The Bluebird of Ambivalence

I'm not sure I'd look this happy!

I am absolutely whipsawed this week by the news!  In an effort to live less large, I'm seeking relief not in planning a trip or going shopping, but in my own backyard. Bill McKibben would be proud of me.

I wonder if I shouldn't better be blogging on compelling current events:  the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and speculation about Halliburton's culpability; the Arizona immigration insult; the flooding, loss of life, and more flooding in Tennessee (my darlings are safe and that IS another blog post!); the implications of Greece's financial implosion for the EU and, ultimately, for us; more fractured politics and disruption of the productive processes of government...and on and on. I've got books on my nightstand that I'm scared to open: McKibben's EAARTH, Michael Lewis's The Big Short, Frank Schaeffer's Crazy For God.  The news is a minefield for the pensive personality, but I can't bring myself to withdraw long term.

I listened to a podcast of  McKibben's interview with Tom Ashbrook yesterday at NPR's "On Point," and came away a worried believer.  McKibben holds that the Earth has already changed beyond the point of no return, that we can't go back to the growth model we've known, and that we're in for a tough adaptation--that has already begun, but, for the most part, beneath our conscious awareness (See: Tennessee, and that IS another blog post!).  He submits that we will do best to accept a future that bears little resemblance to our past.  Ashbrook pushed McKibben hard to provide a model to help us imagine life in that future and Eaarth's author selected Western Europe's ways of life.  The good news is that someone who has thought about it long and hard can imagine that we'll survive.  The bad news should be obvious today.

I'll know better when I've studied further, but my initial impression was that life will be a lot like it was for my grandparents in the small-town South throughout the 1930's and '40's, when gas, shoes, sugar, and much else was rationed, food was almost entirely locally grown, and one's own family and immediate neighbors made up a rich social universe.  Peas were shelled on a shaded porch in the hot afternoons, pre-air-conditioning.  As children grew up, married, and moved away, rooms were let out to widows, widowers, and mature single people.  Books, local newspapers, and talk were state-of-the-art entertainment. Since my grandparents largely continued to live that way through my childhood, with those same frugal habits and that community-centric lifestyle, I think I can imagine some aspects of Eaarth.  At least McKibben grants us the internet; we'll visit distant friends via social network sites, make new ones through blog communities, and resort to camcorders when we can't contrive to have our children and grandchildren within walking distance. Whew!  Maybe I won't lose you, Dear Reader.

For this day, my coping is stretched too thin by bad news to take in more of McKibben's thoughts via print; the book will wait a day or two.  I'm going to focus on my most immediate neighbors: the flora and fauna in my own yard...and with more pictures than usual today. This smaller world provides all the amazement, drama, triumph, and silliness I need for now.

The Bluebirds:  We have a tough time keeping the sparrows out of the bluebird house until the blues are ready for it.  DH uses a whiffle golf ball to plug the opening, taking it out when a bluebird has been spotted on the roof for a couple of days in a row.  If a sparrow moves in, the ball is back.  It's a tedious process, lasting for a couple of weeks, so DH amuses himself as best he can.

Darwin's revenge on Alien House Sparrows

This year, the Bluebird Pair finally got its act together, built a barely adequate nest, and laid one lovely blue egg before the Alien House Sparrows showed up, cracked the egg, and left it on the ground outside the nest. We coaxed the blues back with mealy worms, but, so far, they look more confused than anything else.

Honey, do you have the feeling there's something we're supposed to be doing?

Our favorite bluebird shot came from a few years ago, when we had a very successful mating pair that raised a large brood.  At one point, in the fledgling feeding frenzy, Papa Blue bit off more than he could chew.

I'm tired of grocery store runs, so I'm stocking up!

One year I peeked into the box after I noticed that the birds had not shown up for a couple of days--right in the middle of what I thought was nest-sitting time.  There were four blue eggs and a big, brown-speckled cream-colored one.  I pitched the unwelcome invader into the lake and headed for Google Search.  A brown-headed cowbird had been watching our blues and knew just when to slip her own egg in.  I asked an experienced birder on a bluebird forum whether the blues would come back to their eggs and was told they probably wouldn't. AND I was told not to destroy the cowbird egg, since cowbirds are protected.  Not by me!  I'm still waiting for the Cowbird Cops to show up and arrest me.  It's been about three years since the crime; if the cops show up this week, I'll know it was you that turned me in.

The Bottom Forty:  Our Circular Square Foot Garden comes along well.  The spinach is ready to harvest, but the chard needs a week or so.  The tomatoes are promising, but one of the basils has big, bold leaves and taps its foot impatiently.  I'll have to keep pinching back flowers to keep it producing.

Plants Can Be Neighborly...And Even A Little Threatening:  The Blue Anise Sage is as deep and rich a blue as Papa Bluebird's mating colors and Bill McKibben's pullover.  We've planted a sweet lavender clematis on one side of a trellis and red mandevilla on the other; we'll try to keep the clematis blooming with regular infusions of plant food so the two can twine together.  In this shot, they've just discovered each other and seem a little surprised.  And, finally, my son's almost-mother-in-law (is there no name for my relationship to her?) owns a plant nursery.  When I told her I love vines, she offered something she'd just gotten in and wasn't very familiar with.  It's called Dutchman's Pipe, but, when it budded and bloomed, I began to wish I hadn't planted it on a trellis so close to the bedroom window!  Look at the size of that...THING!

I have the strangest feeling of deja vu.

That's DH's sizable paw to the left!

Took your mind right off the news for a minute, I hope!  I'll be posting briefly on our kids' experiences in the Tennessee floods as a bonus post. McKibben and Thomas Friedman don't have to work any harder to convince me of global weirding.

What do you do to renew and restore yourself between news cycles?  Is it still working for you after a week like this one?