Sun's Out

Must do laundry. I gave up my clothes dryer, mostly because it is too expensive, so now I watch the weather and hustle out to hang things up whenever it is sunny or windy. This actually works very well even throughout the winter.

I've always loved hanging up and taking down the clothes. It's the best birdwatching time, since the birds aren't concerned with people who are doing some routine activity. I saw three woodpeckers working out their breeding arrangements one day. It seemed that the female would encourage one male, and then the other, maybe forcing them to compete so she could see who was mas macho. They made little friendly cooing clucks and cuddled up. I assume they worked things out in the proper time frame and found their hollow tree to bludgeon.

I watched three crows this winter too, and now I see that two of them have settled in the fir tree in my front yard. This displaces the jays and bushtits who have taken their turns there in the past. Bushtits build an amazing pendulous nest out of lichen, moss, spiderwebs, and saliva, and I have found nests and parts of nests on the ground. They build in the lower limbs so squirrels and heavy birds can't bother them. Jays are pretty resilient and will maybe colonize an empty nest in the top of a maple tree in the neighbor's yard, though I saw the red-shafted flickers touring it. Guess I'll see, maybe today when I hang out the sheets.

The crows make a great range of noises and at present are doing some low-pitched gurgles which I think are kind of like the sounds I might make if I were laying eggs. One of them keeps working breaking off branch tips and bringing them to the nest. When I was giving birth I thought I sounded like an elephant, but as far as courting behavior, I'm not too practiced. I tend to stammer and flippantly say things to drive people away, but as far as I know, birds might do that too. Who knows how thoughtful they are about their social relationships? The bird world is probably just as brutal as the human one.

I miss my son, but after so many many years of single parenting, I'm more than ready to not think about the needs of another person. For the last few years I've been simply trying to get my eyes off my internal processes and notice other people. I find that most people rather transparently display their needs if you give them a little bit of attention. I must, too. Maybe everyone else can tell what they are. I'm not feeling very needy, actually.

There are things I need to talk about, and I'm trying to be careful about blog etiquette and won't mention most of them here. I feel the weight of my eldership and want to avoid gossip and anything that might hurt someone else or judge them unfairly. I'm getting rather good at keeping my mouth shut if I haven't had too much coffee but it is awfully easy to type things out and publish them without thinking about who might suffer. I'm not responsible for all of your suffering, but I can help with some.

Today my only job is to get ready for Market tomorrow, for what will be the real Opening Day for me, since I took only Jell-O Art last week. I packed that stuff up in January and now I have to figure out what to take tomorrow, not forgetting a single thing and not taking way too much, which is my usual style. It will be cold, so clothing might not sell that well, and I don't have anything new. People will probably need hats, since it might be sunny and even possibly hot. That's what happened last year on the second week: it turned into summer for a day.

Really I had better take a bike ride too. I was going almost every other day in the early winter, for two hours at a time. I haven't been doing that as the pressure mounted to get ready for the Jell-O show, so I am out of shape. Pulling two or three hundred pounds of gear on that marvelous big trailer is not all that easy. My anxiety dreams get me there late and missing my chance to get that prime spot, but of course that doesn't happen.

I read somewhere to turn anxiety into curiosity. I wonder how long it will take me to organize and pack up my stuff? I wonder how many interesting birds I will see out in the wetlands when I go?

I wonder how much fun it will be to allude to and non-specifically discuss the subjects of my contemplation as I craft this journal? I wonder if my writing will really ever bring me the love I wonder if I want and I wonder if I will be able to navigate it without getting all loony and birdbrained?

Laundry's done.