been crazy for the dahlias this week. I’ve finally figured out how to overwinter them: leave them in pots, bring the pots into the mudroom after the foliage dies back, and keep a paper bag over them. All those I saved in a box or a bag over the past few years since I started growing dahlias have withered, despite occasional misting, and failed to revive in the ground. Those I kept in pots last year grew again in abundance. Next spring when I bring them out I’ll divide them into even more pots. They bloomed early this year, like everything else, but they keep on going as long as I keep tending to them, and it’s hard to name a more cheerful flower.

Share and share alike, at least with flowers…

…or maybe not. Next time, more fun with Rocky Mountain Beeplant, Cleome serrulata.

All the west is burning. Smoke obscures horizons for days. This is chaos, not change. The practice is to witness. The work is love. Our living planet needs each of us to rise up. Some hearts burn with passion, some with shame. Mine smolders with both but at least I’m on fire again.

Morning Rounds

let me remember to be grateful every living moment of every day

Rosie the Dog

Why I Didn’t Report That Rape