Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - April 2020

In my zone 9a garden near Houston, the March showers have brought April flowers in abundance.

 All the roses are blooming, none more profusely than this pink Knockout rose.

 'Julia Child' with a little visitor on one of the petals.

This rose was actually a "volunteer" in the garden and I have no idea what its name is, but I like it.

 'Belinda's Dream.'

And here is the 'Lady of Shallott.'

 Isn't she lovely?

This is a wildflower called Texas groundsel that has seeded itself in my garden beds. I've let it grow there because I think it is quite pretty.

And this is another wildflower that seeded itself in a garden bed last year and has now returned. It is called Philadelphia fleabane.

 My camellia still has a few blooms.

 And nearby, the Encore azalea has been blooming.

 Red hibiscus with a few dianthus blossoms.

 And white hibiscus, variety name unknown.

This plant caught my eye on a spring trip to Antique Rose Emporium and I just had to get a few for my garden. It's from Western Australia and it's called kangaroo paws.

 This is 'Hot Lips' salvia.

White yarrow.

 Amaryllis 'Apple Blossom.'

 Amaryllis, variety name lost in memory.

 Butterfly iris.

 Clematis 'Niobe.'

I gave the oleander a severe haircut a few weeks ago but it has recovered enough to bloom. 

 Red columbine.

The bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas. They have been blooming gloriously in the wild for more than a month, but the ones in my garden have only started blooming within the past week.

During our period of necessary isolation, the garden has been a great comfort to me. I spend hours in it each day working and sometimes just sitting and enjoying it. I feel quite sorry for those in isolation who do not have access to a garden.

I hope you are enjoying your garden in this season and that both it and you are doing well. Thank you Carol of May Dreams Gardens for bringing us all together again this month. Happy gardening to all and stay safe.   

Redhead By the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler: A review

Micah Mortimer, aka the Tech Hermit, may know a lot about computers, but he doesn't know beans about relationships. Especially relationships with women. When his woman friend (he refuses to think of a woman in her thirties as a "girlfriend") of three years tells him that she is afraid that she is going to lose her apartment and be homeless, he jokes that at least she has her own car to sleep in. 

Shortly thereafter she comes to his apartment and finds that he has invited the son of one of his college sweethearts to sleep on his daybed. A person with any insight might have intuited at that point that there was a chilling of the atmosphere, but when she later breaks up with him, declaring the relationship over, he is totally surprised.

And about that son of his college sweetheart, he had turned up on Micah's doorstep, after an estrangement from his mother and stepfather, declaring that Micah is his father. But since Micah never had sex with the young man's mother, he's pretty sure he is not his father. Nevertheless, he takes him in until he can get sorted out and reconciled with his mother.

Meantime, Micah continues his one-man business as the Tech Hermit. After college, he had been involved in an IT startup but after a misunderstanding with his partner, he had walked away and started his own business. Now he spends his time visiting the little old ladies in his neighborhood who are barely computer literate and who are his main clients. He mostly just unplugs and then reconnects the machines and then everything works fine. It's not exactly challenging work.

In addition to his work with computers, Micah is also the caretaker of the apartment building where he lives, doing general maintenance and odd jobs. For these services, he lives rent-free. He lives alone, except when he's taking in sons of former sweethearts, and he has a housework routine that is set in stone. He has a day designated for vacuuming, one for dusting and general cleaning, one for mopping floors, etc. Before the breakup with his woman friend, that, too, had settled into a solidified routine.

Anne Tyler is a wonderful creator of characters and many of her best characters are men. I would rate Micah right up there with some of her most memorable like the brothers in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant or Macon Leary in The Accidental Tourist. He is an oddball and a bit of a fussbudget who lives a rigid life that is about to be disrupted and thrown completely out of balance by circumstances. Micah is at a loss as to how to react and how to fill the aching emptiness that he feels after his routines are thrown into confusion.

In spite of the quirkiness of his character, Micah's heart is really in the right place. We care about this guy and want him to be happy even when we sometimes want to shake him. Tyler is so good at this, at giving us someone we can root for. And we can be pretty sure that she will bring everything full circle, finally letting Micah learn something about what is important in relationships and maybe giving him a happily ever after. 

I have read most of Anne Tyler's books over the years and there have been a lot of them. This is her twenty-third. This is one of her best, in my opinion. The only criticism that I might make of it is that it is too short. I wanted my visit with Micah to last longer.

Oh, and that "redhead" by the side of the road? It's not at all what you might think.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars   

Poetry Sunday: To be of use by Marge Piercy

I've been thinking a lot over the past week about the people that help. The people who, as Marge Piercy says in her poem, "do what has to be done, again and again." We see them all around us, even - or maybe even especially - in chaotic times like these. When things seem to be falling apart around us, they are the ones who step up and accept responsibility for trying to make things better.

I especially like the sentiment expressed in the last stanza:

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

The thing worth doing is to be of use and when we can accomplish that, our work has a shape that satisfies, that is clean and evident. 

To be of use

by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

This week in birds - #397

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Image from allaboutbirds.com.

All week long there has been a Barred Owl calling from the trees outside our bedroom window around midnight every night. The calls can be raucous at times, but I find them restful. I suppose it reminds me of my childhood when I would fall asleep most nights to the sounds of Barred Owls calling from around the farm. This particular owl has a very distinctive timbre to his voice that makes him easily recognizable, so I'm sure it is the same one every night. He spends several minutes calling from the red oak tree and then he moves on to mark and claim other parts of "his" territory. 

*~*~*~*

From the category of "it's an ill wind that blows no good" news comes word from scientists that, as much of the world is on lockdown and humans are staying indoors, Mother Nature is taking the opportunity for a bit of a renaissance. There are fewer pollutants in the air and the atmosphere over many cities is beginning to clear and blue sky can be seen once again. Wild animals are moving into niches that humans have abandoned, and, with less traffic on the roads, roadkill of animals has been substantially reduced. Wouldn't it be something if one result of the pandemic was that the emission of greenhouse gases was actually reduced this year?

*~*~*~*

With people staying at home, it is also a great time for them to connect with Nature in their own backyards and become a backyard naturalist.

*~*~*~*

Birds that are omnivorous and can easily adapt to new foods and new survival strategies are much less likely to go extinct.

*~*~*~*

Preserving established habitats with mature trees can do more to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than planting new trees can.

*~*~*~*

The great American suburban love affair with lawns has never been good for the environment, so it's a good thing that more homeowners are looking at rewilding their yards in ways that are more compatible with the ecosystem. 

*~*~*~*

This is the South Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher. It is rare and has proved very elusive and difficult to photograph, but recently a vitreoretinal surgeon and amateur photographer in Mindanao got lucky. He took this photograph of an adult bird as well as a fledgling.

*~*~*~*

There are four endangered species of fish in the Yampa River in Colorado that could greatly benefit from the closing of coal-fired power plants along the river over the next several years.

*~*~*~*

A little thing like a pandemic will not be allowed to interfere with the construction of the wall along our southern border. Indeed, it is full steam ahead with the project and the environment be damned.

*~*~*~*

A study of Brazilian birds revealed that the birds would quickly recolonize a reforested area after fragmentation.

*~*~*~*

The Great Barrier Reef has suffered its most significant bleaching on record. This event was even worse than the 2016-17 bleaching.

*~*~*~*

The federal government is considering removing threatened species protections for the lynx. However, studies indicate that the lynx has actually lost population in the Northwest in recent years.

*~*~*~*

The warming climate will allow more species to invade Antarctica where, until now, the cold has protected the continent from such invasions. The first of the wave seems to be a Patagonian mussel.

*~*~*~*

Another effect of the pandemic is that food supply chains have been disrupted with the result that a lot of food that would normally go to restaurants and grocery stores is going to waste.

*~*~*~*

Clever black rhinos! It seems the beasts listen to the alarm calls of Red-billed Oxpeckers to alert them to the presence of humans.

*~*~*~*

Finally, in an essay, Jane Goodall urges us to take the pandemic as a motivation to establish a new and more productive relationship with the natural world.

Agent Running in the Field by John le Carre: A review

As John le Carré nears his 90th birthday (he was born in 1931), it is good to note that he really has not lost a step when it comes to constructing a convoluted brain-teaser of a spy thriller. His skills are on full display in his latest book, Agent Running in the Field.

Even the title of the book is open to interpretation. Does it refer to a "spy handler" who manages agents in the field? Or does it refer to an agent who is running to escape? In the end, it could be both or either.

This is le Carré's first book set in the Trump/Boris Johnson/Brexit era and one of the characters, Ed, expounds what I would guess is the author's jaundiced view of that entire debacle. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The story begins with a spy handler named Nat being pulled from that job and brought back to London. Nat is a twenty-five-year veteran of MI6 and he loved his job in the field. He is not happy about being pulled from it and suspects that he is about to be given his walking papers. Instead, he is offered the management of the Haven, a London-based intelligence substation that seems to be in disarray. Nat is not entirely clear as to whether he is supposed to fix the substation's problems or help to close it down. But he accepts the position and goes to work.

Soon after, one of his aides abruptly quits due to the cancellation of a project she had been working on. About the same time, Nat meets a young researcher named Ed at his club. Ed seems possessed of a fiery personality and is not hesitant about sharing his views on current events. But he is also a top badminton player and Nat is the badminton champion at his club. Ed seeks a match with him and Nat agrees. There ensue regular matches between the two almost every week. At first, Nat wins but then gradually Ed overtakes him and begins winning. After each match, they retire to the bar for a drink and there Ed expounds his views and Nat, the non-political civil servant, mostly listens. Ed sums up his views thusly:

"It is my considered opinion that for Britain and Europe, and for liberal democracy across the entire world as a whole, Britain’s departure from the European Union in the time of Donald Trump, and Britain’s consequent unqualified dependence on the United States in an era when the US is heading straight down the road to institutional racism and neo-fascism, is an unmitigated clusterfuck bar none."

No one can accuse Ed of ambiguity.

In fact, Ed's strong views lead him to try to do something to (as he sees it) save his country and that ultimately brings him to Nat's professional attention. By this time, the two have developed a friendship and Nat is somewhat torn as to how to handle his knowledge of Ed's activities. And thereby hangs this tale as we see how Nat resolves his dilemma.

Nat and Ed are interesting characters and we are fully engaged in how their interactions play out and are resolved. The other secondary characters in the book are less well-developed and more difficult to get a handle on. Nat's long-suffering wife, Prue, for example, never quite came through clearly for me.

But the writing otherwise rises to the standard of excellence that long experience in reading le Carré would lead one to expect and the plotting is just impeccable. The writer sprinkles clues throughout to show us where he is headed and I sort of had it figured out by near the end, but there's always that final twist that just makes you tip your hat to the master. Although this may not be his best effort - that would be a high bar to excel - it's pretty darned good. A fun read.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars 

Poetry Sunday: For the Birds by John Shoptaw

I've been spending quite a bit of time observing birds recently. The birds are always there when I am out and about in my yard and it is comforting to watch them going about their normal lives without regard to our human concerns.

Apparently, John Shoptaw has been watching the birds, too, and judging by his poem, I would say he has a considerable understanding and empathy for them. He has empathy for the rare and the common birds, the resident birds and those passing through, including those escaping from wildfires. It pleases him to look after them all.

For the Birds

by John Shoptaw

For the abundant along with the rare birds at my feeder of late

For all kinds of birds I’ve lived with here are turning rarer

For the chestnut-backed chickadee, who carries her sunflower chip to the buckthorn to dine on between her toes

For the chickadees once came to my feeder in bunches

For the big round plain brown pair of California towhees who eat in parallel from the bird-crumb table

For though they crumb it clean without a glance or a cheep, I believe this remote old couple is as entwined as any two polarized photons

For the fearsome indigo Steller’s jays, black hooded and crested, Tapper and Sly, as I call them

For Tapper taps twice on an overhanging plum branch at two clucks from my tongue so I’ll know him

For Sly hangs back and shrieks me over and only shows himself after I place on the table their morning quincunx of unsalted peanuts

For he knows Tapper will quack to announce them and then squawk indignantly when he slyly swoops in

For the vast majority

For the dark-eyed juncos, the wide-eyed titmice, the narrow-eyed red-breasted nuthatches, who feed right-side up as they see it, the other birds upside down

For Audubon’s yellow-rumped, Wilson’s and Townsend’s warblers, nobody’s birds, who feed, drink and breed as they can

For the song sparrow’s song and the sparrow who exults in singing it

For a song—how long will that phrase mean what it means

For them all I refill the feeder, even this morning, when all blown-down things crackle underfoot and the Diablo wind seems to growl diabolically and scrape from all corners at once against a sky the color of flint

For the lesser goldfinches, symbolically fierce, who part their beaks at any other kind who would peck a chip in their presence

For the pine siskins, their symbolic match, who used to expose their underwings back at them with its dreadful yellow stripe

For two years running, no siskins at the feeder

For the brown-crowned, as-yet-unkindled sparrows, wintering from Oregon or the Farallon Islands, I sing my two-note welcome, hel-low, pointless

For they won’t learn it with my face masked against wild smoke migrating from the north

For the species too little or big or otherwise unsuited for the feeder

For Anna’s hummingbirds, who love to suck on our pineapple sage

For the red-tailed hawk perched in the smoke-fogged redwood

For soon it’ll be pestered by a twister of crows cawing hawkawkawkawkaw

For a red-tailed hawk I mistook it—something larger, ruffled molten

For the golden eagle it turned out to be—weird—hunched in the chill

For another flew up out of thick air and followed it south out of eyeshot

For those two—not migrants—evacuees clasping their emotional baggage

For the birds, then, what have I to offer

For what kind of refuge is my catalog

For I can’t reckon how to make good their losses

For I meant not to make a life list I meant

For others to partake in my pleasure

For it pleases me to look after the birds

This week in birds - #396

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

The Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are passing through on their way north. Here a male and female share a meal at one of my feeders.

*~*~*~*

The water in the Gulf of Mexico is more than three degrees above average in temperature. This substantially increases the prospects for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes this spring and potentially stronger hurricane activity in the summer and fall. The last time Gulf of Mexico waters were similarly warm in 2017, it coincided with an above-average tornado season through the spring, and then Category 4 Hurricane Harvey struck the Texas Gulf Coast at the end of summer. There are places along the coast that still haven't completely recovered from Harvey.

*~*~*~*

The current administration in Washington is taking the opportunity of the distraction caused by the pandemic to aggressively roll back environmental protection laws. For example, they want to reduce fuel efficiency standards put in place by the Obama Administration. Those standards would have saved six billion tons of greenhouse gases.

*~*~*~*

Brazil is also scaling back environmental protection enforcement in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

*~*~*~*

The loss of wetlands along their migration route is causing Whooping Cranes to travel in larger flocks and this is putting them at greater risk of a disease outbreak or of extreme weather.

*~*~*~*

One effect of the almost worldwide lockdown and sheltering in place is that it has reduced human noise on the surface of the planet. Scientists have remarked on this somewhat more silent world and are beginning to study its effects.

*~*~*~*

The plastics industry has spent billions in an effort to promote the idea of recycling their products and yet most of what they manufacture is not recyclable.

*~*~*~*

A major review reports that the restoration of the oceans and recovery of the marine life in them is possible within a generation, but it will require a major effort and commitment. 

*~*~*~*

Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar illegally imported wild animals from around the world for his personal zoo. After his death, the government removed the animals to zoos or wildlife sanctuaries, but the hippos proved intractable. They remained where they were and, without natural predators, they have increased their population to around 100 animals. This is having an effect on the Colombian ecosystem. 

*~*~*~*

Climate change is affecting birds in many different ways and they are trying to adjust. One effect attributed to climate change is a shortening of the wings of Common Nightingales. This may make migration more difficult for the birds, but if the world is warmer perhaps they won't migrate anymore or at least not as far.

*~*~*~*

In an opinion piece, Vijay Kolinijivadi makes the point that the coronavirus pandemic is related to climate change and that climate action should be part of our response to it.

*~*~*~*

New York has no more coal-burning power plants. Their last one closed on Tuesday.

*~*~*~*

The interactions of various species of birds can be fascinating. For example, Yellow Warblers have a special call that warns other warblers that Brown-headed Cowbirds are nearby. The cowbirds victimize warblers by laying eggs in their nests. Scientists have discovered that Red-winged Blackbirds also respond to that call as if they know what it means.

*~*~*~*

Tristan da Cunha is in the most remote part of the Pacific Ocean and it is home to at least 25 species of seabirds, four of which are endangered. The ecosystem around the archipelago is irreplaceable and deserves protection.

*~*~*~*

Here's some good news from the oceans: The kelp forests around Tierra del Fuego are thriving and are essentially unchanged from when they were first surveyed in 1973.

*~*~*~*

The cost of solar energy keeps going down and in the sunniest places - one of which would certainly be Texas - it is the cheapest way of producing electricity.

*~*~*~*

Image from Slate.com.

Yellow Warblers are on their way north now along with other neotropical migrants. There you are stuck inside your house, looking for ways to entertain yourself. Well, you have a window, don't you? Look out! There's no better time to become a bird watcher. And I think we can agree there is no more delightful part of Nature than the world of birds. Moreover, they are just about the most accessible part, so what are you waiting for?