There are two robins in or near the nest on our back porch.
The robins are trying once again–for the third time–to raise young in a nest on our back porch. The two previous times either the eggs never hatched, or the young died very soon after. I hesitate to even post this, for fear they will fail again–but, this time, both the father and mother are staying close to each other, and seem to be taking turns on nest duties. I have learned that they open their beaks as a way to cool off in the heat. I wonder if they are new parents, and just didn’t get their parenting act together before? I hope they make it this time!
Meanwhile, goldfinches are enjoying the sunflowers that planted themselves under the bird feeder, as well as the evening primroses that planted themselves near our porch. This little female was perched on that sunflower for at least twenty minutes, just taking her time with a meal.
Female Goldfinch eating seeds of the sunflower.
In these hot dry days here in Maine, I just go outside in the early morning to water the veggies or trees, and to pick blueberries or raspberries, now almost done. But looking out the window brings many moments of joy because of these birds who live in our yard. I learned the Passamaquoddy words for goldfinch–wisawiyehs–and robin–ankuwiposehehs. (wisawi refers to yellow and ankuwi refers to farther, perhaps because they migrate) For them I am always grateful.
Right now the garden is happy with berries: the raspberries are loaded with fruit, and this is the first year for a blueberry harvest. We planted these blueberry bushes in 2017. This year, I put up some fence posts and draped the berry bushes with gauzy fabric after the berries started to form. (Tried it first without the posts, but the weight bent the bushes over when it rained.) This is to keep the birds from eating all the berries. But we have three younger plants in the back that I left open. And the raspberries do fine on their own. So every other day, I go out and pick a bowlful of ripe berries.
Blueberry bushes wrapped with tulle fabric
The fabric barrier is a bit ironic really. I don’t mean to discourage the birds at all. But expert gardener’s advice says that they will eat all the blueberries before we can. I think of myself as a very novice gardener. Our garden only provides us with a very modest harvest. Last year the squirrels took all the peaches, and cabbage moths are now eating a lot of the kale. I have given up on the idea of creating a food forest that will provide all our needs. This year, I haven’t had the energy to give any of it much attention at all.
But somehow, in the midst of it all, the garden keeps giving back to us in unexpected ways. The orchard has become a bird heaven. We now regularly see cardinals, a robin couple (who, after two failed attempts, are again playing with the nest on our porch), gold finches, house finches, sparrows, chickadees, catbirds, starling visitors, not to mention the turkey mom and her two babies that keep coming through, and so many more. The small birds love perching in the fruit trees–and I love seeing them there. They ate the few cherries, which I didn’t try to protect. I think they are also eating a lot of bugs. They even love perching on top of the stakes in the zucchini bed. We provide sunflower seeds in the bird feeder, and they planted sunflowers all around it with the droppings. So we are gifted with all this beauty.
Sunflowers in bloom around a green bird feeder with a small sparrow on it.
This has been a summer of much gifted beauty. Another example is the wild evening primrose. I pulled all of the primrose plants that had sprouted up in the orchard, because I knew they would be too tall and block the paths. But I purposely left the ones on the other side of our back porch, this one in front of irises that bloomed earlier. And now they sparkle a bit like a Christmas tree in July.
Tall evening primrose in bloom
Each year I do learn a bit more about how to garden. This year, it seems that what I am learning most of all is how much the earth gifts to us and to all her creatures, how generous and abundant she is, when we merely open to her and open to other creatures, and stop trying so hard to make something specific happen. I am feeling the interconnected family of beings, and especially the joy of birds who now find a home in our yard. It’s amazing! Finally, I just want to also express gratitude for a monarch butterfly who came to visit a few days ago.
A few fun surprises this week in the garden. Way back in May, I had inoculated the wood chips near the fruit trees with Wine Cap mushroom spores. Then nothing happened all summer, so I figured maybe it wasn’t moist enough and didn’t take. But this week suddenly, beautiful big mushrooms started sprouting with a reddish tint to their caps. Being cautious, I checked the package again, and also researched Wine Caps on the internet–I was relieved to discover there are no poisonous look-alikes.Â
Since then we’ve had fresh mushrooms in our eggs and in a batch of spaghetti sauce. The mushrooms keep popping up all over the orchard. They should come back again each year now. What a marvelous thing to get food right from the ground!
Speaking of food from the ground, the squirrel was excited to discover that one of our volunteer sunflowers had seeds on it. Just like she would do on our bird feeder in the winter, she hung upside down to get to the meaty morsels.
Were they really there? Later, I checked for myself. Certainly enough for a little snack. I think this is the same squirrel that decided she should build a nest this week under our solar panels, in a spot behind a cross board that supports our deck roof. Not good! (Squirrels can chew the wiring and mess up the solar panel system, we discovered.) Each morning and evening Margy or I would climb on a ladder to pull out small branches and leaves and grass to undo what she had built. We’ve got a plan to cut off some branches on our ornamental crabapple that form a super-highway from the materials to the roof.
But one day, while I was on the ladder pulling out stuff, she came running down the gutter and stopped short when she saw me. I said to her, “You can’t build a nest here! This is our house. Go find a nice tree.”
I don’t know if it was my stern suggestion, or the pile of “stolen” nesting material that was scattered on the deck beneath the ladder, or sheer discouragement from all her work being undone each day, but the last two days she has not replenished her spot. (We’re still going to prune the tree though!) Maybe the sunflower seeds were a little something to sweeten the agreement. We try to find a balance with our plant and animal neighbors in this place. Giving and receiving in gratitude.
During the spring, Margy was talking about wanting to plant sunflowers this year. But as it happened, she was busy with too many other garden projects to actually do it. So imagine our delight when the garden planted its own sunflowers! They came up under the bird feeder, now sitting empty for the summer, but where sunflower seeds were the food we offered to the birds (and squirrels) all winter.
Lately, the garden plants have felt mostly like children who need our care and attention. With the dry hot weather, they’ve needed a lot of watering. Yesterday, I did another foliar spray for the fruit trees, to help them ward off Japanese beetles, which I also have been picking off every day and dropping in soapy water. And there have also been lovely raspberries to harvest each day, and snap peas (almost gone now) and kale and basil to gather and preserve.
So this gift of flowers emerging without any effort on our part–perhaps the land is reminding us that she loves us as we love her?
It has been one year since my retirement began. One of its themes has been to find connection with this small portion of the Mother Earth, this land we are so lucky to call our home. As non-Indigenous people, we are trying to heal a long wounded history of our people’s disconnection from land. Our ancestors left their home places generations ago. If our society had an understanding of earth connection, it could not destroy earth life as it destroys, with such thoughtlessness–pollution, clearcutting of forests, poisoning of soil with pesticides, trash dumping, mining, fracking… the long list of ecological destructions that are endangering us all.
So in our small corner of the world, we are trying to reweave those threads of interconnection, reawaken the truth–long dormant in our bodies–that we are not separate from the earth–we are the earth. As we tend the land, as we care for the plants, as we pay attention each day, we hope that a shifting occurs–that we move from domination patterns to partnership patterns in our relationship to Earth. We know how small we are–yet hope that if we can shift our own patterns, it might in some way ripple out to the larger patterns. Because we are interconnected. Because that is the magic.
The gift sunflowers remind me that the land herself is eager to be in partnership with her human children. She loves us and wants wholeness for all.
A few fun surprises this week in the garden. Way back in May, I had inoculated the wood chips near the fruit trees with 
Finding Our Way Home 