Wildlife.

Remember that crazy flicker i rescued?

I thought I heard her and a mate calling to each other a few days back. They have a distinctive call, a single loud note that i can hear in my house: a kyeer! or ki! I have thought that i heard the territorial call, too; a swelling flicka-flicka-flicka that is really rattly. They chat together, I think, but the sound of the starlings "having coffee" kind of drowns the flickers out. (It's funny watching the starlings, because they sit next to each other on the wires and chit-chat, and a little ways off a red-winged blackbird i call Dennis will sit on a wire and wait for a lull before he sounds off: conka-la-ree!)


I don't hear the starling that imitated me last year anymore. Last year, he would sit on the telephone wire to the south of my house, and after i would whistle for the dogs to come in, he would whistle back at me. The imitation was so good that i thought it was an echo.

This year, having learned that starlings are nasty little bullies, I hope they don't drive away my flicker couple. I saw the two flickers up in the Russian Olive in my yard, sitting side-by-side on a branch, and flitting from one branch to another, up and down the tree. The flickers are funny, sitting on a branch like a chickadee, even though in every other way they look like woodpeckers.
When they fly, there's a brilliant flash of orange-red from the underside of their wings. It caught my eye this morning as I walked from the greenhouse.

I still haven't seen the foxes that roam the property. Someday.

Winter Reading List

So far, this is the Reading List I have compiled for myself this Winter. By the way, if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them!

• Prodigal Summer Barbara Kingsolver
• Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer
• Goodbye to a River John Graves
• Naked David Sedaris
• Look at the Birdie Kurt Vonnegut
• Deeply Rooted Lisa Hamilton
• Some of the Dead Are Still Living Charles Bowden
• Water in the 21st Century and River Basins of the West HCN Reader
• Animal Dreams Barbara Kingsolver

Yes, I'm still here.

Sorry for the lag. I have had a crazy last few weeks.

Last Monday, the German lover went back to Germany.



Last Saturday through Wednesday, my bestest friend came from Colorado with her boyfriend and spent some much overdue time hanging out.

On Wednesday afternoon, I drove up to the cabin in Island Park, stopped to see my dear friend and her daughter, and cooked dinner after taking a silly scenic route.



Thanksgiving and Black Friday were spent away from the craziness, and that was very nice. The Matsuura's let us all sleep in their cabin (with, by the way, the three Matsuura dogs, my mom and dad's dog and my sister's dog, and my two dogs).

Itinerary

The Itinerary for The 2009 PNW Roadtrip

Car Occupants: Saren, Bernd, Lola, and Reiko.

Schedule:

Thursday, Nov. 5
7:00-8:00 Leave Blackfoot. (Don’t forget to change the car battery on the way out!) Correction: Leave at 9:27 am.
12:00 Lunch with Alicia in Boise.
Drive to (hopefully) Snoqualmie Pass, camp either in Yurt or other site.
Correction: Camp in Edgewick Inn, North Bend, WA -- past Snoqualmie Summit.

Friday, Nov. 6
Seattle
Pike Place Market
Stay in Mt. Vernon at Jello Mold Farm

Saturday, Nov. 7
More Seattle
Pike Place Brewery (?) Boundary Bay Brewery in Bellingham, WA
Dinner in Mt. Vernon [in memory of George, RIP]
Jello Mold Farm

Sunday, Nov. 8
Drive South on Pacific Coast Highway 101
Powell’s Book Store in Portland
Visit Corvallis (?)
Stay in a Yurt on South Beach, OR

Monday, Nov. 9
Corvallis, Eugene [or] Coastal Drive, Beaches
Stay in Yurt, South Beach

Tuesday, Nov. 10
Oregon Coast Aquarium
Eugene Wineries, ie Sweet Cheeks
Visit Corvallis; Block 15 Brewery, Dog Park
Camp outside of Eugene
Stay in Campus Inn, Eugene

Wednesday, Nov. 11
Drive East on Oregon Central Highway
Stay in Boise, ID

Thursday, Nov. 12
Boise time
Drive back to Blackfoot

So many thanks to all the good people who helped us on our way!
Namely: Diane and Dennis, and Alicia, Rebecca, and Tack.

October-->winter.

There is a long-standing joke that Idaho doesn't really have gradual transitions into seasons. I think i second that. Suddenly, it's cold and there are snowflakes falling, and that awful, howling wind of winter has been here the past couple days. Today, it would be considered autumn, if the past two days of winter hadn't torn away all the orange and yellow leaves.

I rescued a woodpecker from a friend's house the other evening. The poor thing was stunned and napping near a western window on his porch. My friend's sister had been inquiring of him to shoot said woodpecker, seeing as it woke her up in the morning; but as it now sat on the porch, I offered to take it home. She got me a box, and my friend made a joke about how i was the local token animal lover, and i scooped the bird up and took it home, where i put it in a bigger box. The next morning, it was stirring, so i opened the box outside and it flew away. I've identified it as most likely being a Northern Flicker, and she is now building a home in a Russian Olive tree just east of my kitchen window.



It's hunting season, so every day there are rifle shots from around the area that echo across the fields. I have had two groups of hunters ask me if they can hunt on (or around) my land, despite the no hunting signs i posted around the perimeter.

I have been a bit down and out with a cold of sorts. I finally asked my dad for his diagnosis, seeing as i felt extremely sluggish and congested and my temperature was 96°F, and he told me i had viral phrayngitis with purulent rhinorrhea. Somehow, it's funny that such a peculiar string of terms is more comforting than "Swine Flu." Ha. But basically, pharyngitis [swelling of the throat / throat infection] with purulent [pertaining to pus excretion, hence the green substance in my used Kleenexes] rhinorrhea [which just means a runny nose, or pertaining to the nose]. Simple, really. So far, i just have to wait it out. I broke down and took some Sudafed today.

I bet that's more than you ever wanted to know about my cold season, eh?

Turning up the thermostat.

Sorry for the delay in updates. My laptop has gone the way of the world, and my world kind of got a wave of change.

Work at Bindweed has slowed dramatically (as winter will do to a flower farm), and I began the search for a winter job. The Department of Labor told me that I was overqualified for everything they had available, and even if I wanted to do it, it would probably require a commute out of town. I told them I would keep looking. I may have scored a job at the hospital (thanks to my dad's stellar reputation as a nice doctor) doing rounds to check on patients. We will see next week.

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The greenhouse has the first crop of greens up. I flagged out the rest of the plots and this morning I met with Ralph to flag out a plot for ranunculus that i'll grow for Bindweed to sell next spring.

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I've been working in a welding shop down the road, building bridges for my dad's new pivot irrigation system to cross the canal on. It's rather rigorous work, and I come home with ringing in my ears and a sore back. Yesterday, I managed to take a nick out of my pointer finger with the grinder. I say it's a good thing I haven't been using the MIG welder, or i'd be melted. It's interesting working in the shop. The guy whose letting us do all this--and doing the welding--is a 70-some-old man who has lived there for as long as i can remember. He's smart and witty, and can weld beautifully, even with his misshapen fingers that i'm glad to hear he was born with and didn't acquire during his years in the welding shop. He recently rebuilt a 1936 V8 Ford pickup, and it's the most beautiful rebuild i have even seen. Yesterday, a friend of his came over, and after his friend has discussed a medical issue with my dad, they launched into speaking about the state of the country. No one brought up party lines or names of politicians, and no one placed blame on anyone specifically, but they were amazed at direction the country had taken: bailouts to already rich CEOs, troops still in Afghanistan and Iraq, the expectation that we could save everyone from everything, all while not expecting to do any manual labor. After a while, the older gentleman turned to me and said, "Young lady, you sure have been quiet, and it's all up to you to figure all this shit out!" I laughed, and he shook his head.

"I sure would like to survive another 20 years, though i know i won't; but it would be interesting to see how things turn out." Max, the welder, retorted, "I don't think you'll need to wait 20 years..." The friend turned back to me.

"Have you learned to use that welder yet, young lady?"

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As far as loneliness goes, I simply must have inquired of the universe at the right moment, because two weeks ago I went home from a bar with a German mechanical engineer from Spudnik, thinking it would end in the morning. In his words, "I woke up and looked at you, and you smiled at me, and I didn't want to leave. I felt like I had known you forever." He's stuck around, and now his host family is a little confused, methinks, as to where he disappeared to. Even though it was fast (his parents flew in and I ended up spending the week with them, too) and a bit unexpected, it's been fun and lovely, and I've had a few people tell me that we glow and spread this pixie dust of romance everywhere we go. I think that's going a little far, but, hey, what can i say about that?

Who knows what will happen in 6 weeks when he leaves. I am looking online and pricing out roundtrip tickets to Germany to visit. He is applying for a full-time position at Spudnik. More about that later.

Here's a post i started last month, but never finished.

9/15/09

If I have learned one major thing about farming for profit, it is that you have to be brutal.

You have to know when to yank rows of flowers, and there's no time for letting them sit pretty in the ground. A few months back, I had a row of sweet peas in the greenhouse that no one wanted me to pull out. They wanted more flowers, more seeds, and more time. As soon as a day came where no one was around, I yanked the row, taking advice from Ralph.

Ralph knows when a row of flowers has to go. There's other plants to put in, and no time to let them go to seed. He sends me out to pull out a row of burgundy and white snapdragons, and I revel in yanking up on the plastic netting around them, the velvet and silky heads scattering to make a carpet of flowers. He sends me to pull out a bed of feverfew, and my hands smell musty and herbal for hours. Today, he sends me out to the last row of lisianthus, where I falter for a moment. I take my scissors from my back pocket and cut some of the sinuous buds and tender flowers for a bouquet on my table. I put the bunch in water and turn back to the bed, filled with a destructive resolve. I take to the plants as Shiva, tearing at the succulent stems, ripping roots from the soft ground, piling the deracinated plants in scattered stacks over the ground. Finished, I stand, and spread the plant bodies for compost. I am tempted to do Nataraj's dance; but I don't know where to start or what kind of energy i will need for my next task, so i defer. And, let's face it, I don't have four arms.

Walrus & Carpenter.

I guess what it boils down to is that life is pretty weird.

I mean, sometimes we just end up seeing all the people we thought we would never see again, all in one day.

And sometimes, we see things that are just simply amazing, like an older gentleman wearing a fedora, driving a kiwi green Saab convertible in a funeral procession, singing at the top of his lungs, his mustache quivering in the breeze.

And sometimes, it might just be that we are the weird ones for someone else's weird reality.

Yesterday i took myself to the Walrus & Carpenter bookstore in downtown Pocatello. I walked up to the door, passing who i discovered was the owner seated out on a chair on the sidewalk next to fresh concrete.

"Hi," I said, "You must be--"

"Hi," he returned. I stepped back to make better eye contact with him.

"I am looking for--"

"Oh no!" he said urgently, albeit quietly. "Don't step there..." I had stepped back onto a patch of fresh concrete. I leapt forward, apologizing.

"That's okay," he said with a strained smile, leading me through the door. "What do you need?"

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera," I said, my face still flushed from embarrassment.

"Oh yes, right here--oh. Oh, i'm sorry, I'm out. How awful."

"Oh," I said, captivated by the haphazard menagerie of books. "I'll just look around." He excused himself to go back outside, and i wandered the shelves. I found a novel someone had recommended, and picked it up. After wandering for some time, I began to return to the front desk, and he came back inside.

"Seven dollars, please." He smiled at me, adjusting his glasses. "Yeah, you know, it's a good thing. That concrete was just waiting for a beautiful woman to come and step in it. Now I will always remember that." I felt my face flush again, and I ducked my head, thanking him.

"There's a show at the Bistro tonight, have your boyfriends bring you," he said as i went out the door.

"Thanks," I repeated.

I don't know if the bookstore owner knew that i was bottomed out on confidence, but i felt a little more lift in my step as i walked away. Weird, yes? Now he will always remember it was my Sketcher mary janes that made the goofy swirls in his otherwise perfect new concrete. Sad--and yet, funny, to be that perhaps beautiful but moreso ridiculously awkward woman who steps in fresh concrete on accident.