pinecones and sweet peas

Winter, Andes New York

Last night a raccoon joined the rabbits at the flower pot--it's a peaceable kingdom around here. Despite the fact that a pinecone was the symbol on business cards, etc. for Country Weekend the store (and is now a convenient avatar) I didn't realize that they are a regular source of food for birds and squirrels until I read Bernd Heinrich's Winter World.

"...while spruce cones stay long on the trees, the seeds fall out of them as the cones dry and the bracts curl out." He describes chickadees hopping about fresh snow eating spruce seeds, nuthatches picking them out of the cones on the trees, and squirrel chewed cones under the trees. He does this in great detail, counting how many seeds per cone (80) and when and how a squirrel decides to attack or discard one. (Far too long for a blog post, it involves how full of seeds a cone must be to make prying apart the bracts worthwhile.) He then investigates the seeds of balsam firs. I do love a passionate naturalist.

Winter, Naples Florida

A year ago, I was in Florida. Now I'm in snow-covered Massachusetts, but yesterday it was 40 degrees, almost balmy--I drove with the window open. The little girls who live across the street are riding their scooters in the driveway. With the time change this weekend we get an extra hour of light, and that will make all the difference.

If you are more interested in fashion than pinecones you will enjoy this short Bill Cunningham video where he describes a trend of dusky pastels in winter wear--he calls them sweet pea colors. More about Bill Cunningham here.

Enjoy your weekend!

Jen

small things

I counted six different types of tracks in the snow. Birds and squirrels are regular visitors, occasionally I see rabbits, and a possum and fox have put in an appearance this winter. I keep putting out food, and am rewarded by sweet sights every time I look outside.

I painted all day, and tonight's dinner was red pepper hummus, feta cheese, pita bread, carrot sticks and strawberries. Dessert: Cranberry orange ricotta cake from Trader Joes--it's delicious.

Emails have been flying back and forth as decisions are made for the wedding flowers. We all like blues and deep purples for the bride and boutonnières with things like pine needles and rosemary. I've gone down the Pinterest rabbit hole with bouquets.

I finished Body & Soul by Frank Conroy, and give it a near universal recommendation--it's smart, deep, and heartwarming.

I hope you are having a pleasant weekend (and staying warm).

Jen

little birds

In this bitter cold, I am putting out much more bird seed.

I bought another feeder and scatter seeds on the deck.

It's such a pleasure to watch the birds, and when the food is scattered widely they share nicely with the squirrels. A rabbit makes a regular appearance and we had a possum come by for a couple of nights, but the biggest surprise was the day I saw a red fox in my suburban Boston yard.

view from my kitchen window

Sparrow, finch, wren, dove, woodpecker, blue jay, chickadee, cardinal...
There is so much I cannot do, but I can try to take care of this tiny corner of the world.

Here I am at 2-1/2, with a pan of food to put in the feeder.

Did I take the cat for a ride on the saucer?

(Thanks to Jane for the idea of digging up old photos.)

Hope you who are sharing the polar vortex with me are warm and cozy.

Jen

hello, nature

Bird of Paradise

Little Blue Heron

There is a resemblance, yes?
Also, the heron's beak is iridescent.

The delicate, effusive bougainvillea. 

Palmetto patterns, spikes, fronds.

All found in Florida. 

 It (nature...glorious... infinite...) makes me giddy.

Jen 

(now back in grey, rainy Massachusetts)

whippoorwill nights

Remember a couple weeks ago, I wrote about the whippoorwill (here)?  (This time, no hyphens.) When I went to the Catskills that weekend, I listened but didn't hear it. I think, I hope it's because they stay deep in the woods, and the sound of the waterfall is very loud next to the house. But that night I was haunted by the sound, I heard it in my head, and realized it was a sound of my childhood, when we lived in the Virginia woods, summer nights, the windows open, falling asleep to the song of the whippoorwill.



I think of smells as having that visceral, deja-vu power, but not sounds. In this case though, the sound of the whippoorwill inhabited my five year old self, so deeply that now the sound takes me back to that time, deeper than a memory.

this voice of the cool and the dusk

I bought two little green books today, at my local antiques collective.  Nature's Diary, by Francis H. Allen, was published in 1897. 

There is an entry for each day of the year. On the left page are two dates with quotations. The dates on the right note birds or flowers one might expect to see, and there is space for the owner to make notes. In the preface the author states "I have tried to have each selection fit its day as exactly as possible... Every selection has passed a rigid examination upon two points,--scientific accuracy and poetic value,-- so that neither requirement has been sacrificed to the other."

 I love the seriousness and care with which he approached this endeavor.

A closer look at today's entry. Apparently the whip-poor-will should be out and about. I have strong memories of them from my childhood, but not so much in recent years. Edith M. Thomas calls the whip-poor-will "this voice of the cool and the dusk, this cloistered melodist..." Poetic indeed.

Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music, by F. Schuyler Mathews--bird lover, composer, and artist, was originally published in 1904; my edition is 1921. Mathews took it upon himself to transcribe the songs of birds, to help watchers identify them. What an undertaking! There's a nice little NPR piece about it that you can listen to here. It includes a playing of Mathew's whip-poor-will notations on the flute, as well as a recording of the bird with the onomatopoeic name. About the whip-poor-will Mathews writes: "There is something uncanny about the nocturnal bird and his strange song...The song is weird, there is nothing like it in all the category of Nature's music..."

I am going to the Catskills tomorrow, and will be listening for whip-poor-wills. Do you ever hear them?

Jen

p.s. See Karen's comment below about how both books can be uploaded from Googlebooks, for free.

a bit of whimsy

My friend Anne over at Bird/Like has been painting birds with hats. I smile every time I look at them. You can see more here.

pink & grey

One good think about Monday is Anne has her bird-inspired design gathering over at Bird/Like.
This week's bird was the pink and grey Australian Galah. I made a small dining room. Don't laugh at my efforts to make it look like a room. Okay, go ahead and laugh. I am starting to get the hang of it. A few more months of Mondays is all I need ... It is great fun--you should try it.

owls with spectacles

Anne from Bird/Like has a bird-inspired design board party going on. Today's inspiration bird is the Spectacled Owl. At first I read it wrong and thought it was Speckled Owl. I love the image of an owl with spectacles and so had to do a room with books in it. (Actually, in my house every room has books in it.) I had fun with this because I like the connection between design and nature and also because I am learning from it. I have no training in design and putting together different combinations and getting inspiration from all the choices on olioboard is giving me new ideas and insight.

I still don't have the hang of actually creating a room, so I threw together some elements for a family room for a family that loves nature and books--kind of like my family. I picked the bookcases looking for something an owl could perch on. The frog bookends are kind of twisted humor because I think owls eat frogs. I love the print on what I thought were curtains, but when I clicked on the source it's actually a shower curtain from Target! I'm leaving it up anyway since this is all make-believe I will pretend they are lovely drapes.

crazy bird people

Check out this wacky bird post from BIRD/LIKE. For one thing, there's a picture of taxidermied bird shoes. And an Egyptian birdhouse the size of a lighthouse. And a Hitchcock's "The Birds" Barbie.

And if you haven't seen it (or if you have, I'm sure you want to see it again):



I probably have 200 birds in my store (and it's a small store). Wooden birds, ceramic, plaster, metal. Birds on curtains, notecards, field bags. Lots of books about birds. But I'm not worried--birds are classic. The rest of the world can move on to newts or armadillos--I stand by my birds.

Oh, and in case you missed it earlier this week, watch Crimes of (bird) Passion here.
Enjoy the weekend--it's almost spring!

colorful and shiny objects

This video of bowerbirds will make you smile. I promise.

 I learned about bowerbirds from Anne, a landscape designer and lover of nature, who lives in California. According to Anne, male bowerbirds build  "elaborate stick structures, called bowers, which they decorate with colorful and shiny objects, including berries, flowers, and even ballpoint pens, drinking straws and other discarded plastic items."  So Anne had the awesome idea of inviting people to use the bowerbird as inspiration for designing a room with Olioboard. I never used Olioboard before, but it's free and easy and way too much fun. I made a bowerbird inspiration board for a solarium.

You can see more bowerbird inspiration on Anne's blog via: