Bobolinks

When I was a girl, all summer there were bobolinks on our farm on French Road. In time they disappeared, probably victims to the DDT sprayed on the fields in those days before Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

I think it was about ten years ago that Gary and I spotted a solitary bobolink at the edge of the national forest near the village of Fence. It was like seeing an old friend.

In time, we would regularly see bobolinks in the north, but it was last summer that Dan Jach, town handyman and amateur birder, told us that bobolinks had taken up residence on Cooper Road, next to the Oneida Buffalo Farm.  Gary and I drove over and sure enough, there were half a dozen of them.

This spring, I kept going over to Cooper Road to see what was happening.  It was there that the brakes went out on my car earlier this spring.  Over and over I plagued Gary to stop.  Today, we were returning from a shopping expedition in Green Bay.  He was driving the Subaru and balked.  "It's still too early," he said. They only arrive with the bugs.

With a little pouting, I had my way.  I was right because there they were.  I think we saw four of the birds in all.

The bobolink is a member of the blackbird family but unlike the others, it is black underneath and white on top with that distinctive yellow cap. There is no way to make a mistake in identification.

Gary points out that one reason the bobolinks arrive so late is that they travel so far from south of the equator each autumn and making a round-trip of approximately 12,500 miles. One female, known to be at least 9 years old, made this trip annually with a total distance equal to traveling 4.5 times around the earth at the equator.  No wonder they take their time.  

So now they are here, bringing a childhood memory with them.     

Busy

First of all, no frost hit Mathom Gardens as predicted.  None of the plants left outside were damaged save for two tomato plants that were blown over by wind. I expect my flowers and vegetables are safe now.

It took me an hour to bring all the potted plants inside yesterday and it took another hour to take them back out. Then I had more weeding, deadheading and planting to do.  But before all that happened, I had a short story to finish.

This story came out of a Skyping conversation I had with Wade Peterson over a week ago. I mentioned that when someone comes into money, they are suddenly viewed differently by friends, neighbors and relatives.  It goes with the territory.  I thought then that it would be a good idea to do a story about money. I talked about it with another friend and she said it was a grasshopper and ant story.

And that brought me to Aesop.  The result was "Aesop's Fable" now at Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com  It's another Glen Valley story.  Glen Valley is a small Midwestern town with a variety of characters.  When Wade, Betty and I publish our next collection of short stories next September, we'll each have a separate section.  Wade will have Michael and Corncob tales about two sad sack guys with special abilities.  Betty will tell all about Porpoise McAllister, a misfit.  My stories will all take place in Glen Valley.  I figure I need at least six stories for the collection so I'll be writing those all summer.

In a week, Gary and I start our camping season which means that most of my writing, including this blog, will take place in the little office in our new camper. Writing each day is a discipline.  Will I be able to keep it up?

Tonight, I've been working through the itinerary for my July trip around Lake Superior. I have five libraries lined up and now I need to fill the time between with senior residences and nursing homes. These do little more than pay for the cost of gas.

Putting this life of mine together is rather like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. So many parts to my life and they all have to fit together smoothly.     

Last Frost

The forecasters are warning of a final spring frost though it may not happen.  They tell us the low temperature  is to be 35 degrees.  However, the lowest temperatures are always out in the country.  My Mathom Gardens are well protected.  The temperatures are usually higher.

However, to be on the safe side, I brought in most of the pots.  The dianthus and pansies will do fine outside. They can stand freezing temperatures.  The rest of the plants are in the living room, waiting until the warm weather tomorrow.

The plants in the ground and the heavier pots I leave to chance. I am more worried about the plants up in the cemetery.  They are exposed at the top of the hill with no cover whatsoever.  I'll go up tomorrow and see if I have to replace them.

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This morning Wade and I tried to figure out how to put the covers of my books on this blog so that they connect to Amazon.com.  So far, only the Black Coffee Fiction link works.  However we managed to get Yesterday's Secrets, Tomorrow's Promises and Decades of Love and Other Disasters are here as photos.

All three books are at Amazon.com.

Noises

On a rainy day, Gary and I are doing interior work.  No gardening for me.  No work on the camper for him.

So I am trying to work on the Ontario tour while he is in the basement, building something, using every noisy tool he has. So that makes me think about noise.

One of my neighbors was complaining about the children next door making so much noise. They do scream a lot on their trampoline, but he has the noisiest riding lawnmower I've ever heard and a dog that barks nonstop every time I go out to garden.  That dog even barks late into the evening so I mask the noise with a fan.

Neighbors all around me like their lawn gadgets. There are lawnmowers, both push and riding. There are gas edging tools used on the edge of sidewalks. Hedge trimmers, leaf blowers, anything and everything and anything being used at any time during the day. Any one of the neighbors would tell me we live in a quiet neighborhood, but with so many doing yard work at different hours, the few minutes when they go into their houses for supper give me silence that is truly golden.

I finally had to ask one neighbor to move a wind chime which was so loud my fan couldn't cover the noise.
Another talks louder and louder the more beer he drinks.

Finally, on Sunday nights there are stock car races at the fairgrounds every Sunday night.  The fairgrounds are on the north side of town a mile away from here, but in the valley while we are on a ridge so the sound carries well. We get a stereo attack of cars revving their motors. Those who go to the races love them, but I like being out of town camping on Sunday nights.

I guess noise is in the ear of the listener.  

Flowers and Birds

I've always said that writers need things to go wrong to find stories. Perfect days may be wonderful to live through but they offer nothing to the readers. So I apologize right away because this was as close to a perfect day as could be.

It was another superb spring day, warm and calm with occasional light rain to provide what my flowers need.  I worked in the garden.  I kept watch for an unusual visitor. A couple of days ago the birds in my back yard were screaming in anger and panic.  I looked out the window to see a big black bird on the gazebo.  I had seen the same bird elsewhere in town once before.  I thought it was a huge crow but when I called out to it with my best "caw, caw!" it flew a few feet away and grumbled back with a "gronk" and I knew it was a raven, something we usually see only in the north woods.

He was a no show today.

Today I was deadheading the daffodils and hyacinths, now done for the year. The tulips are going that way, too, but I had enough to make up a sizable bouquet for my neighbor Elaine. She is trying to sell her house and in case buyers come to the conclusion that her neighbor is a crazy gardener, they should know living next door to me does come with perks in the way of flowers for every occasion.

Gary wanted me to go to the Manzke farm to help with the camper so I took Susan some tomato plants. At one time I had about seventy of them, all started from seed in the house. I took her Roma, beefsteak and cherry tomato varieties.  My own plants, the ones I started in February, are already flowering.  I should have fresh tomatoes in about three weeks.

While I was sitting with Susan at the kitchen table, we could see a rose-breasted grosbeak at the feeders. When we camp at Laura Lake, they'll be so many we'll be saying "ho hum" but the first of the season is always a thrill.

Later, Gary suggested a drive to Van Patten Road.  There, we saw our favorites. There were more ruddy ducks than I've ever seen in one place.  As usual, there were plenty of Canada geese but now they were joined by newly hatched goslings, little fuzz balls toddling after their parents on shaky webbed feet.

Later, near the Oneida buffalo farm, we found a gang of sandhill cranes socializing in a field.

'

As I said, no exciting story here, just a satisfactory day. 

Dentistry

This morning, I went to see the dentist to have a cap replaced.  The dentist chipped the cap when he was extracting the tooth next to it three weeks ago.  I was delighted because I got a free cap out of it.

A high school student was "shadowing" the procedure because she was thinking about becoming a dentist. I had no problem with that. I told her about the thirteen student nurses who watched me give birth to Chris...then came the next day to give me the baby a present.

Dr. Kraft removed the cracked cap and turned to his new toy.  All guys have to have their toys, but this one was so, so cool. He put a camera in my mouth, took several photos of the area and turned them over to the computer which designed the new cap and created it. Then it was baked in some kind of very small oven for fifteen minutes until it was porcelain..

During those fifteen minutes of baking time, I went over more memories of dentistry.  There was my father who would tie a string around one of his children's loose teeth, the other end on a door knob and slam the door.  It was effective.

There was our first dentist who held us down with one hand and drilled with the other.  In those days there were no dental assistants.  I remember waiting to see the dentist.  I could see him drilling my brother's teeth.  His legs were flailing wildly and whenever the dentist removed his drill, Carl screamed.  And I was next in line!  In those days there was no painkiller.  That came later.  Now there is no need for it, the procedures are so fast the shot in the gums is more painful than the drilling.

Times have changed for the better. The porcelain cap was popped in my mouth and my visit was over.

The Graveyard

With rain forecast for the next few days, we felt we should take care of my parents' graves.  If we could get the flowers in place before the rains, they would do well up on that rocky ridge.

First, we went to Appleton to the garden center at Menards, the one Gary used to work at each summer.  There I bought geraniums, ageratum and alyssum using a gift card I got from Chris, Tisha and Evan.

At the cemetery, Gary did the spading, while I worked on weeding the hosta plants growing there.  Then I went into planting mode while he sat down and leaned back against a tombstone and watched.  It was a hot day but he reported that the grave stone was nice and cool.

I always feel content as I work the flowers into the ground. This ritual is one of the two times I spend time thinking of the family, the other being Christmas. The graves are on the corner of French and Cemetery Roads. Drivers of cars, trucks and motorcycles looked up the banks and waved at us. This is a small community, so I recognized some of the folks.

In the distance, we could see farmers working in their fields. It is planting season. My father selected this site because of the farms.  Later, the golf course club house was built across the road, but you can still ignore the parking lot traffic and look beyond it to a Wisconsin farm scene.

In the trees all around us we could glimpse warblers flitting here and there.  No matter who lies beneath the sod, there is life surrounding this country graveyard.  

We finished our work and I said good-bye to my parents and my sister until Christmas when we place the wreath in the snow.