Worth the Effort

Rain saturated the earth this month and after 10 winters (or more) the 2x6 holding the bluebird box tilted in the softened yellow clay. Despite my many shims, finally it fell and I let it lie there until reminded by an online post that male bluebirds in Missouri start seeking their housing in late February. And I panicked. I need bluebirds.

Only one solution: Quik-Crete concrete. Never tried it before. At the hardware store the smallest bag was 50 pounds. Stunned when it was carted out to the car and I saw 50 pounds of Quik-Crete is no bigger than a party-sized bag of potato chips.

At home I slid the bag out of the back seat onto an old shower curtain and dragged it to the site. Oh my, it really was 50 pounds. Thinking I might have a heart attack I prepared by securing the phone on my person and then opened the garage door so I could crawl into it, shut the door and die there without being eaten by coyotes the same night. Then read the instructions on the bag.

Shoveled most of the water out of the hole. Dug wet mud out until it was two feet wide. Shovel caught on some roots somehow growing through the clay; clipped the roots out. Took breaks, gasping and sweating. Frantically drinking water so as to keep my blood volume. Bluebirds are among the two or three things beautiful enough to die for. Dropped a shovel full of gravel into the hole's very bottom. Unable to figure out how to hold the post upright while pouring, I dragged the trash can into the meadow and leaned it. Now then. Donned breathing mask, gloves, long sleeves and eye protection as the instructions recommended.

The YouTube video guy poured the Quik-Crete directly into the hole, so instead of mixing it and then pouring I wrestled the bag to the lip of the hole, slit it and let the material pour in, fast as possible, face averted from its dust, then poured in water measured into my watering can, meanwhile holding the post upright until the Quik-Crete hardened (mere seconds!) and then fled to the house to shower, leaving tools, bag, mask, etc. in the yard because surely the dust would turn to concrete in my lungs. Relieved to think I would never have to do this again. Now I know why people leave stuff to rust and rot in their yards: They are too exhausted to pick it up.

Fifty pounds of Quik-Crete exactly filled the hole and now it's perfect.

Winter Comes to Missouri

"Merry Christmas," I said to the custodian while tracking icy, dirty snow water onto his clean floor in the middle of March, the first snowy day after a string of 60- to 75-degree February days that had us all smug and out on the porch wearing tees and shorts. I was so happy I'd taken advantage of a clear dry Saturday, the previous week, to visit a distant university library during its spring break where its librarians, otherwise idle, waited on me, patiently answering low-hanging questions about the technology and returning over and over to my computer terminal to teach me things about stuff when of course they would rather be sunning.

Luckily I'd chosen that over planting vegetable seeds. Never be fooled by Missouri weather. During the warm days the bluebirds arrived and I raked up leaves into long landing strips of wet earth and sparse grass because they eat by pinning live prey to the earth. They do that more easily if the ground is free of fallen leaves and I was promptly at their service because bluebirds are among the top 100 things about life. I am their custodian. May I be always strong enough to do the job.

While looking for beauty I found a nest I'd never seen before although it had to have been there all winter.

A Really Good Morning

This misty morning, 7 a.m,  after thunderstorms last night, was so dreamlike I took the creaky old Nikon (2004) and not the phone, because the Nikon has great optics, to photograph the marvelous drifting clouds of mist. As I approached the bluebird box, a pair of dark anxious eyes appeared at its opening. Bluebirds like and want to settle in the wooden bluebird boxes humans make; they thrive where humans plow and mow, allowing the birds to locate crawling things they can pin down and eat. I remove and scrub out the bluebird box twice a year (have found bats, snakes, piles of thorny sticks, and a colony of bees); and properly made bluebird boxes can be opened by the side panel for inspection by landlords such as myself. I came closer yet, raising the camera, and out the bluebird flew.

Then I unhooked the side of the box and gently removed the nest, and in it found five baby bluebirds in a warm little heap, breathing and sleeping, and took a photo only the Nikon, not the phone, can take, and here it is.

The Day We've Waited For

Sunday, February 20, was the most blessed day of the year, the one I hope and hope for, the day the first crocuses bloomed-- right in my yard beneath the hickory tree. Here they are! A freakishly warm day, about 70 degrees. Nobody complained! And even better, it was the first day of the calendar year that I heard spring peepers, the world's most wonderful sound. And even better, a pair of bluebirds were claiming the bluebird house in the meadow. That is wealth!

Somebody asked me what was the most beautiful sentence in the English language and I thought a while about the sentence that made me happiest, and then quoted them from a cookbook: "While the second batch is baking, frost the first batch."

Well, that's culture, and here's nature. God am I happy!

Wednesday Walking Club

Three inches of rain last night, so at 10 a.m. only two other members of the Wednesday Walking Club were present; nonetheless, we hiked three miles, looking at swollen streams the color of chocolate milk, surrounded by thick greenery and strange prairie plants, under the gray sky which is the blue sky having thoughts. Saw a heron, a pair of bluebirds guarding their box, swifts, red-winged blackbirds, a warbler, a pileated woodpecker high in a dead treetop; they and the frogs together made wild music. We soaked in it and then returned to the world, which then looked and felt very different.