Category Archives: Nature

The Sweet Smell of an Atlanta Summer

Shortly after the end of school, we flew to Atlanta for our annual summer visit.  Just as we did last year, we opted for MARTA to save my parents a drive to and from the airport, and to protect everyone from the stress provoked by that alarming ride.  (See Fun with Ground Transportation, July 2012.)  We waited only a few minutes at the Arts Center station before we saw Daddy rounding the corner from 16th Street in his red station wagon.  My generally healthy father had frightened us this spring by catching a persistent bug that required two hospitalizations and prevented him and Mama from traveling  to Virginia for our daughter’s school musical. We hadn’t seen my parents since early November, and I had been increasingly aware of their absence.  I felt a real sense of delight as I saw Daddy driving up, waving, and I’m sure, whistling.  He tends to whistle when he’s happy.

It was the second day of summer, and the temperature was pleasantly spring-like.  Atlanta’s signature oppressive heat was blessedly absent.  The city was in glorious, fragrant late June bloom.  Our visit coincided with an occurrence I’ve been saddened to miss for a decade or so:  the blooming of the gardenia bush outside my old bedroom window.  In years past, we’ve arrived in early July, just after the heyday, when the blossoms are withered and brown.  It’s like reaching the home of old friends, only to find that they left a day earlier for a year-long journey.   I found it reassuring to behold those familiar, powerfully sweet-smelling blooms, snowy and velvety white.   The idyllic scent of  summer, and of long childhood days (without air conditioning) will always live for me in the smell of gardenias.

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Gardenia blossoms.
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Gardenias, seen from the window of my old bedroom.

The gardenias were only one group of voices in the welcoming symphony of fragrance that greeted us as we stepped out of the car.  A stand of privet, much enlarged over the years, and at the height of its bloom, bent its dense and shady canopy over the driveway.  Tall hedges of abelia, buzzing with bees, hugged both sides of the house.  Enormous blossoms of magnolia in the next-door neighbor’s yard could be glimpsed and enjoyed.  Leaning over the fence was a mimosa tree, covered with fluffy pink flowers borrowed from a Dr. Seuss book.  A few late-blooming clusters of purple wisteria still remained.  To my recollection, Atlanta had never smelled better, or appeared more beautiful.   It sure felt good to be back in my hometown.

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Privet canopy.
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Abelia.
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Mimosa.

 

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Wisteria.

All this week, back in Virginia after our return, the words of this melancholy John Prine song have been echoing in my mind.  It may be a while before I can lay myself down again the arms of my darling hometown.  I hope I’ll go there in my dreams.

Far away over the sea
there’s a river that’s calling to me.
That river she runs all around
the place that I call my hometown.

There’s a valley on the side of a hill
and flowers on an old window sill.
A familiar old picture, it seems,
and I go there tonight in my dreams.

Where it’s green in the summer
and gold in the fall
Her eyes are as blue,
as the sky, I recall.

Far away over the sea
there’s a place at the table for me.
Where laughter and music abound.
It’s waiting there in my hometown.

The river, she freezes
when there’s snow on the ground,
and the children can slide
to the far side of town.

Far away, far away me,
hung up on a sweet memory.
I’m lost and I wish I were found
in the arms of my darlin’ hometown.

With the evening sun settin’
on the top of the hill
and the mockingbird answering
the old chapel bell.

Far away over the sea
my heart is longing to be.
And I wish I could lay myself down
in the arms of my darlin’ hometown.

My Darlin’ Hometown
by John Prine and Roger Oak

Barred Owl Update

Soon after the chicks first flew, the owls moved on, probably into the nearby woods. The next spring, they tried to return to nest in the same tree. We heard their cries, which by this time we had learned to translate as Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you? We caught sight of them in soundless flight.

 

They didn’t stay, much to our disappointment. My husband climbed a ladder to look into their former home, and saw that the shelf that had supported the nest had collapsed. He and D built an owl box together as a father-daughter project, in hopes that we could lure our feathered friends back again. In the photo immediately below, the box is visible in its first position on the tree. The owls evidently found it unsatisfactory. Maybe it wasn’t situated high enough, H thought. The following spring, he risked life and limb to attach the box much farther up in the tree, as shown in the second photo below. I remember my alarm when I returned from an errand one windy Saturday morning and saw him standing on a tall ladder by the tree, the owl box balanced precariously on one shoulder.  Despite H’s grand gesture, the owls said No, thanks. They have not returned since, we are sad to say.

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The immense old tree that sheltered our family of owls no longer stands. On a sunny Easter Sunday in 2011, we were eating dinner with my parents on the back porch when we heard a thunderous crash. We followed the sound to the front yard, where we discovered that half the tree had simply fallen to the ground. We knew it was nearing the end of its life span. Its hollowness was what had made it especially attractive to the owls. Still, it was painful to see so much of that massive tree splintered in pieces on the lawn.

On the tall remaining section, the never-used owl box was unscathed.  Creaking sounds could be heard emanating from the tree.  It couldn’t stand for long, and it was a danger, obviously.  The next day, I watched with a heavy heart as the tree was slowly, painstakingly removed.  It took a full crew and a huge bucket truck to reduce our dear big maple to a stump.  The tree was ninety-one years old.  Like the other five that once accompanied it, it had been planted in 1920, the year the house was built.  I had recently spoken with one of the daughters whose parents had built the house.  In her mid-nineties when we talked, she shared vivid memories of growing up in her family home.  I told her how magnificent the maples were.  She replied that she distinctly remembered the day she helped plant them, “from switches.”

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Of the six original trees, only two remain.  One day we will plant young trees in place of those we have lost. For now, though, the owls’ former home will be marked by a slowly deteriorating stump.  Every tree company in northern Virginia, it seems, has stopped to give us a good price for stump grinding.  We always say no.  Unlike the owls, we find it hard to move on.

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On the left, one of our two remaining silver maples.  On the right, the stump of what will always be for us the owl tree.

Please, This is a Private Puddle

Recent heavy rains here in Northern Virginia have created a network of temporary ponds along low-lying roadside areas.  This is good news to a pair of mallard ducks in the neighborhood.  Last spring and summer, they took up residence in one such puddle-pond on our street whenever weather permitted.  Just a few days ago, they appeared again, as though opening their vacation home for the season. 

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Nearly always, the pair sticks together; it’s rare to see one without the other.  While I have no credentials in duck psychology, I see them as a couple seeking respite from the chatter of the loving yet overbearing familial horde.  When they get the chance to steal away to this cozy pond, pleasantly shaded by cedar and pine trees, they take it, and they savor it.  The puddle is just big enough for two, but no more.  It’s their peaceful hideaway, a summer getaway, with no guest room or pull-out sofa.  Please, this puddle is private.

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One afternoon, I was a bit alarmed to see the male duck alone in his micro-pond.

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When I checked back shortly, I was relieved to see that Mrs. Mallard had returned.  Her presence apparently relaxed her mate enough so that he could catch some z’s.

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Yesterday, after a couple of days without rain, the ducks were gone.  Their private puddle, like so many treasures, is ephemeral.  Its water level had dropped considerably, and the area, shown above, more closely resembled a reedy marsh than a pond.

But barring unforeseen incident, the ducks will be back.  Once again, the skies this morning are ominously heavy and gray.  Storms are coming.  I wonder how ducks feel when battered by vicious weather.  I assume they are well-suited, like the best-constructed boats, to ride it out.  I doubt they are gripped by overwhelming fear, as Kiko is now, huddled at my feet in the kneehole of my desk, shaking, his generic xanax having little effect.  And unlike most human vacationers, the ducks have discovered a retreat that is improved by bad weather.  When the skies clear, I expect to see the devoted mallard couple enjoying their time alone, floating serenely in a more luxurious puddle. 

May Marvels

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Every May, our backyard undergoes a spectacular costume change.  Our family considers it all the more glorious because we remember when it retained the drab, unadorned look of a concrete wasteland all year long.  See Up from the Concrete, Roses, May 2012.  As the month begins, our twin red maples start the cycle and burst into brilliant foliage.  When the sun shines, they absolutely glow. 

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By mid-May, the Double Knock-Out Roses by the fence are overloaded with flowers.

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The pale pink climbing roses on the garage trellis join the party next.   A gray catbird, visible on the fence at far left, has been busy making a nest in one of our red maples.  A pair of cardinals claimed a spot among the trellis roses.

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Kiko gazes at the world beyond our fence, which also gets a May makeover.

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At the very beginning of the month, the scruffy, thorny, typically disheveled locust trees by our driveway dress up and perfume the air with their delicate white blossoms.

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The many pockets of heavily wooded public land in our neighborhood are lush and fragrant every May with an abundance of honeysuckle and wild white roses.

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This most beautiful and sweet-smelling month is drawing to a close, once again, all too soon.

Savor these last May days.

Count today, and be glad that there are two still to be enjoyed!

Cicadas!

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They’re coming.  Cicadas, in extraordinary numbers, will soon be waking from their seventeen-year naps.   Really?  It hasn’t been seventeen years since they last overwhelmed our area.  I know this for certain.  An intense cicada season  is not forgotten. Our daughter was five, nearly a preschool graduate.  Time does fly, but she’s only fourteen now, not twenty-two.

We hear it’s likely that the DC area will see more cicadas than usual this year.  Various broods hatch every seventeen years, and this year’s Brood II is not the one that deluged us here in Northern Virginia in 2004.  Fairfax County lies on the outer limit of this coming brood, so we may not feel the impact as strongly as places farther south.  We’ve heard from my husband’s brother that the big, lumbering insects have indeed been spotted in their neighborhood in Richmond. Our daughter’s young cousins have never been party to a cicada invasion.  I hope they enjoy it as much as she did.

D has always had a soft spot for oddball creatures.  I admire her ability to find beauty where many cannot see it.  She took an immediate liking to H’s pet box turtle, with us since we married, and before that, with H since he was a boy.  Speedy (H was twelve when he named it) lives in a spacious glass box in our basement.  He dines on raw ground beef, blueberries, and now, thanks to Kiko, canned dog food.  Occasionally he gets the run of the basement or one of our larger bathrooms.  D maintains that Speedy is terribly cute, although few would agree.  As a toddler, she befriended the numerous toads that make their home each spring in our yard.  She named them and discussed their differentiating traits of appearance and personality–how she could distinguish Squeaky, say, from Emily.  As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, she loves all the bizarre aquatic life of Cape Cod bay, including the spider crabs and the slimy moon snails.  See Our Summer Village on the Cape, September 2013.

D’s five-year old self welcomed the cicadas enthusiastically.  She picked them up, but gently, carefully.  She enjoyed letting them amble along her arms, even on her face; she often had one perched on her nose.  She loved their segmented, transparent wings, red bulbous eyes, stick-like legs, and coal-black armored bodies.  I agree that each full-fledged cicada is a majestic specimen, and I find their uncertain, drunken flight very endearing.  But I don’t care much for the nymph stage, in which they first appear after their long gestation period.  They tend to tunnel out of the ground in unsettling droves around dusk, each cicada leaving a perfectly round, approximately half-inch hole in the earth.  D didn’t even mind the look of these initial wingless, moist, pale beige creatures.  Unattractive, I would call them. Or  better yet, just plain icky.  D wasn’t put off by the discarded exoskeletons that clung to tree branches, reminding me of some dreaded dermatological condition, or the pile-up that accumulated around the bases of our old maples. She wasn’t bothered by the noise, a sound like the roar of a hundred generators and power mowers.  And she wasn’t even offended by the smell of pervasive decay, rather like the scent of rotting shrimp, that marks the winding down of cicada season.

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It will be interesting to see the scope of this coming invasion and how it affects us this time.  Will it be really be an onslaught?  Will D, at fourteen, be as eager to mix it up with the cicadas as she was nine years ago?  And what about Kiko?  While he thrills at the hunt for the single buzzing cicada in the grass, this will be his first major brood year.  Will he try to gorge himself on the insects, as some dogs do?  Considering his finicky nature and dainty habits, this seems unlikely.

The Cicada Clock is ticking.  Recent mornings here have been unusually chilly, but surely spring-like weather will arrive before long.  Will the warming earth send these Rip Van Winkles of the insect world out just in time for H’s family’s Memorial Day visit?  We were together, memorably, nine years ago for the holiday.  As we watched D enjoy the kiddie rides at our local carnival, cicadas hitched rides on our clothing and in our hair.  Occasionally a particularly clumsy new flyer would careen into one of our faces.  Will this year’s start to summer bring with it another such noteworthy interspecies reunion? 

Escape to the Country, in Suburbia

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One of the most appealing features of our little corner of Northern Virginia is the beauty of its landscape.  It’s pleasantly hilly, interestingly rolling, never aggressively steep.  Woodlands are interspersed with open fields, vestigial traces of the many farms that dotted the area in the last century.  We consider ourselves fortunate to live in one of the last few surviving farmhouses.  On their 200 acres, the original owners planted wheat and raised chickens.  They had a small apple orchard and a sizable flower garden.

On the other side of the winding county road, where big fields sweep down to small lakes, some families still keep horses.  There are charming little stables, grassy paddocks and old vine-covered wooden fences.  When Kiko and I walk there, it’s hard to believe we’re in suburbia, a place I never expected to live.  We cross the road, follow a short path through the woods, and we’re suddenly somewhere more remote.  It’s almost like a quick trip through time and space to the countryside of my childhood at my grandparents’ farm in Kentucky.  Early on a spring morning, it’s an especially satisfying escape.

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Spring Color and Warmth, Long Time Coming

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It was a cold March here in Northern Virginia, but spring began with real promise.  On that first day of the season, it seemed as though warmth, bright color and new life were truly on their way.  Then, somehow, the pause button was pushed.  Or maybe it was the reverse switch, because throughout the rest of the month, we got the weather we should have had in February.  We got the snow that the kids had hoped for all winter.  Mornings were frosty, with icy winds and various threats of frozen precipitation.  Afternoons were only somewhat less bitter, and nights were consistently cold. Buds and blooms put themselves on hold, understandably unwilling to emerge in the inhospitable climate.  I needed every bit of my winter dog-walking gear, from the woolen hiking socks to the mittens and fuzzy scarf.

When the first warm weather arrived last Friday, it caught me completely off guard.  I had almost given up hope that spring would ever again feel like spring.  The morning felt expectedly chilly, but by the time Kiko and I returned from our walk, he was panting vigorously and I was carrying a bundle of outer wear.  That afternoon was absolutely perfect weather for April.  Saturday was warmer still.  On Sunday, even I was digging around in my closet for shorts and T-shirts. Yesterday the temperature reached 80 degrees.  Kiko, who had spent the entire weekend sleeping in the sun on the patio, took refuge in the shade of the porch.  He had the exhausted, overheated grimace he wears during most of August.   Today the expected high is 82.  On Wednesday, it might reach 90.

It’s a tiresome and ungrateful practice to complain about the weather, especially when there are those not so far away who continue to suffer in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, not to mention other natural disasters world-wide.  Still, couldn’t we have had another Pause on Saturday, when the weather was pleasant and actually spring-like?  Instead we got Fast-Forwarded.  But the neighborhood sure looks beautiful.

 

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I love it when the reddish buds of the maple trees
create the look of a rose-colored wash.

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A spring-flowering magnolia, in exuberant bloom.

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These  hearty purple vinca flowers appeared in late February.
At last they look comfortable, as they bask in the sun.

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This small tree flourishes despite its proximity to the path of my daughter’s rope swing.  Its buds open to reveal raggedy  flowers with a lemony fragrance.
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A few daffodils are finally blooming in our yard.

Day 1: Spring 2013

Kiko refuses to acknowledge Daylight Savings Time; his alarm does not reset in the wee hours of March 9.  He remains purposefully curled in his bed until actual daylight has worked its way into our house.  Accordingly, we’ve been walking later.  He has the right idea, I realize.  March mornings this year have tended toward the cold and cloudy.  A walk at  7 AM is likely to be an exercise in gray.  An hour or two later, the world is a brighter, warmer, more welcoming place, and its beauty can be better appreciated.

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Two days ago, the daffodils were bowed down by yet another late snow. As the sun warms their bobbing heads on this first day of spring, it’s good to see that they’re none the worse for bearing that chilly burden.

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The maple trees are getting the message:  it really is go time.

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These cherry trees in our neighborhood, in the first stage of bloom, are right on schedule.  The National Cherry Blossom Festival begins today in DC, with peak bloom expected April 3 – 6.

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Kiko and I walk past these mahonia shrubs nearly every day.  Mahonia is a vicious looking plant, especially during late summer and fall.  Only Morticia Addams would include it in a bouquet. With its tough, spiky leaves, it resembles holly on steroids.  In the very midst of winter, however, it begins to show a gentler side; it bears tiny, pale yellow, bell-like flowers that fill the frosty air with a fresh lemony fragrance.  As spring arrives, the flowers give way to lush clusters of oval-shaped berries, much loved by the birds.  This particular plant is leatherleaf mahonia, or mahonia bealei.  Incredibly hearty, it’s invasive if left unchecked.  What began as a single mahonia plant in my parents’ back yard forty years ago is now a tall, rather forbidding free-form hedge.  I have a soft spot in my heart for mahonia; like nandina and wild trumpet vine, it reminds me of home.  When I was growing up, mahonia berries featured prominently in playtime pretend recipes.  Light green when they first appear, the berries darken to purple as they ripen. They have a delicate, powdery outer coating, which disappears as they’re handled, revealing the fruit’s true, more intense color.  For this reason, mahonia berries often served as the primary ingredient in the “magic” potions my friends and I concocted.  Sometimes, all that stood between life and death in our imagined storylines was a single, glowing mahonia berry.

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Walking in the sun with my dog on this first morning of spring, I could feel the new season at hand. The birds were chirping, yelling, soaring, partying.  Squirrels were jumping and scurrying with renewed vigor, much to Kiko’s delight.  Plants were edging up out of brown, dead leaves, stretching new green shoots into the light.  I’m in a mood to buy eggs, baby salad greens and asparagus.  This afternoon, I might even get out the Easter decorations.  Maybe it will be like the old days, when my daughter looked forward to getting home from school so she and I could dye eggs and gather branches for our Easter tree.  Maybe.  Spring makes all things new again.  We’ll see.

May spring bring new warmth and joy to your life!

At Long Last, A Snow Day in Northern Virginia

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The snow that my daughter has yearned for all winter here in Virginia finally arrived early this morning.  Understandably, this first significant, inordinately late snow of the season is a much-anticipated weather event.  All week long every local TV station has had their Storm Watch coverage going full force.  Giddy newscasters reported from points as yet untouched by snow, assuring us that the flakes were on their way.  Usually, when this happens, it’s either a huge deal, like the blizzard of December 2009 that shut down the DC area for a week, or it’s a complete and utter bust.  This was different; it fell somewhere in between.

Not a flake had descended at midnight last night.  When we awoke this morning, it didn’t look like much, just a minimal coating on the ground and a fine snow floating down.  But more was emphatically promised.  Forecasts called for heavy snow all day and into the night.  Schools, the Federal government, and many offices were closed. Even H’s office was closed, which is very rare indeed.

Once D and I went out to walk Kiko, enormous, sloppy flakes the size of mini-snowballs began pelting, and quickly drenching us.  It was like walking in a heavy, thick, wet rain.  It was not especially pleasant.

The snow continues to fall thickly now.  D is at a friend’s house sledding, and H is out on the driveway with his never-before-used snow blower.  He knew the snow was probably too wet, but he had to give the new toy a try.  It’s kicking up an impressively wide spray of white slush. I hope both D and H are happy.  Kiko and I are.  We’re inside, warm and dry, and we plan to stay that way.

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Kiko doesn’t seem to mind wearing his coat, which keeps him somewhat dry.  He doesn’t like rain, and this snow bears a strong resemblance to rain.

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Kiko has had enough of the fat white rain.  Time to go in and dry off.