You never know what lies ahead in the spring. Around the neighborhood, people with broken magnolias have chosen not to remove branches that are still in any way attached to the trees. Massive limbs resting on the ground are in full glorious bloom—bloody, but unbowed, to use Henley’s words. Who knows what the owners will do, once the flowers are spent. For now, we’re grateful for the blossoms. I walked past a weeping cherry yesterday morning, and a breeze showered me with dainty, fragrant, pink petals. It felt like a blessing.
Rascal, in his own way, is becoming one with nature. He didn’t notice the cherry petals that landed on his fur. His coat’s too thick for that. Also, he mostly doesn’t care what’s in his hair. This morning, he had birch catkins in his fetlocks and didn’t mind at all. Then, of course, there are the twigs and bits of last autumn’s dessicated leaves he picks up by rolling in the grass or, worse yet, in the woods. Rascal sees none of that detritus as a problem unless it interferes with getting from one place to another. Besides that, the dog knows he can shake off most of it once he’s back indoors.
This is the busy season for robins. They’re tearing through the airways—and your personal space– intent on birdy business. Part of that business is keeping an eye out for other robins that might plan to enter already-claimed territory. This is not to be tolerated. Yesterday, when the dog and I turned into Sugarbush, a rumble broke out among four robins, and a fifth robin quickly joined them. The birds weren’t still long enough for me to tell whether they were males or females, but I have my suspicions.
Today’s bird encounter included six male red-winged blackbirds, which rose as one as the dog and I walked through Chapel Hill. While I wondered what that sixsome was up to, two mourning doves and a sparrow joined them. Aha! A householder had scattered cracked corn under a little redbud. The birds were all back, snacking, as soon as we’d passed.
I’m alert for male red-winged blackbirds as we walk in the springtime. They are lovely to look at and listen to, and they’d like you to move right along as you do it. They’re clearer and clearer about this as nesting season gets underway, moving from perch to perch beside you as you walk by their ponds. At a little pond we passed just after seeing the six males, a female gave us the eye. She was quite close to us, on her little branch, making no aggressive moves but holding her ground. Someone had to do it. The males were all off snacking.
Seized by the urge to clean, yesterday, I trundled two big quilts off to the laundromat. The washing machine big enough to handle them required eleven dollars in bills or coins or by credit card. I opted for the credit card. Hmm. Nowhere to put a credit card. Okay, bills. No bill slot, either. And, although I’d stocked up on quarters before leaving home, I didn’t have eleven dollars’ worth. The attendant told me to use the change machines. The one designed to provide dollar coins for customers’ paper money said it was out of order when the light was one. The light was on.
That left only the machine that turns bills into quarters. I had only three singles, which was not enough. So I used my next smallest denomination, a tenner. Ten dollars’ worth of quarters is a lot of quarters. I could only hold them all in one hand, while feeding the eye-level coin slot on the machine with the other, if I propped my hand against my body. Even so, one of the quarters escaped. And rolled away. About fifteen feet across the room before I caught up with it and stepped on it. The tricky part was picking it up again without losing the rest of the giant handful.
Eventually, the machine accepted all forty-four of the necessary quarters and got down to business. The machines and the rest of the place were wonderfully clean. There was even a table with a line of sight to the washer and dryer, where I could sit and read. Except for the silliness with the quarters, not an unpleasant experience, and the linens ended up spring clean. Mission accomplished.
You just don’t know what a spring day may bring. It might be magnolias blooming on the ground. It might be busy birds. And it might be chasing quarters that have rolled away.
24 April 2023