Mating Season?

I'm a middle-aged woman, hewing pretty closely to the stereotypical image, at least in appearances, maybe, of the ladies of my area.  As such, such banter is rare for me to encounter, especially in this day and age.  Still:  Spring was in the Monday Afternoon Air, and it Felt Good.

Anyway, had been craving a veggie sandwich on (hopefully) sourdough; ended up with a very nice baguette instead.  Along with a beautifully ripe avocado, a good-smelling tomato, some cheese and carrots to grate up, a small luxury jar of cornichons, a can of garbanzos in case hummus might be necessary.  Stood in line with my purchases, when, suddenly, an older gentleman* stepped in line in front of me.

Me - ...

Gentleman:  "Sorry.  I forgot my wallet.  Need to pay, you know."

Me - ... "(slow:  very tired, and, funnily enough, when I find someone attractive looking I get tongue tied).  *Mumble* - I forget my wallet all the time.  My keys, too."

Gentleman gets his item rung up.  "Oh Wow!"  It was one cabbage - granted, an organic, hand raised, grass-fed cabbage.  Still:  it cost $8+.  "That's okay.  I can afford it.  Life is Good.  I am looking forward to my cabbage."

Me - deadpan - "Brassicas are worth their weight in gold, sir."

Gentleman - "I'm sorry?  What did you just say?"

Me - "Brassicas are worth their weight in gold, Sir."

Gentleman - "What?  What?  What do you mean?"

Me - "Brassicas, you know:  Cabbages, broccoli, cau-lee-flower.  Kale."

Gentleman - "Yes, yes, I know, but:  how does a young woman like you know such a word?  You must be very, very intelligent.  You are young, And Smart!  For knowing such a big word."

Me - "Brassica is a relatively short word (gesture an inch with my thumb and forefinger).  I know longer ones than that."

Gentleman -  "So young and so intelligent !"  (He kept repeating this!  It was weird!)  Started telling me about the cooperative he managed for years, and about, how one could go to the market and find cabbages of the same size for $.35.

Me - "Wholesale, I'm assuming.  At the market in Chelsea?  Of course they'd be less expensive.  You've got an organic / hand nurtured one from a Cambridge retail establishment.  Give it a couple weeks, though, and you'll see the prices go down on conventional ones."

Gentleman - looking at me directly, now. "Or for free.  In my garden. ... again ... how does such a woman know such a word?  You haven't told me."

Me - ....  "I like to eat them.  (Folks in line were getting restless).  Thank you, Sir, and enjoy the rest of the beautiful day.  Also:  enjoy that lovely example of Cruciferous Gold."
***
Housemate said he liked the "Cruciferous Gold" touch.  Determined that the fellow wasn't so much chatting me up as expressing surprise at my being not so dumb as I look.  


* Older for me.  I'm a relatively well-preserved woman in her late-mid 40s.  He was somewhere between mid 50s / 60s.

Aurora

Just a simple series of knitted concentric circles in a soft, hazy acrylic the color of an early Spring evening.

Started it to break out of a rut.  As with all projects of this nature, it's coming along slower than I'd like.  Am enjoying its progress, though.  When this one gets off the needles, might try another and, who knows?  maybe even take the pattern down.

Les Mains Vertes, II

Though the weather's glorious out now, am brushing up on my Rain Dance: the cistern's almost empty and I've been flirting pretty seriously with a sunburn. Such a far cry from a couple weeks back when no sun would be seen for days, the garden plots were all soggy, and we were huddled in woolens, seriously contemplating turning the heat on again.

Aah, but what a growth spurt said wet contributed to -



Am I a bit mossy about the edges?

The above was the result of a few not-at-all related projects: my taking up dyeing a huge mass of cream-colored wool, a stab at the May project (mittens) in EZ's Knitters Almanac, and the need to make folks on my day-to-day route smile a bit (hey, we need to get our sunshine somewhere). (Pattern Available Here.)




Have fun with these! (Am seriously thinking of making a few more pairs of these in Fall colors.)

Heimweh.

Just got a postcard that the Frenchie painted for me.



The bridge spans the Seine. Home's in the green just below the fort at the crown of the hill. When I left, the apples and plums were in full bloom. Am told that, now, the hedgehogs (who we encourage) are out in full force. I really like hedgehogs; it's a pity they don't seem to be indigenous to this part of the world.

Hope is the thing with feathers.

As it's been warm enough lately to sleep with both the windows and the back porch door open, I've been getting woken up early (like 4:00 am ish) by the birds. Often it's cardinals working at establishing territory. Sometimes it's house finch chatter. Every now and again, it'll be a little white-throated sparrow singing a matin.*

Thank goodness for Spring! Thank heavens for those bird-songs!

When there's enough light (and it's not too damp, of course), I've been taking to sitting out on the balcony with a cup of coffee, the cats and a knitting project. The knitting's a great soul-soother; don't know why, but it seems that when my hands are moving, my mind gets calmer and I can think more clearly.

Lately, my fingers have been itching to swatch bits of lace. Sometimes they stay swatches, other times they grow into projects. Here's a little pattern for something I whipped up recently based on the Gull Lace Stitch made popular by the legendary Elizabeth Zimmermann.

Hopeful Neckwarmer (Pattern Available Here.)





***

* Sparrow is moineau in French, so we like to say that it's un petit moineau-moine qui chante ses matins. Have also decided that he's a Franciscan, since he dresses in brown and that's the big animal-friendly order.

Poetry Month.

As I normally do every April, will be spending my time over at my other site. (Why not stop by?) As always, would love to hear from folks about their favorite arrangements of words.

Afternoon Feeding.



A male housefinch feeding a baby. It's a pity my camera doesn't have sound; the babies' squeaks are so incredibly high-pitched and loud that, really, only hearing is believing. Also, note the little one flapping just one wing: it knows full well how to feed itself, but if it can scam a free meal, it will.

Tentative Takeoff.



The first sparrow fledgling of the season paid a visit to the yew yesterday. This morning, we saw at least three perched on branches taking in data and begging. Early evening, one little dope flew smack into the kitchen window, bounced off and managed to gain a foothold on one of the dead branches. Shook the kinks out of its head, then immediately started flapping its wings and begging from a house finch.

Wow. Another Winter's past and another Poetry Month's upon us. Will be spending most of my time over at my little April dacha. Why not come join me there?

(Happy National Poetry Month! Happy Hopeful Spring!)

T Minus Three Days and Counting until Poetry Month.

(From Last Year.)

Not Quite There Yet. Just the Same:



Spring, April, Poetry Month. So much to look forward to.

Harbinger of Spring:

We've had a ton of Goldfinches and House Finches out back for the past month-or-so that I've been back; is interesting in that they weren't around last year, or anything.

Have become kind of ordinary, these little ones:



Goldies flocking on the feeders last week. Get a load of that particularly Gold bee-hind on the top level!

Have to say that I'm surprised with how accustomed to the bright flashes of primary colors have become; sometimes even find myself looking beyond the birds to other things. Still, changes in the routine do surprise. The other day, observed something subtle, lovely, totally Springlike: a male Red Head tenderly passing a sunflower seed to a brown headed, stripy-breasted girlfriend. (sigh.) Spring is *almost* here.

My fat cat diet and laser pointer therapy seem to be working, too. Since last March, I've lost 22 lbs. The goal is to lose another 15 and to get myself back into decent athletic shape. I think I can get the weight lost by mid Spring - just in time to start some serious hiking again.

***

Am still trying to decide if I'm a Happy Cat at heart, though, or too sad from too much bad. I know I try to be happy, just doesn't always happen, though.

Works in Progress.

Mrs. Cardinal aside, I've prettymuch put the wool away for the season.



3/12, or exactly 25% of the way through this fun little toy. The yarn is a discontinued one from Lion called Kitchen Cotton. Am making it for a little boy who is allergic to wool, whose mom is a physicist and whose dad is a mathematician. Wonder who will have the most fun with it?



This will eventually fill out to become a birthday cardigan for a little girl who shares part of a name with me. It's the Color Block Cardigan from this book, and I'm using Lion's Microspun in pink, red and purple.



The yarn for this one was an impulse purchase; normally it's so expensive (to me) that I can't buy more than one skein at a time. However, found five in a sale bin at a price that couldn't be refused. The color's not my favorite (it's sort of a peachy-melony orange), but it's a dream to work with and should feel wonderful when the weather gets even warmer. Here's the pattern; I'm at the neckline. As am making it a size smaller than what I normally wear, am hoping that this keeps up the motivation to keep doing my stomach crunches and pushups. Have lost a fair bit of weight, but am still a bit too flacque to feel comfortable either baring the shoulders or drawing attention to the stomach. That's Trouble in the upper left hand corner, by the way.

Flowering Trees



Fiddleheads



Bird Family Values



Oh, and lots of fretting over school and exams. That's what's going on in my little world right now.

I can't wait until next week when, for better or for worse, the school stuff will be done for the Summer, anyway.

Last night, heard a familiar song for the first time in a while. Searched a bit, but couldn't actually pinpoint the singer.



He was somewhere up in the maple tree.

Had seen Mr. Redbreast around recently*, but he was always silent.

Standing under the trees in the chilly air, listening to his debut for the season, I felt this odd thrill. If my German were better and I could be transported back about 200 years, I'd have written an ode or something.

***

*Do they hang around here in the winter? I don't think so. Don't remember ever seeing any in the neighborhood before about April, anyway.

Is it something in the water?

The male sparrows are doing their get-a-girl dance in the yew and a pair of squirrels are (ahem) 'wrestling' on a woodpile in the neighbor's yard.

Haven't seen this much action in a l-o-n-g time.

It's Official.

Mr. and Ms. Cardinal are an item. (Just saw him crack a seed and feed it to her.)

Am looking forward to the mating dance*, which based on accounts that I've read, looks a bit like this:



***

*(Am not sure whether this is actually a mating dance or an aggressive display.)

Got started with my Spring planting up front today. Put in some primroses, pansies, columbines and some sort of composite with fringe-like petals whose name I forget. Did an awful lot to cheer things up.

Since I was up front, noted quite a few people stopping to take a look at what I was doing. Even got a few compliments on the arrangement and lack of color scheme. Was surprised that this came mostly from hospital people and glad that they noticed. Hopefully this will help push the notion that the houses that remain in the neighborhood are homes. Perhaps, by extension, the notion that the driveways aren't free parking and the lawns aren't trash bins or ash trays might gain traction as well.

Anyway, next up will be the strawberries, tomatoes and lettuce we picked up over the weekend. I want a decent-sized vegetable garden in the back, but really need to think on where to put it - both to maximize the sun time and to minimize the squirrel damage. (This is going to be tricky.)

Courtship.

At least four, perhaps a half dozen house finches have visited the yew tree diner over the past month or so. Of those, two of those seem to be regulars:



This is Mr. House Finch. He's been eating well, so is getting redder and redder with time. If you were looking from above, you'd note a brown spot on the top of his head.



Ms. House Finch. Same sleek shaping as Mr. House Finch, only without the bright red. Note the dark stripes on the light-colored breast.

Normally they tend to eat side by side with Ms. Finch on the sunflower feeder and Mr. Finch on the thistle sack.

Yesterday, I noted something unusual. Mr. Finch was all alone at the sunflower seed feeder and he wasn't hanging around the food like he normally does when the lady is around. Instead, he was pecking at the feeder and flying off somewhere. After seeing a few rounds of this, I decided to get up and watch what was going on from another point of view. Saw that he was flying between the feeder and the maple tree in the neighbor's yard, something I usually only see our lone chickadee doing. Why would a house finch be acting like a chickadee all of a sudden?

More importantly, where was Ms. Finch? Squinted a bit, scanned Mr. Finch's flight path and saw her perched up in the maple. At this point, Mr. Finch returned to the maple from the feeder, sat down next to Ms. Finch and offered her a seed which she gracefully accepted.

Something tells me that, in addition to food, we're going to need to provide nesting material pretty soon.