I Do Wrong, and Then I Do Right

A plump bumblebee buzzes bounces all day in front of my door every spring and summer, upward and down, and then moving laterally, persistently, and I understand that its "dance" is communicating with other bees. A second bee, this one, joined it, but I'm having guests and I don't want hovering bees, about 18 inches from my front door, to scare them. The bees live in this burrow in the little wooden canopy above the door (with plenty of holes in it), and the slenderer bee, this one, has been going in and out of the perfectly round little hole, about half an inch diameter, and what's in there I cannot guess.

So about 1 p.m. I got scotch tape and the stepladder and taped over the hole. Fixed!

Oh. This bee worked for an hour trying to get back into the hole while its friend the bumblebee bounced around in what looked like a panic. It probably felt as I did trying for hours to link the Mac's new Big Sur update to a 2010 Brother wireless printer that until Big Sur worked fine. I remembered that we should be good to bees. Wasps are another story, and they've stung me, but bees, never.

 

I realized I had been thoughtless and had done wrong to creatures who lived here all season every spring and summer and had never done me wrong. After an hour and a half this bee was still trying to nudge its way past or through the scotch tape. I got on a stepladder and stuck a chopstick in there to break the tape. The hole was open, but not wide enough for the bee to shoulder its way through, although God knows it tried. Bringing the stepladder once again, I reached up and clawed all the tape away from around the entrance to their home/office/palace/nest. There now.

 

We all feel better. I had to buy an updated printer, finding out after calling everybody that Big Sur simply does not and never will support the printer I had.

What If I Said Yes?

I let errands pile up until I have four or five, then drive to town to do them, and yesterday, as the snows melted in the February sun, came an impulse to pick up a takeout salad. Oh, man, how I fought with myself, turning in the direction of the place, then turning away, then turning the car around and back because I could make salad at home. I shouldn't spend the money, because when I'm old and shivering I'll wish I'd saved it . . . But gosh, I can't ever treat myself? And the portions are big enough to make two meals . . . I overthought a Chicken Caesar salad. I wanted it all readymade, with potato chips and a cookie. It's been months since I've had a bag of chips or an oversized greasy coffeehouse cookie.

Thus they were made manifest, bagged, and passed to me through an open window and as the day neared noon and 60 degrees -- a full 60 degrees warmer than the previous week -- I thought it ideal for the year's first picnic. I added a plate of sliced apple and a beer. (Beer: It's not just for breakfast anymore!) My in-laws always know when they visit to bring a case of Wisconsin beer, and because they visit twice a year at most and less so this year, I hoard my beers for special occasions, like the first day of 2021 warm enough for porch dining.

Salud! Then I had a nap.

Happiness is a Warm Gun

I'll call it guano. Birds at my feeders left several spots on my porch screens, and just as you don't leave guano on a vehicle or your hat you don't leave it on aluminum screening either, for more than a season. The screens are beneath the eaves and rarely washed by rain.

Removing each screen and spray washing each with the hose was too much work. Spray washing the screens while they were in place, from the outside, would force guano inward onto the porch when that was the opposite of the goal. The screen frames are also old and fragile and the screening very delicately sandwiched between their pieces -- can't power-wash. And when the porch walls get wet the paint peels.

Rooting through the garage found me the answer: the old plastic-embedded-with-glitter "Splash" squirtgun, one of two. The pink squirtgun I'd favored got clogged with hard-water residue. This one still worked, and I'd kept it for 10 years thinking someday I might need it, and smack my butt and call me Sally, after filling the squirtgun with warm water I stood inside the porch and with skillful aim squirted water outward through my screens and I was pleased as punch that probably no one else in the county did the exact same thing today.

Nests

 Without screens for 19 days the Divine Cabin looked like a skull, or a jaw without teeth, or eyeless, or simply shabby, conked-out, or abandoned until today I retrieved my new screens from the hardware store (again 3 round trips to bring all 7 panels home; for delivery one must buy $300 of stuff and my total was $284). I've had flu for the last eight days and now bothered only by malaise and cough, decided to shower, dress, go get 'em and see if I felt better.

One last time out on the screen-free porch I had to scrape from beneath a rafter a nest built by a persistent house wren (see photo), a nest loosely woven from moss and dry leaves and grass. Could you build a nest using only your bill and natural materials? I couldn't.

Pulled from the closet some army-green jeans at least 15 years old -- I haven't bought jeans since, they don't flatter me -- and darn, they fit; that was a good omen. When my wooden screens rolled out on a cart they looked lovely and although the frames are 80 years old nothing had been broken. All was just as I had handed it over, except for the new pristine and skillful aluminum screening.

Proceeded to cook and eat the most normal lunch I've had in a week, sit, rest, then attempt to install the screens -- a second huge effort that day, didn't know if it was smart. I did it. Here's a photo taken as the sun slanted across, about 6 p.m. I'll find out tomorrow if I've overstepped my recovery. But now I'll be able to convalesce if I have to on my porch. The divine porch! My nest!

The Old-Timey Screens

The screened porch is 50 percent of the reason I live here, and I'd patched its holes for years but last summer so many that fresh screening is this season's home improvement priority. But I had no idea how. "Old-timey hardware stores will do it," I heard. "Bring 'em in by Thursday," they said at Cotton's Ace, where I learned why my patches never held well, and why critter claws so easily pierced the screens -- they are fiberglass. That means too the screening is not 80 years old although their frames are. I ordered aluminum replacement screening.

In the Tuesday night cold by the light of the lone yellow porch bulb I unhooked seven of the eight screens (the photo shows five) and for the first time pulled them down. Painted, repainted, nailed on, chewed, their varying sizes did not fit into the car so Wednesday I drove three round trips to the store, but it was the first day of spring and I was jubilant and look forward to driving three round trips back.

I'd previously asked the price and thought they'd said .35 per square inch of screen. With 10,007 square inches of screen the total was $3,527 or thereabouts -- shocked, I wondered if perhaps I was mistaken, as I am far more often than I think-- and in fact it's more like .035 per square inch.

The man who did the paperwork (lots) said that the trim holding the screening onto the frame was fragile and might have to be broken to remove the old screens and staples and I said fine, I'd pay as long as the trim was replaced. Oh, did I mention I'm paying? This is my project -- not a necessity but a "lifestyle" choice -- while the landlord contemplates installing new carpeting in the Divine living room and bedroom. It's a more than fair exchange, in my view.  (While they install the carpet I can live on the porch.) You might pout and say "You ought to make them pay at least some," but I appreciate beyond words having a job and being able to restore something so enchanting as the porch, my box seat on nature and the seasons.