My photos, again, so while I wait for them to come through I’ll riff on the moose that a photographer posted to The Last Frontier on Facebook.

Alaska. The Kenai Peninsula. I don’t know that I have permission to share his work here, so you’ll just have to picture it yourself.

There’s a McDonald’s, the siding of the building rough-hewn wood fitting into its surroundings, while otherwise the place is unmistakeably the golden arches.

The pick up window at the drive-in is open and the moose is leaning as far in as its broad, blocking shoulders will allow it to reach. The view is from its side and away back a bit (the photographer’s not dumb.)

Summertime, says I, post-weaning.

One coffee, de-calf-inated. To go.

The problem with only focusing on what you want, she groused silently at the scrub jay, is that you cut off what you could have had.

I had chased it out of my Stella tree on seeing it yanking away in there. It got its not-yet-dark red cherry. The rest of the cluster, pale and small and far too unripe to nourish anything yet, was left on the ground.

Sing it with me, Have a piece when he is done…

Andy: Mom and Dad can do it. I flew before anybody. I can do this, too, I know I can.

The fledgling stands on the prey with both feet, gripping it hard, preparing to take off to eat breakfast someplace more interesting than home because it’s no fun when there’s no sibling around anymore to try to grab it from you. Grip, flap, lift: an initial try at getting it up to the light fixture. Nope. Go back, grab it again (how DO the folks manage talons and wings at the same time?) get it up there, did it, great!, okay this time lift it up to the ledge.

He did it!

Then, starting at about 7:30 in the video, yelling all the way as he drags it and its drag against the concrete turns him slowly around in the little wind tunnel he’s creating and suddenly Whoops!…

Every cat who ever licked its paw in a defiant show of, I meant to do that… Yeah.

—

(P.S.) If you’ve ever gotten on your own case about not getting something done, you’re in good company: this house is like our first one, which was a split-entry where the builder only finished the upstairs and left the downstairs as framing and insulation only so that first-time owners could afford a place and put in the sweat equity themselves. We did that.

Fifty years. I’m seeing the raw plumbing for maybe a bathroom, possibly a downstairs laundry room if they once intended a separate living quarters, a bedroom, closet, and family room down there at the least. It’s a nice house.

But that insulation and lumber have been waiting a long time for someone to put up with the hammering and disruption and noise. (Can we get rid of the ivy while we’re dreaming.)

I don’t know if it’s the sheep’s-rear-stinky wool wedged in the tree keeping the squirrels out or the sounds of squawking peregrine fledglings occasionally coming from my computer, if they can even hear that from outside. But whatever, something’s working and there’s still fruit on the trees.

Speaking of squirrels, I’ll mention it here for my mom, who’s not on Facebook: my cousin Jim reports that he and his family were watching a movie tonight when they heard a thud, scampering, and lots of squeaks. Everybody went running to see what on earth?

A squirrel (it wasn’t a very big one) had fallen through the skylight, the cat had chased it, and it had leaped for the nearest hiding place–which happened to be the toilet. Somebody had the presence of mind to whip out their phone and hit record for posterity. It was trying to get out, it was now trying to retreat and hide from them but wait let’s not drown, and the poor thing looked like a Mark Rober video reject.

They got a big thing of Tupperware and corralled it and Jim felt it shivering through the plastic. He got it outside, I’m sure shutting the door behind him first so it couldn’t dash back in, and tried to let it go.

It just stayed right there and kept shivering.

His daughter’s studying to be a nurse. They got some rags and bundled the poor soaked thing up and she confessed to petting it for about ten minutes to calm it down while offering it some cat food. Which it finally nibbled at.

At last it went off to go be a squirrel again at owl o’clock. Watch that curfew, kid.

Jim reports (not needing to mention the whole pandemic thing by way of context) that it was the most exciting Friday night they’d had in some time.

Re the flare: today was the good day I was wishing for during the last several, and thank you, everybody.

Meantime, San Francisco got its first peregrine fledge today (his closeup is here), and then the second.

Having lived all his life till that point in a protected, shaded, thirty-third floor spot, Cade, named after the late founder of the Peregrine Fund, found himself on the skyscraper across the street with the wind trying to blow the last of his baby fluff off and–turning his head: Wait, what’s that? He bounded down the granite after it.

He was chasing his shadow, just like every little kid ever born. It was adorable.

Well, that wasn’t working, and he turned back to his corner perch to figure out when it would be safe to open those wings wide again, because, bird, it’s windy out here.

The problem with chronic diseases (yeah, just try to scare me, after 31 years I’m onto them) is their ability to randomly yank one’s attention when you don’t have time for that nonsense.

As if we ever do.

I tried to figure out what I might have eaten that neither of them had. Hmm. Nope.

The day after my second shot I had a flareup of lupus and Crohn’s symptoms both but didn’t tell my doctors because what could they do, tamp down my immune system? After demanding it get to work?

It gradually tapered down and was almost gone, so today was a surprise (did I do that yard work too early, did I get a UV dose?), but at least breathing doesn’t hurt. And that is huge.

Today’s Crohnsishness is a lot better now than it was this morning; I got some good food down and am hoping it was just a passing bug.

Meantime, the San Francisco peregrines, other than the female who hatched four days late, have flapped their wings at the edge of 33 stories up but so far have quickly turned around to be facing home sweet home in case doing so carries them off anywhere. Here, about seven minutes in.

The one with all the white fluff still at the beginning of that video is Echo, the female who hatched four days after her siblings. She’s behind, but she’s catching up. Even jumped up there once and got her first view of the whole wide world laid out all the way down to where the winds can’t carry a tune.

With blueberries, cherries, plums, apples, and peaches already underway and the pomegranate and mango blooming I was a bit overdue for watering the fruit trees and it got unseasonably hot at 83–they needed it.

So there I was as I got to work, wondering why I’ve never gotten around to paying someone to install a drip system and realizing it’s because I like the rhythm and the process in getting out there and paying attention to each thing I’ve planted.

It hit me from halfway across the yard.

Now *that’s* how I remember those mango flowers! They’ve been opening for weeks but the nights have been cold and the scent just wasn’t the intense perfume it had been. I’d wondered if maybe I did lose some of my sense of smell last year after all?

Apparently all it had needed was some heat. My tropical tree was absolutely reveling in it and telling the world that this is how it’s supposed to be! Celebrate! Bring on the honeybees! It was throwing a party for the hive across the fence.

The side door next door nearest both opened wide and I hope the neighbors got to enjoy it, too. It was absolutely heavenly.

On a falcon note: the San Jose nest got three eggs in their do-over and are quietly incubating.

Peregrines start brooding after the third egg arrives.

Which means when the San Francisco nest had their fourth egg it was laid late, hatched late, and has been noticeably smaller all along.

The parents feed the eyases first that try hardest to get to the food–Darwin at work–and the little one would beg and stretch right with them and fall over on his beak. He just wasn’t as steady and he could not get as high up there as the others. It’s like a short person playing basketball: you can have a lot of talent, but… He (a lot of us are assuming male; we’ll know Monday at banding) was usually the last one fed, and sometimes the meal was pretty scant by then.

Parents simply won’t feed one that they don’t think will make it and there were murmurings of concern amongst the watchers. But they did, they fed him, he’s the spare to the heirs and there is no lack of pigeons in San Francisco so he’s gotten enough.

Today the mom flew in outside their nest box with a meal rather than straight in and it was the little one that hopped right out of that box and came for it, grabbing some himself when he thought she was going too slow.

The others perched on the edge, watching: how did he *do* that?! Finally, one hopped down and joined them, then a second, but the last one just stayed up there watching, not hungry enough to risk that very small leap.

Four hours later, they were all out of there and doing some exploring. Another meal.

Another week or two and the parents are going to drop the plucked prey in front of their grabby sharp-edged youngsters and make a break for it.

I typed that and immediately a new video showed up: that is not what the dad had wanted to do just now but that’s what happened. Have you ever seen a falcon do an eye-roll? It was hysterical. He circled behind them, trying to figure out how to get into the scrum as the meal in the middle got torn four ways. He gave up and left.

The mom flew in, looked the camera dead in the eye, like, Oh come ON, let’s do this RIGHT, snatched under there and grabbed the food away and started feeding the suddenly noisily begging babies acting like babies again.

There was just not much left at that point, though, so she was off on the hunt for more. Came right back and fed them again, this time with both parents there keeping an eye on their boisterous kids.

Who tried to flap their wings during their exploring, but with the feathers only barely starting to grow past the baby fuzz they kept flopping over like the little guy.

Who watched them and then did it, too.

Peaches, coming along.

The thorns that came out from the rootstock of the Page orange, now guarding the figs and allowed to grow (to a point) for that very reason.

It still always surprises me somehow to see not just anticipated and hoped for but actual fruit growing out there.

Oh and: Grace the falcon laid a new egg this morning before dawn. Inside the nest box. Where her second clutch will be safe.

I actually googled yesterday re whether or not Black Jack figs produce breba crops, because mine never had; I’d seen a few tiny dark stubs over-wintering and gotten all excited about it till they’d dropped off in the spring, but that was it.

I found arguments about whether or not they were really only a seedling of Mission figs that came out bigger, but no answer.

I’ve been taking photos of that tree these past two weeks as the leaves have been coming out just because I love how they look, but I never saw any sign of fruit. Nor all winter. Nothing. And yet there are two of these today! Figs in April! The leaves haven’t even finished growing to full size yet!

This past winter felt long and chilly and yet it was the first one in memory where it never went down into the twenties. That might account for it.

I know brebas are supposed to have much less flavor and sweetness than the crop the tree puts the whole summer’s heat into.

But who cares when August is so far off. A roasted fig stuffed with cheese, maybe a little honey drizzled on at the last if it’s not naturally sweet… Okay, so, put something else in the oven with them to justify the time in there. Blueberry cake or something.

They’re so big already. I put some clippings from my husband’s last haircut around them to try to fend off the rodentry. Not right up against the fruit itself because I figure chances are good that any birds still nest-building are going to be thrilled to find those locks, but, in the vicinity.

Meantime, halfway around the house, the juncos are waiting for the Morello cherry leaves to hurry up so they can hide the nest they want to build.

It’s blooming slowly from the ground up.

Oh, and in case you needed it: Mick Jagger gave the pandemic lockdown a piece of his mind yesterday.

The San Jose peregrines seem to be trying again after losing every egg, this time using the nest box–although we won’t know for sure till the clutch actually arrives.

San Francisco, meantime, had three hatch and then at last the fourth egg decided to get with the program. The youngest and littlest always seems to be the last one fed but it does get fed.

The surprise to me in that longer video was hearing a dog bark. That skyscraper nest is 33 floors up!

Got up this morning, walked across the house, looked out the window–and after a moment of not wanting to miss this at all and of it moving very slowly down the top of the fence, sniffing all the way, I ran for my phone. Tried to get a photo from the window on that side of the house. Nope. So I ran back to the family room just a moment before it disappeared into the neighbor’s yard behind us.

It was big and it must have been a female: during the spring, mama possums are out during daylight hours looking for extra food. They’re not rabid. They’re hungry. I’m just glad that with all the future fruit on my trees (not to mention the ripening oranges) that she decided my yard would not provide.

Man that one had a thick jaw. And belly.

I went and put my phone back.

Darn if the thing didn’t come back this way again the moment I did, this rat/pig thing the size of a large cat. They have opposable not thumbs but back toes for climbing and I suddenly had no doubts it had stolen as many of my apples as any raccoon.

Maybe. Looking them up, it turns out that for an animal that big they still only live two years on average. I’m guessing their play dead defense can be very helpful to the right predators.

This time it turned right at the T-intersection of fences and went along the backyard of the good folks next door. Again it was moseying along, sniffing (being nocturnal, they don’t have great eyesight) and in no particular hurry.

Again I ran for the phone. Again it slipped just beyond clear sight as I raised the camera.

We’d created ourselves a little game, hadn’t we.

Brown/gray vague blobs blending into the trees in the distance through multiple panes of glass. I managed to find them in the photos.

Which will be added when the computer quits playing possum with them. So you get mango flowers instead.

Some photos came through. These are the Anyas I planted a bit later than the first set.

The one from last year, having not been nice and warm and inside at night and having to make do with the natural seasons, is playing catch up.

Grape Kool-aid got the first gray squirrel that attacked my Stella cherry on Wednesday to leave and not come back; then yesterday, a black squirrel tried and that time I Graped again and shook cinnamon on the limbs.

There has been no sign of a squirrel since. Which is great, because last year they were stripping those flowers just as fast as they opened. They only seem to do that with the cherries.

I wonder if the salmonella outbreak that has been affecting the birds has cut down the squirrel population, too. It seems like it.

Quite to my surprise I discovered the first pomegranate bud of the year. And while I was looking at it, I heard the loud cry of a large bird overhead that I didn’t turn around in time to see.

But there was a large feather on the ground a few steps behind me that most definitely did not come from a crow, where there had been none a moment before.

Even with the bird feeder down, even with the tall trees to either side of our property gone now, even with a new generation of Cooper’s hawk these last two years, it appears they still claim our yard as their own.

And that makes me wildly happy.

A bit of warm weather and the mango buds that have been closed tight for so long are beginning to respond: some clusters are starting to set fruit, some are just now lengthening and opening up.

The tree got a bit leggy after spending too long under the ash-damaged and -darkened greenhouse. The surprise is that the buds seem to have come through the winter better with just the Christmas lights and the endless rounds of cover/uncover with the frost blankets than with the heater and Christmas lights and the Sunbubble. It’s a lot less electricity, too.

But it requires I be home every day at all the right times morning and evening checking the sun vs the cold and doing the origami thing with that big piece of white fabric (and the next and the next.)

Funny how I seem to have been able to manage that this past year.

We lost a bunch to cold spots but many more grew to replace them. I think it’s going to be a good year for showing friends what a local Alphonso mango, the best of the best and not heat treated for import, tastes like. I hope so.

Those dense leaves must look quite inviting even if I mess with them twice a day. All that motion and upward flips of green after a bird flitted in there could only mean that it was starting to set up a nest in there.

All we can do is hope the warmer nights hurry up so I can leave them alone to raise their young in peace. We’re getting there.

I had an instant reaction of, That one. Even if it’s really too big. I love the angles everywhere. The kitchen. The trees. The boulders. The nature path. It fades into the landscape like a Frank Lloyd Wright and then you walk inside but you’re still somehow mostly outside.

If we were moving to Portland now and were sure we could afford those property taxes longterm I’d be seriously considering putting an offer on it today contingent on physically seeing it and an inspection report. (I might change those small windows up high to plain and solid rather than segmented. Philistine, I know.) Just tell me none of the glass is single-paned.

Maybe I just need me some blue-green slate flooring like that here. I grew up with a slate floor entryway that had been quarried just down the road and my feet just want to dance on that for the inner child who once scraped her boots off where it didn’t mind the mud.

But wait till the trees leaf out in those gardens. Wow. (Which floor is the laundry on?)

Meantime, the Washington Post had a story about a man who grew up in not the best of circumstances in Washington DC–and became a falconer, rescuing injured birds while saying they’d rescued him. There’s been a documentary made about him and them.

Quote from the Post: “The Falconer” will be available for viewing from Friday through March 28. To sign up for a free screening, visit bit.ly/Falconer-DCEFF.? ”

Which I sure did.

Thought I’d put that out there in case anyone else wants to see it.

I haven’t mentioned the peregrine falcons in awhile. I was one of the San Jose nest cam volunteers for a season about ten years ago, and I always keep an eye on how they’re doing.

They got new cameras installed just before the season got underway and not only are those far better, one of them has sound.

Which you may or may not want to have on. You may or may not want to even watch. But one of the cam operators managed to capture video from both angles of when an intruder arrived, looked at the male to one side, the female to the other, and decided the 18th floor ledge at City Hall with a nest box and a resident female who had just gone in it for the first time, showing she was into this, was a territory worth fighting for.

I had long heard that locking talons was their primary means of fighting–the loser lets go–but I’d sure never seen it before. Before I link to it, let me just say H2, the resident male, won, with his leg looking a little injured but walking just fine today. He’s called H2 because at this point last year he apparently did the same thing off camera to the then-resident male and bested him.

The intruder has the bigger white bib and more brown.

Okay, here’s the first one.

And here’s the second.

The female flew in near the end to check on who her mate was going to be from here on out. Peregrines mate for life–or until their mate gets run off.