Walking toward the Thrift Shop for my volunteer shift yesterday, I was struck by the array in the front windows. Our ever-creative merchandising committee had made a display of scarves, hanging them from the arms of vertical structures, draping them through rings, piling them in decorative baskets. The colors were appealing, airy, translucent. The effect was diaphanous.
We sold a lot of scarves because of that display, even to people who don’t wear scarves. One customer purchased several and said she planned to use them as accents on her handbags. Another said she wanted to tie them around her hatbands.
The nylon ones reminded me of a set of juggling scarves we had when Daughter Number Four was small. They were a great way to learn the basic movements of juggling as, instead of plummeting to the floor the way that, say, beanbags do, the scarves float, giving the learner more time to catch them in the air. We had a lot of fun with those juggling scarves. They were great for learning a new skill and for the sheer pleasure of having colors flying around.
Walking the dog this morning occasioned a similar pleasure. A breeze caught a flowering tree as we passed beneath it, showering us with fragrant petals. Our friend Pat’s street is like a bridal bower now, lined with white-blossoming trees that sprinkle down petals in the breeze.
One day recently, looking from a hillside path down toward Traver Creek, I was puzzled by red in motion near the water’s edge. The spot of color wouldn’t quite resolve itself into a male cardinal, and wasn’t really bright enough to be a cardinal anyway, although it was clearly a creature of some kind. Or part of a creature? Yes.
A turkey, maybe? Nope, not a turkey. Some other large bird. At last, the bird revealed itself. It was a turkey vulture. The red part was its head. The rest of the bird was so well camouflaged as not to be visible until the vulture walked away from the vegetation along the creek. Our presence was clearly causing the creature concern, so we walked on.
Further along, the creek forms a pond overlooked by a hillside trail. There, we looked down on some animal with beautiful dark brown fur that shone in the sunlight. There was a fox squirrel this color recently, in the Sugarbush woods. Had it ventured so far afield? I was still puzzling this out when the critter raised its head and had a panic attack.
It was a muskrat, and it was not happy to see us. “Aagh!” said its thought balloon. “Run! Jump! Dive! Swim! Aagh!” It took a few quick steps toward the pond, jumped in, submerged, and made for deep water with all possible speed. The morning sun was still low in the sky, lighting up the shallow areas of the pond. Muskrats are, of course, fast and fabulous swimmers, whether on the surface of the water or below, their back feet pumping and tail thrashing. We watched this one until we could no longer see it in the depths. It looked alarmed the entire distance.
At the far end of the pond, we came upon a turtle basking on a branch. After causing agitation to the vulture and major alarm to the muskrat, it was a relief to tiptoe past the turtle without upsetting it.
The trees of Ann Arbor burst suddenly into blossom this year. Their buds grew and colored, and nothing more happened until one day they all seemed to open simultaneously, as if the trees had put up umbrellas in a sudden rain. Which isn’t too far from the fact of the matter. We’ve had a wet spring. The trees are making flowers while the sun shines.
Four colors of magnolia are blooming now: deep pink, pale pink, and yellow saucer magnolias and white star magnolias. The yellow one near us is right next to a deep pink one. They’re both scraggly specimens, but this is a good year for them, and they look amazing next to each other. Magnolia flowers don’t usually last long in this part of the country. They get rained down and blown down. It’s already happening, but the petals are extravagant and fragrant whether on the tree or on the lawn.
One of the pleasures of walking at this time of year is the heady blasts of scent from trees and gardens. They’re like little gifts. They make you look around to identify the source of the scent. Usually, you can find it, and sometimes you can’t. They’re like random acts of kindness.
25 April 2025