MamaStories

Amie and I had just read a book about snails when lo and behold! One showed up on our doorstep, literally.

That’s our doorstep.

Amie was enthralled. We talked about how it carries its house on its back, leaves a trail of mucus, can crawl up vertical surfaces and upside down (try explaining “suction” to an almost-three-year-old!). We checked out the movable and fully retractable tentacles: the two long ones on top ending in the eyes, and the two smaller, lower ones being the snail’s nose. Amie found that very funny and told me I was being silly.

We’ve always taught her not to approach or touch wild animals, but I allowed her to gently touch the snail’s shell. “If you want to touch a wild animal, always ask Mama first!” I guess we’ll have to specify that rule at some point.

The 4 robins have pretty much outgrown their nest, but I haven’t seen them fly out yet.

There are two little woodpeckers like these. Neither has a red spot on the head, so I think they’re both adult females. They’re so small they are probably Downy (not Hairy) Woodpeckers. But the Hairy Woodpecker is probably around as well: I’ve heard its very rapid, almost smooth rapping sound, like a phone buzzing almost. Very unlike the slow and much louder tok-tok-tok of the big pileated woodpecker.

This now is a little bully. Can anyone tell me what kind of bird it is? A juvenile Common Grackle? It has that large tail… He chases away the cardinals and even fought the two Downy Woodpeckers to eat at his heart’s content.

And lastly this little guy I misidentified earlier. Our neighbor pointed him/her out as a Orchard Oriole, not (as I thought) Yellow-throated Vireo or possibly a Yellow Warbler.

We also spotted a Carolina Wren with a huge green caterpillar in it beak.

I started a bird list in the sidebar. Watch it grow!

Our work-weekend at the new house was cut short by the inclement weather. The humidity reached 91%, which made painting impossible. We decided not to spent another night there and to come “home” (”to our old home,” is how Amie appropriately puts it) to start packing.

While we were there we took stock of our woodpile. Our neighbor had chopped most of the wood and thrown the logs into the yard. It was such a pleasure stacking it and seeing the pile grow… such a pleasure in fact that we couldn’t stop and piled it too high. Now it feels a bit wobbly, so we’ll move some of the top layers to a second pile.

The robin’s eggs hatched. The four chicks were probably a day or two old: eyes still closed, and not a chirp, just wide-open mouths on long necks. The robins made a poor real estate choice when they built their nest under our car port roof, because each time we drive up or approach the car, the Mama Robin flees (and sits in the tree, calling out in alarm). So we parked the car further off to give them some peace. Both parents did nothing but hunt for food and feed the babies. Amie would have been at the window and watched them all day long, if it hadn’t been for the fact that we had to hold her up for her to see them.

Right next door to the Robin’s nest, wasps were busy building a nest. It’s very small (about 3 inches in diameter), as yet. We’ll have to take care of it soon: it’s too close to slamming car doors and loud toddler sounds. Any recommendations?

To many of you it might seem like not much, but to DH and me it looks like the foundation of paradise!

Some trees (in the background: 1 large white oak, 1 smaller birch and 1 smaller maple) had to be felled to make way for the new septic system. Their remains have been lying around for a while now. A couple of times DH and I stood in front of the ax, maul and chainsaw displays at the local Home Depot… speechless. Neither of us have any experience with firewood. I’ve thrown a log into an open fireplace maybe once in my life. So we were intimidated.

Luckily our neighbor turns out to be a firewood seller and a really nice guy. He came to our rescue with his chainsaw and also showed DH how to use the splitting maul.

Amie was quite impressed. She loved to help, carrying the logs to the pile, “like a big girl!” (sorry, I didn’t catch it on camera). She knows the difference now between “tree” and “wood” (*).

Installing a good wood stove into or near our fireplace is one of the priorities. The downed trees will make for at least two cords of firewood, which might be cured sufficiently by the end of October. There are some stacks of old firewood rotting around the property, and we might be able to save some of that too. I’m thinking we’ll need three cords…

Oh, life is good and nature provides!

(*) one of those fundamental Aristotelian distinction, so easily and naturally applicable to the world, as Aristotle always is!

Birds:

1. Chickadee
2. Northern Cardinal (male and female)
3. Blue Jay
4. American Robin (male and female - one sitting on her nest in our carport)
5. Hummingbird (probably the Ruby-throated hummingbird, not because I identified it as such, but because my books tells me it’s the only one that visits Mass. in summer, and it was green)
6. Yellow-throated Vireo (in the photo), or might this be the Yellow Warbler?
7. Pileated Woodpecker (it’s big!)

… And many others I won’t even attempt to identify. I was especially thrilled to see the hummingbird. I wasn’t sure they hung out in our neighborhood.

Other animals:

1. Raccoon
2. Fox
3. Squirrels and chipmunks
4. Lots of dogs of all sorts
5. Insects of all kind

There are also supposed to be wild turkeys, deer and rabbits and - while we’re on the topic of veggie-eating varmints - woodchucks.

We’re closing on Monday. We’re going to do this! And even before it begins, I feel the urgent need to document it all. Hopefully I’ll have the time to write here more often again.

Last week a new septic system was put in, which tore up the entire front and back yard. We knew about this of course, and welcomed it - it allows for the 2 bedroom to become a 3 bedroom if we wish. The result saved us some work: it made the sloping front yard a little more gradual, got rid of lots of scrawny trees (we requested the wood was left), so cleared space (and light) for the garden. Psychologically, with “the woods” removed, it is now easier for me to see the garden.

But the place looks so violated: all that bare earth! It’s not my own yet and I feel for it already. Also, the leach field we now realize is humongous (looks it, in any case), and as I balk from growing veggies on it, my first reaction was to lament the loss of space. I know it’s only a small loss, really, only a small area in the grand scheme of our almost-an-acre. I know my perplexity has more to do with my reaction to all that space and the question: what to do with it. Or rather, where to do it all?

The space as it exists now overwhelms any kind of vision for the future.

As for the space that exists… With all that emptiness after the construction of the septic system, the garden in front is one, large, amorphous space, with a dense cluster of trees (some mature, some not) to the left and a path of destruction all the way up to the house.

In the back and to the sides, there are unrelated pockets of space, segmented by little stone walls and trees and most obviously by ugly, metal fences. They cut the space apart and even exclude land that turns out to belongs to the property too.

Add to that the contents: so many trees we’d like to keep, so many types of soil and microclimates, most of which are unknowns as yet.

I approach this torn-up, fragmented, schizophrenic space with my equally fragmented vision.

There are so many functions that we want our garden to fulfill: vegetable garden, herb garden, bird garden, insect garden, orchard, hedges and paths, play space, discovery space, wild space, calm space…

And so many elements to incorporate. Things that are already there: the huge masonry BBQ (make it into an oven?), the old stone ring, which we’d like to keep. Structures to be built: a root cellar, Amie’s play structures (swing, seesaw, jungle gym), a little house for her (cob?), fences, and walls to train fruit trees on, a green house, a composting place, a woodcutting and curing area, maybe a tiny pond…

But standing there today, among the budding trees and the birdsong and the rustling of all those fall leaves that were left there (leaf mould!), and surveying the front from the house on the hill, I had a vision that clicked into place! And that’s exactly what we need: to make space into place, then to make that place into home.

It began with a path, a wall and a gate. Exactly the three main spatial elements that aren’t spatial themselves at all, but that divide and integrate and open space.

It’s a single meandering path that runs down the slope. It meets a small wooden gate in a thick and a low, curving wall.

The path is terraced by wooden dividers and covered with stones, all found on the property (oh many stones!). Over it at intervals are trellises and arbors, and along it (invading the garden space), benches, a birdbath. The wall is made of cob and the larger stones, painted a deep, warm brown. Along it on the inside grow the fruit trees. On the other side is the street. It is not meant for privacy: any person of average height can look over it. It is meant as an invitation.

The gate does the inviting. It sits in a higher, thicker part of the wall, with space above it for a cob sculpture, and generous chinks for preliminary glimpses of what lies behind it. It is a wooden, painted gate, rounded on top. There is perhaps a bell - with a clapper, maybe a chain (and a notice to the effect of “bell is optional”). There’s a niche for the mailbox next to it, and some flowers or a little object. Maybe a bench, on the outside, for weary passers-by.

It says: home. We live here, we are native here. And you are welcome.

Maybe I’ll draw it for you sometime. Maybe I’ll even get to build it!

Over the weekend we visited Walden Pond. As I had hoped, it was frozen over. The Ranger told me the ice measured only 4 inches, and that it wasn’t safe to walk on - it being a very deep pond (102 feet). Nonetheless, there were quite a few people on the ice. We just braved the first couple of yards near the beach. Like the Ranger said: nothing had happened yet, but you could be the first to fall through. No thanks!

As we approached we asked Amie where all the water had gone! She knew from reading Stella, Queen of the Snow.

- Frozen!

We walked on it, tested the hardness, and made tracks in the snow. Listened to the frogs sleeping underneath the ice. She was all for walking across to the other side, and it took some persuading to get her off again.

We also spotted deer tracks in the snow, and compared their to those of our tracks, explaining the difference by how our feet and shoes are shaped differently.

Lastly we visited the mock-up of Thoreau’s house and shook the bronze statue’s hand (very cold). Amie asked again, as she usually does when we visit Walden Pond:

- But where did Henry go?

- We don’t know. He’s dead. We don’t know where we go when we die.

I think Thoreau might have appreciated that answer.

I can’t remember or find out via which blog I discovered this (my apologies), but it is fantastic and I want to spread the word. It is “The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard,”  an informative, entertaining and especially rousing little movie (20 minutes long) about, you know, stuff. Go have a look-see!

I’ll just reproduce an old cartoon I penned years ago, when our condo - 25 units - didn’t have recycling (yet) and DH and I volunteered to make weekly trips in our Geo Prizm hauling everyone’s recycling away. That may explain DH’s reluctance in the comic…

In other news: I caught Amie’s cold and though she is on the upswing, I am succumbing to the sneezy snottering coughies and the ringing-of-the-ears, o the ringing!

Still, I am cheered when I think of my little two-year-old’s statement yesterday afternoon, after L, the babysitter, came that morning:

“When Baba comes home, and when L comes home, we’ll all have dinner!”

While in Kolkata, I got hooked on birds again. It happens at times, especially in Spring. It stands to reason that I should be a birdwatcher: I love quietly observing, recording in notebooks, classifying. I love birds - of all the animals, I think they are the most wonderful. I have several bird guidebooks to show for my interest, though no lifelists, and no real knowledge. The problem is that, once I’ve admired the cardinals, blue jays, mallards and American robins, I turn to the many sparrows and get frustrated.

In Kolkata, which most of you know as Calcutta, we stayed in a gated community in the middle of the city yet curiously quiet and lush with plantings. Our building stood on the edge of a small copse of trees and shrubs, and we stayed on the fourth floor. From the balcony I spotted many (to me) exotic birds, so colorful that it was easy for me to identify them.

Amie at 2 years and 3 months was still too young to observe birds for more than a minute. She still had (and has) some trouble following their rapid movements. But she appreciated what came to be called, over the ten days of our stay there, “Amie’s Little Bird”.

She became more familiar with the bird in her grandparents’ Swiss cuckoo-clock. I am ashamed to admit, that I failed to observe this bird closely and that therefore I cannot identify it, though it did visit faithfully every hour on the hour.

One day I was spotting birds on the balcony while Amie was inside painting. I heard Amie’s Little Bird before I saw it: I recognized its chew chew. Suddenly there it was, not 10 yards away on a dead branch right at my eye level. I grabbed my digital camera.

When I came into the living room to announce my good luck - I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to identify the bird and this still image would definitely help - Amie had painted the following:

Amie’s Little Bird! Can you see it, hovering above the cuckoo-clock?

She had no help beyond some verbal guidance from her Baba, who only asked her where the bird’s legs and wings should go.

Later I risked my neck crossing Park Street in the evening rush hour (those of you who have been to Kolkata know what that means!) to reach the Oxford Bookstore, where I bought Salim Ali’s The Book of Indian Birds. Amie’s Little Bird was easy to find, on Plate 40. It is a Coppersmith or Crimson-Breasted Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala).

Thanks to Moonmeadow Farm, this is Wendell Berry’s poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from his book The Country of Marriage (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973). I hope it’s ok to reproduce it here… 

Oh but be fearless!

 So:

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry (my hero)

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

                 ~

There is so much in this poem, I won’t even try to write about it, as yet. I’ve only just discovered it, let me read a couple of hundred times first, soak it up… rest my head in its lap.