Birding – Page 2 – The Hillhouse

Shifting Time

June 8, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind, Pics, Waldorf Life2 Comments

We’re two days away from the end of school. Tomorrow morning Elihu’s class will move to their new, sixth grade room, the symbolism unmistakable to us both as they move downstairs to join the middle school-aged children, leaving the younger grades upstairs. Elihu’s teacher is also leaving, and a new one (whom, btw, we are both incredibly excited about) is arriving. Lots of shifts going on in a small amount of time. Plus the seasons have changed now too; Spring feels to have formally concluded with a glorious and moving graduation ceremony for the Waldorf twelfth graders on Friday night. The days are finally clear and sunny, neighbors buzz over on four wheelers for impromptu visits, frogs can be seen each night hopping across the roads, and gone is the ever-present demand on us to fulfill academic commitments. And man, it feels friggin great.

Still in his pajamas at breakfast, Elihu enjoys wearing the comfy, cozy socks that he knit for himself in handwork class. I am so impressed. I can make a killer Halloween costume, but textiles, threads and such leave me confused and intimidated.

Elisabeth multi-tasks; talking on the office phone while ringing the school bell to start the day. It makes the most resonant and lovely sound (it does not induce stress as the mechanized ones in large schools do) and if my wishes could be so easily granted, all schools everywhere would have em.

The fifth grade visits Congress park to identify and draw some trees.

Turns out the eleventh grade is here too, studying cloud formations.

Elihu and a pal refer to their tree guide.

Elihu shows a giant seedpod and guesses it might be from a Catalpa.

At the end of the trip, fascination with ducks takes over.

Back at school in the morning light. By nine o’clock the kids here have already done a lot, and yet the other area schools aren’t quite started for the day. We start early, but we also end early. In the beginning I dreaded the new and earlier schedule, but as it turns out I really like it better.

Elihu gives his book report, his final large work for the year.

The second to last eurythmy class I’ll play with my son for a while. I don’t play for the sixth or seventh grades… Phooey. I’m getting sentimental.

Same room, new event. The twelfth grade will give a performance for all the other grades. Seating is tight – and creative, as every available spot, window sills included, are used.

Have never enjoyed playing another piano more. Smooth and rich like butter with just the perfect amount of high end.

And look what I found on the piano one morning this week – along with two chocolate kisses! It was so very touching – and no one is copping to it. Wish I knew who to thank…

A performance of a poem about a wizard and a lizard.

And again, another use of the room for the weekly school assembly in which all grades come together and sing.

At recess Cally draws horses and dragons while Fiona chats and Elihu dreams.

This is the other building where the high school meets. Complete with pond and ducks!

It’s time for the children’s final formal goodbyes to the graduating class.

The event takes place in the high school’s eurythmy room. On the left is the fifth grade, making their presentation gift to the seniors, seated on the right. Abigail was also their teacher – from first through eighth grade – so this is a particularly sentimental occasion.

Another bittersweet moment as Abigail says her final goodbye to Elihu in the fifth grade classroom as his teacher.

After school it’s back to the park for more duck action. See how easily he just picks up this baby.

Is there anything cuter than a duckling??

He can never get enough.

Of course he always shares his finds. He is ambassador to the bird world.

A sweet little snippet of the duckling’s release and the girls’ response.

My legally blind child spots the mama duck on her tidy nest under a tree, something I and every other person (and dog) in that park seemed to have missed. Hiding in plain sight, I guess.

Happy ending – we learned yesterday that her clutch hatched successfully!

The historic Canfield Casino, which stands in the center of Congress Park. The Waldorf graduation ceremony is held here. (The duck pond is just beyond on the right.)

A view from across the pond of Elihu catching ducks, and an audience stopping to watch. There’s a little-known song by Cole Porter called “Municipal Park”, the refrain of which extols the virtues of a pleasant, picturesque city park. I can never help but sing it over and over to myself when we linger here. This place really is kinda like something from a storybook. So perfect it’s almost comic.

The view Eastward of the Casino from the duck pond. My father’s Festival of Baroque Music performed Bach’s B minor Mass in the great hall many summers ago.

This place is silly idyllic.

Elihu peeks into the almost completely hollow ancient willow tree. He tells me he sees something. I, of little faith, take a picture and confidently declare there is nothing inside but a few pieces of trash…

…but a closer look proves him right, and me wrong. I shoulda known. (Look more closely at the dark spot. It’s a duckling.)

Two of my favorite colors together. In fact, when I first learned that Elihu had not only low vision but was also completely colorblind, I sat in the lobby of Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, sobbing because my son would never know what it was to see magenta and spring green next to each other. Kids without hair on their heads were walking past me, wheeling their IV poles alongside them, and there I was, crying about something so ridiculously petty by comparison; something which actually turned out to be entirely irrelevant to my child’s ability to thrive in the world. Without benefit of color, my son probably notices the beauty around him more keenly than most people. It may even be part of the reason he is so observant. Life if full of paradoxes and irony.

Later that evening, we head back to town for the graduation ceremony. It appears Saratoga is seeing some of its summertime residents return again for the season.

We run into a large rabbit en route. Strange.

Little Cooper lost a tooth during the ceremony and shows off the new hole.

The class of 2014.

Richard leads everyone in a verse of the school song (which he wrote and arranged).

Julia and Alex play and sing a piece for their contribution.

Eryn sings. Of course. !!

And so does the whole class, most of whom have been together since first grade. Not a dry eye in the house.

Eryn receives her diploma from Abigail.

So Eryn. Yay!

The reception.

The Casino is possibly the most elegant venue I’ve ever seen.

Elihu and Eryn, both children of teacher Abigail.

Elihu hangs with the big boys – these eighth graders will be in high school next fall. Wow.

Ahmed surprises Elihu with this maneuver. He is a charming, spirited young man.

Before we joined grandma for supper, Elihu and I stopped to hear this awesome duo rocking the hell out of their portable truck bed setup. My batteries died right after, but I was able to get a couple of seconds of their sound… pretty cool, I think…

Short, but kickin, right?

We wrap up the night with some busking. Rule of the street is if you sit in with someone you don’t put out your jar – you do it for the joy of a jam. After some scouting around for his new spot for the year we were given a good suggestion by a magician we met who was packing up for the night. After sitting in with these folks, Elihu ended his night in the new spot and made a good take. Thanks, Aaron, kind of you to suggest it!

I can never seem to judge just when to end these short vids. Ended just as the guy was getting Elihu’s name… that can sometimes be a train wreck, so I stopped it there. As it turned out, he got the pronunciation right and thanked him for joining them.

So, how do you pronounce this crazy name? El ih hyoo. Not as intuitive a pronunciation as you’d think. Even to me it kinda looks like it might well be ‘El I hoo’. And that dipthong – the ‘hyoo’ part – that has many folks whose first languages aren’t English rather confounded. His Pakistani grandfather still calls him ‘El ee hoo’. I kinda thought I’d simply avoid the whole thing and he’d just be an Eli in ‘real life’, but he himself told me at the age of four that Eli was not his name. His name was Elihu. And he meant it.

It seems my son knew himself pretty well for a four year old, and he still has a good sense of self for an eleven year old kid too. Good thing, because it will serve him well as he continues to navigate through the many shifts yet ahead in his full and wonderful life.

The Bs Are Back In Town

June 1, 2014June 1, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Mommy Mind, Pics5 Comments

Birds, bees, budding flowers, busking and boys give us lots to do around here. Although I make an effort to be the least-scheduled family in town, there’s still so much to do (often too much to do) that our days are always full.

Let me make it clear that we also consider just laying about the house something that’s important to ‘do’. Personally I feel it’s a very healthy thing to have time in which to do nothing at all. Today, as we lay about doing just that, Elihu lamented that he was one of the few kids he knew who didn’t have a trophy. I made it clear to him that those trophies represented many, many hours at lessons, practice and competitions too. And lots of time in the car. I hoped to make it clear to him that the variety of activities that he enjoys in his life – and the relatively relaxed manner in which they occur, ‘laying around’ time included in that – is something he’d miss if he jammed his hours of freedom full of commitments. As it is, today we played hookie from a 4H horse event, something I’m still trying not to feel guilty about. But in that this next week is his last week of school, and in that I still have lots of new music to get in my fingers today and hours yet of playing and practicing still ahead (you’d think it would be done by now, right? me too) I know I made the right choice. The resurgence of panic attacks over this past year are another reason to cut back on extra, outside activities. Yes, Elihu’s classmates likely have more densely-packed schedules, but for the most part, I’m not made of the stuff that it takes to live like that. My son may well have a full and fast-paced summer of activities with his father ahead of him, but here at the Hillhouse, we’re about keeping things as mellow as possible, as we kick back and chill with the Bs.

We love bumble bees.

Glad to see em back in town.

Birds are back and in business too. Our resident Phoebe mom is patiently sitting on her new clutch.

Wild strawberry blossoms promise a good crop, if only we can beat those other Bs (the bunnies!) to it!

This is my favorite week of the year – now already gone by – the peak time for Lily of the Valley. Our bird sculpture by Vietnam vet Ace stands guard over the patch of flowers.

The most heavenly scent you can imagine.

Neighbor Stephanie kindly gave us half her flock of chicks (we only had two hatch out this year).

Birds and babies – both in a box. (Clever, huh? That’s the kind of invention-by-necessity that comes of having three little ones.)

The big B. Gotta keep practicing…

The butterflies are back, too.

We’re at the cemetery, gleaning a few lilac suckers and lily of the valley plants to add to our homestead.

Elihu admires the bird on the top of this ancient gravestone.

Back home planting our new additions. This is in front of the flowering quince, which has now lost almost all of its blooms.

These are the lilacs we hope to grow here for ourselves one day. I expect it’ll be a decade before we get results like this.

Last week Elihu and I dug up some wild Columbine from the roadside and transplanted them here too. This is the very last bloom left.

Male brown-headed cowbird, acting innocent.

But he’s got the ladies on his mind and he erupts into his mating display. Can’t help himself, it’s that time of year.

Here’s a short vid of the boy doing his little dance. We’re lucky to have this platform feeder and the window tinting cling – it acts as a bird blind and allows us to witness some interesting stuff up close.

Here he is with his gal in the morning light.

Phoenix comes over for an afternoon, which starts in the music room. The boys kept switching instruments. Fun to see kids with such a natural feel for music just doing their thing – and with such joy, too.

This wasn’t the best of their performances, but it’s the only one with a distinct beginning and ending. Good enough for now.

Farm boys, yes, Waldorf too – but electronica is still key.

Phoenix tried Ramen noodles for the first time (in his memory, that is.) I told him about the old folkloric belief that if you try a new food that you like, you add 100 days to your life. He was stoked.

Bikes and birds, a natural combination, right?

We meet up with Phoenix’s twin brother, Jonah, and it’s now all about Pokemon.

Heard of poker face? This is Pokemon face. !

After we left the boys, Elihu busked downtown Saratoga on Broadway for a while. Netted a cool $40 in less than half an hour. Too bad the kid’ll be gone for much of the tourist season. I advise him to rake it in now while he’s still cute and little. He might not be quite as successful as a gangly teenager. We’ll see.

Dishwasher update? Well, it’s not magic. Helpful, definitely, a life upgrade, unquestionably. But yet there are still things for which a dishwasher is not suited. Plus I have only one of some things I use often. So I guess the dish rack will be back soon too.

Bonding with his birds. This is about ten days after we got the new chicks and they’ve grown like crazy.

Elihu’s shot. He likes em up close and super-cute.

This is what we two call ‘Crow Field’. It’s one of the last wide-open fields left in Greenfield. We treasure this field if for no other reason than that ‘our’ woodcock returns to it year after year – plus we love the expanse, the air and light… the vast space with no interruption. Our little homestead is on the right, just beyond the dark line of trees. At the base of the trees is an old stone wall and barbed wire fence from the days when the whole area was open land for cattle grazing. Now enormous trees have grown up, making it nearly impossible to imagine what it looked like only fifty years ago – with a view of Albany to the South, Schuylerville to the North, and Vermont in between. Did I mention that the field is for sale? Had Elihu in tears last year to learn it, and me in a funk for months, but now we count each day that it remains as a huge gift and blessing in our lives.

Elihu drew this at age six, shortly after this we got our first chicks. Elihu always said he wanted ‘twenty chickens, a coop and a run’. We started with a few chicks in the basement, moved em to the garage, then finally outside and into a retired wooden shipping crate. That was then, this is now. Today, we have a coop, a run and (some one hundred birds and five years later) twenty resident chickens. That’s a happy ending, huh? We do so love birds of any kind, and there’s no doubt that they add a lot of enjoyment to our lives. We’re glad to be raising up a new flock again, and glad too to see our migratory friends return for another summer here at the Hillhouse.

Mother’s May

May 11, 2014May 11, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Mommy Mind, Pics4 Comments

Mother’s Day never qualified as a ‘real’ holiday growing up in my family. My mother, whether being stoic, passive-aggressive, just plain honest or some mixture of the three always insisted that there was no need for such a day. “Every day is mother’s day” she’d say enigmatically, absolutely throwing me for a loop each time she did. But I never took her to task on it. I’m pretty sure we made her cards nonetheless. Even today I ended up making a bouquet for her and giving a small gift of a scarf – just because. We stopped in for a quick hello, because at this point in the game, how can we not? Now me, myself, I admit I don’t mind folks giving me some props and thanks for doing what I do – because I really do feel that my role is very important, and I feel that I do a pretty good job at it too. I don’t mean to sound self-righteous about it – but this is the most important job of my life, so a little respect from the world at large not such a bad idea. Nuff on that.

How about a couple of scrapbook entries to mark our day? I apologize if my photographic accounts are getting a bit too much or a bit tedious, but if it doesn’t get documented here, it doesn’t get documented anywhere. This is what my kid has to look back on someday. (Hope he feels more gratitude than regret when that time comes!) So thanks for bearing witness, and feel free to overlook this post entirely if you’ve had enough. Here’s hoping you mothers didn’t have to cook, clean or put things away today – unless you felt absolutely compelled to do so (I did).

These things are downright sexy, are they not? Good lookin yolks… And just think, this is how we all begin; as our mother’s eggs…

What’s better than yolks fresh from the farm? Bernaise sauce made from those fresh yolks! Here’s my made-to-order ‘deconstructed’ Eggs Benedict. This particular batch of Bernaise kicked ass. And it’s topped with fresh-cut chives from the garden. !!

Like clockwork – they first arrive here on Mother’s Day each year.

Next up, the chicks need to meet the great outdoors.

Still cute and fuzzy – but more than twice as big as they were two weeks ago.

Seriously guys? Ten open acres and you’re all hanging out in the porch? Sheesh.

The last glimpse of Saratoga Lake we’ll get ’til the leaves fall off the trees again.

Now we’re deep in the swampy area of my folks’ woods. Not easy getting around here. We were in search of a huge boulder Andrew and I would play on as kids – only difference is we came out here all those years ago in the wintertime when this was all one big sheet of ice. The ice made it much easier to get back here. After some searching, we didn’t find the rock, but we did find other sweet little diversions along the way…

Like the Marsh Marigold

And very few standing trees against an amazing, cloudless sky…

On the walk home we found what was left of a raccoon that had been at the side of the road for nearly a year.

Reminded us of a Dr. Seuss poem about ‘shin bone pinning’…

Having broken my neck once, I’m partial to this spinal remnant

Elihu gathers fiddleheads for our supper

Fuzzy wuzzy

This is the house where we Conants spent our summers (winter vacations too). Uncle Andrew now lives there.

With the shadow of the Old House to the right, Mom’s place is at the top of the driveway, and the Studio is on the left.

Elihu shows mom our bone treasures

Good old Annie, named so as she was found by my parents on their wedding anniversary, now many years ago.

Nothing like that salmon-pink of the flowering Quince

Just perfect.

Two kinds of ferns to avoid, and one kind to eat.

After some labor-intensive de-fuzzing, they’re ready to be boiled. Next they’re sauteed in butter, and served with a squeeze of lemon. If not cooked well enough they can cause some tummy problems (that’s the nicer way of saying they can be ‘slightly toxic’.)

Nothing toxic here, yet. (The possible threat – however miniscule – did inspire a couple of very entertaining death scenes at the dinner table.)

We’re done with our lovely day. After a call to the other grandma in Illinois, we settle in for a few more chapters of our favorite Springtime tradition of all – The Burgess Bird Book for Children. Good-night all!

May Daze

May 9, 2014May 9, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind, Pics, Waldorf Life3 Comments

Elihu asked me last night why I often say that ‘when we get past something’ we’ll be alright… He wanted to know why I’d say from time to time that we’d be ok once a certain event, a certain time or a certain holiday was over. “Like Christmas, you kept saying ‘We’ll be ok as soon as we get past Christmas.’ Why do you keep saying things like that? What exactly do you mean?” I hadn’t realized my offhand remarks had made such an impression on him. It gave me pause for sure. I wanted to learn from this, yes, but at the same time I wanted him to understand my point of view too. “It’s just that we hit these super-busy spots in the year, and I just can’t keep up. I can’t keep up with the food, the laundry, the work. And it gets harder when there’s more to do.” He understood, but warned that my comments didn’t sound as benign as I was making them out to be. Wow, I do really try to keep from getting too dark with him, but he’s a sharp kid. He gets my meaning. And again I wonder, is it just me complaining? It can’t be. I’m not that crazy-different from most folks. I like to flatter myself into thinking I might be, but I’m pretty sure I’m not experiencing anything that out of the ordinary. Or am I? After all, there is no partner to tag-team with, no one else to step in for a minute, no one else to make it happen. Ok, yeah, so there’s a lot to do. But I’m not the only single mom here in this world. I just express myself without much editing, I guess.

This past week Elihu has felt it too – it wasn’t just me feeling the overwhelm of a busy, end-of-the-school year rush. There has been a lot going on recently in a very short amount of time. And today, Elihu got it. After being patient and good for an hour long appointment at the eye doctor after school, he finally broke down in tears. “I’m SO tired” he moaned, and pushed his face into my shoulder. But he’d made it. Me too. Still have another couple weeks of recitals, performances and then the big pentathlon event for the fifth grade, but most of our landmark events were past now. And we enjoyed them all, every moment. But we’re kinda zapped now. As I write, he’s relaxing in his bedroom, organizing his collection of Pokemon cards, and I’m sitting here wondering what in hell I’ll make for supper. But this is a mere blip on the screen in view of the two huge, life-changing events that happened just today: Elihu learned how to ride a bike!!!! And what else? Get this – Elihu learned how to put contacts in his eyes!!!! We’re on the path to tinted contacts – something that will radically change his life forever. These two landmarks have us elated, proud, relieved – and ready to collapse. This is one May we will never, ever forget. We’re definitely in a daze tonight, but man, it’s a happy one.

Going back two days (feels like two months ago by now) to a window on my birthday morning. Guinea fowl Austin on the bridge, our beloved flock below and Ace’s sculpture “Mayfly” to the left.

Hey, we had the garage cleaned and painted last year, why the splotches of mud??

A-ha! Our friends the Phoebes have returned and once again made their nest atop the garage light. Ah well, we can always wash up the mess after the babies are raised and gone. So very glad you came back! Nice to see and hear you again. Now I think this is a very sweet birthday present.

Here was another sweet birthday experience… I got to write and play music for the eighth grade play. Mr. Ruel introduces “Tuck Everlasting” to the Waldorf students in the charming theater space of the local Episcopal Church, Elihu is in the dark hair and shirt in the center.

Jessie explains the magical properties of the spring in the wood, and its awesome implications.

Angus Tuck tells young Winnie “I just got to make you understand” as he explains the dangers of living forever.

A climactic scene in which the tension rises and the play takes a turn.

Well done, eighth grade!

There’s been a delay with the carpenter… still hoping this job will be history soon.

What a perfect birthday present from mom! The name says it all too! Finished with washing dishes by hand soon!!

A quick, late-night trip to Stewart’s to grab a birthday cake for myself. Yes, I ate both of them. !

The next day starts with a double smooching of chickens.

Dinah and Thumbs Up share Elihu’s lap and really seem to like it there.

Now it’s time to go to the gig. Elihu regularly donates the proceeds from his Eggs of Hope sales to Drilling for Hope, a non profit run by local woman Karen Flewelling. She asked Elihu if he’d play drums for the opening night of “Faces of Rwanda”, a collection of gorgeous black and white pictures taken of Karen’s last trip by photographer Emma Dodge Hanson. Twins (and classmates) Jonah and Phoenix join him here.

This is a photograph from her recent trip to Rwanda of villagers drilling a new well.

Pics of donors and the Rwandan children that they’re helping to send to school.

We looked and we looked and yay! We finally found our friend from so far away! Hopefully we will be sponsoring this very student in the years to come. Wow. I can’t believe we’ve been able to help someone else here on the planet. We, of so very limited resources are absolutely rich in the world-wide scheme of things. This helps to keep things in perspective for sure.

Classmate Ben helps Elihu find his picture on the big wall at the exhibit.

Karen says hi to Elihu; he just made another gift to Drilling for Hope to help Karen do her wonderful work in the world.

The view from my post most of the day: high school eurtythmy class. They’re in costumes now, getting ready for the big performance at Zankel Music Hall at Skidmore College next week.

After my high school classes are done for the morning, I rush over to the Lower School to see how Elihu fared. And just as I got out of my car and pulled out my camera – who should come riding up on his bike (a thing he could not have done only a couple of hours earlier) but my amazing boy!!! Talk about a surprise!!!

And just as effortlessly as he rode to me, he then promptly rode away. Sigh.

The sanctuary of an empty, fifth grade classroom, pre-lunch.

And the same room moments later. All are in a good mood.

After lunch I get to hang out with the kids for a bit as I’m on yard duty. Our equestrian friend Cally (who’s also an incredibly talented singer) smooches a home made horse doll and lil first grade buddy Tylor admires a beeswax figure Elihu’s working on.

Now we’re visiting a new eye doc in hopes she can be a little more proactive in getting Elihu red tinted contacts. It’ll be new territory for her. She was very kind and positive. We’re hopeful…

These have a crazy, futuristic Harry Potter-esque vibe – maybe even a little Brazil-esque feeling to them too (yeeks). Elihu’s trying out some mild prism glasses here to help him find the null point in his nystagmus (shaking of pupils).

The doc’s assessing Elihu’s ability to read – hard to know if his vision challenge is a product of light sensitivity, acuity or both.

Assistant Jen shows Elihu how to put contacts in his eyes.

Here he is – with contacts in! They’re not tinted, they’re just to give him an idea of how it all works.

One more spin around the park. (The bike was a gift from the local program “Bikeatoga”; thanks guys, we so appreciate it!) I told Elihu ages ago that riding a bike was the closest thing to flying that he’d ever know. Today he laughed and said I was right.

May we remember the feeling of this special day in May for years to come.

Golden Touch

April 7, 2014April 13, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind, Pics, Waldorf LifeLeave a comment

We’ve been crazy-busy lately, but in spite of that, we both have enjoyed something of a golden touch this past week, starting, of course, with Elihu’s wonderful performances as King Midas in his class’s annual play. (Many times he made sure I knew its true title was The Masque of Midas, with a ‘q’ and not a k.) I cannot relate to you how robust a performance he gave, how clear were his lines, how his understanding of their meaning (in spite of the flowery, archaic language) translated so easily through his speech and gesture… His voice was as crisp, bold and commanding as was his character; his body moved so much like royalty too… I personally loved the part where he admits the fickle nature of humans, and concedes how quickly we forget the small miracles of the everyday. As he eats a grape (which previously his spell prevented him from tasting) he admits that in spite of the lesson he’s learned through having – and then losing – his golden touch, even now the precious fruit was losing its ‘ambrosial taste’. And beyond that, Midas expected that in very little time he would revert to his old ways and completely forget the lessons he had only just learned… I loved the way Midas – and Elihu too, in his understanding and appreciation for the meaning of his lines – had the clarity to recognize that through his human ways he would likely in the end lose the ability to recognize the true value in the everyday. This was a kid who got it, and who conveyed it. The whole cast was wonderful, and many children were able to play their instruments in the production, everyone of the children sang beautifully, and a handful of them enjoyed playing some very animated and funny scenes. The play was a beautiful ensemble piece that will live long in the memories of these children, their beloved teacher, and all their proud friends and family who were there to share in the experience.

Please forgive – or overlook – the donkey ears. They come out at the end, and we forgot to stash em for the photos.

A fitting instrument for the king to play, I think.

Things weren’t entirely golden at the start, but we persevered, looking for that unanticipated golden ending… Had a coupla goodnews/badnews scenes of our own play out this past week. Elihu’s bass broke. I went to tune it for one of his plays, and the strings just weren’t responding. I took a closer look at the tuners, and glad my attention was there, for I saw the giant headstock just fall over forward. I caught it, thankfully, so no more damage was done. And the break itself wasn’t a clean one. Worth a look-see at the shop, but deep-down I kinda knew Elihu’s days with this instrument were over. Sad, I thought. My father had seen him first play on it. He’d learned a lot on it – we’d enjoyed making some good music together with it. But then I caught myself, and reminded myself not to get too sentimental. There will be many basses yet to come as he grows. This is a rental, and only a quarter size at that. But still. It was his first. We prepared for a good month without an instrument when good old Ed called from the shop and told us he had a new one in for us. Huh? Really? That only took like a day! Here’s the good news/bad news part. The endpin just wouldn’t come out. Had to be pounded back in when we did finally pull it out with some pliers. Nope. Wouldn’t cut it. Besides, the action felt bad, and I think it sounded like a box. We really had lucked out with that first instrument. (Glad we took down the maker’s name… may try finding him again.) This generic rental was made in Romania, and while we’re pretty sure some fine polkas likely come from this country, this instrument itself was sure not serving as the country’s best calling card. Elihu saw far more promise in his new discovery of a Bajnolele as we awaited the fate of this new rental… Last visit he had his first sit-down with a mandolin, and now this…. Perhaps his problems with these basses was helping to open doors to new adventures… Elihu’s eleventh birthday is in three weeks… He may have another instrument (or two) in his bag of tricks by then…

Ed ascertains that there’ll be no easy fix here. Time for a new rental. Too bad, this one sounded and played great.

So in the meantime, Elihu picks up a mandolin. Hey, they’re strung just like violins. Hey, Elihu can play a violin…

Ed really helped us by getting a new rental in ASAP, only the silly end pin’s stuck. That’s ok, the thing sounded like a box anyhow. Hope the next one sounds and feels better than this. He’ll use his upright electric tomorrow in orchestra – that’ll be kind of a new adventure. Make him a rock star at school, too.!

While Ed tried to work on the bass, Elihu discovered a Banjolele – and now it’s Mama who knows the tuning here and can show lil man a couple tricks. Wow, this thing is fun! Hmm… this might be a lot of fun to add to the collection….

The culture of fifth grade boys: a renaissance of Pokemon

Thankfully jamming holds some solid interest. Drums, Wurlitzer, Melodica and Clarinet. !!

Yes, we’ve had some golden moments in the past few days; the class play, the trying out of a couple new instruments (and getting along with em just fine), a couple of long play dates with his two buddies, one of which was outdoors in the new warmth of Spring (and which also included some making of music, video gaming, Pokemon trading, trampoline hopping, woods exploring, plane flying and chicken chasing). Then there was the day we’d waited for for a long time now. We went to visit an old family member. We went to see (with our breath held and hopes not too high) our beloved goose Maximus in his new home. We’ve been told he’d keen on a certain gal, and that he’s found his place in the large flock. That we even saw him at all was a bit of a surprise to us. We’d come expecting the worst – we’d thought he’d likely be deeply embedded in his flock, that he’d turn and run the other way, aloof, wild, anything but how we’d once known him. Thankfully, he was close by when we arrived, and in spite of Elihu’s advances and Max’s slight protests, in very short order Max had allowed Elihu to pick him up. How our hearts warmed! And I got to hold my beloved Max’s sweet head in my hands and kiss his cheeks and head as I had always done. I swear that bird recognized us in his heart. I swear he knew it was us. That we were there – not just any crazy humans trying to pick him up and smooch him – but us, his first family. Elihu spent some alone time with Max, talking to him. Saying things I didn’t need to ask him about – as they were between a boy and his bird.

The folks who took Max in have taken other sad creatures in to live with them. They’re angels who are giving a handful of God’s creatures a better experience on this planet. Good people, good work they do. And we’re eternally grateful that they were able to give our Max a wonderful, full-goose life here on their side of the mountain. My goodness, they even have a pond! Heaven on earth! I think of that tiny pond I’d made here last summer – and remember Maximus doing his ‘up tails all’ move in that tiny triangle of water… Such joy he radiated, and yet in such tiny confines. Can you imagine the goose-joy he’ll feel when finally in a real pond for the very first time? We hope that we can be there to witness it… we hear that when they pull that winter fencing back and open the pond to all the critters of the farm for the first time each Spring – it’s a BIG deal – an event of sorts. The birds all know and wait at the edge…. Like patrons at a concert waiting to stake out their spot on the lawn… The geese all hang about, nearly frantic to get on that glorious water… The fence goes back and the geese go forth…. A golden moment for sure.

Now it’s off to visit Maximus in his new home

Elihu spotted him right away.

And had him in his arms just about within seconds.

After an ‘enforced’ smooching (I got to kiss him too), Max regards us from a distance.

Probably the very most important thing we did this weekend was to stock our incubator. These twenty-four eggs are worth their weight in gold to us… Each year we put them in the machine such that they’ll hatch out the day of Elihu’s birthday party. I can hardly believe it, but this will be our fifth year doing it. It has truly become a tradition on his birthday. What a lovely way to remember his childhood birthdays, too… We were given eggs from our friends at Elihu Farm (I know, right?) and also from Max’s new family. We added some of our own, and between all three sources hope for a good hatch out in twenty-one days. Ya never know. The sound of the small, table-top incubator clicking along, day and night is for us a sound of Spring. From within those tiny machine noises comes a certain kind of hope, of excitement for the future. It gives us a refreshed sense of happiness and possibility…. So much potential, so much unknown…. such a metaphor for life itself.

Mary Pratt of Elihu Farm. She kindly gave us some (hopefully) fertile eggs to raise up a new flock.

Here they are today going into the incubator. They’ll hatch in 21 days.

Ah, such a hopeful time of year. Snow still lingers, but each day there’s less and less of the stuff. Just today Elihu and I both heard some Redwing blackbirds (haven’t seen one yet – that will have me pulling over to the side of the road for sure). This morning the air was absolutely filled with the sounds of nearly a dozen new arrivals – all of whom were heard for the first time today! It’s as if some threshold has been crossed now. How do they do it? we shake our heads in wonder each year, but more unimaginable still is that they all seem to arrive at once. We don’t even try to understand. In this world of 24/7 illumination and patches of untouched nature so few and far between, it breaks our hearts to attempt to comprehend their task. So all we can do is revel in their return and let them know how much we love them, how glad we are to see them. “They really are like family, aren’t they?” Elihu asks me each year as we lean on our elbows and watch the visitors on our platform feeder. “Yes, they are”, I always answer.

Elihu has loved and consulted his audio bird books for half his life now. They come out again this time of year.

One of our many daily visitors

My mother hates these sneaky cowbirds, but hey, they can’t help how they’re engineered….

The most precious gold of all in our world is the brand-new Spring plumage on our little goldfinch friends…

Blue

March 16, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Mommy Mind, Pics15 Comments

It’s probably the cold. Day four and it’s still pretty bad. My nose is sore, I’m pooped and this endless winter isn’t helping. My poor kid is fed up too, and he’s not even sick. But God bless that little man, he finds joy enough to keep both of us afloat when I’m at the very end of my rope. Not saying that Elihu hasn’t felt it too – oh he has. He’s had his mini-meltdowns, been brought to a point of near weeping for the endless cold and indoor living. But he rebounds fairly well. Better than I do.

House-bound as we are we’ve had to make do like the rest of the world in our northern neighborhood. But even with the gift of a new tv in our basement, we’ve found other things to keep us entertained. Good thing too; I’m fairly ready to sink into despair. A quick visit to the Studio today was a bit discouraging and had my mood becoming even darker; the workers have torn out more of the walls than we’d originally planned on. It was not a happy surprise. Guess it was necessary. Must have been some additional damage, I don’t know. It’s Sunday, and there are no answers today. Gotta get thru til tomorrow before I find out where we’re at now. But for the moment, I rest in a very blue mood.

I’ll get to bed soon, heal myself with a generous night’s sleep, and then rally tomorrow. Another long week ahead, more on my plate than I can ever see achieving, but what can I do? Either give in or push back. Right now I don’t feel the strength to do a single thing. But knowing that I share my life with such a boy as Elihu gives me the inspiration I need to keep it together just a little longer. After all, blue moods don’t last forever….

A little music….

and then some tower-building.

Impressive, huh?

In the end, it’s always about the birds…

Because they’re such a big part of our daily lives.

Inspired by his desire for Spring, Elihu drew this lovely picture. I had not the heart to tell him that the reeds were as blue as the jays… He would have been heartbroken that his use of color wasn’t accurate. But notice what a lovely mood has been created precisely because of the blue palette…

Maybe blue’s not such a sad color after all.

Let’s hope a good night’s rest helps us do away with the winter blues…

Goose Gone

February 3, 2014February 5, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Mommy Mind, Pics1 Comment

This morning will be our first day in half of our time here at the Hillhouse without a resident goose. It’s already been a sad enough time for us, and this is adding to the emotional toll. But in spite of the tears I watched my son cry in the rear view mirror as we left Maximus at his new, beautiful home, I know that things will be ok. Maybe even better. At least that’s what we hope.

Because lately, things had gotten worse. Perhaps because of plain old cabin fever, or perhaps driven by an ancient imprint on his being that made him vent his unexpressed urge to procreate in other, more violent ways, or some other unknown issue, whatever reason was to blame, Max had killed four hens over the past week and had very nearly killed our one resident rooster. That last one was a bizarre and bloody incident, and I knew at that point we’d turned a corner. I did have the means to separate them – either keep the recuperating rooster on his own in the small brooding pen, or confine Maximus to the same small space, but neither was appealing, as it represented another chore to do each and every morning, each and every night. I need all my birds in one place, and I need ease of maintenance. And I will not tolerate violent behavior. If I were retired and had no job but to tend to my flock and home, it might be acceptable. But at this time in our lives, I can’t stop to settle disputes like this. Change was imperative.

Both Elihu and I forgive our beloved goose for his actions, because we know that he was simply acting as he was programmed to. He’s a goose, yes, and he has diligently guarded our property against strangers and unknown vehicles as well as an assortment of predators, but he’s had a softer side too. And since Elihu and I personally knew him in this quiet, tender way, it’s been a bit harder on us. Most folks have little sympathy for Max anymore. My mother especially, who for the past few months has used the most venomous tone when suggesting we get rid of him (or a bit more light-heartedly implied he might end up on a platter). Piano students must pull in close to the house, brooms are left leaning against trees to be picked up as tools of defense, people call ahead when they visit, and the UPS guy just drops the box by the garage and splits. Yeah, it had become a drag to have a guard goose. It wasn’t always thus; my theory is that when he was biologically speaking still a gosling, he was rather charming. He was never threatening, in fact he lived up to his breed’s reputation of being good with kids and people in general. But I believe things turned a corner last year when a certain spark lit within him and he became a young gander.

It first started one day as I was squatting down at the hose to fill a five gallon bucket. The container was white, about Max’s size, and I too, appeared close to the ground. Something in him clicked, and he began honking as he beat his great, six foot wings and ran down the hill from the coop to join me. But rather than stop short to watch as he had so many times before, this time he made a clumsy attempt to mount me, scooting me encouragingly beneath him with his long neck, clearly hoping I’d acquiesse in some cooperative sort of posture. In the moment I didn’t get it, and actually thought he might be attacking me, but he did not hurt me. He nibbled at me gently, but didn’t bite. He cupped his wings around me, but didn’t hit me with them. I was a bit flustered, so I stood up, and instantly he came to, as is he’d been overtaken by some strange force and was now embarrassed and self-conscious of himself. I stood back and watched as the mysterious behavior came over him once more, and he began a second, unsuccessful attempt to get busy with the bucket. First he tried to get on top of it. The bucket fell over and he seemed encouraged. He tried again, but was flustered at the way it rolled out from underneath him. Then he took another tack, and tried to enter the bucket, head first, but found there was no room, and clearly no satisfying end to this choice either. Poor Max. Poor, dear, sexually mature Maximus. He was being just as he was born to be, and there was no natural outlet to his deep, innate desires. Oh dear. I even wondered if I might surrender myself to him just once; crouch down again and give him some feeling of success as he did his best… Flashes of Swan Lake came to me – the strange morphing of a lover into a swan, the strange netherworld of a horrible manbeast – and I quickly dismissed the idea. No, this poor guy was on his own. And we knew if we’d gotten him a mate that it would likely throw off the relationship we two had with him. It’d be him and his gal against us. He’d defend her, and we’d be on the same end as the UPS guy.

After keeping the convalescing rooster in our kitchen for a week – and then our adjacent mudroom as the sour stink of chicken grew – I found I’d reached the end. The nightmare of the Studio’s new situation had just been discovered, and I suppose it was that which tipped the scales. I had too much to do, and if I might have justified a more labor-intensive solution to the bird problem before, I sure wasn’t about to now. I made up my mind that we had to find a new – and good – home for Max. I was resolute, and it was fixed in my heart. On Saturday a tiny voice told me that we should drop in on our neighbors (the ones with the old model T) and pay a visit. I had nothing in my mind about Max specifically, but of course he came up in conversation. They suggested a family in the hills that might very likely take him. I held no high hopes, but imagine my surprise when I dialed the number upon returning home that day, and before I could even offer my backstory, the gal on the other end simply said “I’ll take him”. I’d heard they were not only softies for animals, but that they were good to their animals. The two don’t always go together. I was beside myself with joy, and shared the earpiece of the phone with Elihu as she began to tell me about her pond, the fields, the way she had things set up…. Elihu covered his mouth to stop from squealing with joy. We made arrangements to come by with Maximus the following day. Wow. Ask and ye shall receive.

It’s one thing that we found Max a new home, it’s another that we have visiting rights, it’s still another that they’ll likely continue to call him by his name, but for me the crowning discovery in all of this is that Maximus now lives on a farm that I’ve admired since I was little. When I first got my driver’s license and was free to re-discover all those hidden-away places that my parents were always whizzing past, this was one of the places I came to. Many a time have I put on my flashers and pulled to the side of the road just to stop and gaze at this lovely farmstead. Nestled in the shelter of wooded hills, its open fields undulate up gently to meet the forest, there’s even a two acre pond behind the large farmhouse…. I cannot possibly imagine a more perfect home for our beloved fellow. He’s the only breed of his kind, he’s white and stands taller than them all, so we will easily be able to pick him out when we spot the flock dabbling in the low, swampy patches of the field.

When we dropped him off, the husband and wife owners took us on a short, circular walk around their outbuildings to see the other critters; pygmy goats, a strange, miniature donkey (named Brea – and man, what a sound she makes. Yeeks.) a sheep and some fine looking chickens. In the pasture across the way were a shaggy bull and cow, each with longhorns the likes of which I’d never seen but in images of far-off places. They too were miniature. Was there a horse? I seem to think there was… it was really a lot to take in for a first-time visitor. Above our heads a flock of some twenty or so pigeons wheeled in the sky… this place was heaven. As we walked, Max walked with us, tipping his head every so often to take in a new sight, stopping to listen to the whereabouts of the resident flock of geese. They were loud and rather raspy-sounding, and every now and then Maximus would himself honk, and we both noticed that his tone sounded so much richer and deeper. He was more beautiful than the others, we thought, and now we could hear that he was much more sonorous a goose, too. We were proud, and perhaps just a bit sadder still at having now compared our baby to these strangers. Eventually our visit came to a close, we got into the car and left Max, a bit confused, behind. He talked to us as we drove away, running beside the car as he’d done so very many times before, walking us to the gate where his new mama was waiting to let us out. That’s when Elihu started to cry. In this moment, this bird was still our Maxie, he was still engaging with us as he always had, he still knew us. We both knew in our hearts that the next time we came to see him, he very likely would not.

After Elihu’s tears finally stopped and he’d had a moment to just sit in silence and thought, he told me from the back seat on the drive home “Mommy, that’s the kind of farm I want when I grow up. That kind of farm.” I agreed with him quietly. There was nothing to say now. We knew we’d done the right thing. In fact, we knew we’d given Maximus a far better life in this new place than we were ever able to give him. We knew all of this. But still, the sadness in the car was heavy. Coming home was strange. For years we’d been greeted by that familiar head atop that long, graceful neck, the curious tilt of his head, the peering of that eye, the initial assessment; stranger or family? Family. Max would walk alongside the car, then meander off to do his thing. Shortly after we’d go inside, he might follow us up the back steps and just sit down outside the door, as if wanting simply to be near us. In warmer months, an open kitchen door almost always meant a goose in the kitchen before too long. But a house is no place for a goose. And we’re no substitute for a family of his own kind.

Last night, as we lay down to bed, we looked up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling of Elihu’s bedroom and wondered how our beloved Max was, right now. We had learned that the geese there slept outside – rain, snow or shine, no matter. A far cry from the treatment he got here – heat lamp on cold nights, the kitchen on really cold ones. Would he be ok? Would there be a lot of fighting as he sorted it all out with the other ganders? We realized that Max had never even seen another goose until that day. He’d only ever lived with chickens or people. We guessed by now he knew he was a goose. We prayed that he was able to nestle in with the flock to share in the warmth. We prayed that he’d get enough sleep on this first night. It took Elihu himself over an hour to finally drop off. I too had some trouble sleeping, and somehow felt our homestead to be missing something on this first night. I took a last look at our coop, now goose-less, and sighed. Our lives were changing in so many ways, and I had to go with it. I reminded myself once again that while change is sad, there are new, joyful things yet to come into our lives. Change makes way for the new.

And we here at the Hillhouse are getting ourselves ready for a whole lot of new things to come…

Our beloved ‘snow goose’, Maximus. He finds the sweet spots where he can graze, mid-winter.

(He is in actuality a “Lavender Ice” which is, as we understand, the newest registered breed in North America. The breed is supposed to be friendlier than other domestic geese, and good with kids and pets. Our experience tells us this is partly so, but in the end, he is still a goose. And geese are tough birds.)

On his way back up the hill to the coop.

In the coop with his very best bird-friend, male Guinea fowl, Austin (lowest rung to the right)

Mama enjoys a final moment with Max.

That lovely face.

Elihu feeds Maximus his second favorite treat – he loves frozen peas best.

Maximus waits around for more, even when Elihu’s gone back inside.

The kiss goodbye.

A very sad time for Elihu and me both. We hope Maximus goes on to enjoy the best life a goose could ever know. That’ll make it a little easier to adjust to a goose-free life here at the Hillhouse.

Bad Bird

January 22, 2014January 24, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Mommy Mind2 Comments

It has been a long day. Started early and cold. When I went to let the birds out I found Bald Mountain, our three year old resident rooster, upside down and wedged in between a milk crate and the wall, his back end almost bare of feathers and covered in blood. It took a good struggle to free him without hurting him further. Shit. The goose had done it again. Maximus had recently led the flock in pecking two hens – one to death, one to the point of a mercy killing – and this time he’d taken Baldy on all by himself. I’d seen him tugging at the remaining feathers when I arrived, and while I really yearned to give him a good scolding whack, I knew it wouldn’t fix anything. Remorse is not something a goose can feel, and lessons are short-lived. Besides, I was on chicken medic duty once again. My heart sank to see several frozen trickles of blood hanging from the crate. I wasn’t even sure the rooster’d make it to the house alive. But he did, so I began my now-familiar poultry-saving regimen.

The first order of business was to get the poor fellow in the kitchen by the radiator. Next, I provided him with some water and a bowl of my custom mash of high protein feed, nutritional supplements and crushed baby aspirin. Then I waited, hoping he had enough steam left to eat and drink. It took him a while to adjust – he even had a hard time standing at first. All I could think of was my son and how much he loved this stupid bird – we’d done in dozens of gals we’d named, we’d eaten em too, but above all, Baldy meant the most to him. He’d fathered the whole flock, he himself was born of two of our very first chickens. I myself don’t hold a lot of sentiment for boy birds on the whole; they are so fundamentally motivated by the need to procreate that they become a nasty pain in the ass at some point in their lives. That goes for geese too. That damned gander leaves me alone cuz he thinks I’m his gal. (Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. He has tried to ‘get busy’ with me many times, but I won’t put up with that sort of behavior. I just swat him away and tell him ‘no’. I feel bad for the guy; he’s just frustrated and lonely, but I do have my limits!) I’m spared his wrath, but no one else is. The poor UPS guy always honks his arrival before daring to exit his truck. Piano students run from the goose, and the rooster too… Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the boys. But we need Baldy around if we’re to keep the flock going in the spring, and he means a lot to Elihu. So I wait around for the injured bird to make a move. Thankfully, within a few minutes he’s going at the bowl of mash and shortly after he’s drinking. Hope that helps. He sure looks bad. But he’s a fighter. I think he’ll make it. But the question then becomes, what do we do with him after he’s better?

Yeah, this throws a monkey wrench into things. Can’t return him to the coop cuz Max will lay into him again. So we need to quarantine him until the warm months return. Crap. That means one more chore on mama’s list. Gotta put the rooster in the brooding pen in the garage. Get him good and strong. Then, when spring comes, we can try him in the flock again. Either Max will have forgotten, or his cabin fever will have abated (I strongly believe that his behavior is a result of close quarters and cold weather). I consider the additional work load. I’m not thrilled with it, but I see no options. I make a note to discuss this with the kid later on.

Meanwhile, I have an appointment with the family attorney to go over mom and dad’s affairs, I have recess to monitor, an annual physical appointment with my doc, a chorus to accompany and a string bass to pick up. All these things go relatively smoothly but for the fact that I left something behind at the doctor’s office and had to return the twenty-some miles round trip to pick it up, plus Elihu admitted rather apologetically to me (as we were leaving school) that he had ‘a project on Egypt due tomorrow’. Really? I’d seen the email at the beginning of the month telling us of the project but had myself forgotten the due date. Half my bad too I guess. So then were were off to Walmart to buy some clay and paint. Also stopped in at mom’s to rehearse a couple of tunes for Friday’s open mic night at school (he has a set of congas there that grandma got him for Christmas). Still had to make dinner, clean up and begin the sculpture of Horus, which yet needed to be baked, cooled and painted. Time was escaping us, and it wasn’t until nine that Elihu was finally in bed. Not bad, really, when you consider all that we got done. I’d pushed the cooking temp up a bit, and then super-cooled the bust in the freezer. The whole thing was a bit on the sketchy side – Elihu’s own words – but hell, at least it was done.

As we lay in bed recapping our day, we came to the dilemma of the birds. I pitched the idea of butchering Max. While Elihu was an enthusiastic consumer of all the hens we’d done in, he told me that he would never consider eating Max. Ok, fair enough. A new home? Only if it was a good one – a humane one. No bird auctions, no unknown destinations. Ok. Then what? Elihu agreed that keeping the rooster apart til the weather warmed was about our only option. He agreed to share the duties, and we left it at that. I’m not looking forward to keeping up two bird camps, and I must admit that while I’ve shared some very special moments with Maximus, I’m quite a bit less thrilled with our goose at the moment. I’ve had enough bad birds in my life and I’m not keen on keeping company with yet another. But for the time being, Max is lucky. Our goose isn’t cooked quite yet.

Post Script: You can see Baldy in one of the three photos on the lower right of our home page here. This pic was taken almost two years ago. Elihu’s affection for his roo is easy to see. I can report that three days later Baldy is doing quite well – crowing loudly in our tiny kitchen, strutting and scratching in the manner of a chicken on the mend. His back end is mostly bare, and in near-zero temps we just can’t put him outside quite yet. As he is a fouler smelling fowl than any others I’ve ever had inside my house before, we’re going to move his digs to the basement this weekend. Out of sight, out of smell, but definitely not out of earshot. ! No alarm clocks needed here!

Fall Photo Catch-Up

October 25, 2013October 25, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind, Pics, Retro Post2 Comments

As most of the leaves are now gone, and the weather has finally turned truly cold, these pictures, from only a week ago, seem to be from much longer ago than that… Here are some bits and pieces, some of which I’d written about, some not, but we thought they’d be fun to see anyway… All little peeks into our world here at the Hillhouse. (This has also been an incredibly tedious experiment in what it would be like to import photos using my ancient Mac. It has taken a loooooooong time, but I did it! And until Mr. Fix it comes next week to help w/our PC, it doesn’t look likely there’ll be too many more pics before then.)

First off, has this hit your school yet? I think the folks who own the silly bands factories probably just modified their setup a little bit and simply picked up where they left off…. such suckers we are. But as fads go, one that encourages kids – and boys too – to create things that require the use of merely their brains and fingers (and in some cases, their marketing skills) is a wholly healthy endeavor in my opinion. Just so long as the math homework gets done first. !

We enjoyed some long fall afternoons making the requisite leaf piles.

Life on the inside

Chickens like to play, too! (At least that’s what we like to believe)

The burning bush by the footbridge

And our beloved Beech

And our favorite ornamental apple tree with color on the hillside beyond

Until yesterday, our favorite new roo. Oh well. At least he has been immortalized in the ether of the internet.

Kinda thought I’d be the one to do him in. Just as well. Julius Caesar was growing on us…

the view from the porch

and the view from the garden looking back up at the porch. Note the lack of beans on the bean poles. Deer shaved off every last piece of green from the ground up. They missed a couple leaves and beans at the top. Lesson learned. Next year it’s fence time.

We won’t be needing to carve our jack-o-lanterns, as the chickens have beat us to it. !

This is our hike through the local woods to visit an abandoned graphite mine. There’s a dramatic falloff just to the right…

a tiny sign of humanity once here

A larger sign of humanity here before – but it’s fast losing its interest to a cranky ten year old boy.

This is the footprint of the mining factory’s wall, which goes down a good fifty feet to the river below.

the remains of a small gauge railroad bridge over the water

back home with Julius Caesar; one last good smooching before his mysterious disappearance.

Hmm. underarm orb or trick of the light? We creeped ourselves out with this replay. (He’s reaching for the moon)

Jumpin Mama

the dead female Yellow Rumped Warbler, such lovely wings

and the drawing he made of her

still didn’t top last year’s dead bird drawing (in ball point pen, no less)

Thanks for taking this one, sweetie. Doin’ away with the blonde highlights tomorrow. Tonin things down for winter and trying to get a bit closer to my natural color. Sans the grays, that is. No, I’m not a free woman. I color. !!

Lil Man gets Mama nearing bedtime after a very long and full day….

I’d better get to bed soon. This is a busy weekend comin up. Going to butcher my very first chicken, going to make a caterpillar costume for five boys, going to attend a couple parties and a ghost-story tellin… and most likely a few other, serendipitous events await us somewhere in the mix…. Halloween’s a comin…. much to do, much to do….

Bird Boy Back

October 23, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind4 Comments

“That’s not a Goldfinch.” Elihu knew what he was talking about, but yet I doubted him. Although the tiny bird was mostly an olive-ish brown, it had a yellow patch at the base of its back, and I, as a mere casual observer of birds, thought it to be a Goldfinch already changed into its drab coat for winter. But Elihu knew better.

I’d found the bird earlier that day, freshly dead, just beneath the laundry room window as I filled the chickens’ water buckets. Poor thing had crashed headlong into the glass and fallen, instantly dead, onto the ground just below. It was still slightly warm and still very supple. Couldn’t have been long ago, as it was morning and had likely happened since the sun had risen. This would be a good take for my kid – he loves to have a real bird to draw. So I brought it in, put it on a plate and left it on the table. Later when we got home from the airport, it was a treat to have this prize waiting for him. Immediately he began his inspection, wings out to admire the fan of feathers, a complete turning over to scrutinize the subject from every angle, a check with his mother to confirm its coloring. He then brought it straight to his desk to begin sketching it. “So if it’s not a Goldfinch, then just what is it?” I asked him, somewhat defiantly. I’m thinking, ‘yeah, kid, there aren’t a whole lotta other options. You just can’t see color – so you don’t understand.’ He didn’t miss a beat. “It’s a Yellow Rumped Warbler”. “What?” I asked, still unbelieving. After all, we’d complied a list of all the birds we’d ever seen or heard, dead or alive, here on our property. And this was not one I’d ever seen or heard before. “Look it up” he said, unphased by my lack of support. He continued to draw. So I grabbed a couple of field guides, a pair of dollar store reading glasses and laid down on his bed. I’ll be damned if the kid wasn’t absolutely right. “WHAT?!” I screamed when I saw the photo. “A Yellow Rumped Warbler?? I’ve never even heard of one, let alone seen one!” Elihu laughed. “How on earth would you know this?” I asked him, still not completely understanding how he could possibly have come to this conclusion. I know the kid was reading David Attenborough’s books and field guides cover-to-cover at six, I knew that he’d memorized every specimen in his two audio bird books, yeah, I knew all this. I realized that through his motivation to look up birds without my help he’d learned how to count, learned to look up three digit page numbers on his own at a very young age… but how was it that I, alongside him for so much of this process, had not learned about a fairly common backyard bird? Maybe this was more the issue here for me and my frail middle-aged ego; my kid had me beat. He knew exactly what he was talking about – and I didn’t.

He continued to laugh at me, and continued his drawing. “Remember the bird that got stuck in Martha’s music room?” I thought back – he was about seven then. I nodded. “That was a Yellow Rumped Warbler.” There was a pause. Elihu wanted to help me out a bit. “Remember the black on him?” And yes, I did kinda. It was very contrasty, very obvious. And I do remember that even back then it was a bird I professed not to know. “Mommy, that was a male Yellow Rumped Warbler.” I checked my field guide once more. Man, this kid was good. “Yeah, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. And I, my dear, am amazed at your skill.” He finished his drawing, complete with the beautiful detailed triangular patches of black on the top of the breast, something we’d not have known about had we not had the bird in hand. He had a huge smile on his face the rest of the evening as I continued to muse over my own inability to remember this bird and sulked ever so slightly. I wasn’t so pleased with myself, but my pride and joy at his success and happiness more than made up for it.

Last night, before we went to bed, Elihu offered to close the chickens in. He always does a head count. I’ve long given up on this task; I’m satisfied just to be done with my chores for the day and choose instead to tell em I love em all and close the latch. He came back, announcing that Julius Caesar was missing. This seemed highly improbable, as he was the young rooster emerging as the most royal pain in the ass of the whole flock. Mounting all the ladies and fighting the other cocks all day long, it didn’t seem like he’d be the first to succumb to wildlife. I grabbed a flashlight and went out to check for myself while Elihu got ready for bed. Sure enough, I counted only 29 chickens, and didn’t see the big white fella anywhere. I made a cursory check in the trees and around the coop, but saw not a thing. He would’ve stood out, his bright white body and huge, arching tail. I felt a slight sadness at his absence, and noted to myself that it was a selfish one: he was one delicious young bird we wouldn’t be enjoying on our table. Rats. I went inside and confirmed the news. “Darn” Elihu said. I began to comfort him when he stopped me – “I’m not sad, Mommy, it’s just that we didn’t get to enjoy him, someone else did!” We had a little laugh together, and were warmed at the thought of another creature sleeping full and happy this night, and so we let it go. After all, we still have another five roos that promise to be just as tender and delicious.

Birds in every form, enjoyed and appreciated in every way possible. And all thanks to one young boy who sure knows his birds.

The Hillhouse

The Journey of a Mother and Son

Category: Birding