Going Political

 On March 17, 2025, Phoebe and I were taking the scenic route to Ohio from her home in Indiana. We wanted the smallest backroads, the nicest little towns, and Wabash, Indiana, was exactly the ticket. I love to look at the original courthouses in small towns, built on such a grand scale and with such lofty intentions.

 Here resides our government. Here, you can come get your marriage license, your dog license; here we store the plat maps for your property, the births and deaths in your family. Here is the judge and the court. It all happens here. Welcome, they seem to say. I was humbled and thrilled to see a beautiful bronze monument to Abraham Lincoln in front of the Wabash courthouse. Phoebe and I parked and jumped out to photograph it.

I first stepped up to the sign and learned that Wabash, Indiana, was the first U.S. city to have electricity! 

Next, I noticed a male American kestrel performing a display flight right over the courthouse, which happens to possess innumerable nooks and crannies where a pair of kestrels could lay eggs and raise little falcons. I was beside myself to be in on this moment of unbidden grace on such a searingly beautiful day, and to be able to share it with Phoebe!

And then I moved over to pay my respects to President Lincoln. He's depicted in contemplation, his angular form a little slumped in repose and apparent deep thought. I was struck by how much better this old bronze is than most newer portraiture one sees. It was created by New York born Charles Keck (1875-1951). It was installed in 1932, and its original all-dark patina has weathered beautifully to copper-red with a few verdigris highlights.  An identical casting of this beautiful sculpture stands in Hingham, Massachusetts. I hope to see it someday.

What does Abraham Lincoln have to do with Indiana? The Indiana Museum explains at this link. The story mentions slavery, unlike government websites which are being wiped "clean" of any mention of this vital part of our history. They've totally rewritten the story of the Underground Railroad on the National Park Service website, taking down a photo of Harriet Tubman, widely acknowledged "Conductor of the Underground Railroad," and replacing the actual history with lines of  AI-generated pap. Here's a 

gift link to a Washington Post article about the stripping of Black history from the National Park Service website, if you're interested in seeing what they've removed and what they replaced it with: meaningless, "authoritative-sounding" AI whitewash. Now that is governmental efficiency. 

Here's part of the Indiana Museum's writeup about the Lincolns in Indiana:

"In 1816, Indiana was a new state, forged out of the Western frontier of the United States. The land, abundant with animal and plant life, attracted men and families daring enough to make the journey and create a home in the dense forests. The Lincoln family of Knob Creek, Kentucky, was one family willing to take that risk. Unable to deal with disputes over land boundaries and disagreeing with Kentucky’s pro-slavery stance, Thomas Lincoln decided to leave in the early fall of 1816 and seek a new home for his family in southern Indiana. Like many new settlers, Thomas faced this challenge by first searching for land he liked, building a temporary home (which gave Thomas first claim to the land), and then returning to prepare his family for the journey. In November 1816, the Lincolns packed their few belongings and traveled north to Indiana. Thomas traveled with his wife, Nancy, their daughter, Sarah (age 9), and son, Abraham (age 7)."

The story goes on to tell how Abe, only 7, and his two siblings helped their dad build a cabin to shelter his family, and how his mother, Nancy Hanks, tragically died from "milk sickness" only two years later, when Abe was only 9 years old. When a milk cow eats white snakeroot, it poisons the cow and her milk, and can kill the cow and anyone who drinks the milk. White snakeroot grows all over my open woods. 

I stood before the monument, my eyes running over the statue, landing on the inscription, reading it over and over. The Zickefoose family has a special connection to Abraham Lincoln. All my life, I've been told he's my eighth cousin. The link seems to come via a relative named Susannah Buzzard, who was one of Nancy Hanks' forebears. After that, it gets hazy, and I know better than to even dip a toe into genealogy. Interestingly, that also means I'm distantly related to Tom Hanks, who is a second cousin five times removed of Nancy Hanks. George Clooney is also related to Nancy Hanks through his mom, Rosemary Clooney's, bloodline. Oddlly enough, neither Tom Hanks nor George Clooney have ever reached out to me, their long-lost cousin, but I'm not mad about that. I've always been proud to have some connection to this learned and deeply humble man.

I read the inscription, and something started rising up in me. It was sorrow. Sorrow at how very, very far America has fallen, how broken it is right now. Lincoln also knew a broken nation. The 1860's weren't the good old days. We were at actual war with ourselves, killing each other by the hundreds of thousands. But we had a wise, kind and strong leader in Lincoln, from 1860 to1865, when he was taken from us by a bullet. He was too good for this world.

My eyes traveled over Lincoln's stately form, and over the monument's inscription, taken from

his Second Inaugural address.

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation[']s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations[.]"   

And it hit me hard that everything in this eight-word outtake, and in the extended quote, has been turned inside out, upside down. Bind up the  nation's wounds? No, they're making more wounds, abruptly firing thousands upon thousands of federal workers without cause. Deporting people without one single thought to due process; deporting and holding them in deplorable conditions, and all for show. To get that body count up. Eliminating foreign aid. Even now, people--little children and babies--in Africa are starving to death, waiting for food that will not come, because Trump and Musk have smashed foreign aid to smithereens. Caring for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan? No, they're gutting the Veteran's Administration (no mortgage rescue for veterans any more!), and throwing the Social Security Administration into a death spiral, firing thousands of workers in the name of "efficiency," without the ghost of a concept of a plan for how to run the place without them. The money all of us have set aside through our entire working lives is now in question. People can't get through to the SSA any more. Everything is in uproar and chaos. Who, I ask, thinks that's necessary or beneficial? How does gutting the Federal workforce make things more efficient? How does destroying the government help anyone? Project 2025, in full force. Oh, but Trump doesn't know anything about that. Liars, liars, liars all.

Doing all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations? No, we're actively antagonizing every other country except, possibly, our old enemy, Russia, now our BFF, with tariffs designed to hurt trade, which constitute a new and onerous tax on the consumer. Canada hates us now, with good reason. Mexico, too. They're doing end runs around us to trade with anyone but the U.S. And don't get me started on the president's "review" of university grants and demands that they scrub DEI initiatives, lest they lose them. Or on the mass firings of national park employees, leaving nobody even to clean toilets, and turning national parks over to states for management. Oh, and FEMA. Who could possibly need our government's help when every single week, some massive flood or fire or hurricane or tornado rages through some part of this country, leaving scores of people dead or homeless? No, let's turn disaster relief over to the states. The federal government doesn't need to help. That would be expensive. They're saving money here. They're neglecting, even killing people in the name of efficiency. I refuse to use "we." This is not my government, and I did not vote for this. I'd wager that a number of people who believed Trump's endless spew of lies didn't vote for Project 2025, either, but now, thanks to those voters, we have it, and we are stewing in dystopia the likes of which I've not seen since the Viet Nam war days.

Standing there, with those thoughts and many others banging around in my brain, I teared up with the horror and injustice of it all. I felt ashamed to stand at Lincoln's feet and tell him about the disaster raging in our government--its utter dismantling by cruel and ruthless oligarchs and their fervent youth disciples who know and care nothing about anyone but themselves. Who are erasing anything that doesn't forward the interests of rich white men. Suddenly, diversity and equity are dirty words. And I realized that there was a painting in all this. 

From this:

to this.

  Our hero.

About that Goldfinch

On February 27, a sick goldfinch I'd been watching for a week or more finally became blind enough to catch. Her eyes had sealed all but shut. I walked up on her blind side, and caught her in my hand as she sat on the platform feeder.  Here's how she looked from above, her eyes so swollen by Mycoplasma  infection that her entire head looked weird and big. This is called house finch disease, because house finches are the primary vector. They first caught it in the early 1990's from our domestic chickens, and have little resistance to it. And now house finches have spread it to more than 35 species of wild birds. I like house finches. Nice little birds. I hate house finch disease. 

It's a painful thing, as you can see from her swollen red eyelids. 

She sat, quiet and still and mute. The first thing to do was mix up some tylosin tartrate (Tylan), an antibiotic effective against Mycoplasma spp. , which I get from my veterinarian. I held her in my hand as I administered that solution, drop by drop. Birds with house finch disease are very thirsty, and spend lots of time sitting on bird baths, which of course allows them to infect lots of other birds. I wanted to get this bird out of the mix at my feeder, so I caught her and put her in a small plastic Critter Keeper with a couple of small crocks of hulled sunflower seed and medicated water. By that evening, her eyes had opened enough so she could see me! It always feels like a miracle that Tylan works that fast. But she had a long way to go. To clear her system of the germ, I'd have to medicate her for three weeks. 

But here's the good part. Once she could see, I could move her into a large cage. Then, all I had to do was keep her in fresh Tylan-medicated water and food, and leave her the heck alone. The healing was up to her. 

Here she was only a week later. Understand: she wasn't always this agitated. This behavior is elicited by my entering the room and making a video. She was perfectly calm until she saw me! I was the monster who caught her and made her drink medicine.

By March 12, she was looking and acting ever so much better.

She'd had two weeks of treatment when I had to leave to speak at the Michigan Bluebird Festival. I left her in the loving care of my neighbor, Martha J., who is a bird whisperer. When I saw her last, canary babies had just hatched in two nests in her bird room! Martha kept my goldfinch isolated in a back room for almost a week, until I got back with Phoebe in tow. I felt confident leaving the wild bird with Martha, because she'd been medicated for two weeks and was asymptomatic, and Martha was careful about containment. I'm very grateful she could step in. Thank you SO much, Martha!!  It's really hard to do wildlife rehab when you travel for work.

Only one day to go until release time! I put her in the basement because Liam came home for a few days to see us, and I couldn't use his bedroom as a finch sanctuary any more. She's sharing space with an enormous geranium called Frank Headley, one of three huge mother plants I have kept over the winter. Ain't it gorgeous? A semi-dwarf zonal geranium developed in the U.K. in 1957. I adore it and plan to propagate it very soon. 

Finally, March 20 came. I love this little release video Phoebe made. Goldfinches don't stop to say thanks and goodbye. They just GO. 

May this bird be the only sick one I treat this spring. There's an element of luck to it, but more to the point, I'm not using tube feeders--only port-free mesh cylinders and small platform feeders. Everything is covered by hanging acrylic domes that keep droppings from falling into the food. 

I'm feeding sunflower hearts, safflower, and peanuts both in and out of shell in a small gray hanging platform feeder (behind the cylindrical peanut feeder), and suet and black oil sunflower hang from the other two hooks.

I just ran outside to shoot these photos. Brrr!! It's 56 and incredibly blustery. Gusts up to 39 mph make it feel like about 40 degrees out there! This is a somewhat better look at the small platform feeder in the foreground. I love this one because the birds tend to perch on the rim to feed, butts over the ground, and don't crap into their food. Good feeder hygiene is all about controlling poop.  And I don't use tube feeders because goopy sick bird eyes rub against the ports. So think about that. If you've got disease at your feeders, your first best step is to discontinue using tube feeders. Next, stop feeding when the weather is reliably warm. If you feed all summer long, you'll probably wind up feeding familes of house finches, who will happily breed nearby, producing multiple broods. Yay! you'll have even more disease vectors for your feeding program. See the connection?

My hanging system is the Denali Squirrel Stopper with four hooks, made by JCS Wildlife.

I save SO much money on seed now that the squirrels can't make it up the pole! The sliding baffle is very effective, as long as they can't leap from a nearby tree--which they sometimes manage to do.

Thought you'd appreciate some birdfeeding tips from someone who's been at it since she was about 10. Hard-won experience has led me to the conclusions I state here. Farewell, little goldfinch, and try to stay out of trouble now.

Oscar’s Top Three Olive Oils

Olive oil is a Very Big Deal for Oscar Bello Goya.  He cooks with it, pours it over his food, and spends a good amount of time thinking about it, selecting it, and enjoying it every single day. 

When we ask him what he wants for his birthday or Christmas, it's always olive oil. Imagine. (Says the woman with the Filippo Berlio cooking oil in the clear plastic bottle, and a small bottle of Trader Joe's Extra Virgin for salads.) I mean, I know enough to know you cook with cooking grade oil and make salad dressing with EVOO. I know when I'm dredging my crusty bread in something bright grass green and incredibly nice at a good restaurant. I swoon. But I don't generally treat myself to that kind of thing. I just didn't grow up appreciating olive oil. I probably never even tasted it until I was in my mid-twenties!

You all were so generous when I asked for some contributions toward olive oil for Oscar's 30th birthday. We were humbled. I put his birthday post up in the evening and when I got up the next morning I gasped and immediately removed the donation solicitation from the post. I mean, enough! So generous. So enthusiastic. And we are so grateful! Oscar gets his olive oil at oliveoillovers, the best source he's found for exquisite oils from around the world. 

I made a couple of videos when I was last in Indiana, of Oscar cooking his amazing Spanish tortilla (a big wheel of eggy deliciousness with fried potatoes in the center and a dash of curry and a ton of olive oil poured over top). It's soooo good. Oscar got a certification in kitchen operations at IES San Sebastian de La Gomera, on his home island in the Canary chain.

 I have had the great pleasure of Oscar and Phoebe's company over their spring break. Last night I made a little video of Oscar administering a very fine olive oil which was a gift from Liam. It's a varietal called Hojiblanca (white leaf) and it's from a company named A Twist on Olives in Westerville, Ohio. This stuff is as smooth as it gets, without the throat-burning bitterness of some great olive oils that sort of baffles me. The thing is, olive oil is meant to be drizzled over foods that will cut that burn and turn it into a peppery asset. You aren't really supposed to guzzle it straight.

Hojiblanca EVOO gets Oscar's vote, and mine, too. This was our Thanksgiving in March meal. I roasted a turkey breast and did my best to make good gravy from it; Oscar made mashed potatoes, and I made some pretty fab lima bean and carrot succotash. YUM. It was a proper feast, but every night they've been home has seen a feast. Gravy is an unknown thing in the Canary Islands, but Oscar has taken to it like a duck to water. Every meal I make with gravy he tells me is his favorite American food. :) I have to look aside when he pours olive oil on top of my American gravy. 

 

My kids seem never to be happier than when they're tucking into a feast here at home. When I was a teen and college student, highly peripatetic and apt to be out biking and birding when 6 pm rolled around, I couldn't understand why everything in my parents' house had to revolve around meals. Now, as the meal provider, I get it, totally and completely. Meals were when we got together. That was when we talked and caught up together. Nobody but my busy mom stood and ate over the sink in my house, growing up, the way I often do now. And when my kids are here, we plan around meals. 

Look at that smile. He can't wait to tuck in!

Now for a few tips on selecting olive oil. Oscar doesn't just taste it, but he looks carefully at it, as well. He likes a strong, clear color, which can vary from pale straw yellow to emerald green. He checka to see that it's fresh and recently pressed (you can't age olive oil the way you can let wine age; fresher is better). Olives are harvested in October, November and December.

You should be able to see on the label where the oil is from. Oscar prefers Spanish oils. 

Oscar likes to see cloudy stuff in the bottom of the bottle; he says that's the sign of a good olive oil. 

Olive oil is usually sold in opaque, dark green bottles, and that's because light destroys its unique properties. Oscar keeps his oil in a closed cabinet. For that reason, olive oil sold in clear plastic or glass bottles is likely to be less than top grade. 

There are cooking oils, and oils that are not meant to be subjected to heat. I do buy Bertolli and Filippo Berlio oil for cooking, and that often comes in a clear bottle. Extra virgin (EVOO), sold in opaque bottles, is not used for cooking but for dipping and garnishing, and for salad dressing. 

In this video, Oscar introduces his top three oils, and talks a bit about why he likes them. I thought you would enjoy hearing from him in his own kitchen. Please accept our sincere thanks for making his 30th birthday so very special. I trust you can tell how happy a good olive oil can make him. With your generosity, he'll be sitting pretty for quite awhile!