realmud garden

sleepless

2009-07-02T00:30:00.005-05:00

I gave up on sleep tonight. It's not like I've had an uninterrupted night of sleep for years now. But I don't often have this much difficulty sleeping. I go through the usual culprits: caffeine, hot flashes, nagging worries. I return to the nagging worries.

Why is it that sometimes it's easy to set the nagging worries aside and get on with whatever needs to be done? Other times it seems it's impossible to turn off the mind's fretting! It's not as if I'm very good at facing my imagined worst case scenarios, and yet some days I get so obsessed by those very worries that I become enmeshed in the tangles created my own mental demons!

I hardly think I'm unique, that my worries are darker than those of anyone else! But sometimes I think the wounded parts of ourselves are the parts we notice the most. I am reminded of a dog I had who nervously licked and bit at an itch on the right side of her rump so much that she developed a persistent fungal infection that made her itch even more!

Sometimes I think I'm just as funny as my dog! I get many opportunities in my paying job to observe the many ways people face difficult situations in their lives and you'd think I would have learned a thing or two after all these years!

And it was at work today that I think my obsessive thought-cycle was triggered. I read this quote, you see.

"Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in
the state of being alive....If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even
where confidence is wounded and trust impaired."
Erik Erikson (1902 - 1994)

Of course, I find myself paying the most attention to my wounds and fears! How difficult it is to lighten up, to let go, so the hope can arise. "Hope floats". Isn't that the title of a movie? Hah. The movie of my life...and away I go, drawn into the drama I create out of my life, making up a story, many stories, many possible endings...and fears and worries! I create a to-do list. I fret about things I didn't do, things I didn't make time to do.

Oops. I can't let go. I'm drowning! I forgot that I know how to float. Below my ego's obsessions, I am a peaceful part of an ocean of being.

more borrowed gardens

2009-06-15T06:52:00.009-05:00

Hellebores

heucheras

more heucheras

columbines

and more columbines

hostas in the background with Tradescantia in the foreground

more hostas

and more hostas

bugle weed in the foreground with hostas

ginkgo biloba

Japanese maple

mugo pine

Horse Chestnut

The Funky Nests Challenge!

2009-06-13T11:58:00.001-05:00

Enter the Funky Nests Challenge!

You find them in hanging flower baskets…an old boot…a garage shelf…or under a bridge…birds build nests in the strangest places! That’s the theme for the newest environmental challenge from our Celebrate Urban Birds project: Funky Nests in Funky Places! As you may know, Celebrate Urban Birds is a free, year-round citizen-science project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, focused on birds in neighborhood settings.

For the Funky Nests in Funky Places challenge, we want you to take photos, do a painting, write a story, or shoot a video showing a bird’s nest built in some out-of-the-way or out-of-this-world place.When observing nests please be sure to avoid touching them or disturbing the birds.

This one’s going to be fun, I think. We usually receive hundreds of entries for each of our challenges, and I can’t wait to see what your sent us this time and where birds have chosen to build their funky nests! I'm also attaching a PDF flier about the challenge you can print for yourself or pass along to others who might want to participate.

We have some great prizes, includig a Leica C-LUX 3 compact camera, bird feeders, shrubs for planting, and more. The first 50 entrants will receive a copy of the "Doves and Pigeons" poster by Julie Zickefoose and we'll post selected images and videos on the Celebrate Urban Birds website.

Here's how to enter:

1. Email your entry to urbanbirds@cornell.edu. Links are acceptable for videos.

2. Write “Funky Nests” in the subject line.

3. Include your name and mailing address.

4. Explain why you submitted your entry--what's the story behind it?

5. One entry per person, please.

Deadline for entries is July 31, 2009

Visit the Celebrate Urban Birds website for more information and to read the terms of agreement regarding all entries.

Thanks for taking the challenge!

Karen Purcell, Project Leader

(607) 254-2455

urbanbirds@cornell.edu

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a membership institution dedicated to interpreting and conserving the earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. Visit the Lab’s web site at www.birds.cornell.edu.

borrowed

2009-06-13T10:26:00.025-05:00

The other day I wandered on over to the gardens at Parkwood Estate to borrow the garden for a while. Except for the fact that I couldn't get in there and get my hands dirty, I was able to wallow in the many shades of green, big and small, play my naming game and enjoy the colours there now, as well as the anticipation of other glories to come as the season progresses.

the white garden

alliums

irises

irises and daylilies

Oriental poppies

is it catching?

2009-06-13T09:40:00.003-05:00

I often wander into the gardens of Parkwood Estate so that I may borrow for a while a green space, wonderful trees and some flowers. And in my own obsessive way, I name the plants I see and wonder about the plants I don't know by name. It's an odd game: name, name, name, maybe, I wonder, name, name, name. Ah! Name! ... name. Very, very satisfying.

Having lunch with my Oldest and Other Favorite Daughter the other day, listening to her tell about the changes she has made in her garden recently, I realized that gardeners are an odd bunch. Of course, WE don't think we are strange at all. But I've had to face facts! Most people are probably -- and incomprehensibly in my mind -- only interested in having things look relatively neat, attractive and maybe even a bit colourful in the garden. O & OFD said that is the case for her. In her busy life, she only has room for pots of flowers and herbs near her kitchen door. She doesn't have time for the stuff gardeners willingly spend hours doing.

She thought it was hilarious that I understood exactly what Kim meant by the lovely horizontal branching habit of a double-file viburnum! (non-gardeners are rolling their eyes here if they have managed to read this far!!)

But, non-gardeners beware. It is contagious. As I am taking over the lawn in front of my apartment building bit by bit, other tenants are getting more and more interested. Other tenants have expanded upon the beds and more colourful bits of this and that are going in. I suspect even as the squirrels wreak mayhem and murder upon our tender plants, hopefully and bravely, we guerilla-gardeners are occupying more space. Tomatoes, herbs, roses, hostas and marigolds have snuck in somehow!

Even across the street, a large concrete bowl has appeared by the front step and it is filled with bright red geraniums. A rustic wooden bench has been placed out front and on it are a couple of clay pots filled with I'm not sure what, but it is GREEN! A building down the road has daylilies and hostas now in the shade under the maples and a colourful array of perennials in the narrow space at the edge of the parking lot behind the building!

Even what I presume are non-gardeners are paying attention to what is going on in the neighborhood. Other tenants in the building and passersby have given me compliments. Oh, and of course, there have been expressions of alarm as well. "The beds are too big." "The flowers will attract vandals." "The pots will be smashed or stolen."

The only alarm that I pay any attention to is over the squirrels. They are my personal fly in the ointment and I fear I'll soon be in danger of going over the edge with regard to their mindless depredations! (hysterical laughter!)

A taxi driver suggested the other day that I get a dog.

"But what about the digging and damage a dog might do?" I asked.

"I gave you a solution to your first problem!"

Queen Elizabeth Park

2009-05-26T13:04:00.022-05:00

On my last trip to Vancouver, mid-May, I visited Queen Elizabeth Park and the Bloedel Conservatory. Here are some highlights:

ferns looking like strange creatures of the deeps

rhodos

This colour combination caught my eye...

Hellebores

Handkerchief tree, Davidia involucrata.

the last two photos are not from the Park, but from the neighborhood where my parents live:

mountains

2009-05-13T12:09:00.014-05:00

In Kelowna, BC, this week, I am visiting my Other Favorite Daughter Who Lives Too Far Away. One of her roommates took us up to Knox Mountain, where I had the opportunity to get my first real good look of the Okanagan Valley.

This immediately caught my eye, as aromatic plants have always fascinated me. It must be in the wormwood family. It seems to grow to quite some size especially along the lower reaches of the mountain.

From the plane as we came in to Kelowna's airport, I saw masses and masses of these bright yellow daisy-like flowers on the mountain sides. The lady beside me laughed and laughed when I commented on them, wondering what they were. We were touching down and the lawns around the airport were full of dandelions in full bloom, you see. She thought I was marveling at mundane dandelions, which of course, we also have in the GTA in abundance! However, I had a lingering thought that what I had spotted from the plane was different....
Near my daugthter's home in Kelowna is a small wetlands area, where wildlife is attracted by the water. On sunny days, my daughter is horrified to find that she is like her mother, amused and delighted to observe turtles competing with each other for a spot on this log on which they gather to absorb the sun's warmth. Today, it was cold, overcast, and there was a bitterly cold wind.
Gardens in some parts of town, particularly the historic Abbott St., along the lake, are lush and interesting.

things seen

2009-05-04T08:56:00.012-05:00

Recent adventures along a river that meanders through the centre of my city brought opportunities to look.

Look at that logjam!

Look at the fungi. The subtle repetition of pattern, texture and colour pleases me.

Look at the pretty dogtooth violets, aka trout lilies (Erythronium americanum).

Look at the burned grass...oooh! What's that??

Look at all the dead snails! How curious!

Then earlier, at Easter, I visited my friend M., and she has this pretty cat whom I know you'll all enjoy meeting.

more listening

2009-04-16T18:29:00.000-05:00

Yene Konjo - Aster Aweke

listening

2009-04-16T18:23:00.000-05:00

Sew Hulu Be-Hageru - Aster Aweke

food

2009-04-16T14:35:00.004-05:00

Food. What a word! Layers and layers of meaning and memory wrap themselves up in that simple four-letter word.

Something prompted me to start making a big pot of lentil stew this afternoon. I started very simply, throwing a couple cupfuls of dry lentils into some water in a large pot, and setting the pot on the stovetop to simmer gently. After a while, other chores distracted me and I forgot about the lentils until a wonderful warm aroma reminded me.

The aroma reminded me of many things. Coming in from a long bicycle ride, hands stiff with cold, the kitchen steamy and smelling of lovely, nourishing things cooking. The quick flip of the edge of a large, flat, grassy woven basket held in graceful brown hands sending curling waves of grain into the sunshine, a breath of dust and chaff falling away from the crest of the wave of grain as it settles down again, swirling, back onto the basket. The background chatter of women's voices, women who are my life, whom I love, my mother, my aunts, talking and laughing, as they slap dough down, then the quick thud thud thud of their rolling pins shaping the dough into the little round skins of karjalan piirakka. The hot yeasty smell of freshly baked bread as it comes out of the oven.

And I thought, I will add some carrots, celery, bay leaf, and onions to my lentils, then I will see if I have the "fixins" to make bread.

Ah! Fresh, home-baked bread. That is an experience I haven't treated myself to for far too long.

Why? Why am I too busy to slow down and do this simple, nourishing thing for myself?

I've used the excuse that I'm too busy. I've used the excuse that I would then just over-indulge and over-eat what I've made. I've used the excuse that there is no one with whom to share what I've cooked. I've used the excuse that there isn't room in the tiny freezer compartment of my apartment-sized fridge to hold the excess.

However, when I smelled my lentil stew cooking on the stove, I realized that I should have given myself this gift long ago. I deserve, no I need and have longed for the hands-on, sensual experience of slow food, the multi-sensory meditation of making a simple meal for myself, with my own hands, using basic ingredients.

I am busy. As well as working full-time at my paying job, I try to fit in a yoga practice and all the miles of running required in my training for my first upcoming full marathon race. I try to have a balanced social life as well, to stay connected to my family and friends. Over the last few weeks I felt like I was spinning my wheels faster and faster, becoming more and more disconnected even as I struggled to stay grounded.

I pass by our little garden in front of my building, chafing at the lack of time to tidy up the squirrel-tossed plants, to water, to mulch the dry soil there.

I'm sure you have felt that way too. Suddenly the bottom seems to fall out and you find yourself looking at yourself in the mirror and crying for no reason. Nothing seems solid. Your family and friends are there, but you are incapable of feeling their care and presence. I suddenly realized I was starving.

I woke up from a dream this morning of a small garden in the sunshine, filled with the smell of sunshine on springtime lawns waking up, of crocus, early irises, daffodils and jonquils. I could smell the earth. I could smell the softness of springtime air. And in my dream, I felt in my body the satisfaction of seeing the green things coming up and of having worked in the garden as I entered the kitchen of a small house I once lived in, and again another familiar smell, the smell of sun-heated dust motes dancing in front of a window.

I've been starving for the sensory hands-on experiences of gardens and food. In my mind, they are entwined inseparably. Small cuttings sit in a jar atop my fridge, after all, hopeful twigs that in my mind are a large winged burning bush (Euonymus alata), a pyramidal English oak (Quercus robur), and purple-leaved smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria).

I added some heat to my stew with a generous spoonful of berbere and tomato paste. It is going to be soooo tasty and warming. All I lack is some injera. However, I don't have any tef on hand, nor do I actually know how to make injera, so instead, I'm going to leave you now to bake myself a loaf of multigrain bread.

You must envy me. I'll soon be enjoying a slice of fresh bread with butter with a large bowl of hot and spicy lentil stew sprinkled with some chopped fresh cilantro.

Great Backyard Bird Count Highlights

2009-04-13T23:16:00.002-05:00

Dynamic Changes in Where the Birds Are
Bird watchers break record for fifth straight year

New York, NY & Ithaca, NY—The 12th annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) featured two invasions this year: voracious Pine Siskins (pictured right) and a whole new crop of citizen-science participants! Bird watchers shattered last year's record by submitting more than 93,600 checklists during the four-day event, held February 16-19. Participants also identified 619 species and sent in thousands of stunning bird images for the GBBC photo contest. The Great Backyard Bird Count is led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society.

"Each year the GBBC provides the most detailed real-time snapshot of bird distribution across North America," said Rob Fergus, Senior Scientist with the National Audubon Society. "We can see how birds are responding to changing weather patterns, available food sources, and other factors from around the continent."

One of the big stories coming from the GBBC this year was the massive invasion of Pine Siskins and White-Winged Crossbills over much of the eastern United States. These feisty little birds moved southward because of seed crop failures in their usual wintering grounds in Canada and the boreal forests. GBBC participants reported 279,469 Pine Siskins on 18,528 checklists, compared to the previous high of 38,977 birds on 4,069 checklists in 2005. White-winged Crossbills were not as common, but their invasion was still impressive with 4,824 birds on 589 checklists representing a new record over the previous high of 2,854 birds on 135 checklists in 2007.

The GBBC continues to show declines in some common birds, especially grassland and shrubland species. Loggerhead Shrike numbers are down, and although numbers of Northern Bobwhites and Eastern Meadowlarks were both up slightly from last year, they are still being reported in fewer numbers during the GBBC than they were in 2004. These GBBC trends are only preliminary views of what may be going on with these populations, and they must continue to be monitored to get a true long-term view of how these birds are faring.

Species reported for the first time during the Great Backyard Bird Count included two oceanic species--Pink-footed Shearwater and Xantus's Murrelet, both in California. Other first-timers included Baird's Sandpiper, Black-billed Cuckoo, and Blackpoll Warbler. Two rare Mexican species appeared on GBBC checklists from Arizona for the first time: the first Sinaloa Wren ever found north of the border, and a Blue Mockingbird.

"I just love the way this event opens up a new world for so many people," says Cornell Lab of Ornithology Citizen Science Director Janis Dickinson. "We have grandparents counting with their grandchildren, elementary school classrooms doing the GBBC as a special project, nature centers taking visitors out on bird walks. And adults who never noticed birds before are suddenly smitten!"

For a more detailed summary of this year's results, visit the GBBC web site at http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/. Explore 2009 data, compare with other years, and find the exact counts for each species in a particular state, province, or town.The Great Backyard Bird Count is sponsored by Wild Birds Unlimited.

The next Great Backyard Bird Count is February 15-18, 2010!

#Top 10 most-frequently reported birds in the 2009 GBBC:
1) Northern Cardinal
2) Mourning Dove
3) Dark-eyed Junco
4) American Goldfinch
5) Downy Woodpecker
6) Blue Jay
7) House Finch
8) Tufted Titmouse
9) American Crow
10) Black-capped Chickadee

Visit the "Explore the Results" pages on the GBBC web site to find the list of Top 10 birds reported in your state, province, or city.

fooled

2009-04-07T13:31:00.005-05:00

...yesterday

...today!

The Weather is toying with me. Cruelly! That's what I get for exulting yesterday morning that we had not received the forecast snow! The Weather turned around and back-handed me one!

April weather

2009-04-06T15:23:00.011-05:00

I woke very grateful this morning that the forecast was wrong. We were supposed to get snow. I thought, yes! It's raining here! But it was not to last. After four o'clock or so, the big wet snowflakes started to fall, and a nasty wind is howling around the corners of my building.

Amazing that some of the tiniest and most beautiful flowers in the garden (perhaps most beautiful because they are longed for after our winters), are hardly worried about a little snow.

My little neighbour, K., got these violets from her grandmother and planted them in the garden last summer.

A week ago, our weather was much more spring-like, the messy dregs of winter, the debris left by the squirrels' assaults on our gardens, all seeming manageable in bright, sunny and much warmer weather.

So, out into the garden I went, attracting the attention of many small kids in the neighborhood who first, wanted to know what I was doing, then, if they could help.

After the very satisfying afternoon I spent tidying up the garden, I participated in a belly-dance recital in the evening that was even more enjoyable because it was shared with my friend C., and supported by my crazy, lovable running gang.

Mistrusting the intentions of my running friends, I confess I feared their attendance would mean suffering through the hootin' and hollerin' of some of the more jock-like/tomboy members, but instead was tickled that they were most encouraging and even brought C. and me these gorgeous bouquets of roses!

The roses lasted and lasted, but a couple of days ago, I did take them out of water and hang them up to dry. They seem to be retaining their colour nicely, don't you think? I know I'll be able to enjoy them for quite a while longer. Eventually of course, the colour will gradually fade to a soft tan, should I decide to keep them that long!

In place of the roses, a small bouquet of the daffodils of the annual Cancer Society fund-raising drive now brightens my living room.

The rain makes me long for colour and I've been tempted to start hunting in the garden centres and grocery stores for pots of forced spring blooms. I had thought maybe putting them into large pots by the front steps would give all of us the hit of colour I need, especially today with big fat snow flakes starting to swirl around outside (noooo! say it isn't so!). But I'm not sure that even the toughies of spring, spring bulbs forced as they have been into early bloom in hothouses, can survive the ferocities and vagaries of our Canadian spring.

hint, hint

2009-04-06T14:44:00.002-05:00

I had a great laugh at this from the Dirt Divas and their now ?defunct blog. So I just had to share it with other gardeners, who I think, like me, can think of no better way to be romanced than this, whether it be for Mothers Day or any other day!

"-Darling. Take your woman out for breakfast and a long
leisurely drive, checkbook firmly tucked in your back pocket, and a little mood
music on the radio. Then hit the local nurseries that are brimming with colorful
plants and toys for your garden. Put a little romance in those flower beds.
Think of gardening as a couple’s thing that you do so the woman who runs your
weekends will let you watch the playoffs. A little champagne and showing off
your skills with a wheelbarrow will do wonders for your relationship."

balance

2009-04-06T13:00:00.004-05:00

Recently one late night when sweats woke me in the wee hours of the morning, I turned on the television and was fortunate to catch this interesting repeat of a lecture in which Jefferson Medical College professor Salman Akhtar discussed "The Trauma of Geophysical Dislocation".

In his lecture, Akhtar proposed that psychoanalysts need to pay special attention to their immigrant patients, suggesting that "the immigration experience creates disruptions to the waking screen that are too often ignored in therapy and that the objects and landscapes that are left behind have a more significant impact on the immigrant's psychological well being than has generally been recognized..."

Listening to the lecture, I realized that travel and/or immigration is the fine edge of a double edged sword. Part of the thrill is the adventure and opportunites of a new place, but that is also the challenge. I was quite used to thinking of the immigration experience as one with the difficulties of a new language (or as in my case, a language spoken in a different accent), new culture, new bureaucratic mazes to navigate, but had not really paid any heed to the way a new environment impacts one in the body, physically, through our senses.

Immediately, as Oprah would say, I had an "ah-Ha!" reaction. Memories of various experiences came to mind...

I am in a fine bookstore in Uxbridge, Blue Heron Books. Browsing in bookstores being a passion of mine that I simply cannot indulge in as often as I would actually like, I was having a wonderful time.

Among a gorgeous collection of coffee table books, I happened upon a book about the south of France. Flipping through its pages, drinking in the pictures of sun-baked old houses, narrow cobble-stone streets, clay pots of bright ivy-geraniums sitting on quirky, crooked steps, I turned to a photo of a small sunlit square and suddenly felt an overwhelming physical sensation of recognition wash over me, a delicious shiver that ran through my whole body!

I knew this place in my body-memory because of the light. Not that I had ever actually been to that particular village in the south of France. But my body recognized the way sunlight looks and feels in that part of the world and I could feel the memory of it through my whole body as it was awakened by that photo.

I am in an airplane circling Pearson Airport. I am coming home from a trip to Europe. It is a sunny day. The sky is blue. The sky is a particular shade of blue, a big shade of blue, very different from the sky the way I experience it in Europe. Big, spacious. An "aaaaah" shade of blue, an opening-up shade of blue.

It is raining. It is cold, the ground underfoot is muddy, sticky and the smell of it is wet mud mixed with the bitter-sweet tang of donkey and mule puckeys. The clouds are hanging low between the mountains of Ethiopia. The wind is lashing the rain down and I can see snow on the higher slopes that disappear into the clouds. I hear water running, gurgling everywhere. Veils of rain and cloud dance between the mountains.

Small houses huddle together in the rain, their interior gloom under their corrugated tin roofs a ragged shelter from the rain. The road is a wash of running mud. The high thin voices of children speaking Amharic or accented English rise into the thin mountain air and bring back swirling echoes from my memories. Thin vapours of breath mingle with currents of bitterly cold air and mist. My hands are freezing.

It is raining. The air is soft, wet, heavy and smells of green things. There's a white-ness too to the smell, like the metallic taste of snow. The clouds feel heavy, pressing against the mountains, and the mountains seem to press back. I feel small in Vancouver, pushed down by the rain, pushed down by the dark shadows of trees, the dark heavy hedges, the heavy rain, as if my feet will stick to the dark wet pavements, the spongy paths in the forests. Heavy green vines clamber up trees, pulling them downwards.

When the plane turns out over the ocean, eastward, taking me away from Vancouver, it feels like it takes a huge effort to lift ourselves out and above the arms of the mountains. Row after row of white-capped mountains reach even above the thick blanket of clouds into the blueness of the sky, reaching, reaching.

I wonder about all the fine mechanisms in our bodies that help to keep us in balance.

Closing our eyes, we still have a body-memory of the room we are sitting in, the spaces outside, the neighbor's house, the cars travelling by in the city streets, the train whistle in the dark, the returning birds announcing the arrival of spring in the lightening of dawn. Later there will be the smells of cut grass, the sound of lawnmowers, the smells of summer-time barbecues wafting on the mellow evening breezes.

How disconcerting it is to half-wake from a dream where we were in another place, in another room! It takes several moments for our bodies to find our balance again, to turn around, wobble back into alignment, aright ourselves right-side up when we drop into this place from wherever we were in our dreams.

I think gardeners remember rain in gardens most of all. An old song I heard long ago sung by Perry Como comes to mind. Just thinking about the song, I can smell roses, feel springtime rain on my eyelashes and see fat robins listening for worms in the soil! Somebody else, from another part of the world will surely have very different memories, won't they, if in fact, the song is able to speak to them at all.

No wonder being an immigrant is so unsettling!

nest boxes

2009-03-30T11:35:00.004-05:00

From The Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

Got Nest Boxes? If you do, you have a front-row seat on the miracle of birth and renewal in the bird world. If you don't, now is the time to set one up. You can also help scientists learn more about bird families and how they might be affected by climate change.

You're invited to register your nest box (or boxes) with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's NestWatch program (www.RegisterYourNestbox.org). It won't cost you a thing but it does yield valuable information about breeding birds and how their natural rhythms may be changing.

NestWatch is easy and fun for adults and children. It helps all of us reconnect with nature, which is good for our health and well-being. NestWatch is a great activity to do on your own, in a classroom, or as a homeschool project.

Here's why it's so important to gather this information: Studies are showing that some birds are laying their eggs sooner than they used to--as much as nine days earlier in the case of Tree Swallows. That could spell trouble if the eggs hatch before a steady supply of insects is available for feeding the young. As a NestWatch participant, you'll visit nests once or twice a week and report what you see: Which kinds of birds are using your nest boxes? When were the first eggs laid? How many eggs were laid and how many actually hatched?

Everything you need to register your nest box and get started with NestWatch is available online, including directions on how you can monitor nest boxes without disturbing the birds. If you have a blog, you can link to the NestWatch site using the web button we provide below.

Don't have a nest box yet? Find out how to provide the best and safest boxes for bluebirds, swallows, chickadees, and other cavity-nesting birds online. If you like, you can also monitor the nests of backyard birds that don't use nest boxes, such as phoebes, robins, and goldfinches.

By the way, the hugely popular NestCams are back in action—peek into nests and nest boxes across the country via live cameras focused on Eastern Bluebirds, Barred Owls, Wood Ducks, Barn Owls and more. Keep watching and see what hatches!

The more NestWatchers we have the better the information we can gather about our bird friends. Feel free to download this NestWatch flyer(PDF) and post it anywhere you feel is appropriate. As a citizen scientist you have the power to really make a big difference.

Thank you!Tina Phillips, Project Leader

NestWatch

P.S. Check out the "Early Birds and Spring" video about the NestWatch project now posted on the ScienCentral web site! And here's that web button:

To download the button, right-click on the image and choose "send to browser." Then right-click on the image again and choose "save image as" to save it to your computer. The button should be linked to: www.RegisterYourNestbox.org

NestWatch is a free nest-monitoring project developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in collaboration with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, and funded by the National Science Foundation.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a membership institution interpreting and conserving the earth's biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds.

dreams

2009-03-26T17:52:00.001-05:00

waiting

2009-03-26T17:02:00.002-05:00

Waiting is hard work. It may seem like you're just sitting there. It may seem like a great opportunity to catch your breath, pause, take stock, re-organize, re-group, prepare for whatever is coming. But that's just it. You are waiting. You don't really know what's coming.

theories

2009-03-23T08:31:00.004-05:00

As far as theories go, I've been pondering this one for quite some time. And I don't mean to bring it up to add fuel to the fire of the difficulties between the sexes. But I was wondering about it again this weekend.

I work in health care and many nurses would agree with me when I say that there is a marked difference in the way male patients behave when compared to female patients. It's not a generalization that can be used to neatly compartmentalize every individual, but it's a pattern that is pronounced enough that nurses will usually prefer a ward of men over a ward of women.

Now, of course, that used to bother me, being of the female persuasion myself. But I wondered why? Why did women second guess you all the time, interrupt you when you were caring for another patient, anxiously stop you in the last second before you left the room to ask for something and one-trip-run-you a hundred times in a day? Why did men, in contrast, seem so calm and accepting of whatever way you delivered their care?

It was my genius friend Fiona who finally clarified it for me. She said men are used to being looked after, women are not. That is simply it.

Women are usually the care takers in whatever situation they find themselves in and they have to remember a whole constellation of things and people that need looking after, so of course they are anxious when they themselves need care and help. They are not sure they will be looked after, having rarely been in that position before. Not only are they anxious when they find themselves needing to be cared for by another, but they are often quite angry!

I notice this as well among other professionals in my workplace, among my colleagues and peers. It is far more likely that it will be a male who will delegate or ask me to do things, even if it might not actually be within my scope of practice or is a task that he is supposed to do himself. Or at worst, he will just leave things undone, knowing full well that somebody else (usually female) will clean up, tie up loose ends, or remind him to do something he must do before the shit hits the fan.

I can see women all over the world nodding their heads. Right, ladies? This happens at home too. The phrase "it's so hard to get good help" falls from the lips of ladies, right?

Meanwhile, my lovely calm male patients. How I look forward to caring for them! Amazing how universal is the sense of entitlement, and the security that that expectation gives to the half of our population that enjoys that power, still. They generally will happily toddle off and do as they're told, knowing that their nurse or doctor or physiotherapist has their best interest at heart. Good little soldiers, they get out of bed, and manfully do their laps around the hall.

They might become quite a bit more dependent and whiny when their anxious wives arrive. It would do no good to reassure the wife that all is well, after all! Sometimes, the poor men have no idea what medications they are on, what surgeries or medical treatments or tests they have had in the past. "Ask the wife", they'll say. Or when faced with a challenge, like learning how to manage an ostomy at home, they will helplessly declare: "I can't do it. Wait 'till the wife comes and show her!" They won't wash or get dressed; they can't eat, their hands suddenly useless. They wait for the wife to help them.

It's amazing! I hardly ever hear a wife say "Wait 'till my husband comes in, he'll do it." In extreme situations she may say, " I can't do it," but by then, she will be in that mental and emotional state that she is unable to do anything for herself at all, and is either profoundly depressed or feels like she is alone and terrified out of her wits!

A man recently said to me that the trouble between men and women boils down to women expecting that men should be able to read their minds. Then as the mistakes men make add up, women keep score and after some indeterminate time, women explode. The poor guy is quite surprised because he was unaware of his mistakes, even if he was vaguely aware there was a score card.

It occurred to me that when I do know what I want from a man, I don't know how to ask for it. The other way of looking at that would be that there is no right way to ask in a social structure in which you are pretty much expected to take care of things and be the do-er and care-taker. It also occurred to me that while I need practice in asking for what I want, I have been shot down about a million times just for asking. The onus is not 100% on me to ask in the "right way".

The other part of that issue is that I realize that I don't know how to express what I want. Do I want a mere glass of water, or is it that I actually want someone to be attentive to my needs and to be cared for? If I ask for a glass of water, I won't get what I actually want. But if I ask for attention and to be cared for, well.... You can see how difficult that is!

No wonder women are anxious and angry!

Please, don't get me wrong. I could give you hundreds of examples where this does not hold, but the trend sure is there. And I wondered why....

moleskin

2009-03-22T13:02:00.002-05:00

A playful idea executed in a Japanese format Moleskin, created by Juan Berrio.

pause

2009-03-22T10:30:00.003-05:00

A surprise pause in my schedule today, an unexpected change in plans, has me looking with delight towards an afternoon and evening of free time! It seems like I have been snatching a nap, an hour of canoodling, an evening to read a book, out of the miserly hands of some relentless schedule madman for months now. And that madman -- ahem, woman -- was me!

The first sensation is relief. The second, anxiety because I don't have a new book to dive into. However, I looked out the window and the day is sunny, the breezes mild, and I realized, this is an occasion. Maybe not an occasion to celebrate -- too noisy. But an occasion to notice, observe, contemplate and regenerate.

I'll be back in about....10 hours, okay?

stories

2009-02-16T13:55:00.006-05:00

Mount Ras Dashen, Ethiopia, March 2007

Okay, this is a pretty public place to talk about this, but I like to work under the illusion that the people who want to read my blog are truly interested in who I am as a person, and that our human experiences shared, connect us to the whole in some mystical way.

Like many families, I suspect, mine is troubled. I won't go into all that. I've done that enough already. I don't want to tell a big old dramatic story or to blow my own horn here. However, I do want to share with you the happy place in which I find myself, the realization I had today regarding how far I've come.

It occurred today when somebody told me my ex-husband got married last year to the woman he's been living with ever since he and I split up. The person who told me, loves me and knows me well enough to understand some of the journey that I've been on all these years. And she knows me well enough to understand that I don't need to be "protected" from the truth.

Now, in this snapshot moment of where I am, you understand, I have no idea at all of the kind of person my ex husband has become. I only know what I was back then and I am happy with who I am now. The idea of any nostalgia for the past or what I was is so limiting that even holding a thought of it in my mind for the most brief moment imaginable, has me feeling stiffled and constrained. The idea that now, I would be upset or hurt by hearing my ex husband has married again merely has me smiling, amused. Those that kept that knowledge from me severely underestimate who I am, what I have gone through and the strength I now possess. And I realize they may be telling themselves a story of what happened that is totally different from what I think my story is.

To me that is amusing. Oh, to be sure, I'm still very idealistic and naive, ever hopeful about the people I meet, willing to see a best in them that even they themselves have given up on long ago. Ah well. Many people even think that I was too blind for my own good then and suggest that I should have sought revenge more effectively. I decided long ago however that that would be energy wasted and focused in the wrong place. And after all these years, I think even though unaware as I was, I am glad I made the decision to stop resisting what was happening and let it all go.

And best of all, I realize that all the things that troubled me, the struggles that have come and gone, most of them were and continue to be of my own making, as my mind and ego try to control, organize life to keep me safe and resist or avoid things that are unpleasant. I realize, that what is essentially me is not troubled by the sad and unhappy things that have happened to me or might yet happen to me. Just like the blue sky is not altered by the storms that pass through, what I am, essentially what is me, is not all those things, the story of what has happened to me. I am like the blue sky and gratefully, joyfully, I realize how wonderfully free I am!

Now, I feel like all of life is open to me, a great adventure and I have so many adventures to choose from, so much living to do!

promises

2009-02-06T16:37:00.004-05:00

Isn't it odd how trees form their buds in the fall after the leaves have fallen and the buds stay on the trees right through the bitterest winter months before they open in the spring?

They don't look like much, and many people don't even notice they're there until spring arrives. Then, perhaps because they are expecting to see signs of spring, they happen to look up and voilà, suddenly, it's spring! And as evidence, people point to the buds on the trees! They don't seem to realize, that on many trees such as my maple here, the buds have been there since the autumn!

What does all this mean? I think it's rather lovely that when things seem to have died and the darkness of winter descends upon us, already the promise of spring is there. It's on every branch, the promise in myriads of tiny buds, just waiting for the light to change, the warmth to return and those tiny buds will swell out into flowers and leaves!

Sometimes when I seem to be in a terribly grim season, my mood dark and feeling like the world is an awfully cold place, looking out my window to see those wee small buds, all over the branches of my maple, I remember to hold on. My spirit may be cramped into some tiny space inside me, but I know if I wait, the light will change, the earth will warm up and soon, I'll feel the creative juices arise and I will be able to grow and open out.

guess who's here

2009-01-24T11:32:00.004-05:00

This has probably made the rounds of cyberspace among those who are suckers for cute animal pictures! But I am totally unapologetic about that! This appeals to me on so many levels, I just had to share it with you. Come on. Doesn't it make you smile?

Apparently, this fawn followed the beagle home, right into the house through the doggie door, in the Bittinger, MD, area recently. The owner came home to find the fawn had made himself quite at home. There was news coverage of the event, so how come I'm just now finding out about it??

Aaany-way...I love it 'cause the beagle reminds me of my friend Misty, who remained behind in the country when I moved back into the city. She would never have been happy on a leash, without acres of woods and fields to explore, but I miss her.