Coming Together Nicely

Day 215: By request, front and back! I have five more rows to add to the hexagon quilt to make it large enough to top a full-sized bed without any "drape" over the edges. The end rows will both be long rows (i.e., 14 hexagons, as opposed to the short rows of 13), which makes graceful corners. Half-hexagons fill in spaces along the sides, but top and bottom will be left as points. This quilt is entirely hand-sewn, and I've enjoyed making it so much that I've already begun making a few hexagons for a second one. Once again, I want to extend my profound thanks to all the friends who contributed fabrics to this project. Your donations should keep me stitching for at least two more quilts!

Figger On A Good Crop

Day 214: I figger I'm going to have more figs than I can eat even if only half of the ones currently on the tree come to full maturity! Almost every branch has three or four. The tree is only about five feet tall, and I plan to keep it under eight feet for ease of picking. Since figs fruit on new wood, it's best to keep them pruned back to a manageable size. It's taken about seven years to reach this point. If memory serves, last year's yield was six, but the friend who gave me this start told me that once it started producing, I'd have figs coming out my ears. Boy, if these all ripen, it'll sure prove her right!

Baby Ranger

Day 213: Here's a story from when I was just a "baby ranger." I don't think I've ever shared it on my blog, but it merits being preserved for posterity. In my opinion, anyway.

I'm a volunteer. I've always been a volunteer. Never wore the green and grey for a variety of reasons, but I still consider myself a ranger, and most of my uniformed colleagues have no problem with that. It was back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth (or close), and I was working in the forgotten corner of the Park, green as any little gourd which ever grew on the vine. I'd been left in charge of things while our tech (we called them "techs" in those days) took two weeks' leave. I was alone, and had no particular sense of unease until one day when I was in the shed with the open safe where we kept the radios and the money, and our solitary weapon was locked firmly in a separate compartment therein. Suddenly, the interior of the shed darkened, and I looked around to see a tall man in the doorway, leaning against the jamb and effectively blocking my exit. I wouldn't have weighed 100 pounds in those days even if you'd hosed me down in full uniform. I rested only marginally easier when he said in a drawling voice, "Hi! Is this where I can take my snowmobile to the summit?"

I put on my best smile and said, "Oh, you can't take a snowmobile to the summit, not here, not anywhere in the Park."

The man felt compelled to dispute my authority. "They told me I could take it up there from someplace over here."

I replied, "Whoever told you that was wrong, sir. Snowmobiles aren't allowed in the Park."

That still failed to satisfy him. "I got this letter from the superintendent, Briggly." (William Briggle was our superintendent in those days.) "He says I can take my snowmobile to the summit." He began patting his pockets, as if in search of the letter. I waited politely, my smile still firmly in place. "I'll show you. Briggly" (again with the y ending) "says in the letter I could do that." More patting of the pockets, and I was really hoping he'd shift his stance just long enough for me to dart under his raised arm into the outdoors where I could run for my life. "It says so in the letter I got from Briggly."

"Sir," I said, still trapped inside the shed with the money and the radios clearly visible at my back, "someone has misled you badly. Snowmobiles are not allowed in the Park. Someone is pulling your leg."

At that point, a voice I recognized came from in back of the shed, "Nope, we're pulling yours! Meet Scott. He's from East District." It was our trail crew boss who had known me for years. That was not the only prank they pulled on me during that season, and I never did figure out how to pay them back for it, although some years later, I sent a hapless intern out for paperwork stored in the basement of the warehouse. After moving any number of boxes to reach the non-existent access door I'd directed him to find, he realized the warehouse didn't have a basement.

Bridal Wreath Spiraea

Day 212: Many of the plants in my yard were chosen because of childhood associations like lilac, peonies, columbine and lily-of-the-valley. Most of them have a connection with my grandmother, although it was my grandfather who grew them. He passed away when I was quite young, so it was my grandmother who maintained the yard thereafter. I believe my love of Bridal Wreath Spiraea was born there, but I cannot remember where the bush was placed, only that when it was in bloom, it brought to my young mind the thought of a cloud descended to earth. When it shed its petals, it became no more than background noise, its small leaves and wiry branches nondescript, unremarkable. The flowering period is relatively short: one burst of glory and then decline, but in my grandmother's yard, that brief time was enough for this shrub to establish a lifetime niche in my gardening soul.

Big Day Bust

Day 211: That, my friends, was the absolutely worst Big Day I have experienced in my long years as a birder. Let me enumerate the species, and trust me, this won't take long to read: Evening Grosbeak, Steller's Jay, Band-tailed goddamn Pigeon, American Robin, Tree Swallow (exactly one), Purple Finch, Mourning Dove, Dark-eyed Junco, Black-headed Grosbeak and finally, right before dinnertime, a solitary Crow, bringing my Big Day total to 10. No Rufous hummer (one showed up this morning, doesn't count), no sparrows of any sort, no blackbirds or starlings. Terrible, horrible, no good very bad Big Day. But why? The weather has been good this week, so they weren't put off by that. There was food out, although admittedly not in the quantity I have laid on board in previous years. The only factors I can consider as possibly leading to the paucity of birds are avian influenza and/or climate change and the associated devastation of vast forested areas by fire. Ten species, when I should have had two dozen or more. Ten. That's all. And damned few of each.

Supervisory Approval

Day 210: This is not the photo I envisioned for celebrating the halfway point on the hexagon quilt, but keeping Merry off it long enough to focus the camera was proving to be an impossible task. It's nice to know my supervisor approves of my handwork. Yes, the quilt is half-assembled, and even better, the rest of the hexagons are already made. I've been producing them in twos: one to stitch in, and a matching one (or occasional singleton) to randomize in the second half. Some are not quite identical, but pairs of centers will have been cut from the same cloth for the most part, but it wouldn't be a Crow quilt without those few oddments which occur only once. That's what makes the Quilt Game fun: searching for the ones which don't have a counterpart, or seeking out where a matching piece occurs. Some centers have been used for backs as well, adding another challenge. Sewing the remainder together will go quickly. I have a Grand Plan for another similar quilt, using some pairs, some "reflections" (i.e., fabric A center and backing B paired with fabric B center paired with backing A), and then of course the singletons which are the highlight of the Quilt Game. I'm looking forward to starting it when this one is complete.

Spring Colour

Day 209: My yard is beginning to colour even though the flower beds immediately below my windows are only beginning to bud for the most part. Lilac scents the air, the pink dogwood wears a rosy crown although its lower branches are rather thin, the Sitka mountain-ash promises a bounty of fruit for the cedar waxwings and robins this fall. A few straggly Lily-of-the-valley survived my remake of the front bed, and will soon be overtopped by alliums, now still in the "knobby-wand" stage of development. The peonies have walnut-sized buds with rich blood-red peeking through the initial cracks, and a few columbines have spread their skirts. Still, it feels like we're off to a slow start here. Nights remain chilly even when daytime temps hit the 70s. I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't even mid-May yet.