A Morning Person's Observations #7: Nesting

I recently spent a week with some of the Blythes in Colorado, then a few days with my Aunt Angie outside of Denver, then took a long road trip with my friend Matt back to Seattle. The morning after we got to Seattle, I took Matt to the Pea Patch so he could see where the magic happens. We sipped our coffee and he identified all the plants (he's much better in a garden than I am!), and I saw the prayer flags dangling from the tree. They made me smile.

flags on fence, with flags in background

more flags!

There are a few flags in the Pea Patch. On the fence, on the trellis, but my favorite is that one hanging from the tree. It's my favorite because a few weeks ago I saw a squirrel bite it in half and then try to run off with one of the pieces, but struggling because there was still an end attached to the tree. Eventually the squirrel figured it out and gnawed off part of the flags from both ends, bunched all the flags together, then took off up the Douglas Fir, I'm assuming to pad its nest. It was hilarious to watch.

flag leftovers

While at the Blythe Spirit, I went out to the Peace Fort, a treehouse my cousin made, to write in The Pine (her log for the treehouse). The cabinet she made to store the log in had a massive pile of sticks leaned up against it, almost like a miniature beaver dam. It seemed too perfect to be made by a critter, so I assumed she had built it to keep critters out. But when I opened the cabinet there was a pile of green leaves to the left of the box that holds the log. The leaves were mashed to perfectly take up the space between the box and the other side of the cabinet, it was so memorizing to look at the way they had been sculpted it took me a good fifteen seconds to realize there was someone home. A critter that Aunt Angie and I later identified as a Ringtail Raccoon (but of the mountain variety, so incredibly small) was pressed as far away from me as possible, probably freaking out.



My Uncle David got the box out and we left the treehouse to Steve Ringtail (we called all raccoons Steve at IslandWood) to winter in. Looking through the log, I was able to deduce that Steve had moved in since the week before, when my Aunt Diane wrote in The Pine. Or possibly she interacted with Steve and his newly created habitat, but didn't think it was impressive enough to make note of it in The Pine. I'm going to assume the former, which means Steve only took a week to nest and secure his dwelling in the Peace Fort. I like that quality in a organism, because I can feel connected to an area after one cup of coffee.

hummers

Drinking coffee at the breakfast table for the past week with my grandfather was a treat. As he cycled through his frequent questions and memories, it felt like a reset to the day. Aunt Angie says there are four languages we rely on when our minds stop working for us and begin to work against us, confusing us, frustrating us. We can still relate to smiles, music, gentle touches, and chocolate. I didn't know this list until the week after cabin time with Grandfather, but one of the things he remembered during both of my visits this summer was the hymn, "Day is dying in the west," that he sang at two sunsets two months apart.

And then the following week would be full of travel and moving before I made it back to my alleyside Pea Patch for my morning coffee. I had my coffee some mornings on my aunt's back patio, watching the hummingbird feeders as the dogs came and went. I had coffee at a campsite in Wyoming. Matt and I drank it while walking toward the water. We stumbled upon a damp sandy expanse just soft enough to capture ALL the prints. It told a story of birds, herons, mice, deer, other critters scurrying across the opening. The next morning I sipped my coffee as we drove through a hazy, hazy Montana. They cut the power in one town as a preemptive measure so we had to go to the next town to get gas.

Whahatoya, one of my nests

And finally back to Seattle, to drink coffee in the Pea Patch with Matt, looking at the flags taken away by the squirrel. When EJ first put flags up at the original Alleyside, she hung them inside, then realized they needed to be rehung outside so as the shreds of fabric came apart, the prayers would travel out to the world. At this moment I like to imagine the squirrel was helping carry the prayers of those prayer flags forth, sending their energy and intention further into the world, so wherever I travel I can carry the feeling I have drinking coffee in the mornings in the Pea Patch, and nest as easily as Steve Ringtail.

A Morning Person's Observations #6: Life and Death in the Pea Patch

One professor who introduced the concept of sit spots to my class told us to not always sit in the same spot. "Get up and explore around your spot," he said. "See if you can find the paths and homes around your spots, where other travelers are coming through."

This has been a dry, sunny, not too cold, clear winter in Seattle. One morning before daylight savings, there was still only a corner of the Pea Patch in sun. I went and stood under the Doug Fir hanging over the fence, the opposite corner from my usual bench sit, to soak in the morning Vitamin D while I sipped my coffee.

The chickadees were out that morning. I know I'm not running late if the chickadees are still in the Pea Patch. They grew more and more comfortable with me standing below the Doug Fir, and flitted to branches closer and closer to me. Finally, one hang upside down from a cone and started pecking at some of the seeds. I hadn't been close enough to them yet to see what they eat, it was amazing.

It's been a year since David and I moved to the Pea Patch apartment. A year of sitting and sipping my coffee back here. I just noticed this morning that the white flowers on the tree have blossomed again. It's important to notice this when it happens, because in a week or two the first spring storm will take them all down. I love that I've sat under this tree for a year and am familiar with this pattern.

But I love how the Pea Patch continues to surprise me too. A gray cat slipped under a bush and came up to me meowing, and rubbing against my legs. I pet this gray feline for a bit, then the cat went down toward the tulips and slipped out of site. About five minutes later, the chickadees started a call and response. Some other birds chimed in, one that did four long high notes. And the arpeggio bird, which I haven't heard in a long while! I've never seen it, or I should say I've never connected its call with a bird I could see, but when I first heard it at my sit spot at IslandWood, it sounded like a young child learning arpeggios on the piano, eagerly jumping up and down along the notes.

The intensity and rapidness of the responses toward the calls made me wonder what the cat was up to. It seemed like they were pointing the feline friend out to any other birds, which was good of them since no one had belled the cat.

Somehow or other a crow died in February. Its carcass hangs from the one of the top branches of the chestnut tree, swayinh ominously above the apartment building in the breeze. As the weeks go by, it doesn't seem to have decayed much. There are certainly more flies in the Pea Patch at first, then not too many. I wonder if they've eaten out the core of the carcass and moved on, and all that hangs now are feathers on bones. But there'd have to be meat holding the feather to the bone, right? No way to explore this further, the carcass is so high in the tree. It will be a fun item to pay attention to, what happens to a decomposing crow that's so far out of reach? Can't get scooped up like roadkill, can't get eaten by anything except creatures that can fly/climb that high.

Some patterns are repeating in the Pea Patch, and some new intriguing ones are just starting.

A Morning Person's Observations #5: The summer's colors

The birds sit on top of this tree

This is one of the first times in Seattle I've been really excited when the summer was ending. The overcast sky, the slightly cooler temperatures, the shorter days. I'm loving it all. Mostly because it's all signally that it's time for the school year to start, and I'm really excited to be teaching again.

The p patch is full of dark greens. I went out this morning to sit on the bench and take in the world and it was actually wet for the first time in months. A light morning rain had made the whole garden smell earthy. There were some birds on top of the Douglas Fir, they were robin-sized but their silhouettes showed skinnier beaks.

Before I get swept away in the excitement and beauty of this fall in Seattle, I want to take a moment to reflect on my gratitude for this summer. The p patch gave some amazing colorful moments and helped me relax. I went from a stressful anxious time to a positive, relaxed attitude thanks to many things, one of them being mornings in the p patch with the plots of summer colors.

I wandered lonely as a cloud...

These remind me of the Lupine Lady

And this makes me think Tom Sawyer and friends were here

"The summer sun will set," she said, "if you leave it up there long."

Maybe someone else likes drinking coffee in the p patch :)

That floats on high o'er hill and vales

These flowers lasted through the first April rain, then turned to summer snow!

Rosemary!

David thought these were centipedes when we walked out to the p patch at night!

The squirrels love these chestnuts!

Another alleyside, same old dinosaurs :)

Can you spot the snail?

A Morning Person's Observations #4

The New Sit Spot

The first morning in my new apartment, I sat on the steps on my patio thinking this would be my new sit spot.  Goodness am I excited about that patio, but it would not be a nice place to drink coffee each morning (apparently I'm a coffee drinker now).  There is nothing but wood and concrete, and I heard some birds, but didn't see a single one fly overhead on the day I sat on the terrace.  There are some empty pots for a garden underneath the staircase, so I figured if the landlady didn't mind I could create some greenery to watch each morning.

Then I went to throw out the trash and explored a little in the alley behind my building.  To the right there was the sign of a garden plot.  As I got closer I saw it was actually a ppatch!  There was a bench leaning against the wall, with the perfect spot to sit and watch the ppatch as someone sips on their morning tea, er, coffee.

Spring sunlight in the ppatch

There's a sign with a number to call if you want a patch.  I'm sure the waiting list is enormously long, but I got on the interest list anyway.  However, if I only spending a year in this apartment, never get a ppatch, but still sit and enjoy the setting every morning with my cup of coffee, that will be enough, that will be perfect.

It's Lent and I'm feeling lost.  Since the GED changed, everything at work feels like a different moving part, moving away from the rest of the puzzle instead of coming together.  I'm trying so hard to figure it out, to give the students concrete steps forward with their education, but everything I say sounds like a broken promise.  "No we don't have the practice tests yet," "No you don't have enough credits," "No your old scores aren't saved anywhere."  All of this is out of my control, but it's so frustrating and trying to navigate the pieces has burnt me out.


So, I'm giving up doing too much work and taking on sitting in the ppatch.  I'm giving up going out and taking on cooking long, slow dinners at home.  I'm giving up spending my evenings glued to the computer screen, and taking on long, slow baths, reading more books, seeing more friends, playing more games, and longer nights of sleep.

The ppatch has already given me hopeful signs of spring, I think one bush must be the Indian plum, because it was buds when I first started sitting in February, and now its blossoms are the size of my hand.  They look like hands opening to the sky during meditation.  The chickadees and robins make frequent appearances, talking to one another as they pass through and check me out a little.  Two pigeons, darker than most, spent a flirtatious morning cooing and following each other around the adjoining balconies and gutters.  This is what I love, having a moment in the secret world that is always here, that I tune out when I'm focused on my human schedule.

This morning the crows came and sat on what Ann (a smoker and coffee drinker in the ppatch I met today) says is a chestnut tree.  One held a large twig, the other stared me down for a second, as if to challenge my place in the patch.  I didn't back down and took a sip of coffee without batting an eye.  Then the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the row patches, and the crow accepted me and took off.

The highlight was a month ago, creeping slowly and quietly into the ppatch, trying hard not to spill my tea (back when I still could get through a whole day on tea, sigh).  I looked to the top of the Doug Fir that is on the other side of the fence, but hangs generously over the ppatch.  Often on the bare branch sits a crow or sometimes a robin.  Today there was a hawk!  It had been making an alarm call that I mistook for a squirrel.  After I sat on the bench it stayed a little longer, scouting the situation.  It gave up, possibly thinking I'd scared away any prey.  As justice, it soared away calling out again, scaring away any prey for me.

My hawk identification is horrible.  It was tiny for a hawk, and almost all white on the underbelly.  My initial google research suggests it was a Short-tailed Hawk by the looks, but the International Union for Conservation of Nature says that hawk is keen to stay tropical, so back to square one.  Hope it shows up again and gives me a better look.