Sparrow Saga - or - Bring out the Flame Throwers

Have you ever seen the movie where Rowan Atkinson house-sits for someone and encounters a bee? And goes to great lengths to destroy it, and ends up destroying the house by the end?

We have some sparrows nesting in our eavestrough. We wouldn't mind so much, except they are right outside our bedroom and are very noisy very early in the morning. The obvious solution would be to remove the gutter guard and expose the whole length of the gutter to the elements, but we can't get onto the steep roof, and we can't afford a handyman willing to attempt it. So we've tried other approaches.

We tried blocking the gutter with chicken wire, and they pulled it out and went back to nesting inside. We offered a birdhouse as alternative housing. We tried fake owls and sonic devices. The birds sat on the owl's head and sneered at us. We sprayed the entrance with chili and vinegar. We applied WD-40 to the lip of the roof to make it slippery. We wedged chicken wire into every possible crevice. We sprayed wasp poison into the cracks. We poured bleach into the gutter. Against all conceivable odds, the happy couple got back in. This morning Mr. Sparrow sat on our window sill outside our bedroom with nest-making grasses in his beak and very clearly said, "Looky what I'm doing! Nyaa nyaa nyaa!" before flying back into the eavestrough.

Maybe we tip our hats in acknowledgement of their tenacity and admit defeat. Maybe we bring out the flame throwers. Not sure how it will go yet.

Mother's Day - random memories of Mom, in no particular order

Sewing my school clothes, Easter dresses, dance outfits, swim suits...and teaching me how to sew. Brushing my hair with that wire-haired brush and No More Tangles, despite my whining. Coming home from church to the wonderful smell of Sunday roast. The best blueberry cheesecake ever. Somehow making all the flowers in the garden blossom blue at once for my sister's backyard wedding reception. The amazing homemade bread (we ate an entire loaf before Dad came in from mowing the lawn). Thick paperbacks everywhere in the house, including the bathroom. Stuffed calico birds and delicate crocheted snowflakes on the Christmas tree. Playing hymns on the organ (I was envious that she got to remove her shoes in church). Teaching me to sing alto. Reading stories to us on long drives in the car. Letting me bring a sick rabbit into the house for close care. Making me take the field mouse back when I brought it home in a Dixie cup. Playing ragtime duets with my brother on the piano. Presenting hourly surprises on long trips, too, like paint-with-water books and soy-oatie squares. Making us matching pajamas for Christmas. Making us fantastic cloth Holly Hobbie dolls and Winnie-the-Pooh bears and pig-shaped gingham pillows and---my favourite---corduroy frogs stuffed with wheat (I still have mine). Multiple kinds of homemade jam in the fridge, all open and available at once. Bags of licorice while watching Cary Grant movies. Shuttling all us kids to all of our music and dance lessons and sports events. Teaching us how to dehydrate or bottle food from the garden. Teaching me to knit and crochet. Never forgetting kids' and grandkids' birthdays. Taking care of the home front while Dad worked on his book. Mailing boxes of homemade goodies at Easter and Halloween and Valentine's Day. Putting faces, hats and earrings on the squash. Teaching us service by taking a wonderful chicken dinner to the neighbours and then giving us bread and milk for supper. Studying German and Hungarian. The magical closet full of games and puzzles. Caring for an ill neighbour's children. Painting beautiful landscapes and Victorian decorations. Rolling up her pant legs and wading in the gutter with us kids after a heavy rain. Dropping everything to go help a sick family member. Cheering when a grandkid did something notable. Cheering when a grandkid didn't do anything notable.

All this and so much more. Love you, Mom.

Handles! Who knew?

Today there was a steady rain, but I had a cubic yard of garden soil scheduled to be delivered, and the weather waits for no one. The truck dumped the dirt on a tarp on the boulevard, and it was up to me to move it into the raised beds in the back garden. My hubby is recovering from a recent hernia surgery, and my son, who has been sick in bed with bronchitis all week, had to drag himself to work. So...me.

We have a wheelbarrow, but it's unwieldy trying to get it through the gate, around the corner, over the step, down the path, and between the raised beds, and then you have to shovel it out, essentially having to handle the dirt twice. The raised beds are too tall to let you simply tip the wheelbarrow to empty it. My preferred method is to use a bucket instead, which lets you easily dump it precisely where you want it, and you only have to shovel each shovelful once. 

Except all my buckets somehow ended up at the old church we're renovating. 

I had a big black flower pot that I sometimes use as a catch-all when I'm weeding, so I decided to use that. Since it had no handles, I used the hug-and-lug method, which would have been fine, but with the rain, it was a muddy mess, and as the soil got wetter, of course, it got heavier. Carrying a big pot of dirt means having to arch your back and makes seeing your feet difficult. Add to that a leaky boot, dripping hair in my eyes, and loose gravel under foot, and it was a bit hazardous.

After a while, my husband went to Canadian Tire and got me a big metal bucket with a handle, and it made a world of difference. Suddenly I could balance and walk without having to sway my back, which helped enormously. Bless whoever invented handles! I am convinced more and more that it pays to have the right tool for the job. Three hours later, I was completely soaked and muddy, but the dirt was all in place, the shovel, bucket, and tarp were hosed off, I was showered, and every bit of fabric was in the washing machine.

I will no doubt feel wrecked tomorrow, but I finally feel like spring has really arrived. The annual ritual of moving (heaven and) earth is complete. Now if it would just warm up enough to plant things!

A Seat at the Table

It's 3 a.m. and I just woke up from an awful dream. I was attending some sort of fancy function to honour a poet I'd never heard of. We all sat in a large auditorium and listened to a nice program. I was sitting next to a nice older gentleman in an amber-coloured coat, and we hit it off, chatting like old friends. After the speeches, we were all to go downstairs to the hotel restaurant for dinner. The gentleman I'd been sitting by went and joined a table of his friends, and I -- the shy introvert -- didn't feel I could presume to join their table. I didn't really know the man, after all, and had never met his friends. But there didn't appear to be places at any of the other tables. A handful of us lingered in a huddle near the door, unable to find a chair. 

Dinner was rolled out, an army of servers brought beautiful, Michelin-star type of food to everyone else, but we at the edges could only watch them eat. We weren't even given chairs or a glass of water. We tried flagging down waiters to let them know we hadn't been served, and they all said they would be right back, but they never did return. A few of the unseated wandered off and left. Dinner was cleared away and dessert brought out. Then that was cleared away, everyone left the room, and two of us were left, another woman and I, who had been ignored the entire time. 

Finally, feeling stupid and forgotten, I left. In the lobby, I met the gentleman again whom I'd been sitting by at the function. He asked how I'd enjoyed the evening, and I told him my experience. How, for an introvert like me, it had not been a happy experience. He felt terrible that I hadn't been served and offered to take me to dinner. But I wasn't going to sit and eat while he, who had just been fed, watched, so I declined. He offered to walk me to my car. I told him I'd come on the bus. I told him he shouldn't feel responsible for me since we'd only just met, and it wasn't his fault I got shoddy service at a restaurant. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I wasn't scarred for life. (Though I might not come to a function like this again.) So he went away, and I went and found a food court, had a fast-food burrito and a bottle of water, and then bussed home.

So...At first I lay there in the dark wondering what the dream meant. Was I feeling forgotten or lonely somehow? I'm staying up at the old church we use as a cottage, alone, for several weeks. But no...the dream had shaken me, nearly to tears, and I felt it deserved a deeper interpretation than that. 

Those of us who are privileged, who have a chair, who are represented, need to look around the room and see who is missing. To seek them out and invite them to have a seat at the table.

Not making the writing goals... A Bible verse for the occasion

 

“Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!” Job 19:23

Haiku for the season

Rain beats the windows

in 2/4 time. The wind sings

off-key just like me.

Long-Distance Gardening

It's that time of year when I need to get my garden starts going, but I also need to be up at the church renovating. I've left Son #3 in charge of watering the seedlings and manning the fort in my absence, and Son #2 and his partner have agreed to mind the garden while I am travelling this summer. I've told them if they'll keep an eye on things, they can have whatever ripens in the garden while I'm gone. Cooperatively, we might be able to pull this off. The garden feels more important than ever right now, with food costs and shortages being what they are.

Meanwhile, a neighbour has offered to show me where to find wild ramps, so we'll go out foraging sometime this spring. What treasure!