Wild Places: Best When Shared

Just back this afternoon from a wild and wooly Fri-Sat-Sun, entertaining 34 hearty and kind Bird Watcher's Digest subscribers at our fifth, and perhaps most successful, BWD Reader Rendezvous. 

They were wonderful people, appreciative and soulful, and North Bend showed her best side. 

We worked our buns off making sure everybody got what they'd come for. Bill, Wendy, Dawn, Kyle,  Mollee, Keith and I never once rested, except when we fell into bed for the too-short nights before the 5:30 wakeups. But it was worth every bit of effort. There were a bunch of people there for whom this was the first birding event of any kind they'd ever attended.

We felt the responsibility of making sure it would be the best, too.

It was magic. We were humbled that 34 BWD subscribers would travel--some from as far as Washington State, Florida, Michigan and Georgia--to be with us at this heavenly place Bill and I discovered in 2009, that has become so important to me as a place I can go to soak up some of my favorite birds on its still waters. 

 Ann drove from Florida by herself just to be with us. Keith came from Fayetteville WV, where he helps run the New River Birding and Nature Festival each year, just to help us pull off this event. And he took Ann for a dreamy ride amongst the snags and nesting birds. Friends. What would we do without them?

A female eastern bluebird at her natural house

soon followed by her gorgeous mate.

This was my earliest visit in June since 2009, and hordes of tree swallows are finishing off their broods.

This satiny tree swallow embellished its nest with a great blue heron feather. Its young were well-feathered and soon to boot out of their low snaggy cradle.

Everywhere were eastern kingbirds, nesting out in the open, conspicuous and fearless.

A kingbird hauls a fecal sac from its three babies in their open snag cradle. 

A summer tanager sings his lazy, halting song, back to us. He don't care.

Common bluets dip and couple on the quiet waters, the males clasping their mates behind the head in an oddly beautiful ballet. 

And everywhere around, the stars of the show brought gasps of delight from our rendezvousing readers.

 Taken this morning--a red-headed woodpecker feeds a soon-to-fledge youngster, as a tree swallow buzzes by in this precious watery nursery for cavity-nesting birds.

I floated right up to this bird, busy processing a large insect in one of its many larders.

I think every one of us realized how lucky we were to be here, seeing these things. Tracking down a black-and-white warbler at the hemlock-sheltered picnic area. 

It was an honor to share one of my favorite places with so many good souls. 

Vertigo!

June peonies, March sheds.

Sitting down long enough to do a post is a real struggle in June. But I have a PSA to write, a great need to take the time to write about something that happened to me, because I hope it will help someone, anyone out there who's suffering from vertigo--unexplained dizziness, with no other symptoms. Here's what happened.  I basically killed myself all Memorial Day weekend getting planting, weeding, mulching and manuring done. I got this jones to manure the gardens, and I wasn't going to let lack of a backhoe or pickup truck stop me. My friend Jeff told me I was welcome to dig around in the barnyard where their cows come to give birth, 100 years of continuous cow poop in dry stratae free for the taking. Wahoo! Full of weed seeds, too, but that rich stuff is what my gardens need.

I have golden raspberries from my dear friend Connie Toops in NC that were crying for manure. 

photo by Connie Toops

I've got rhubarb from my dear friend Ann Hoffert in ND that wanted some too. 

photo by Connie Toops

 I'd put the little steel mesh carrier on the back of the Subaru, take shovels and dig the stuff into containers, tubs and muck buckets and window boxes, and haul it home by the 300 lb load. I probably hauled a ton of manure in muck buckets and tubs on the back of my Subaru. Sunday and Monday I made repeated manure runs to fortify all the gardens. Yes, it would have been nice to have a truck but I don't, so I do what I can. Bill and the kids helped, but I waaay overdid it. I got dehydrated and though I was drinking gallons of water, nothing was coming back out.  I had no pee. Weird, I thought. Then while hauling a tub of manure for the last load up a steep hill in hot sun I suddenly got dizzy and had to quit. I had lifted the tup up, rising rapidly from a squat, and boom! I just had to sit down and let the kids haul the rest for me. I felt like puking, and I was actually staggering like a sailor. That was Monday. From then until Wednesday afternoon I had vertigo. I never want to have vertigo again. I was mildly nauseated and listless, with no other symptoms. I wondered if I'd had a little stroke. Not a pleasant thought. But had no weakness or paralysis or cognition issues. Well, my head felt very fuzzy, but I was making sense, and I knew who the president is (Roosevelt, right?) and the date and day of the week and all that. My brain was functioning reasonably normally, considering I felt like I was on a pitching ship.

I'd put it on the snap peas, too.

Finally on Weds. around 3 pm I couldn't stand it any more. I'd done some online digging and come up the possibility of an inner ear infection, but it came on so suddenly that didn't really fit. I didn't think it was a disease. It seemed to me like an event, not a disease. I called Shila, my personal shaman and wellness guru (who happens to know a ridiculous amount about the workings of the human body as a certified cranio-sacral and polarity therapist). After running through some questions to ascertain if I'd had a TIE (transient ischemic event, or mini stroke),  she told me she thought I had BPPV*, and told me to go on Youtube and look for The Epley Maneuver, which is this exercise where you incline your head back while lying with your upper back on a pillow. Then you roll your head around slowly in a spiral. Doing this will dislodge  any otoliths, little crystals that form in your inner ear, that might be blocking the flow of fluid in the cochlea. Having free flow of fluid in the cochlea, the little snail-like coil in the inner ear, is vital to knowing where you are in space. Stop that flow and you are seasick, Sally, and it ain't fun.

I did the Epley maneuver as shown on YouTube once for each ear and got up, not dizzy any more. It was a flippin' miracle. A doctor I spoke to afterward, who confessed he'd never heard of the maneuver, said, "Based on your symptoms, I'd have sent you straight to the ER for an angiogram."  Well, this was free, not scary or hard to do at all, did not involve massive ER charges,  and I am feeling so very, very lucky to have a best friend and incredible healer in Shila. 

*The name for the condition is "Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo." It's caused by rapid changes in head position that dislodge otoliths that then bung up your cochlear canal and keep the fluid in the cochlear canal from moving correctly. Being completely dehydrated probably had something to do with my sudden onset BPPV, too.

As many of my stories do, it gets better. We have a Rain Crows new music rehearsal on the evening of June 3, and Wendy, who is vital to contributing, receiving, arranging and reacting to our newly written songs, is clearly not operating at full capacity. She says she's dizzy and nauseated. No other symptoms. Has been for a couple of days, and she's miserable. I scribble "The Epley Maneuver" down on a scrap of paper and give it to her. Just to make sure, I texted her this link:

The Epley Maneuver

 She manages to make it back to where she's staying, looks up the video, and by 10:30 that night she's done the maneuver and the vertigo is gone. Hallelujah. Let life resume. 

So already, I've had one friend present with the same symptoms I had, and Shila's wisdom has rippled out and helped another person. I give this story to you as a gift for when your cochlea gets jammed. Or the cochlea of anyone you love. Vertigo with no other symptoms. Remember this. Look it up, do it. If BPPV is your issue, The Epley Maneuver will fix you.

xoxo

jz

Obligatory Disclaimer: Although my family calls me Dr. Zick, I am not a doctor. There are many things that can cause vertigo, including inner and middle ear infections (which are often viral) and mini- strokes. I'm offering this easy-to-do maneuver as a first, at-home stop in figuring out what might be going on when you're suddenly taken dizzy with no other symptoms. If you execute it as directed a couple of times and it doesn't work, hie thee to your doctor.

Growing Hardy Kiwi Fruit: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

I don't remember exactly how long ago it was that I went to our local Giant Eagle grocery store and bought a little plastic clamshell full of grape-sized kiwi fruit. I think it was easily eight years ago.

The kids were little. Liam maybe 7, Phoebe 10. They loved them. We ate them up. All but one. I saved one back. I had an idea.

I looked every time I shopped for years, but Giant Eagle never stocked those little grape-sized kiwi fruit again. I literally haven't laid eyes on one  or tasted one since that fateful day. But I remember loving them.

From that one fruit we didn't eat, I saved some tiny black seeds on a paper towel, and I planted them in the moist soil of one of my big pots in the Garden Pod. I often plant seeds for fun in the soil of my hibiscus and jasmine pots. I'm watering them anyway; the soil in those big pots won't dry out like a little pot will, and when the seed finally emerges I get to scratch my head and wonder what I've done this time. I was just looking at three mystery seedlings in that hibiscus pot today. It's like Secret Santa for horticulturists. Labeling them, I believe, would jinx their germination, take away all the fun.

Lo and behold I got three little seedlings which grew into tiny vines. I kept them in the Pod for a couple of years, moving them down near the floor in the winter, until I was ready to plant them out. 

I chose the lower rose bed, because I could let the vines climb up the deck struts.  They willingly obliged.

Seven years went by. The vines kept rambling onto my tea roses and zinnias. They killed two clematis vines.  I kept tearing them off where they weren't supposed to go. They went sideways with a vengeance, but mostly up, all three of them twined together in a huge, heavy, impenetrable tangle.

I remember going on a garden tour in Devola (a suburb of Marietta, Ohio) about six years ago where I saw a backyard with an arbor of gigantic hardy kiwi vines. I had already planted mine out by then, and I asked the homeowner about yield. 

"Well, they haven't done anything yet. I'm about to rip 'em out."

He sounded so disconsolate, having built this arbor, and gotten no yield but leaves and vine.

This gave me pause. Those vines were enormous. And producing nothing. For years.

I did a little poking around and found out that hardy kiwis take about eight years to mature to fruiting size.

Oh. 

Do I wish I'd known that when I planted those tiny black seeds? Several times I have wished I had known that before I planted them. Maybe like a hundred times, as I curse this pillar of verdant nothing. To tell the truth,

I never would have tried it.

So last year, which I think was Year 7 of putting up with this hulking mass of greenery, one vine down on the lower left made about a dozen little white bell-shaped flowers. Which withered and fell off forthwith.

I was so unhappy about that. And I wondered if I even had a male and a female plant in the threesome, since only one had even flowered. I came SO CLOSE to clipping the damn things off at the root last fall, but the thought of hauling away what is doubtless a hundred pounds of vegetation gave me pause. I let laziness rule, and gave the plant a stern talking to instead.

"You flower next spring, and one of you had better be a freakin' male plant and one a female, and you had better make some !@#@##@$ fruit, or OFF WITH YOUR HEADS!! I am SICK of this OVERBURDEN of VEGETATION that does NOTHING but SHADE OUT my BUDDLEIA!!" 

Yes, two buddleia, down for the count, though the last two winters could have accounted for that.

I meant it, too. I could have been growing Heavenly Blue morning glories, which bring me limitless joy, ALL THIS TIME. But no. I'm growing hardy freakin' kiwis. This is my bed, and I am lying right in it.

I will note that the vines made it through the worst winter I can ever, ever remember, the winter of 2012-13. They didn't even die back an INCH. Holy crap. Maybe they'll take over the world, if they EVER make SEEDS. 

Psst: You have to reproduce to conquer the world. So reproduce already.

All right! says the vine. How's about these flowers? 

Good God. 15 feet of somethin'.

This spring, the biggest vine flowered with a vengeance, rows of little umbrellas. Not much scent to them, though I tried to find some redeeming feature.

I kept checking them, and this time the flowers didn't wither and fall off. The petals fell off, and the ovaries got a swollen look to them, like they were maybe going to TURN INTO KIWI FRUIT!!!!!

I am shouting because I just discovered this today, and blogposts are best written in the moment, even if they are saved for a week or so so you can see if the baby bird croaks or the swollen ovaries fall off before you post.

 See how the top flowers have a little ring of purplish stamens around a big pistil and starburst white stigma? The stigma is the pollen-receiving tip of the pistil. And the ovary is that greenish ovoid thing that, on the older flowers lower in the picture that have dropped their petals, is SWELLING into a FRUIT. That I plan to EAT and feed to my FAMILY.

So today I went looking for the staminate, or male flowers, knowing there had to be some on one vine or another, and by gum I found some on one of the two smaller vines. Not that I can tell which vine is which anymore. No pistil, no ovary, just a nice ring of purple stamens. Pollen dispensers. Male flowers.

Through pure, dumb luck, one of the three seeds I planted eight years ago had been a male. And bees had visited these staminate flowers, and brought their pollen to the pistillate flowers on the one or two huge female vines. It was as if I'd planned it. What if all three had been male? Or all three female? It would take eight years before I'd know if I'd goofed. All spring I've been thinking of trying to find someone in the area patient or (probably) dumb enough to try growing hardy kiwi, to ask if I could cut a sprig of male flowers to bring home. I was thinking about driving through Devola, looking for that backyard arbor. If the homeowner is even still living there. If he hasn't gone into a deep depression about giving over his backyard arbor to fruitless massvines, and gone into seclusion.

I didn't have to hunt anyone down in the end. The Kiwi Fairy visited Indigo Hill. I cannot believe my luck. I know I'm putting the cart before the horse. Nobody's actually eaten any hardy kiwi fruit here. Maybe the coons and flying squirrels will get them all. I don't know how long they take to mature. Can't be eight years. Has to be measured in weeks or months.

But just to make sure, I just handed Phoebe a paintbrush and said, "Go dibble this in the male flowers and pollinate all the female flowers you can find, please." 

"Weird stuff Mom asks me to do," she replied, and glided out to do my odd bidding.

This photo was taken May 30, a bonus update a week along. Yessir, that's my babies, swelling and growing right along.  We're going to need a ladder to harvest them all.

The hummock of green to the left of the leftmost rose is the male plant. That plant that has climbed all the way up the deck? That's the female. They bloomed simultaneously. Bees found their way from the one sprig of male flowers to a kazillion female flowers. And she's LOADED. This is almost too much miracle for me to comprehend. I love miracles. Especially ones that take eight years to come true, and by all odds really shouldn't.

Chicago Peace Rose says Clap Your Hands Say YEAH!!!

Update: As of June 2, about 90% of the abundant fruits have aborted, dropped off. At first I feared our beloved flying squirtles, who rumble nightly on the deck, were harvesting them prematurely, but a closer look shows that the petioles browned and the fruit simply dropped. Well, it's been very dry this spring, and I should have been supporting my beloved hulk with watering. Just went down and set the hose at a slow trickle on the roots. Weeded the pitcher plants while I was at it. I guess that sounds like something a horticulturist would do. Here's a good link with some general points on growing kiwi by Burpee. Looks like they may not ripen until September?!? OK!

 The point is we have plants of both sexes; it CAN happen, and we're going to taste a hardy kiwi fruit this summer. This fall. Before frost. Even if it's only one, sliced four ways. More waiting, I guess. Done it for eight years, might as well go nine. As DOD said of planting fruit trees, "You're waiting anyway."