Today was banding day: three males, one female peregrine eyas at San Jose City Hall. If you’re curious, there’s a condensed video here: Glenn Stewart from UC Santa Cruz rappelling down from the roof to the top of the hvac unit with its ledges around it, the female (the biggest) sqawking and pecking at him as he works…

…And the thing that was novel to me was the sound. Glenn had a videocam on his helmet this year. I’ve heard descriptions of the kakking, of people hearing the indignant parents from 18 floors below and several city blocks away, but this was the first time I’ve ever been able to really know what they were talking about and I am very grateful for that new helmetcam.

Richard finally asked if I might want to turn it down?

Meantime, right here at my own patio was the swift swooping-by of my own Cooper’s hawk. Let the wild rumpus start!

How on earth did it get up there! Again!

The first time, the morning after we got home, an all-black squirrel was on top of the suet cage I’d kept above Kim’s birdfeeder. In three years, no squirrel had ever reached either one no matter how enticing they had ever seemed: they had checked it out and decided it couldn’t be done and that was that.

But we went out of town, the bigger birdfeeder ran out, and the other must have still been loaded.

The first thing I noticed when we got home was that Kim’s beautiful stained-glass feeder was smashed on the ground. But that was the pretty one!

Years ago, Richard ran some insulated wiring through a hole he drilled at the top of the wall of his home office at the foot of the L of the patio.  A few hours after the first time I caught him, I looked up from the computer and somehow that same squirrel was swinging on those wires high above my nose on the other side of the glass, trying to find a new path to that suet cake and not sure how to make the leap from there–the angle of them was totally wrong. How he got there I can only make a wild guess.

Nothing but glass and height between us and it knew it was caught again. Only, this time it missed its intended halfway-down point and fell seven feet straight down to the concrete.

And that was that. Order was restored. I hoped.

I’d been missing my usual black-and-red squirrel but he had disappeared. And yet this morning, he was back in his usual post, in charge of all things patio like before as if he’d never left–and the all-black one with the gap in his tail was gone.

And then I went outside.

Oh.

Well maybe the others won’t copy his leaps after all, not after that. He got carried away with it. I know a talon-toed chef who clearly served squirrel for breakfast.

Lots and lots of things I had thought I would get done today, but it turned out to be a good one for resting up and taking it easy. Found the right yarn for my aunt. Swatched a pattern idea. Nixed it.

Then an email came in: a friend had a severe migraine and a daughter to pick up at the airport in less than an hour. Help?

And so her daughter and I had a great visit all the way home, a rare treat when it’s someone else’s college kid coming back. I thought she was surely joking when she mentioned it was cold (it was 72) but no; her university’s in Hawaii, and she was laughing at herself for de-acclimatizing so easily. (I’d love to visit her campus…)

That got me going, and so I went to Milk Pail to get the manufacturing cream to make chocolate tortes for the people who gave us our own rides to and from the airport this past week.

And…  Just before dusk, in the blink of an eye and then gone, a Cooper’s hawk swerved under the birdfeeder and over the black squirrel that had no idea that that was something he should be worried about.  I got to see one of my hawks! I’m home.

The early bird flew down, grabbed at a worm but it got away, hopped a few feet over thataway (it had just stopped raining) and went for another and missed again. The robin flew.

Awhile later, 10:30 or so, a robin came again. It went straight to the first spot, only, this bird leaned its head sideways close to the ground, listening and quickly looking down a few times and bam!  Got it! It stretched and stretched what had to have been a meal big enough to last all day or to feed a whole nestful.

All the bird had needed was patient watching and listening.

We have such a patient daughter-in-law. Our son Richard is, too.

We had great fun watching and listening and playing with and cheering up a tired Parker today. It’s hard to sleep in new exciting places where you might miss out on something if you didn’t stay awake every minute (except 20 of them that snatched him despite his best efforts.)

He was easily cheered. I told his mother, he is so clearly a well-loved child.

The squirrels always watch me carefully when I reach for the sandals just inside the door: this means business. They’ll tense,  turn halfway so as to run but not taking their eyes off me, frozen and ready to explode in motion.

Because if I’m putting those sandals on it means I’m serious. I’m coming into their territory.

I put some suet out for the ground birds today and needed to run an errand and just really didn’t want it all to go to the bushytails while the towhees and wrens and juncos and golden-crowned sparrows got nothing . Hmm.

And so, for the first time, I tried putting those sandals outside to stand guard, remembering the chant of childhood: stinky feet smell my feet give me something good to eat.

Or not.

None of the squirrels would even come back to the patio, and an hour later the suet was untouched.  Somehow even the bluejay stayed away, and it’s been pretty aggressive lately (I assume while feeding nestlings).

Huh. Well, that worked!

I’ll have to keep it a novelty, though.

(I’m putting in some old photos to show off some of my patterns.)

I was at the pharmacy today and admired–out loud–the beautiful handknit shawl in muted plums the woman next to me was wearing.  The yarn was clearly hand dyed, and I asked her, Madeline Tosh?

Another knitter! She was thrilled. We ended up sitting down together and talking lace shawls, parting reluctantly only because she had to leave for her doctor’s appointment.

And I now knew why I’d gone out the door wishing I were wearing some of my knitting, but the afternoon was a bit warm for it. But I tell you: she totally made my day.

And to add a total non sequitur that is close to my heart, remembering that opossum: please. Make sure you’re all the way awake before you try to chase marauding wildlife away from your birdfeeders.

Coming home from church, Richard saw it too during a red light and exclaimed, “That’s a big one!” The sun shone through its feathers enough to verify that our Zone-tailed hawk was back, the one with the eight-octave wings.

Only, instead of soaring at a leisurely pace towards the decimation of its frantic prey like before, a crow that was losing distance fast, this time, a robin-size bird was attacking it. It was cartoonish: the littler bird was I think less than the size of the feet of the monstrous other, but it veered at the intruder again and again (not quite making contact), You leave my babies ALONE! Get OUT!

A good natured, Well all right, then. And it Zoned out.

Later in the evening, there was a reception held by old friends of Karen Bentley Pollick while she was in town and she had invited me to come. I felt a little the intruder compared to her childhood friends she would be seeing but I was looking forward to it.

Before I ever got in the door there, I saw an elderly couple talking to someone outside, she in a motorized chair unable to go up the front steps, he standing, and in delight I exclaimed, That’s got to be Doris!

I stepped to where she could see me, with ohmygoshwhatareYOUdoing here! on both sides.

Doris was the first lupus patient I ever met after my own diagnosis, the one who took me under her wing and helped me get used to the idea of facing a major disease for the rest of my life. Thank you Karen for making it so I got to see her again! Doris has survived postpolio syndrome, lupus, and breast cancer, and at 81 she’s still going and ready to party. Her Don is a peach and I have no doubt his support has had a great deal to do with it.

We reminisced a bit and they couldn’t believe my babies were so grown up. Three graduating from grad school this Spring? How! Wow.

I got a moment to talk to him inside and thanked him for looking after her all these years–and the sudden, nakedly grateful look on his face surprised me. Someone knew.

He asked how I was doing. I said, I’m doing well enough now to be able to say that this is what I waited twenty-two years since my diagnosis to get to. It is nice to be at this point.

And I wished silently that Doris’s progressive postpolio syndrome could have had that as an option.

Don is one of the best, with an easy laugh that sees the two of them through much.

I’ve got me a good one, too.  And today he looked up with me and we enjoyed the show in the sky together.

Paraphrasing there.

An intense day: a noon lupus meeting–and I couldn’t find a place to park without a lot of sun time.  Which I cannot risk. After driving all the way over there, I simply had to bag it.

Which was okay–I was going to have to leave early anyway, because I got an email last night that a friend needed a ride to her eye doctor three towns away. Dilate and wait, rush hour traffic coming back.

Annnnd…

I had promised to bring dinner to someone else at six.

I drove her, I waited, I knitted, I dropped her off at home, I went straight to Costco. It was past 5:30 when I got out of there with a rotisserie chicken and enough extras to keep them happy, apologizing for the lack of creative input thereto. Done.

Sat down finally at home with some Costco pizza, my first meal in seven hours and all I could do at that point–sorry for not waiting, Richard–and collapsed into a chair at last.

And saw the bottom half of a hawk swooping past the very top of the window.

Nobody on the bird feeders, sorry; my pepperoni’s too salty and really not what you’d like. I walked out of the room. Back a few minutes later, in time to see what I at first thought were falling olive leaves and then realized were feathers. Somewhere the Cooper’s had found its favorite, a dove.

But wait. Trees. Angle. Distance. Wind? How were they falling exactly there?

I wasn’t the only one who was fascinated. A young black squirrel on the patio didn’t run for cover, didn’t duck under the picnic table at the last second and hide on the chair legs like I saw one do last year–it loped over to the center of the grass and then stood on its hind legs, stretching upwards, sniffing as far as its nose could reach, staring, clearly, at the hawk. (My view up there was hampered by the awning.)

I remembered the one last year that liked to taunt the Cooper’s and how predictably that eventually turned out.

Then this one took off up the tree to get an even closer look.

Dude!

Didn’t your momma ever teach you not to get in a tree with strangers?

The first fledgling of Spring landed on my patio today: a baby goldfinch, very small, with a strikingly short tail (so far) and able to flutter to the ground for fallen sunflowers, but not even trying landing on those birdfeeder perches up there yet. Especially with that crowd around it.

What delighted me all the more was two house finches, usually an argumentative group and usually fighting for the highest spot up there, down with the little one, acting like they were showing the young cousin around to make sure she got enough to eat.

With a few tiger pictures for Lene among the others, courtesy of Kim, Richard and Parker.

A bird day here.

Everybody scatters, even the squirrels, when a jay flies in; they have long sharp beaks and bossy tempers and they’re happy to use them. I’ve seen them threaten a cowed squirrel, hopping after it, neck outstretched. Like their cousins the crows, they will steal and eat the young out of other birds’ nests.

I have endangered Bewick’s wrens. Find another yard. Although, the hawks’ presence does seem to have encouraged the jays to nest further away these days.

One flew in to the wooden box yesterday.

Not your suet. Scram.

It came back and I opened the door and it veered off. And again (as I stood there, curious). And again, like a game of hide and seek.

I did not expect what happened next: a fight among the leaves as it attacked a towhee in a tree, and suddenly the towhee fell straight down to the ground.

I don’t know if the robin-size bird was defending its nest or just itself, but to me it was a shock–birds just don’t go that direction that way.

Stunned, it couldn’t believe it either–and then it picked itself up and flew for freedom. Oh good.

What was clearly that same towhee showed up a few hours later, to that wooden box, where its favorite was: the suet cake crumbles. Maybe the jay attacked it out of jealousy: it has seen who’s allowed where.

But the brown bird was clearly hurt. It was trying to scoot on its belly and one foot, using the other only if it really really had to, and when it flew it looked a little tilted and I thought, well, that one’s hawkmeat, poor thing.

It came back today. It was trying its foot out gingerly from time to time, actually using it a little. Hop? A little lopsided, but doable.

A few hours later, it looked even better.

Cool. I wish I could heal that much that fast. Plucky little thing.

And then suddenly another towhee flew in.

The first immediately planted both feet flat on the box and started doing the I am a studly puffball! routine of Spring, pouffing its feathers, wiggling its wings and craving attention.

Okay, I guess I don’t have to worry about that one so much.

And then in the afternoon it was the doves’ time to put on a show. Mourning doves produce young pretty much all year round in our climate, a food factory for the predators, and one was small, I’m guessing barely fledged.

And yet it bossed the other two larger ones that showed up with it. They played leapfrog twice to scramble away from it.

Triumphant, it sat down on the narrow wooden plank separating two blocks of the patio floor, surveying its domain, and then after awhile simply blending in with the concrete.

It didn’t notice or didn’t know enough to note that the squirrel had gone. The birdfeeders were empty. Nobody was there but one very young mourning dove, claiming the world as far as it could see.

I knew what that means even if it didn’t. I looked around, hoping to see it–and then suddenly felt I was getting in the way of dinner.  After all, the female’s pretty shy.

Oh, okay.

And so I went off out of sight to the other end of the house for a few minutes and came back.

The bossy little dove was gone.

Soft little dove feathers decorated the top of the box and below it.

And the peaceable towhees lived to tell of the one that got away.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a plane! It’s a bird!

A pair of double-crested cormorants, as far as my friend Sibley and I could make out. I can only wonder why they were flying away from the Bay. Taking a vacation to the ocean?

Got 3200 stitches knitted in silk while avoiding working on the taxes. Finally put down the knitting, picked up the TurboTax, and made good progress.

Blog time! (Escape!)

So, to cut to the chase: Parker, letting Disney know they’re down to 100 Dalmations now: one went Up!

New Parker pictures! (Don’t miss the captions.)

Curious after yesterday’s patio incursion, I learned more about opossums today. It says there that they stay in one place for two or three days, then move on. That they keep the roof rat population in check and we’re fortunate to have them. Seeing one in the afternoon in Spring means a pregnant female looking for extra food.

I would add, if the shed smells of possum then it would continue the eviction notice on the rat that scuttered into there a week ago.

The last time I saw our only marsupial species was when I was having a palm tree taken out, years ago. It was not a friendly tree to have around kids; the long fronds bent low to the ground and were sharp as a sewing needle–one of my kids had to go to the plastic surgeon after falling into one.

Having it cut down is how we found out that for years we could have hauled out a ladder and picked fresh dates and had had no idea. They were at the crown, hidden behind the orangey mossy-looking stuff at the top of the fronds.

But a momma possum knew, and she was fit to be tied at the sounds of the saws and the presence of people. Babies clinging, their tails writhing, she stomped off (and on them, they were pretty big) across the yard, climbed the fence at the far end, got to a three-way intersection, picked the yard that had the most fruit trees and dove out of sight.

Meantime, I’m back to the Colourmart silk project. It’s shimmery, it’s gorgeous, and the pattern on this fourth iteration is what I was steadily discovering and working towards all along. There’s a great sense of success. It’s hard to put down.

Finished a lace scarf in sheared unharmed mink, started another while listening to General Conference. Sunday knitting is give-away knitting.

The sessions ended.

Looked up.

What the heck was *that*?! Beige-gray scruffy behind and a lizard tail. I should have known–it just so took me by surprise. ‘Tain’t no cat.

It lifted its snout out of my metal cup of water that a chickadee had bathed in just a little earlier and grimaced back at me.

Opossums are ugly enough, but this one beat all. Its head was way outsized for its body, and I’ve seen possums before–I doublechecked that impression when it came back later, and yes, its head really was enormous for its species. Its tail and part of its feet are of the same structure as crocodile claws (scute! Shoo!) and as soon as I opened the door and clapped my hands for it to go away, it bared its teeth at me.

This is the land equivalent of staring at a shark’s face.

Richard asked me to please shut the door behind me when I do such a thing?

Stamping my feet and clapping and yelling, I got it to go away. Git! (And Richard was right, it had been ten feet away from getting inside, with me halfway between it and all the birdfood it could desire sitting right there if it had gotten past me.)

That was at 3:00. I was always taught, growing up in the woods, that if you saw a possum or a raccoon in the middle of the day to give it a wide berth, that it was a potential sign of rabies.

I saw it scuttle back cross the patio two hours later and then disappear on the other side of the box to a spot where to discourage it from staying I would have had to get between it and its escape.

This time I did shut that door, and this time I brought out the newly-reloaded supersoaker. Stand back.

It hustled across the patio (squirt again!) past the shed (squirt!) and back out the gate (squirt!) that was open just wide enough for it. As far as I can tell, it ducked under my neighbor’s gate and into their garden, but I wasn’t going to follow it closely enough to be sure.

I haven’t seen any of the neighborhood cats in some time, probably because I told one neighbor the size of the zone-tailed hawk (52″.) I kind of was hoping for an owl after seeing a rat trying to help itself to some suet in the late afternoon about a week ago, the first time I’d seen a rat in three years. Predators are the only means of controlling such things outside that are acceptable to me, and I’d much rather it were one native to the environment.

The rat hasn’t been seen for days.

I wonder if the possum shed crocodile tears over its tasty snack.

A little leftover pie crust just sitting there.

A big bag of frozen berries.

A memory triggered. Of the intense comfort food that it was when I was given a single-person berry pie in a restaurant in Federal Way, Washington when I was far from my home, my husband, and my young kids.

When I was growing up, my mother often made homemade pies, a way to get more fruit into her kids and baked I’m sure with memories of her grandmother, who had a pie shelf built right into her kitchen: it was just expected that one would have pies on hand for whoever might show up on a random day, especially if there were young men to meet who might be courting one’s daughter. One could greet them most sweetly.

We picked fruit at pick-your-own farms, most often Catoctin Mountain Orchards in western Maryland. And so, strawberry pies, peach, berries, pear and lime, grape pistachio, it was always the best dinner ever when there was pie coming afterwards.

Then came the day I was in the Seattle area for my niece’s wedding and my brother, parents and I found ourselves with some time on our own and stumbled across that restaurant.

It was a great deal of mixed berries with just enough crust to hold them, not too sweet, just right, the way such things should be but that I had never seen from a commercial establishment before.  As close to mine or my Mom’s as it could have been.  It was so good that we went back and bought more to have for breakfast before our flights home.

A ten inch mixed berry pie just came out of the oven. Biggest pie tin I could find.

But the only thing that fit that leftover crust was a stainless steel 8 oz measuring cup, designed with a handle curving down at the end to steady the thing from flipping over as you fill it. Works on an oven rack too.

Its interior is now bubbly and cinnamony and just sweet enough and it is just right.

And on another note. This afternoon, Richard turned and exclaimed and got me to look up in time to see the second half as the female Cooper’s hawk (ie the bigger one) did a complete figure-8 around the two support poles to the awning and away.  “So fast. SO fast!” he told me. I so love our front-row seats!

An older friend who doesn’t drive anymore needed a lift. As we drove the main road coming home, I was keeping an eye out: I’d seen one around there several times before, and then–Ooooh, look! as I grabbed my eyes back to the road, hoping she would see what I meant before we passed it. It was sitting on the telephone wire, being anything but their usual stealthy.

“That’s *beautiful*!” she exclaimed, her head turning to follow it as the car continued on.

“That’s a Cooper’s hawk,” and I wondered if it was one that might have fledged from our nest two miles away. I was so delighted that she was as thrilled as I was; thank you, Gail.

Dropped her off, came home to my own quiet house, had a hard time getting myself to relax and sit down and accomplish some knitting. There’s a lot going on. Cancer surgery for the wife of someone we know, Richard covering some of their job at work just like they did for him when I was sick, and cancer treatment outcome tests this week for a relative of ours.

Our daughter Sam is doing better and for that, and for all those who have reached out to help her in any way, we are infinitely grateful.

I sat down at the computer.

It’s nesting season. He always seems to be more sociable during nesting season, and so, with a feeling of someone’s eyes, I looked up to see my male Cooper’s standing on the box just the other side of the window, looking in at me. People watching. Beautiful, beautiful, big bird, and I birdwatched back at him. He opened his beak and spoke in hawk talk that I wished I could understand, and then, having said hello, flew.

Maybe an hour and a half later, there he was again. Right there. Getting my attention and posing for the camera I wished I had in my hands. Looking at the look of wonder in my face.

And he came back again! But that time I didn’t see him behind me till I laughed at a Frazz comic, I think the one where one of the elementary kids asks why the Thanksgiving people dressed like color blind leprechauns?

And with that, a swoop of the wings and there he was, on his way by. His work here was done for today.

I can cope with anything now. And I went off to Purlescence, where, surrounded by good friends, I knitted towards making someone happy.