When nature comes to play

It seems as if all of nature has arrived on the Cutoff.

In between the weeding and pruning, my head bowed down to the soil, three flashes went by. Runner in sync, perhaps training for the Chicago Marathon. As they went past, headphones on, gait measured, I heard the clop, clop, clop of horse hoofs. My own Belmont Stakes on a sunny Saturday morn.

When it rains here, the ground sways with the movement of toads. We’ve had no rain here in quite a spell, so the hose was employed on Saturday morn and this little guy, as if prescient to my reading The Wind in the Willows, just missed my footfall as he hopped under a hosta leaf.

Several families of wrens have arrived: some just setting up housekeeping in a discarded bird house, others already tending a family in the bluebird house, and yet another couple working a hole in the overhang. They chatter about as they gather insects for their young or nesting material with their little tails up in the air and their singing so boisterous for such tiny little things. I just love the twig, squeezed into the box, a perch for Momma Wren.

The finch are also about, especially the goldfinch. They visit the feeder or stop for a drink, entertaining us with their beauty and song as we sit on the deck eating our evening meal. It is a joy to see them, and pure bliss when a cardinal swoops in and sits on the rail while a hummingbird finds nourishment in the potted Salvia.

I’ve taken to sitting for a spell on the arbor bench, reading a book, or just being; watching as Woodrow Woodchuck, ever-so-shy, scurries past, with meadowlark cruising the grassland while a hawk soars overhead. Sometimes, a friend stops by for a treat, we lock eyes for a minute, then life goes on as it is want to do, here  on the Cutoff.

Tom and I sat for a bit, wondering where the bluejays were. Their population has been greatly diminished by the West Nile Virus, with many years going by without seeing them. As we chatted, a distinctive blue flashed by and rested on a branch, not far from the wrens’ abode. The bluejays came back, as if hearing our caw, all on a summer’s day!

I love it when nature comes out to play.

It is when magical things happen in a garden.

 

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To deadhead or not to deadhead . . .

I know. I need to go out into the garden, pull some overly exuberant weeds, and snip, snip, snip those dead heads hanging on to summer’s earlier glory. I know I need to – and yet I resist. Just walking out to the mailbox has me flailing my arms and swatting my face in a wild waltz of West Nile avoidance. Deadheading the garden means bug spray; bug spray with deet and the cloying, chemical smell of it all. I attract mosquitos. They wait for me, a well armed militia, at the back door, on the deck, under the arbor, up my nose, and even in my sleep. “Hey guys, here she is. You advance from the rear, I’ll get her front.”

It is even worse when I wear a skirt!

So, the daisies languish, their flower heads now spent and withered. The Salvia are sulking, the ferns fretting, and the hostas are pouting. The brown eyed Susans – now, they have had the decency to keep up appearances – and the cone flowers . . .

. . . the coneflowers are a jumble with some brave hangers-on whose colors are brilliant in their last hurrah. The monarchs and swallowtail flutter about them as the crickets strum, a prelude to autumn, the cicadas moan and these dog days of summer persist.

I should deadhead. I know. I thought this aloud as I drove down the drive yesterday afternoon. I always look at the island of flowers to see what is happening and yesterday a lot was happening. It WAS a happening. I became a flower child as I drove around the plantings in my mocha colored VW and the Mamas and the Papas came to mind. There they were, little yellow goldfinches with their black markings and pale beaks, flitting about and singing with glee as they  landed on branches that bent with respect and they perched upon coneflowers,  partaking in a midday meal. We see goldfinch all the time on the feeder hanging just off of our deck, but this is the first time I have come to find them in our garden with such a colorful display and vigor as they pecked at the seeds of the coneflowers.

I stopped the car for no less than five minutes and watched one well-attired chap not three feet away as he feasted on the seed head, cracking the hard coverings and eating with abandon under the hot August sun.

I think I will wait for another day to deadhead and just enjoy the peaceful setting that has come my way here on the cutoff.

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