Spring Scatterhead

Spring is here. The trees have leafed out; morels are raising their heads in the woods, and mornings see the sibilant twitter and song of warblers everywhere. I am dizzy with it all, drunk with travel and festival doings. Just back from the New River Birding and Nature Festival in Fayetteville, WV, and it was divine. Just divine. The sun shone all week which I feel safe in saying has never once happened in the 11 years Bill and I have been working the festival. It was simply amazing. And the birds were so happy that they posed for the birders, and it was a harmonious happening. 

The Rain Crows played there Saturday night, debuting a bunch of new original songs and our new CD, "Dream of Flying Dream." Have I had time to get an online order form together? No. The grass is growing too fast, but not under my feet. Bill had the 1,000 CD's shipped straight to the festival. That is how close to the line we're cutting our lives these days. And it is fabulous.

Today it was sunny from wakeup to 1:30 PM. I went for a run, washed and hung out three loads of laundry, rototilled the very weedy garden, laid down a bale of straw to keep that from happening once more; let the hay on the lawn dry a bit, mulched the asparagus, took in the laundry, and finished raking lawnhay as the rain started to pelt down. We need it so badly, and it sounds and smells so sweet hitting the new hosta leaves, out there in the dark. It's been a crappy spring for frogs and salamanders. Just enough rain to dupe them into laying eggs, and then all their puddles dry up. Repeat. This is probably why frogs live 18 years, right, Raoul?

I'm very slowly emptying the greenhouse. It is bittersweet, for I love it so much. Everything grows so well in its lovely space.

The mornings have been beautiful. The redbellies are courting. Courting, with woodpeckers, can be as simple as being near each other. Woodpeckers are solitary beings, and being near is very exciting for them. This male was kwirring at the female (left) and tossing his flaming head side to side.

The deer are looking a little less shabby and slab-sided. The does are beginning to round out.

Chet and I run every day we can. I can't miss these mornings, these misty flaming bowls of beauty laid out before us.

We saw three wild turkehs cross the road. And he did not chase them, because he knew they were birds. I was so proud of my boy. But he did look down where they went.

I loved this waterfall, and prefocused on the rock I knew Chet would choose to cross the stream. Serendipity favors the prepared mind. And bright sunlight favors the telephoto lens.

I love my little athlete, my heartbeat, my mandog.

If I seem scattered, if I miss a beat here and there, please understand. It's spring, and I have a lot of speaking engagements. Beyond that, it's spring and I'm everywhere at once, in the treetops and the leaf litter, in the warm breeze and the soil, helpless in its thrall.

Ohio's Oldest Frog?

It is spring. I am so busy I hardly know which end is up. Every time we turn around there is another track meet to attend, to cheer on our little gazelles. But the good news is that I've done everything. I've weeded all dozen flower beds,   pruned the roses, hauling cartload after cartload of weeds and trash from the beds

mowed the lawn, planted the sugar snap peas (twice!), tilled the garden, potted the geraniums in the greenhouse in hanging baskets and planters, started up the Bird Spa, redone the Heirloom garden and mulched it with newspapers and straw, potted the bonsais and put them on their bench.

My oldest Japanese maple, in the red pot. Probably 32 years in culture, started from a seedling as they all were.

 This fine Japanese maple is over 30 years in the pot. It doesn't look very big here, but it's over three feet tall. I have favorites among my collection, and this is one of them. Its trunk is about as big around as my wrist.

The collection isn't growing. I have enough keeping up to do as it is. The elderly Hinoki cypresses are getting nice (far right, top) as their needles thin out. Showing some character. 

One of the last and worst things I did this spring was to clean the pond. I hate that job more with every passing year. It's hard on my bones.  But I was happy to find Raoul still sitting on his humble throne as King of the Water Garden. 

Raoul is the green frog who moved into our pond sixteen years ago, when he was at least two years old. He took over for Fergus, the bullfrog who ate hummingbirds and warblers. 

So, because I would think that not many people have ever seen a green frog whom they know is 18 years old, older than Phoebe (!), here is Raoul as he appears today. That's a six-inch pot. He's big. 

He is a fine frog, as frogs go, calm but not overly friendly; given to a sonorous GLUNK glunk glunk on warm summer nights, and he has even reproduced recently when two slender females moved in a couple of years ago. Most importantly, I have never found evidence that he eats birds. I'm not sure what he eats, but he obviously gets enough if he looks like this just out of hibernation.

Raoul is landlocked up here. The nearest streams are more than a quarter mile away across mown lawn and field and forest. He migrated to our pond in a very rainy June and he's never left. For that, and for so many other gifts the springtime gives, I am thankful.

Back to painting and packing. I squeezed this post out while the maskoid dried on my latest watercolor. Which I must finish before leaving for Virginia Thursday. I'll be speaking and going on field trips at the Virginia Society of Ornithologists' Annual Meeting in Leesburg from Friday to Sunday, April 26-28.

I'll get to see new friends and one very old friend, someone who knew me as a Proto-Zick when we were both 14, someone who knew my mom and dad (those friends are hard to find) and I am very much looking forward to it all.  I am a little tired from all the work around here, and sitting in the car for twelve hours listening to music and thinking my own thoughts will seem like a vacation by contrast. Not to mention birding and botanizing with friends!