Frank and Elaine are home. Hurray! They’ve been gone for a long time. Their son and his wife, both physicians, asked them to come to look after their kids for a year, while the new doctors did a one-year stint in Baltimore. Now the son’s family are en route to New Mexico, where they plan to make their forever home. The grandchildren are three-and-a-half and one-and-a-half years old, and it was hard for Frank and Elaine to make the separation from them. On the other hand, we neighbors are delighted to have the grandparents back with us again.
My husband reported a Frank-and-Elaine sighting Tuesday night. I saw them Wednesday morning, as the dog and I were finishing our walk. The long-lost twosome were chatting with their next-door neighbor, who’d been backing her car out when she saw them and had gotten right out to say hello. The four of us chatted in happy excitement, then Elaine’s phone rang—another neighbor calling from Illinois to welcome them back. As the dog and I moved along, across-the-street neighbor Don, swooped in on his bicycle. People dear to us are have returned to the fold, and there is rejoicing in the land. They’re home! They’re home!
Rhonda and I happened upon each other one morning this week as we were walking our dogs, and we walked a ways together. Strolling along Bluett near Green, we passed a man out tending plants growing in large pots along his driveway.
“What are you growing?” I asked. The plants were tall, healthy, and a bit exotic.
“Eggplant,” he answered. “Japanese eggplant.” We looked more closely and, sure enough, we could make out different shapes and sizes of purple fruit. “My wife and I are from Japan,” the man continued, “and we miss Japanese eggplant. You can buy eggplant here, but it’s different. So we thought we’d try growing our own.”
I was making my way up the driveway, hefting different sorts of eggplant—density varied markedly–when Rhonda realized she’d heard about the couple’s grow-your-own adventure. “And more of the seeds germinated than you expected?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “We’ve been giving plants to our Japanese friends, and we still have this many left. My wife and I are worried that this is more eggplant than we can consume.” He kindly suggested that, if we would care for some Japanese eggplant, he and his wife would have soon have some to spare. He thanked him for his generosity, complimented him on his crop, and walked on. There’s nothing quite like the taste of home, especially when home is six thousand miles away.
Sue and I walked our dogs through two woods, this morning: Oakwoods and Sugarbush. She and I were in such earnest discussion that, at one point pre-woods, we missed a turn and didn’t notice till we were nearing the end of the sidewalk. It’s all good, though; that just gave us longer to keep talking. We made it through Oakwoods and into Sugarbush, scarcely pausing for breath, when all of a sudden something cut into our conversation. Bird sound. Distinctive and really loud.
We listened till it was done, then Sue pulled out her phone to record the sound if it came again. While we waited, another walker approached. “Was that a flicker or a pileated?” he asked.
“It was like a flicker, only more so,” I responded.
“And really loud,” he added. We agreed. “Is that Merlin?” the man asked Sue, referring to the bird-identification app.
“Yes,” she answered, attempting to hand him her phone, “but I’m not good at working it.”
“I’m not either,” he said, declining her phone. “And I couldn’t see it with all the trees leafed out.”
We didn’t hear the bird again, and we continued our various ways. I’m pretty sure all three of us looked up pileated woodpecker sounds when we got home. Sue and I certainly did and, no question about it, what we heard in the woods was a pileated woodpecker. At my sister Carol’s, four hours north of here, sometimes pileated woodpeckers have to wait their turn to at the birdfeeder, as so many of the big, showy birds are competing for room at the table. In southeast Michigan, though, we don’t often see or hear them. According to sources likely to know, southeast Michigan isn’t prime range for pileated woodpeckers.
We’re delighted to have this one join us, but whether or not we’ll encounter more of them remains to be seen. Elaine and Frank are back. The Japanese-American couple long for a familiar taste. It all has to do with what feels like home.
11 August 2023
I am now curious about Japanese style eggplant. I had to pause my reading to head to the oracle of google. What a bright purple.