Scavenged

I said to dpr, "Could you go check the nest, I think the crow has gotten into it." He checked. I couldn't bring myself to go look first. Even though I suspected it was over for the eggs, I didn't want to see it, to confirm my suspicions. I didn't want to make the discovery. I could only go and look when I was certain of what I would see.

Which culprit savaged the nest, overturned it and left it empty in its little hiding place? Was it the crow that cawed and cawed yesterday afternoon and flew from the willow to ground nearby? Was it the raccoon that we watched prowl our yard the other night, grubbing and poking everywhere, dipping its clever little paw into the pond or into anything that caught its eye or nose. Was it the squirrel that hopped across lawn and headed straight for the bird feeder where it finds all the seeds the birds have tossed in their eating frenzy? Any one of them could have done it and had a tasty meal: four small bluish speckled eggs. Nothing more, nothing less.

When dpr found the nest just a few days ago I wrote that those four eggs conveyed that something was right with a very small part of the world. A very brief respite it was.

My first husband would often say, "My mind is a hodge-podge of half-baked ideas." He was joking about himself, and he was right of course. It was. But today, I feel that way about myself.

After the tide, after the hunters, after the scavengers

I've been thinking about Hillary Clinton. I'm sick of her already, and I don't want her to run. I would never vote for her. She displeases me immensely. Yet, I hear an overwhelming media drumbeat for her. Where exactly does this drumbeat come from? Do you know anyone at all who wants her to be president? Anyone who thinks Hillary is the best thing that the Democrats have to offer? Anyone who thinks she has really smart political instincts and a solid internal compass? It's so obvious that the right is eager to the point of drooling to run against her. That bothers me. Why is she the presumptive front runner? What has she done to garner such speculation?

I took a Zogby poll Tuesday morning that was specifically about the Democratic ticket in 2008. Here's the list of contenders they came up with:

Clinton
Kerry
Edwards
Biden
Feingold
Vilsack
Richardson
Clarke
Bayh
Warner

Notice who is not on that list?

Al Gore.

You remember him, the guy who won the election in 2000 when it was stolen from him and us by the worst bunch of psychopaths our country has ever seen. I still like Gore. I think he would make a good president. I don't know if he would be a great president. I suspect that greatness and authenticity have been de-selected by our election processes, but I would vote for him. Most importantly for me, I think Al Gore can erase the past few years in a way that no one else can. And I really want these Bush years to be erased, expunged, repudiated, and soundly defeated. Electing Gore would be like having a do-over and making the cheaters leave the game. Then, we can start to repair all the damage they have done to our country and our constitution.

Hillary, on the other hand, keeps all the players in the game. She keeps the polarization utterly intact. She fuels the right wing psychopathology. She's the one anointed by the media. Why? It makes me very suspicious, and it drives me a little crazy. Okay, not a little, a lot, which is why I wish she would just go away.

Thinking about Hillary Clinton running in 2008 is like having to go look at the empty nest. Someone else needs to go look first, so I can steel myself for what I am about to see.

An Old Owl Goes Home

Over a year ago the pirate and I found a dead Great Horned Owl.If you look at the photos, you'll see that it was really quite beautiful. We found it lying just off the trail on one of our regular walks. We thought it would be good to take the owl's body away from its very public place, and place it in the bushes where it would just decompose the way all things do. We blogged about it, and a friend and commenter, grrlscientist recommended that we go back, pick it up, and put it in our freezer until it could be brought to the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, where its body could contribute to the body of knowledge about Great Horned Owls. We thought that was a fine idea, so went back a few days later to retrieve it. It was definitely worse for wear, but we brought it home and put it in the guest-house freezer. We intended to take it to the museum. I even emailed someone at the museum and told her about the owl. She was quite agreeable and inviting. She said it would be fine for us to bring the owl because students could work with its skeleton, and they needed a Great Horned Owl skeleton.

That was a year ago.

When we packed my mother's suitcase and laptop in the trunk of the car on Tuesday, they were placed next to our ancient Coleman Cooler. In the cooler was some ice and a long-dead Great Horned Owl. On the way to the airport I joked with my mother about not taking the cooler on the plane with her. It became one of those ongoing jokes that helps to ease the tension of airports and flying. We took the ferry to Seattle and then headed south to the airport. The pirate, my mom, me, and the great-horned owl on the Bainbridge Island Ferry to Seattle--you really never know what people are bringing on the ferries in the trunk of their cars.

After we got my mom to the airport we drove north to the Burke Museum. We pulled right up and parked directly in front of the Do Not Park signs. We took the cooler out of the trunk and walked up those lovely museum steps and stepped inside. There on the right was a young man sitting at the entrance desk. He did not seem surprised to see two old funky, Port Townsend hippies walk in with an old cooler. He even motioned for us to just put the cooler on the counter. I told him that we had a Great Horned Owl in if for the museum. He was quite delighted. A few students were milling about, and a couple came over and asked if they could see it. Of course, we said. We took the owl out of the cooler. After all this time, it still looked like itself, you could easily see its eye and magnificent talons through the plastic. One of the students asked if we had seen any Spotted Owls. Nope. Just this one Great Horned Owl.

The young man at the desk made a few phone calls, and right away someone appeared and identified himself as the curator. He took the owl into his arms. Everyone seemed pleased to have such a bird to work with. They asked us if we would like to explore the museum. We said, Yes, absolutely, but we're parked illegally. The young man said he was sorry but he couldn't help us with that. Oh well.

We left and headed north and took a different ferry home. The one that goes between Edmonds and Kingston. When my mother's plane landed in southern California and she was safely on the ground, she called us from her cell phone. Her first question was, "So, where's the owl?" We told her the owl was in its new home.

The Great Tomato Race

we participated last year in a tomato growing contest sponsored, hosted, created, by the eminent dr charles. we have accepted his challenge to join in again. it's free. it's fun. just post a tomato report the first sunday of the month. we missed the first sunday in may to post our tomato report, but the rules are lax, so here it is. as you can see from the award displayed prominently near the top of our blog, we were awarded a most prestigious graphic to honor our entry in the sexy category.

i decided to add some other garden reporting.

there are three tomato plant clumps along the right, all early oregon. there are two brandywine tomatoes in the rear left. the other little plants are basil. all of these were started april 8 and transplanted may 13. the plants in the container are blue potatoes.

these are volunteer tomatoes. we'll see what sort when they set fruit.

looking under a 25 foot tunnel cloche. in the foreground are carrots, then beets, which grew from seeds planted february 11. beyond, not very visible, are zucchini, broccoli, and tomatoes, all started in the greenhouse april 8 and transplanted may 6.

flowering kale. this was planted last fall. we have eaten a lot of kale.

today's mystery. what sort of plant structure is it?

clue: a different view of it. small picture, for dialup. large picture.

______________________________________________________________________

bonus flower picture!!! the first waterlily blossom of the year.

we are off to the airport this morning to deliver Bea, my wonderful MIL to alaska airlines for her trip home. it was a grand visit. we walked. we cooked. Robin Andrea and her mom talked and laughed.

Yard Secrets

We're having such a nice visit with my mom. The weather has been spectacular. We can see both mountain ranges, east and west, Cascades and Olympics, from just about everywhere. It's quite intoxicating and seductive. Visitors are often fooled by such sultry temperatures and heart-stopping blue skies. We try to remind them that it doesn't last. Still, it is magnificent.

When the weather is like this, every weed behaves like it inspired the simile. Where once we could discern cedar bark, now it's green everywhere, abundant, tenacious, unwanted.
The pirate went out to whack weeds and thistles. They're easy to pull right now because the ground is still soft from spring rains. He was whacking away, when he saw sudden movement and a bird fly out from beneath the thistle and tall grasses. So, he went to investigate.
What was he seeing? He stood and stared through the thistle and weeds trying to see what was there. Then he saw it. A nest. Really small and well-hidden, on the ground, with four bluish speckled eggs. As beautiful and simple as every promise in spring. He called my mom and me over to show us what he had found. I ran for the camera and took two photos. We worried that we had upset the momma bird with our five minutes of activity, but the pirate went and checked a little while later, and she was back on her nest.

Is it safe to say all is well with the world? Well, at least in this very small part of it, yes.

George Bush Turned My Mother into a Lawbreaker!

After we picked my mother up at the airport, while we were waiting for the return ferry to Bainbridge Island, she handed me an envelope with a letter she had just received from Customs and Border Protection. She said, "Here, read this."

My mother has been using the prescription medication Fosamax for her osteoporosis since 2004. With the new Medicare D prescription drug benefit, she thought she'd fill the prescription at a local pharmacy where it costs $200 (for 12 pills, a three-month supply). Medicare D pays approximately $70 for this medication, and my mom pays the difference. Her $130 out of pocket expense is added to the $70 from Medicare and both are applied to the first level of allowable prescription expenses of $2500. What that means is that even though she is paying most of that expense herself, the full $200 is used to build toward the first ceiling, when Medicare D stops paying and she has to cover all of her prescription expenses herself, until she reaches the next magic ceiling. In addition, she pays $22 a month to have this GREAT program.

Back in 2004 she started using a Canadian pharmacy to fill her Fosamax prescription. For the same drug, her out of pocket expense was only $100. Today that cost would not be applied to her $2500 Medicare D ceiling. So, she decided to go back to the Canadian pharmacy for her prescription. It is simply more cost effective for her. Unfortunately, she did not receive her medication, she received this letter instead from Customs and Border Protection.

Click to read the letter from Custom and Borders

Do you feel safer knowing that your tax dollars are being used so that my mother can't fill her prescriptions at a Canadian pharmacy that she had used for years? This is how our government protects, um, Big Pharma.

Here is the flyer they included with the letter. Pretty scary, huh. There is something so wrong with our elected government these days, I can't even think of a single thing they are doing right.

Click to enlarge

Airport Bound

If you read this on Thursday morning, you should imagine us driving to the SeaTac Airport. Picture us on the ferry between Bainbridge Island and Seattle. From there we head south for a short drive along the seaport industrial side of the city to get to the airport.

We're going to the airport to pick up my birthday present. My mom is coming to visit! We are celebrating my birthday on Saturday and Mother's Day on Sunday together. I can't tell you how lucky we feel to have an opportunity to do that. My mom who long ago named me Robin Andrea (not Rexroth's Daughter) will be here for a long weekend in the pacific northwest. It's been almost year since she was here last.

This photo was probably taken in 1928, my mom, on the right, with her older sister

Once we get back here to the peninsula, you should imagine us laughing, talking politics, reminiscing, eating, birdwatching and walking minus tides. Sometime over the next few days, we may even get some shingling and blogging done.

Wall to Wall

we have turned a corner. we heard that phrase a lot during the viet nam war. at least the "authorities" at the time acknowledged some of reality and felt the need to assure and reassure us that it would all turn out well. now we have rulers so divorced from reality that they glibly assert that all is well with our adventure in iraq. in a larger picture we may have turned some corner in terms of global climate, by burning too much hydrocarbon stuff too fast. there are no more "snows of kilimanjaro." who knew?


the shingling project began with the wall on the right.

and made our way along a wall. we know how the war in viet nam worked out. we didn't turn any corner. we hit a wall. dominoes did not fall. our leaders tell us that the corner they want to turn in iraq leads to iran. out of the quagmire into the abyss. on the weather front, we face bigger fronts, better hurricanes, faster tornadoes, and rising water. the trade winds and ocean currents might stop.


the pirate's girlfriend robinandrea (the blogger formerly known as rexroth's daughter) mastered a pneumatic shingle stapler to fix these in place.

now we have reached another corner. viet nam vets have returned there to help rebuild that country. will we nuke iran? will the humboldt current fail, plunging europe into an ice age?



we will just go on around the corner shingling. i wonder if the fallout from iran will poison the strawberries. sure will be nice to grow them year round up here in the northwest. at least it will be till the water runs out.