A quick note first: I got a call from Don today from the emergency room; he’d broken three bones in his foot. Ouch! I’m wishing healing his way.
After I posted yesterday, a new bird showed up. Bonus points to anybody who whistles the song the post title comes from (sorry about the earworming). I was stunned–in 22 years in California, I have never once seen a chickadee. Anywhere. Ever. I assumed they simply didn’t live here.
But there one was, right there on my feeder, testifying to the fact that in life if you want something to happen, sometimes you have to create the opportunities by which it can.
Speaking of which. Last night my husband was still at work due to deadlines and international time zone issues, while Michelle, who’d planned to take his car, was off having dinner with friends. Marian and I were about to head out to San Jose City Hall for her to get to see the falcons and meet the folks I’d be giving Margo Lynn’s fingerless gloves to when it suddenly dawned on us that, oh, wait. What’s wrong with this picture.
And we cracked up at the same moment. No car! (Duh…)
While I was typing this, a female ladderback woodpecker looking like this one showed up on my olive tree. It wasn’t interested in the feeder; I guess it simply felt welcomed by the presence of the seven finches and titmice on the feeder. It was gorgeous and big and I hadn’t seen one of those since we’d had to cut down the ash trees. Wow. All I had to do was welcome its neighbors and it felt right at home too. I wonder what will show up next!
Before Marian’s flight this afternoon, we did get down to San Jose after all, but there were no falcons soaring in sight at that time of day. We toured the textile museum–and if you can, GO! The Jack’s Falling Water Quilt is worth the trip all by itself. For anybody who’s ever been to Watkins Glen in upstate New York, picture a rocky waterfall like that one transfigured into a watercolored quilt with cascades of blue dropletted silk falling around the picture, dappled leaves above the falls, the movement of the water in the pool below and a deep green strip that you almost don’t see at first but then notice as it gives depth and life and summer to the water .
I so wish I could create something like that. And this Friday admission is free. Go!
Meantime, Don, get better! Your homebirds are waiting for you.