the sleppys

This morning, as I was stretching after my morning jog, I heard some rustling in the hibiscus on the northwest side of the house. There was the male Northern Cardinal, picking bugs off of the plant. He was chirping and whistling, then fly into the avocado tree. I kept stretching and watching him. (This is the same cardinal who lives in our backyard, in the Suriname cherry hedge, and who likes to fight with the cardinal that’s in the van’s exterior mirrors.)

After hopping about in the avocado tree, he flew into the strangler fig about fifteen feet away. His bright red color stood out in that tree as the trees leaves are pale green. (The avocado has some red-violet leaves that conceal the bird.) A few seconds later, another bird followed the cardinal. It was brown and cardinal shaped with a little bit of red. I thought that it looked like the cardinal’s mate (who doesn’t really leave her nest unless she’s digging for bugs in the backyard.) But this bird seemed smaller, however.

Then I saw something I’ve never seen: Another small, brown cardinal flew out of the avocado tree and joined the two birds in the strangler fig. They chirped at each other and hopped from branch to branch. The daddy cardinal flew across the street, into the oak tree, and his offspring followed suit. They spent some time in the grass in the swale by the STOP sign, with the fledglings’ learning to get their own breakfasts.

With seven people living on a part-time income, we have to use our resources efficiently to feed, clothe, and entertain ourselves.

We don’t have a mango tree, but our kitchen has processed at least a hundred pounds of mangoes in the last several weeks. Several of the families for whom I teach music have given me a bag or two of mangoes at each visit. I made eight small jars of chutney and froze them. I think we are down to four jars. I had only eight jars, so I made smoothies with leftover mangoes. And with the mangoes that I didn’t use to make smoothies because there were too many, Dad sliced up and put into our beans and rice. He added curry, green peppers, and other spices. It was delicious.  And we are still collecting mangoes because some trees give two (or three) harvests. Some trees aren’t ready for the harvest until weeks after the first. So every week, there are two or three families that are giving me bags and bags of mangoes.

As the babies are growing out of their old clothes and into Taylor’s clothes, I’ve been putting away their baby clothes. I’ve also been noticing stains and rips in both sets of small and medium clothes. So I’m cutting them. Yes, cutting them with scissors (and it’s wearing out my scissors!). I’m making my first freehand quilt. I’m just cutting pieces and sewing them back onto an old bed sheet that I cut into square foot blocks. They are coming along nicely. I was thinking of making a larger patchwork piece and using it as fabric for clothes, being that it used to be clothes. Perhaps it can serve as the skirt of a dress.

Last week was the first week of summer for the public school children. We at the Greenleaf School took that week off for catching up on housekeeping and play. Ty saw that one of his favorite television characters, Curious George, had made musical instruments using things around the house. Ty made a guitar out of a milk carton and rubber bands — It was more like a lyre than a guitar. He used Taylor’s kitchen pot lids as cymbals. And he asked me to help him make a water xylophone out of beer bottles. THAT was difficult. All of Thursday morning, I was tapping glass bottles with a spoon and adjusting the water level in an attempt to play a major scale. And all afternoon, I was suffering a headache from the high-pitched dinging. Albeit, it was worth it. The boy learned a bit about musical instruments.

The question is not, “How do you do it?”
The question is, “How will you use it?”

We have been getting strangers on our doorstep. They ask us if we want our lawn mowed. We always say, “No, thank you.” And they leave. We mow our lawn ourselvles with the old-fashioned, push reel mower, the kind that requires elbow grease and no gasoline. It leaves a choppy look, and if we wait a few weeks between trimmings, the grass gets so long that the mower merely pushes it down without cutting. So it’s a tough life, but we choose to live it and are happy with it.

We are most happy with the wild life in our yard. Yesterday, we went out front for a picnic and made friends with the bugs that live there. We didn’t share food, but we did thank our little friends (the boys named them all Pete) and watched their crawling on the long blades of grass, being pushed off by the gusts of wind.

Several butterflies came by: zebra longwings, viceroys, and one bright orange one that I didn’t recognize. There were dozens of little white moths fluttering about. And I realized that these wonderful animals love our yard because we supply their food. The spanish needles (weeds that are SOOOO annoying when they get the seeds stuck to laundry that was hung to dry) are butterfly favorites. The pros outweigh the cons by infinity, so I’m not complaining.

While we were still outside, after having finished our food, we saw a pair of peafowl. They came by the day before as well. I think they were eating the fallen seeds of the ficus trees. The boys were afraid that they might eat Pete, but I told them that Pete found a safe place in the soil to hide. I lost track of time while we watched them. There was a peacock and a peahen but neither showed off their plummage, not that the peahen has much to show off.

I’ve seen peafowl while driving a few miles north of here, but this was the first time that we saw them in our neighborhood. I’m not sure of the population numbers, but the birds are protected by the county.

We were out there for at least an hour, watching them walk back and forth, picking up tiny things from our tall grass. Ty was getting too confident with them, approching them too closely. I suppose that they are accustomed to humans. Still, they walked away quickly. The children were getting too excited and loud. I told them that the birds wouldn’t come back if we made their stay here unpleasant.

The pair of peafowl walked into the neighbor’s yard, so we went inside the house. A few minutes later, they were back.

A very confident pair of peafowl.

We are happy with our lawn and the nature that it brings, even if nature gets awfully close to Dad’s Miata.

The rains came, which made the plants grow. Now the weeds and grass are growing out of control. The lawn should have been mowed this weekend, but Dear Husband hurt his back: remnants of a two-decade-old bicycling accident. So he couldn’t mow. Instead, I mowed this morning.

As I was pushing the lawn mower back and forth, our neighbor across the street started putting up his hurricane shutters. Not that a hurricane is coming, but some people like to have one or two windows shuttered in advance. He is a older man, about 70. He’s in good shape, though. His wife once told me that she spends twice as much on food for him than for her because he jogs so much. He was hauling the corrugated metal panels that interlock from his garage to the side windows when we said, “Good morning,” to each other.

“You’re mowing with a ghost,” he chuckled as I pushed the Scotts Brand Classic Reel Mower through the swail.

“Just doing my part to be green,” I answered.

There is a bugs’ nest, some roach kind, in the middle of our island. I have never seen these particular bugs inside the house, so I let them stay. The lizards chase after them, as do the grackles and mockingbirds. The commotion attracts the egrets, and every so often, a flock of hungry ibises walk their way across the street and into our yard. I love these bugs! Their nest makes for good soil, so the grass that covers the nest grows the fastest. It is also the toughest grass to mow.

In general, a reel push mower is more work than a gas-powered mower. Sometimes the sticks and twigs get caught in the blades, but that can be prevented by doing a bit of preparation, id est, picking up the twigs and thick leaves. And if the grass is too high, as with the bugs’ nest, the mower won’t cut. I have to go over the surface two or ten times.

But there’s no petrol to drain. There are no spark plugs to clean. No oil to change. No gasoline to burn. No engine to push. No fumes to inhale. No vibrating machine that leaves the worker with shaking arms and hands for the rest of the day. There is only the clean sound of sharp blades and the potential for toned triceps.

Just doing my part to be green!