Letter to a friend in Minnesota:
Fortner:
Funny you should write today that you love the Master’s because of the azaleas. I’ve been mentally composing a note letting you know that after several false starts, Spring arrived here in earnest over the Easter weekend.
One day it was winter, and the trees were forlorn, almost lifeless; the next day, the dogwoods were in blossom, and the native azaleas couldn’t be outdone. Even the oak-leaf hydrangeas put out tender green leaves. (Our cultivated azaleas have buds that will open up any day now).
Along the roadsides, red bud trees are showing off, and on my walk the other day, I noticed that the violets have come out.
Perhaps the surest sign of spring was the snake I saw slithering across the highway just south of Walnut Hill the other day. And the carpenter bees. There has been a super-abundance of them. A friend gave me some desiccant powder that is supposed to kill the larvae, if I can find all the holes the bees have made and pump the powder into them. Meanwhile, I’ve been swinging away at the bees with an old tennis racket. I don’t know whether I’m getting better or the bees are getting dumber. Either way, I’m doing in a bumper crop.
I don’t know whether it has anything to do with Spring, but a mature bald eagle sat in the white oak tree just outside our bedroom window for five or six minutes one day last week. We have several nesting pairs on the lake, but that’s the closest that I have every been to one. And since our bedroom is on the second floor, we were at eye level, so to speak. It was a most impressive sight. Meanwhile, the gold finches, which had been packing away the bird seed at a prodigious rate, seem to have disappeared.
The blooming things include the pine trees, with their pollen that covers every surface with gold dust. It is amazing how the pollen can find its way into the most remote parts of the car. I have to hose off the windshield every day so I can see to drive, There is no point in giving the cars a thorough washing until the pollen stops falling.
There has been pollen floating in the lake, and rain today washed more of it in, and the wind formed it into windrows.
The oaks are putting out pollen, too. You don’t really see it, but it’s the kind that works its way into your sinuses and lungs. I’ve been snuffly for the past couple of days, and it's small comfort that the TV news reported tonight that it is an unusually heavy pollen season. Soon, the trees will begin dropping catkins, and it will be time to haul the blower out again.
I have been madly trying to get the place looking presentable. I’ve replaced some rotted cedar, and cleaned some of the decks and the flagstone on the landing and steps that lead down to the dock. The decks have just gotten a power washing the past few years, but every now and then they need a thorough cleaning. That means, in some places, tackling the ground in dirt with a bucked of TSP solution and a brush. Fortunately, we’re having the place painted this year, so the painting contractor will clean the mildew from the siding and soffits.
While I was scrubbing, the temperature was in the 80s, more like July than April. Today’s rain, though, was the harbinger of a cool front, and when I went down to the lake side to watch the sunset, it was considerably cooler than a day earlier.
I watched the first round of the Master's, too, and thought about our trip with you and Jerilyn to Callaway Gardens. You'll be envious to know that Adelaide's church group is talking about making a trip to Callaway soon. You just need to come for another spring.
Regards,
Brown
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Danger to liberty is within us
Every few years some citizens discover that whatever administration is then in power is shredding the U.S. Constitution and endangering freedom.
It happens when the Republicans are in charge; it happens when the Democrats are in charge.
What is troubling about the current constitutional angst is the glib ease with which so many on the right – including elected officials – brand those with whom they disagree as anti-American or worse. People who were elected under the laws and constitution are termed tyrants, and the language of violence permeates and airwaves and the Internet. The rhetoric echoes that heard in the period prior to secession.
May I suggest that the greater danger to the constitution comes not from a piece of legislation but from one group of Americans deciding that the only “true Americans” are those who share their views.
If we cannot accept that people can love this country as much as we do and still have different ideas about the best course for the nation, then freedom for all of us is in grave danger.
As Judge Learned Hand put it in a 1944 speech at “I am an American Day” ceremonies in New York:
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
"What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.”
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
It happens when the Republicans are in charge; it happens when the Democrats are in charge.
What is troubling about the current constitutional angst is the glib ease with which so many on the right – including elected officials – brand those with whom they disagree as anti-American or worse. People who were elected under the laws and constitution are termed tyrants, and the language of violence permeates and airwaves and the Internet. The rhetoric echoes that heard in the period prior to secession.
May I suggest that the greater danger to the constitution comes not from a piece of legislation but from one group of Americans deciding that the only “true Americans” are those who share their views.
If we cannot accept that people can love this country as much as we do and still have different ideas about the best course for the nation, then freedom for all of us is in grave danger.
As Judge Learned Hand put it in a 1944 speech at “I am an American Day” ceremonies in New York:
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
"What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.”
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Ugly signs of spring
The signs of spring are everywhere. Daffodils are blooming on our half-hill, and the maple tree out front is threatening to leaf out any day now. The pot of chives that I though was dead is putting out new green, as is the pot of mums that has been cruelly neglected time after time. Hope does spring eternal. On the way to town on Saturday, I saw a tulip tree in full bloom.
We had a foretaste of spring a few weeks ago when the sun broke out and the thermometer rose enough to lure enough people out to mark the first day of chiropractor season. That’s when people put their winter-weakened muscles to the test, trying to do in a single day all of the outdoor chores that it has been too wet and cold to do all winter.
Winter came back, though, to give them a respite.
In the past couple of days, though, confirmation has come that spring is marching inexorably our way.
That confirmation came when on two consecutive days, I could walk in the great outdoors instead of trying to block out the television noise while getting nowhere on the treadmill or stationary bike at the gym.
It wasn’t the johnny jump-ups along the shoulder that provided the final evidence. It was the litter.
Our short street leads to a longer road that dead ends in the lake, so we don’t have any through traffic. During the winter, it’s mostly locals on the road. But there is a boat landing at near the end of the road. In winter, only the most dedicated fishermen launch their boats there, but as the temperature and water rise, use of the ramp increases.
And so does the litter.
I’m satisfied there is at least some connection. (There has been some construction in the area, and I’ve followed enough tradesmen’s trucks to know how many of them get rid of their trash. The toss their lunch bags and drink cups in the truck bed, and when they reach a certain speed, it blows out. And admittedly there are some slobs who live or visit in the neighborhood.)
But tradesmen don’t scatter the number of beer cans that I see along our road side.
I can picture someone having some beer left after they get the boat back on the trailer. They chug it down as they head up the road and toss the evidence out of the window before they’re spotted with an open container. That accounts for cans that lie in ones and twos on the roadsides.
Or they don’t want to take their empties home, so they give them a toss. And there they lie until some dedicated citizen or a prisoner working off time picks them up. If they lie long enough, the country mowers will come along and reduce them to shiny chips.
I don’t know whether a deposit on aluminum cans and plastic bottles would cause a change in behavior, but it’s pretty clear that appeals to civic pride aren’t effective.
We Alabamians bridle when the outside world regards us as backward, but we sometimes earn that reputation.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
We had a foretaste of spring a few weeks ago when the sun broke out and the thermometer rose enough to lure enough people out to mark the first day of chiropractor season. That’s when people put their winter-weakened muscles to the test, trying to do in a single day all of the outdoor chores that it has been too wet and cold to do all winter.
Winter came back, though, to give them a respite.
In the past couple of days, though, confirmation has come that spring is marching inexorably our way.
That confirmation came when on two consecutive days, I could walk in the great outdoors instead of trying to block out the television noise while getting nowhere on the treadmill or stationary bike at the gym.
It wasn’t the johnny jump-ups along the shoulder that provided the final evidence. It was the litter.
Our short street leads to a longer road that dead ends in the lake, so we don’t have any through traffic. During the winter, it’s mostly locals on the road. But there is a boat landing at near the end of the road. In winter, only the most dedicated fishermen launch their boats there, but as the temperature and water rise, use of the ramp increases.
And so does the litter.
I’m satisfied there is at least some connection. (There has been some construction in the area, and I’ve followed enough tradesmen’s trucks to know how many of them get rid of their trash. The toss their lunch bags and drink cups in the truck bed, and when they reach a certain speed, it blows out. And admittedly there are some slobs who live or visit in the neighborhood.)
But tradesmen don’t scatter the number of beer cans that I see along our road side.
I can picture someone having some beer left after they get the boat back on the trailer. They chug it down as they head up the road and toss the evidence out of the window before they’re spotted with an open container. That accounts for cans that lie in ones and twos on the roadsides.
Or they don’t want to take their empties home, so they give them a toss. And there they lie until some dedicated citizen or a prisoner working off time picks them up. If they lie long enough, the country mowers will come along and reduce them to shiny chips.
I don’t know whether a deposit on aluminum cans and plastic bottles would cause a change in behavior, but it’s pretty clear that appeals to civic pride aren’t effective.
We Alabamians bridle when the outside world regards us as backward, but we sometimes earn that reputation.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
A few seeds sprout great entertainment
We get weeks of entertainment for what we’d spend on a couple of movie tickets and popcorn.
We buy a bag of bird seed, fill the feeder, and sit back and watch the action.
Our bird feeder hangs from a limb of a white oak tree just outside our dining room window; since we are on a steep hillside, that means the feeder is 25 feet or so above the ground. It is attached to a line which runs through a pulley so I can lower the feeder to refill it.
I’ve had to fill the feeder a couple of times a day lately as we have witnessed what could be described as avian food riots. I’m almost afraid not to refill it when so many of them seem to stare in the window impatiently waiting.
Goldfinches predominate at this time of year. They are not yet the canary yellow that will identify them later on Instead the are a sort of yellowish green.
They teem in the trees, contesting for perching places on the feeder. Squadrons of them drop to the ground like rocks, gleaning seeds that have been spilled.
A red-bellied woodpecker steams into the feeder like a battleship among destroyers, scattering the smaller birds, which return as soon as the larger bird departs. His smaller cousin, the hairy woodpecker, doesn’t cause that kind of alarm.
Other birds come to the feeder, too: chickadees and house finches and titmice and nuthatches, those funny little birds that walk down a tree trunk facing down, and the occasional sparrow. Brilliant male cardinals and less flamboyant females sit on the branches looking longingly at the feeder and make an occasional pass at it, but they are too large to feed easily.
Squirrels play chase around the trees, leaping from one pencil-sized limb to another. They sometimes venture out on the limb above the feeder and even hang by their back legs and try to access the bountiful supply of sunflower seeds, but they find that the shutters close -- or that I will lean out of the window and yell at them -- so they mostly scurry around the ground under the feeder, claiming spilt seeds. They are joined by the doves, also too large for the feeder.
A trio of mallards occasional waddles along the ground under the feeder, even the odd crow shows up briefly.
From early morning until later afternoon the area around the feeder is as frenetic
as at an anthill that has just been kicked.
When the gold finches depart, traffic at the bird feeder will drop.
But we’ll soon be putting out the hummingbird feeders and it will be warm enough to sit on the front deck and watch their aerial antics.
Meanwhile, we sit comfortably behind our double glazed, lingering over lunch and marveling at the show outside.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
We buy a bag of bird seed, fill the feeder, and sit back and watch the action.
Our bird feeder hangs from a limb of a white oak tree just outside our dining room window; since we are on a steep hillside, that means the feeder is 25 feet or so above the ground. It is attached to a line which runs through a pulley so I can lower the feeder to refill it.
I’ve had to fill the feeder a couple of times a day lately as we have witnessed what could be described as avian food riots. I’m almost afraid not to refill it when so many of them seem to stare in the window impatiently waiting.
Goldfinches predominate at this time of year. They are not yet the canary yellow that will identify them later on Instead the are a sort of yellowish green.
They teem in the trees, contesting for perching places on the feeder. Squadrons of them drop to the ground like rocks, gleaning seeds that have been spilled.
A red-bellied woodpecker steams into the feeder like a battleship among destroyers, scattering the smaller birds, which return as soon as the larger bird departs. His smaller cousin, the hairy woodpecker, doesn’t cause that kind of alarm.
Other birds come to the feeder, too: chickadees and house finches and titmice and nuthatches, those funny little birds that walk down a tree trunk facing down, and the occasional sparrow. Brilliant male cardinals and less flamboyant females sit on the branches looking longingly at the feeder and make an occasional pass at it, but they are too large to feed easily.
Squirrels play chase around the trees, leaping from one pencil-sized limb to another. They sometimes venture out on the limb above the feeder and even hang by their back legs and try to access the bountiful supply of sunflower seeds, but they find that the shutters close -- or that I will lean out of the window and yell at them -- so they mostly scurry around the ground under the feeder, claiming spilt seeds. They are joined by the doves, also too large for the feeder.
A trio of mallards occasional waddles along the ground under the feeder, even the odd crow shows up briefly.
From early morning until later afternoon the area around the feeder is as frenetic
as at an anthill that has just been kicked.
When the gold finches depart, traffic at the bird feeder will drop.
But we’ll soon be putting out the hummingbird feeders and it will be warm enough to sit on the front deck and watch their aerial antics.
Meanwhile, we sit comfortably behind our double glazed, lingering over lunch and marveling at the show outside.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
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