My English Morello cherry at the end of last summer and in today’s rain. Compare to Wednesday’s photo. That’s not camera angles, it really has grown that much in three days.

All that and cherries, too.

Over at San Jose City Hall, the peregrine falcons had four eggs. Two hatched, and as nothing happened and nothing happened the parents started to push one and then the other remaining egg away.

And then pulled them back towards them after awhile.

And pushed again. One was a maybe? It just seemed that the two that were out were it.

Six days after the first hatching, one of those two semi-rejected eggs started showing a line of white (you can see it at the 2:20 mark)–and then poof, all at once (at about 4:38), there it is! Its siblings are older and more able to be aggressive at getting food from their parents but this one just might prove to be a survivor after all.

Pretty please with cherries on top.

Last year, after all this went on, you could count every individual beleaguered leaf from afar. (Speaking of which, that’s just a bit of cinnamon to get rid of some ants. No yellowing.)

In a few weeks this tree has grown from having plenty of space under its tent to being right at the bird netting on all sides and at this rate I’ll have to buy a bigger tent to protect the growing cherries.

Some problems are cause for celebration.

Oh and? I got an email from someone saying his twin daughters (they’re nine or ten) had knitted all through Conference and by chance might I have any leftover yarn? Because they were out.

I asked the dad what their favorite colors were. He got right back to me.

You know that if you want knitting to be the lifelong love it could well become for them you’ve got to give them the good stuff. Some soft acrylic, yes (take it all!) but also some cashmere blend and an angora/merino blend (an out-of-stock bright light lime green, a color they’d hoped for), washed and hanked from cones. I told the dad how to wash the natural-fiber stuff and warned the girls gently that a lot of people are allergic to angora and it’s okay if you find out you are, but I think you’ll love it (and boy did they). The fur combed from a shedding rabbit. It is nice stuff.

(It also happens to give one of my kids hives.)

They were so excited. They so much said thank you. And I couldn’t possibly have enjoyed those yarns better any other way. Can you just picture all the people those two are going to make happy over the years to come?

(Photo taken before flowering stage. Spikes on this one.)

What the smell of rain is. Fascinating stuff.

I finally found the correct name for the weed I’ve been yanking out for weeks: storkbill. It’s a biennial in our climate, not the perennial I’d thought all this time–all those hundreds of taproots I’ve yanked out made no real difference. And yet, it is so satisfying to hear that weed riiiiip all the way out of there, gone.

Of late the plants were getting a tacky feeling to them and the Smithsonian article explains why, and why that disappears after a rain: they produce an oil under dry conditions that inhibits seed germination, which, here, would definitely be a survival mechanism for the next generation waiting for the next winter’s downpours.

Storkbill would be a marvelous ground cover, given how fast it spreads on runners and those pretty tiny purple flowers–but the spikes! All those long vicious spikes. If someone somehow bred those out of there I would replace my lawn with them. Except, wait, they’re a favorite food of harvester ants.

Out!

There was a hummingbird dancing around my sour cherry blossoms. And then another hummer in the apple flowers, resting and eating at the same time: sometimes it hovered above a blossom but about half the time it could just perch there holding still and reach right in and drink, given the thick woody spurs the short flowers grew from, and so it did, as if it were enjoying some exotic resort on vacation. Pass the Martinelli’s.

I needed to go out and water the fruit trees for the first time this year. It made it feel like summer already.

At the base of the little trunk, those are crushed brown eggshells to add calcium to the soil over time and because the slugs and snails can’t climb over them to strip the blossoms. Which they absolutely would do.

I finally thought to bend down to see if my newest apple’s flowers had any scent to them.

Like a gardenia. Ohmygoodness. How did I miss out on this before. Dainty and demure and needing to be sought out but when you did, what a reward, sweeter even than those on the Fuji.

My neighbor whom I’d planted it for happened to arrive home just then and I called over to her and exclaimed over the flowers with her.

She’d almost missed noticing them. She was as thrilled as I was. Have I mentioned I really like having her next door?

In the back yard: the irises nearly died of the drought but seem to be trying to make up for it now. They came with the house and have ebbed and flowed with the weather patterns over the years.

I haven’t seen them blooming like this in a long time, with more to come.

Writing this, I suddenly realize I didn’t bend down to see if they, too, have any scent–but then they’re not the novelty the columnar apple is so if there were, you’d think I would know by now.

And me, I went looking–again–through the stash for yarn for a hat that a preemie in the NICU could wear. Came up empty again…almost. Maybe…but I would think that adding color, rather than adding to the endless white there would be the thing. And it absolutely has to be washable. I wistfully held a ball of pulverized pearl/bamboo blend the color of those irises, so soft, so (and she needs this) warm, discontinued (because it was too expensive to produce) and thus a rare gem for the perfect little girl I wanted to knit it for.

But so needing delicate hand washing, which just wasn’t going to happen in the hospital.

I’ll keep looking.

I would think red would attract attention where you really wouldn’t want it.

On the other hand, those petal pieces would be soft and thicker and maybe stronger than a lot of types of leaves. Definitely gentler to the touch than the coir bits the Bewick’s wren has been wrestling off the seed pots. Maybe they’re at different stages of construction?

At first she just flew to the stalk several times throughout the day. Almost, almost–not ready. She really got going when the threesome of amaryllis buds turned red at the top of that stalk. I marveled that they could support the chickadee’s weight and when the first two flowers finally started to open today, I thought, that’s it, she can’t possibly perch on that. A single curving petal?

Try to stop me!

(No, no, enjoy!)

She was tearing off bigger pieces at the top now. Some of my friend Kathy’s dog’s fur from last year sat below, waiting to be claimed, but this tiny chestnut-backed, the smallest of all the chickadee types, wanted her babies cushioned by my favorite flowers. I tried quite a few times to photograph her at it but she’s not one to sit around and wait for me. There are nestlings to get ready for!

The Tangy Green Columnar from two angles. Most apples don’t need a pollinator but it does, and so the Yellow Transparent gave up a twig with the same stages of blooming this evening.

Meantime, in politics…

Time Magazine did a photo shoot with the Republican candidate (his unmentionable name deleted) with a Bald Eagle for their cover–it was only later that they released the footage of the eagle starting to attack him as he rears back and away. (Scroll down slightly to the GIF to skip the ad in the video.)

A video that’s a lot more fun: in the middle of a large campaign rally today, a Pine Siskin flies to Bernie Sanders’ “A future to believe in” sign and, resting on that perch, turns its head to get a good look at the candidate. At 56 seconds in, it flies  towards Bernie himself before veering upwards in no particular hurry, not having minded the sounds of the crowd in any of this. (And I have seen how they zoom away when a hawk arrives. That one was not afraid.)

I love Bernie’s delight as he stops right there to take in and appreciate what life has suddenly brought him, his laugh for the sheer joy of it.

I was pulling weeds tonight just a few feet from the patio when an Oregon junco flew in beside me. A Bewick’s wren came from the other direction and joined in.

Wild things know.

See that iris in the background? This is the first time it’s bloomed in several years. We really did get a lot more rain this winter.

Dark pink buds: the Tangy Green Columnar I planted a year ago. Since I don’t really expect the bees to zip around the house to get to it from the other apples like it needs, as soon as they open I’ll snip a flowering branch from the old Yellow Transparent and put it in a glass of water next to it.

Meantime, the English Morello tart cherry continues to open up. It, too, is not quite three feet high. Someday, someday, it will be tall enough to offer cherries to the neighbors across the fence.

The knitting. Hmm. No, if I say a single word it’ll give it away–so yeah. Later.

Meantime, the first Indian Free flower opened Feb. 23; at March 20 and after all those rains that tree is still blooming, although these last blossoms have no counterparts left on the other peaches for pollination. Such a pretty tree. So very glad I planted it. (Lemons and clamshell-protected peaches in the background.)

And the tart cherry–I counted in the neighborhood of a hundred buds today on that tiny tree.

The Cooper’s hawk swooped overhead while I was outside taking these pictures but I didn’t quite get him in any of them.

Michelle is moving and some of her stuff will have to store here for a little while. Eichler houses do not have attics nor basements. I am taking a break for a moment from getting ready for tomorrow’s input. (Your roommate gave you her piano? Cool!)

The little English Morello tart cherry tree that we planted last year, whose emerging leaves got utterly devoured again and again till I finally went out one night and discovered the pharoah’s plague of Japanese beetles swarming it–that tree. Big rootstock but the top stayed tiny, not much taller than my knees.

So I was just waiting for those bugs to come back. Meantime, the squirrels dug for them, the towhees stood near the tree and jumped backwards again and again, spraying bits of dirt out of the way and pecking at what were surely tasty shiny green/black goodies; me, I shook barbecue-grill ashes along the branches and the bottom of the trunk, figuring that was probably not the same as when I sprinkled it directly on the bugs last year and they all instantly fell off dying as the ash broke their joints. (And fertilized the tree.) But hey. A little preemptive Do Something. We all pitched in.

Tiny pops of green last week, later than the sweet cherry but not to worry–and no sign of damage. Every morning and every night I’ve checked. We’re good.

Yesterday was different, though: suddenly some of those round green buds started to turn white and tomorrow we should actually have flowers. Who knew! I had zero expectations of sour cherries this year–I expected the tree to still be in pure survival mode.

I guess it recovered better than I could see.

And for a total win, the thing is still so tiny that it fits under one of my small birdnetting tents. Easiest critter guard ever.

Looked out the window to see a black squirrel hanging upside down the trunk of the cherry tree. Wait–there isn’t even any fruit there yet, guys, c’mon! But given that the squirrels gnawed halfway through and destroyed a bunch of peaches the size of a small fingernail I chased him off and did a “And STAY out!” by baptizing the tree by sprinkling. With cinnamon. What I’d put out for the ants had gotten rained off and I hadn’t thought I at all needed to replace it yet but I was wrong.

Not a single critter has come back. That I know of.

We went out and bought birdnetting this evening, though we have not wrestled it on yet.

A few days ago a raven landed on the fence immediately behind that cherry, his mate in the neighbor’s tree just behind him, and with a my-territory-not-your-territory from me they promptly flew off; every time since then that they’ve returned to that tree just beyond the fence they have stayed behind a big limb as if to hide. But they have not come into my back yard.

Today there were a lot more cherry blossoms promising of all the goodness to come–and two side-by-side raven-sized poop jobs on my car. I washed them off fast before they could damage the paint; I’m hoping we’re not going to have to buy a car cover. I mean, hey, I didn’t even do the fake dead crow thing yet, guys!

Tonight while weeding I found a third of those critter holes (possum? Raccoon? Skunk?) dug under the fence, a new one in exactly the shape and size of the other two and immediately below where that raven had landed, i.e. as close to the trunk of that same sweet cherry as it could get.

I think what we have here is a conflict of interest.

(So I got out a long-tangled hank of Malabrigo Rios and got that pretty and exquisitely soft yarn all wound up neatly, needing to exert total control over a frustration, any frustration, and turn it into happy anticipation. It’s beautiful now and ready to dive into. It felt great.)

After holding back for last, the cherry season finally began with the first blossom opening yesterday on the Stella tree.

As soon as the fruit sets I’m going for the birdnetting.

(The photo angle makes the beak look a little smaller than it is.)

Coming out of Los Gatos Birdwatcher, my fob, which unlocks the car as you approach, was dead and my hands were full–I had to put everything down to pull the small key out of it, a task that requires adept fingernailing on the little slider thingy. And I did not want to damage the most fragile item in my hands. Argh.

The person helping carry the 20 lb bag of birdseed was fine with waiting however long it took me, just very patient, even though I knew the store was full of more customers waiting to be checked out than I think I’d ever seen when it wasn’t Christmastime.

Got in the car. Thanked the woman, who smiled, hoisted the big bag in and was gone.

Wait. No fob. Just the key in my hand, which only works on the door; you have to put it back into the fob to start the car.

Got out, found it, got in, had it in my hand…and again it had vanished. I hadn’t even felt it slip. I flashed back to my mom’s story of doing this with her car key when I was a teen waiting for her to pick me up from a piano lesson…for an hour…. (But that’s how she got back the piano bench cover she’d been needlepointing for her mom for a full year, with only maybe an inch of fabric left to do, when it suddenly hit her she’d gone through her knitting bag all. these. times. and–racing back to that grocery store!–so it was all good.)

No rescue-the-needlepoint story here to excuse my klutziness though. I was out and looking around the passenger side of my parking space when some young men, late teens, maybe early 20s started to pull into the spot by mine (did it somehow fall under my car?), but rather than being annoyed at me for making them wait a moment the driver opened his door asking, Are you looking for something? In a tone of, May I help you with your search?

Good people are everywhere.

I finally found my fob again and was off. Phew!

And suddenly realized, wait: no bag. That crow is just sitting on the back seat. What if the real ones see it when I pull into the driveway? I should pull over between here and home and cover it, I could have retaliatory corvids pulling off the rubber from the wiper blades for years! Which happened to the U of WA professor after capturing and studying his real crow.

I didn’t though, but when I got home I leaned over it, hoping to block any view from the redwood next to the driveway they like to perch in, took my sweater off and wrapped it around and carried my prize oh so carefully inside.

Would it work for ravens too? I’d wondered to the woman running the shop.

They’re not communal, she mused; I don’t know.

On second thought, though, it occurs to me, what if a raven tries to eat it? Mmm, tasty. Not. I guess then it would just look more dead?

But I am really grateful to that bird store for such a nature-friendly idea for keeping the crows from raiding my fruit trees, not to mention the warning not to be seen by them at it. They so deserved that sale.

I made sure not to put it where it could be seen through any window from any angle. I am having to resist putting it out there tonight. I think I want to wait till the cherries, now in early bud, start to look edible.

Right?

The dishwasher is fixed, the dishwasher is fixed!

Those tight pink apple buds I photo’d earlier finally opened up when it wasn’t raining and the air was a little warmer.

The fig tree: nine days ago and now. The tether to the fence was to brace it against a serious windstorm we had last fall, while it still had its big leaves, and it came in handy again these past few days.

The early blueberries are halfway along.

And the peaches! I found a dozen actual beginning peaches before it started to rain and I bugged out of there.

That’s the good part. The bad part was that the squirrels had already gnawed off half the outermost part of six of them. They are now clamshelled–although, peaches fruit on new wood and much of it was too tender to hold up one of the bigger clamshells the fruit will need later. I quickly scrounged up some small ones and they worked just fine for now. The rain held its breath till I could finish.

Re the knitting: I’m working on a cowl in dk weight, a gift from Dragonfly Fibers. Yarn is Traveller, color is Peony. It’s been 10 grams worth of yarn per pattern repeat and I have enough yarn to do one last repeat, which I would start with at the next stitch. Except that after 93 grams, it’s already a lot of cowl. But I can’t stand to not use every bit of a favorite Stitches yarn.

So I’m throwing it at the blog for the night and deciding in the morning.

You start with one seed sprouting. The new plant sends out runners that create new plants all around it, and new around them, the leaves gradually weaving under and over with more baby plants squeezing into every available space till it’s hard to find where one starts under there to get your fingers under all the leaves of just that one to give it a good hard effective yank. Out.

Invoke your Citizens United metaphor here–or not.

Picturing my grandchildren walking across the sharp-spiked seedheads and crying for pain spurred me to keep going no matter how tired I got: it wasn’t raining, I was only coughing a little bit, don’t stop.

Gasping for breath is not a good sign. I did stop and went inside and put my feet up. I was able to stand it for about five minutes, then I got right back to it–I don’t want poisons, I can’t afford, not in money nor energy, to cover the whole back yard in mulch. Go.

I think I freed us of about fifty pounds’ worth and glancing back at last Tuesday’s post, I’d forgotten I’d gotten nearly this much out that day, too–before I started today you would never have known that. Darn. I did clear out one entire patch. I have to win.