Critters

There are a pair of finches making a nest in the Boston fern hanging on my porch.  The female is, of course, an unassuming shade of don't-notice-me brown.  The male has a lovely red head and breast.  They have been busily bringing bits of grass and twigs and plunging them down into the heart of this potted fern for the past several days.  When I come and go, I generally find them both perched on the string of Christmas lights that is still, shamefully, circling our carport - watching from a distance as I pass.

I call them Mister and Missus.  They are so small and sweet and adorable.  I'm glad to have them in my fern. 

I was concerned at first as to how I would manage to water the fern without dousing the nest, but a facebook friend of mine told me she had the same situation and had gotten one of those glass watering globes that you fill with water and then plunge into the soil.  Good idea!  So I'll do that next week.

I love backyard wildlife.  I'm such a kid.  At our old house on 40th street, my garden was the home of an enormous brown toad we called "Old Joe."  He had burrowed down into the soft earth of my raised squash bed, and came out at night, or when I watered enough to flood his burrow.  He was hug and fat and we loved seeing him.  I haven't had toads in my yard since then, which I think is a shame.

I have mice.  The dogs chase them around the woodpile (i.e. large, unsightly pile of limbs fallen from the sycamore tree that I have piled next to the shed) at night.  Sometimes they catch one.

When I lived in North Carolina, near the forest, there were hundreds of gabillions of frogs and toads.  Tree frogs filled the night air with their calls, and there were loud-mouthed frogs too tiny to see in the grass around the pond, and giant GaLUMPHing bullfrogs and lots of toads that came up on the patio at night to eat the june bugs.  A horrible little boy lived next door for awhile who used to kill them for fun.  I always gave him the evil eye when I caught him sneaking up on one of MY toads.  What kind of child kills a toad on purpose?  I future serial killer, I'm guessing. I'll be reading about that kid in the news one day. Mark my words.

One of our educators at the museum told me I can go catch toadlets in the spring and relocated them to my garden, as long as I provide them a water source, like a wide shallow dish, and a place to hide.  So I'll be making a trip to the stream alongside the railroad tracks in a few weeks, to pick up some new garden tenants.  They can eat the bugs on my broccoli.

I get these caterpillars on my broccoli that are wreaking havoc.  They are exactly the color of broccoli leaves, so you can be looking right at them and not see them at first.  but they're there... munching away.  I've taken to spraying the leaves vigorously with the hose when I water to blast the little buggers away.  I can't kill them.  They're kind of cute, in a fat green caterpillary sort of way. I just pick them of and toss them out of the garden.  It's probably worse for them than squishing, because they probably starve to death, but it's easier on my conscience. 

Changes?

I'm considering a change... a few changes, in fact. 

First of all, I'm going to start the paperwork required to take back my maiden name.  I want my own identity back.  So Jin and I are going to the county clerk's office tomorrow and we're picking up the paperwork. She wants her name back, too. 

At first I kept my ex's name because I thought it was important to Grayson for us to have the same name.  And it was at first. But he's older now and I think he can understand why I would want my own name back.  It's time, I think.

Also, I'm considering a job change.  I realized, in talking to my wise and perceptive friend Jin, that I am a bit burned out here.  I love the museum, but, as Jin said "you've done everything there is to do there."  And I realized... yeah.  I kind of have.  At least in this position.  All my press releases are boiler plates that I just drop in the new dates and times.  I've covered all the curators' research projects at least once, some several times, and a 20-year study just doesn't ignite the same spark the second or third time I have to frame it up on the page.

So I've been sniffing around a bit today.  Even applied for a few.  I haven't done that in years.  (With the exception of the vet tech job at Free to Live recently, but that doesn't really count)  I need something to shake up my brain in a good way for a change... and a new job changes your perspective on just about everything.

Rain, Cattle and Creosote

Rain!  Glorious Rain!  I was beginning to think we'd never see it again.  I can almost hear my lawn sighing with relief. 

Utter downpour today, and so welcome.  Whatever Christian or Pagan gods you worship, thank them for me.  From the bottom of my dry little roots, I am grateful for the rain.

The downpour did make driving to and from my aunt's house something of an adventure, but it didn't matter... it was RAIN. 

Easter.  I'm not a big fan of easter.  I'm sure I've mentioned that before.  I love my family and enjoy other holidays when we all get together.  I have no idea why I'm biased against Easter.  But it's something of a chore.  I have always considered opting out.  But my mother would be quite put out with me, and really there's no good reason for it, so I go. 

It's one of the few times during the year that I see my grandmothers.  I hereby vow to make an effort to see them more.  Each time I do see them, they hug me tight and tell me they think of me often, and I believe that they do.  So I told them each that I will call them next week and set a date to have each of them over individually.  I don't know why I haven't.  Inertia, I suppose.  Laziness?  Maybe that's closer to the mark.

But I'll remedy that.  I will. 

In the meantime... it has rained virtually all day.  I would love for it to continue to rain all night. What's better than sleeping through a rainstorm? When I was a kid, we spent a lot of weekends at my uncle's farm in St. Louis, Oklahoma.  I slept upstairs, at one end of a long room that ran the length of the cabin, next to a window.  The roof met in a peak overhead, and though the entire interior roof was finished in cedar shingles, the outer roof was corrugated tin.  The rain was wonderful up there.  Particularly when you could open the window and smell the air-- cow manure and grass and creosote and sun-heated dust and rain.  It's a combination that says Oklahoma to me.

At night I would lay in my bed with the window open and listen to coyotes howling, or the low drumming of the oilwell pumps scattered around the property.  In the morning it was cows lowing and birdsong.  If I could bottle and sell the sense of peace and well being those smells and sounds imparted, I'd be a wildly wealthy woman.