“If men had wings and bore black feathers, Few of them would be clever enough to be crows.” – Henry Ward Beecher I stood at the window and watched three crows walk across the lawn, pausing now and then to pluck some edible creature out of the grass. Each walked with intent, and the three…
It’s easy to see motion in the garden when the motion is coming from a six foot tall mess of stakes, chicken wire and plastic netting. The chicken wire was a 2021 addition after the plastic netting proved insufficient to keep the birds and chipmunks off of the blueberry bushes. Know what my blueberry harvest…
Contemplating the turf war between a pair of stressed House Wrens and a nonchalant female Cardinal perched a little too close to the nest. I was struck by the similarity between the birds and my relationship with my neighbors. The neighbors are fine people, mind you, but they each do something that I find annoying…
I’m not one to think a lot about bunnies. And I can assure you this post will be a rarity in the relentlessly eclectic world of Alexandersmap. But there’s a story that must be told. It seems there are people in this world who buy bunnies as pets around Easter. They seem to believe this…
Water patterns reflect on the tree trunks, illuminating the bark and lichen in a dance of morning light. The wave patterns slowly fade as my bathing suit air dries in the early warmth. Birds and chipmunks fill the air with a soundtrack of their greatest hits. It’s going to be a scorcher today, they seemed…
Yesterday morning I chanced upon an Oriole in the garden. He looked at me and I at him and we both had our moment of interspecies connection before he decided to fly off to join his mate (who was no doubt pissed at him for his boldness). The bright orange and dark black are still…
Yesterday afternoon I changed up the routine and watched the Boston Red Sox play the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park. Day games are a different vibe than night games, and all games are a different vibe during a pandemic. But we’re slowly coming out of it, and going to a baseball game on a beautiful…
One of the joys of travel is stumbling upon roadside curiosities. On my pilgrimage to visit a favorite hero of King Philip’s War I came across a monument to the Rhode Island Red that drew my attention. The Rhode Island Red is a hen, of course, that famously and productively laid eggs particularly well, which…
Nobody owns the sky or the trees.Nobody owns the hearts of birds.Still, being human and partial therefore to my own successes—though not resentful of others fashioning theirs— I’ll come tomorrow, I believe, quite early.– Mary Oliver, Winter and the Nuthatch Oliver writes of building trust with a nuthatch that eventually learns to eat out of…
“What is left is what is.” – Wendell Berry, The Broken Ground Lingering soreness from a long winter hike and tackling a foot of snow with a snowblower that quite halfway through the task, leaving only shovels to overcome mechanical obstinance. Fatigue, not all of it in muscles, wished me a good morning with a…
