Says Emma, this morning before school: “I just checked outside to make sure there are no squashed birds on the road.” Thanks bird patrol girl!
I will get to the part about the (unsquashed) bird in a bit, but first I wanted to share my yesterday with you.Â
After writing yesterday’s post I decided that I was going to focus and do a few of the things I had mentioned. So that’s why I found myself doing an extra load of laundry late in the afternoon hanging it on the line at 4:00.
If freshly-washed, line-dried sheets make me so happy why don’t I do it more often?
I also managed to squeeze in: outdoor florals. Sun on my face. Sitting on the front stoop, watching Sarah play. Satisfying gardening work. Singing to a good/loud song on the car stereo. And the icing on the cake, those sheets. Ahh.
I spent the bulk of the morning working in the backyard. I used the same weeding technique I always do … weed a patch here, weed a patch there, with no real strategy in mind. I practice Attention Deficit Disorder Gardening. I am easily – cheerfully even – distracted by large weeds. To me they are trophy weeds, and I feel a particular ping of happiness if I successfully snag a trophy weed.
I think I need my own garden brigade, a team of weeders who’ll fan out and work through my flower beds in a more systematic fashion. I am tempted to ask a few people I know, offer them lunch and cold beverages in return for a few hours of labour. Hmm. Any takers? :)
After lunch I went to the Home Depot garden centre for the second time this season. My first trip netted four bags of pine bark/wood chip mix. Little did I realize at the time that I was three or four bags too short. So I had to go back. It since it is nearly impossible for me to leave such a place without buying something else, I also grabbed two round CFL bulbs and a never-seen before hot & spicy oregano plant.
I dumped the bark in my garden, planted the oregano, as well as some basil and nasturtium seeds, replaced the light bulbs … all this between loads of laundry. It felt good to have such a productive day.
After dinner (which consisted of scrambled eggs and various leftover meats… WHO HAS TIME TO COOK WHEN GARDENING NEEDS TO BE DONE??) Emma (with Mark’s help) had homework to do, so Sarah and I took a walk around the neighborhood.
It was just the two of us. We had no route in mind, it was just us, out and about. We raced down the sidewalk. I shook the branches of flowering crabapple trees and watched the petals rain down on her upturned face and hair. We put our faces in lilac blooms. We picked handfuls of fuzzy dandelions and blew them out on the count of three, and I watched Sarah spin around, arms wide, as the mist of tiny fluffs hovered on a restful breeze, twinkling in the light of a setting sun. Oh, it felt so good to be alive.
When we arrived home it was time to get ready for bed. Emma was still doing her homework. Sarah was in her pyjamas when the doorbell rang. It was our neighbor and her children. They were fundraising and asked if we could donate. As an aside they asked us if we had a cardinal nest in the yard. We don’t. Not that we know of anyway. But sure enough, the she was, a very young (but feathered) cardinal was hopping around our front lawn and flower beds. She must have fallen out of her nest. Mr. And Mrs. Cardinal alternated between swooping around and giving us the business, or perching very near and watching us very closely. At one point Mark had to shepherd junior off the road. At another point she hopped right up to me and nestled in the bottom part of my pantleg. The girls squealed with surprise and joy. It was adorable.
But we couldn’t locate a nest, and ultimately decided that the little bird was better off in the care of her parents. The last we saw she was in our next-door neighbor’s shrubbery.
This morning Emma checked the road for squashed baby cardinals. Thankfully, there were none. After the kids went to school I too looked around for the cardinal family. They weren’t hard to find. They were across the street. The parents were still swooping and fussing. Their baby was halfway up a cedar hedge that borders the sidewalk. I hope she makes it okay.