Loss g45: 2018

The Colorful Time

It
was such a hot and weird October. Until it wasn't. I've never seen an
autumn like this one. I had to get out before it was light to get my run
in before it got too hot. The flowers loved it, blooming there was no
tomorrow.

86 degrees on October 8. The wind was like a blast furnace, the sun’s hand heavy. Yet
it was oddly cool in the shade. Meadows and trees go about

A Boy and His Calf

This one lucky shot has had me watching the skies at dawn, sent me back on a four-mile jog again and again, trying to replicate it. I have so far failed. One of the funny things about this photo is that while I was composing it, the Great Pyrenees who guards this farm spotted me, and began to bark. I get barked at a lot, since you very rarely see a person out walking or running on these

Goats and Mushrooms

These
goats tug at my heart. They're kind of doglike. I walk up and talk to this billy, and I can smell him from
about 300' away. The milky, funky, pungent scent of a billy goat on a
damp morning is something you can't miss. I had to use my best Google-fu
to dig up the name of the compounds that go into that smell, and that
taste, in goat cheese. They are 4-ethyl octanoic acid,

A Quiet Dawn

It's been so wicked cloudy in the last few weeks that, when there is a sunrise, I go for it. I want to see that light spread across the sky and land, across the houses and barns and the backs of black cattle. I want to see it light up the ponds, make sky-holes of them. I keep checking the sky as 7 AM approaches. If there are breaks in the clouds, I know I may have a show to enjoy.

I

Out, With the Sunrise

It's hard to get a complete sentence written in September. I have to start well before it gets light. Because as soon as the light starts to rise, I'm running back and forth to the east-facing front door, looking to see if there's a sunrise happening. Luckily my hormones, such as they are, are perfectly in tune with my need to see the sun rise. I wake up well before the birds do and lie

September's Silent Parade

As I write, Sept. 21, the ruby-throated hummingbirds are still here, just a couple juveniles still hanging around and bickering. I love them so. And through the birches and flower gardens, fall warblers are sifting through in earnest. I must glance up from my drafting board 200 times a day, and I'm nearly always rewarded by the trembling leaves that mean a warbler is plucking aphids off

Bokeh Bird

This female ruby-throated hummingbird is sitting on one of the little
shish kebab skewers that I provide for my clients. My clients being the
gazillion birds who frequent my yard, who I'm trying constantly to
please in creative ways. I've stuck the bamboo skewers, which are
exactly the right gauge for tiny hummingbird feet, into the links of the
chain holding up one of my hanging

A Day in the Life

I'll be honest: I'm coming down off the I have the whole house to myself! cloud and tiptoeing along the ditch of Is that all there is? I knew the shine would wear off it pretty quickly.

Make no mistake: there's plenty to keep me busy here, with a book deadline looming and me working at capacity. It feels really good to have my watercolor painting chops honed and oiled. But when you've

On My Own Two Feet

I'm home from Wisconsin and happily painting blue jays and eating leftovers in the
quietest of quiet houses, deliriously glad not to be huddled in a corner
of some gray airport. Written while on the road:

I like travel. Even though I'm writing this as I'm finishing a 7-hour airline stranding in Detroit, and it's pushing 10 pm, and I have another four hours to go before I collapse in my

Art and Love in Wisconsin

Displaying two perfect, squeaky squidgy Wisconsin cheese curds. From left, Master Artists Robert Bateman, Cindy House, and Not-Master Artist me.

The center of art in Wisconsin: Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, with a fabulous crane installation called "The Dance" by Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein.

What a sculpture garden this museum has!

It's not at all like me to blog

Hummingbird Decoy Works!

Along about Christmastime 2017, a package arrived from my new friend Susan Rankin-Pollard, a wonderful artist who specializes in picture book illustration. See her amazing work on her Instagram account here. We'd met at a Highlights retreat where I was teaching, then been to Ecuador together for Sue's first real bird expedition. She was bitten hard by the birding bug, and what a

In Case You Missed It

photo by Anne Babcock

In Case You Missed It: Which, of course, all but about 60 people did...but let's consider what it's like to have 60 people arrive in your yard on a sprinkly, trying-to-be-fine Saturday noon. It's a trip, that's what it is! I'll confess that I spent several weeks in preparation for the Indigo Hill Garden Tour and Plant Sale, thinking of all the things that need

August Garden Tour--Sneak Preview

Like all avid gardeners, I work hard at beautifying this place.
2018's wonderful growing season, with gentle, frequent rains, has
brought the gardens to a peak of perfection. But we're so far out in the
sticks, nobody but my kids and I ever see them! The meadow is alight
with prairie sunflowers, ironweed and goldenrod. The zinnias are losing
their minds. I want to share!

Come to Indigo

Big Skink News!

One thing I really get off on is being able to tell a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Even better is a story that continues. Stories need to go somewhere.

This is why I label and date my photos. When you label and date your photos you can retrieve them. When you can retrieve your photos, you can pile them all together and tell a story with them.

It's kind of like curating

How to Grow Sunflower Sprouts: Easy, Fun, Delicious, Free

Some years ago, I went to Casa Nueva in Athens, Ohio, with my friend Mimi. Mimi knows all the best things in Athens. "I always order this salad, just for the sunflower sprouts," she enthused. I love sunflower sprouts."
Of course, I ordered the same salad, and plowed into a big pile of delicate sprouts. I adore them, too. I could eat them every day.

"Why don't I sprout sunflowers?" I

The Bird is All Right

I've left this post to simmer a little while because it takes time to make a whole bluebird. You shouldn't get it all in the same week! Bluebirds stay in the nest for around 18-21 days after hatching. So we're back, checking on the "not quite right" foster bluebird baby, and things have changed.

The next time I came out to check the bluebirds, it was going to be tricky. You shouldn't open a

Rosepink Birthday

Longtime readers of this blog know that my favorite wildflower is Sabatia angularis,
Rosepink or Rose Gentian. Not only is it spectacular, but it smells
like honeysuckle in heaven, with a distant forest fire smoking away
somewhere down beneath the sweetness. Sabatia is a biennial, meaning it perks
along as a small plant for a year before bursting into bloom, going to
seed, dying,

Checking on the Bluebird

A sleepy bee, planning to spend the night with its face buried in red clover. One could do worse.

Phoebe and I placed the starved baby bluebird with its foster family the evening of July 17. I gave it a day and a half to settle in, then went out early in the afternoon of July 19 to check and see how things were going. I figured it would either be a lot better or dead, but either way

A Bird in Need

I was taking a run down Dean’s Fork, with the ulterior
motive of checking a bluebird box at my friend Harvey’s man-cabin. In the spring of 2017, they’d put up
a decorative box on a little post, never thinking anything might use it, when a
bluebird pair decided it was just the thing and started hauling grass into it.
That would have been OK, but the box was only about two feet off the ground,

Summer Flowers and Shameless Commerce

I can't find a time of day when I want to sit down and write a blogpost. I'd rather be loping along, grabbing images of late July. I've fallen into my delicious stay-at-home routine which keeps me healthy, happy and wise, if not materially wealthy. I wake up with the first cardinal at 5 and am out on the road by 6:30, enjoying the sunrise and the opening chicory and the long beamed raking light

Phoebe is 22!

It's still one of my favorite photos of her, holding up a wild turkey's wing feather that she'd found. Why do I love it so much? Because she isn't asking whose feather it is. She already knows what bird it came from; you can see it in her eyes. Phoebe pays attention.

She brought me a tiny white bug what had hitched a ride on her white shirt while she and Liam were picking blackberries

Behind the Vows

I'm still swooning in the sultry heat and the soft hazy last of June light of my niece Claire's wedding to Cam.

Vows.

Perfection.

I'm just going to lift this from Farm Forward, so you can ponder what's packed into this angelic creature. Brains and ethics and a keen sense of what's sustainable, sensible and kind.

With a background in food systems, public health, and

Scenes from a Wedding

I had the privilege of attending my niece Claire's wedding to her love Cam last weekend. Took my kids and drove all day, over the mountains and down down down to almost sea level, on the coastal plain of Maryland, to the beautiful home of Cam's parents, the perfect setting along the Severn River.

Rehearsal dinner Friday night featured three crates of enormous blue
crabs, freshly steamed

A Song for No One

I've been running daily, and it feels so right. It helps to have Phoebe in the house; she's my inspiration and personal fitness advocate. We don't run together, because we'd be running together a half mile apart, ha! But we do bike together, and there is not much that's more fun than zooming down these hills and toiling up them with my kids. Proud to be a beast, schooled by the endless

Baby Season

Carolina chickadees, thinking I'm Mom.

Can it really be more than two weeks since I've posted? That's June for you, when both kids are home for the whole summer (I'm still dazed at this) and I'm conscious of treasuring every minute in their presence, because what else is there to do that is as important as that? Well, I had a big drive to Chicago in there, too,

Epic Turtle Save

This morning's run was so jam-packed full of June, I had to come right back in and share it. I so enjoy seeing what's coming into bloom.

Moth mullein, Verbascum blattaria, is an import, but it's so lovely, and doesn't seem to overreach its welcome.
I like how both the flower stalk and the water tower seem to have the same lean in this shot.
That's the tower that brings us our "

One Evening in June

Riches. That's the theme as spring turns into summer. My girl is home. My boy is home. They're both here with me, for the summer, though summer will be so very brief; Liam leaves for W. VA University (pronounced Dub VeeYew) on August 11. I'm conscious of treasuring every moment with them both home, for what will likely be the last summer. I don't need anything else, but June...oh June.

On Gratitude: Phoebe Speaks

Writing from a small bed in Freeport, Maine, where Bill, Liam and I are holed up in the midst of a wild, wild weekend of graduation ceremonies:

Everyone loves a grateful person. Conversely, people who act as if the world owes them something just for drawing breath are somewhat less popular, unless they're really good looking or rich and thus somehow mysteriously entitled to respect and

Two Days in May

Dang, this is a
strange and wild spring. It was January until about April 25; people
were saying it wasn't April 25; it was the 115th of January. And that's
exactly how it felt, like the winter that would never end. Then it ended
and BOOM, on the first of May I walked into the greenhouse and all the
plants that had been basking in its gentle warmth were suddenly and
inexorably being

Wakeup Call: Hitting the Wall

I've been waking up early this spring. Like 4 AM early. So it was no biggie when I opened my eyes in my hotel room in Hendersonville, NC at 4:45 AM on Sunday, April 29. What was a big deal was seeing the ceiling moving. It was disconcerting to have the room spinning crazily around me, and no fun alcohol overindulgence to explain it. I closed my eyes and somehow drifted back to sleep. Opened

In My Car, I'm Gone to Carolina

A little rattled, but hugely
grateful.

That
pretty much describes how I feel about this spring. OK, I'll expand and
say it's how I feel about my life lately. Some things have happened in the last three weeks that amount to an arm-grab from the Universe, letting me know that I'm not a superhero. Or even half of one.

A
bit of magnetic removable Subaru decoration from my friend Valerie

A Strong Wind's Gonna Blow

Egad. It's been awhile. Three weeks feels like an eternity in the
Zickiverse of sharing. Sharing beauty and all the good stuff makes me
happy. Conversely, when I don't have time to sit down and edit (or even
upload) my photos; when I don't have time to think about what it all
means, because it's going by too fast, I get kind of unhappy, restless,
blocked. So. Here I am. Had a really hideous

Earth Day, Every Day

It's raining this morning. The continual soft patter of drops on the roof and windows is the Lord's way of telling me to sit down, for once. Take a load off, do something other than dash around, muttering, hauling the garden cart behind me, full of tools and piles of weeds and bags of bulbs needing to be planted. Steady rain is the only thing that will send me indoors in late April.

A

Squirrel OUT!

The Easter morning squirrel saga continues with more ridiculousness. Ma keeps returning to the box, trying to coax Baby out.

I'm not ignoring you, Ma. I'm just choosing not to come with you this morning. I have things to do.

NOT COMING OUT.

Neither am I! If she doesn't have to I don't have to!

I would very much like a quick nurse. Why haven't you nursed us this morning?

A Squirrel's Easter

Easter morning is when those who think about such things envision rebirth, everything and everyone becoming new again. What was dead is now risen. For the squirrels in my backyard owl box, Easter morning 2018 was, apparently, a time of emergence.

I had suspected a squirrel was nesting in the box, because I'd seen one stretched out on its roof a few times, basking in rare spots of sun. I

In a Vacant House: Wilding with Jen

Ever
see two dogs running loose, getting into trouble? It really takes two.
Tongues lolling, tails high, they go looking for adventure. A dog on its
own just isn't as inquisitive or fearless. When it comes to going
through old houses, I'm definitely a dog. I'm not a fearful person; not
given to the heebie-jeebies. I just want to have someone with me. Maybe
it's to share the fun and

Jemima on PBS Nature! Tonight!

Jemima's last visit was Christmas Eve 2017. But she has achieved immortality!

Way back at the end of June, a magical thing happened. Mark Carroll, a natural history cinematographer absolutely dripping in awards (his latest, an Emmy for his work with filmmaker Ann Prum of Coneflower Studios on PBS Nature's "Super Hummingbirds,"), arrived at Indigo Hill.

Through the magic of social

Heere's Phoebe!

It seemed only fair, given my successful senior pictures photoshoot with the Thin White Duke, to give my Eternal Flame a chance at digital immortality. The trick was finding a sunny afternoon during her winter break--more difficult than it should have been, but that's this winter for you. Cold and wet and snowy and anything but comfortable. On the morning of March 22, I watched thick clouds ever

A Song Sparrow Named AlphaBits

Longtime readers of this blog will remember Luke, the leucistic song sparrow first photographed in this Appalachian Ohio yard on October 7, 2012. He was spectacular, and beloved, as all my special woodland friends are.

He'd show up for the Big Sit in mid-October, thrill our friends, hang around for a little while, then disappear until around Easter, when he'd set up territory in the side

Labrador Morning

It was such a beautiful morning. Cold, but every morning has
been cold.

I’m used to cold. 23 degrees meant four layers, gloves,
headband. Everything able to be zipped down or shed should the sun and the heat of running require it. I was really happy because my tiny Swarovski binoculars were finally
back from repair. I’m so tough on binoculars. The bridge hinge was broken again, and they

Senior Picture Shoot: Heeere's Liam!

Senior pictures. Lots of people spend a lot of money on senior pictures. Which is nice, because photographers have to make a living, too. The best photos of humans, in my opinion, are not the ones that are produced in a ten-minute session in front of a rolldown screen, when the subject is bathed in the glare of hot klieg lights.

Formal photos have one thing going for them. They produce

Back at It

A collapsed field sparrow nest from 2017 along the driveway. Japanese honeysuckle, already leafing out. Spring is coming, I think. The daffodils are in suspended animation, leaning into the biting wind.

I raised the blind yesterday on two inches of fresh snow. No matter how many times this happens, I am still surprised. Oh! Snow!

Not as surprised as they are in the Boston area I'm

Plucky's Gift

What ever happened to that half-winged mourning dove?

You know I wouldn't leave you hanging if I could help it.

I had this whole post written on a plane. And the Internet swallowed
it. The photos stayed but the text disappeared. Never had that happen
before. Now I'll probably say something completely different than I did
while hurtling over Kansas at sunset. One of the things I like about

One Day in Light

March is slapping us around here in Ohio. Hey! Spring's here!! Whoops! Snow! Here are the Three Graces at noon today, on my way into town. I wanted to document their buds and flowers coming out so early in March, even though the light was flat and dull.

And here they are at 5:46 pm. Same day. Same place. Somewhat different light. If you don't think that light changes everything,

I Love a Survivor

I first saw her come walking in with a flock of mourning doves, to the corn
and sunflower seed I offer ground-feeders. It was February 15, 2018. For a moment
I just stared at her, then I picked up the camera and started shooting. Her left
wing was missing perhaps half its secondaries.

but that was nothing to what I would see next. Her right wing was practically gone. All the flight

An Underwater Fire

View from my hotel room at The Dana on Mission Bay. Dee-luxe.

I’d never been to San Diego. That needed fixing. I was delighted to finally be able to say yes to the wonderful San Diego Bird Festival the last week of February 2018, where I gave the banquet talk, co-led two Big Days, a lovely hike and bike ride. I'd been asked, but I've always been in Costa Rica that week. This year I went to

Woodpecker Tracks and The Principle of Situational Awareness

We're still rambling around in the ice, in the gold, blue and white wonderland.

Soon I'd climbed so high the Toothless Lady could no longer be seen.

I saw a familiar bird take off from the snowy road, and stepped off the side so I wouldn't obscure its tracks with mine.

I was talking once with a friend of mine, comparing notes. He said that if he were on a first date and she

Crystal Visions

February weather is all about whiplash. I know a lot of people hate it, but I really like February. When it comes to mind, I always think of woodcocks and spring peepers, swelling red maple buds and daffodils coming up. I'm not usually such an optimist, but knowing something about the massive changes nature effects in February definitely shortens the winter for a naturalist.

It helps to live

Robins in February

We're drowning in Ohio. The Ohio River is predicted to crest at 38.3' (down from 39.5' (ohhhh noooo) on Sunday afternoon. Watching the predictions, which mean the world to those affected, has been nervewracking. They keep revising them upward, and the latest jump (9 pm Saturday) was a durn foot!! Up here on the ridgetop, it's a minor inconvenience not to be able to get into town by

My Funky Valentine

I heard a little voice this morning. It said, "Get out and hike before it rains."

I listened. Good things happen when I listen to the little voice.

Sure enough, when I looked at the radar, there was a sludge of green coming up out of the southwest that was going to make things, already saturated, even wetter. Hurry.

I threw on a raincoat, bitchin' waxed cowboy hat, ear warmers, and I

What I Got

This winter, man. This winter. The challenge has been to focus on what I have, not what's missing.

Bought myself a peppermint-striped rose to offset the greenhouse blahs. You can't ask for flowers, but you can go out and get 'em yourself. If I can keep it going until spring it'll be a real feat. Candy striped, and candy for spider mites, too.

The yard has been full of blue jays all

News from the Hill

Two festivals back-to-back--one in Tennessee, and one in Florida, have just about laid me flat. I breathed something in on the germ tube to Tennessee, and it hit me the Saturday of that festival, and by gum it's still here, 12 days later. Sick as a dog in Florida, but managed to muster enough voice to give a talk and sing a two-hour gig with the Rain Crows. One thing I'll say, being that sick

Second Chance For a Snowy Owl

A 3,112-acre happy hunting ground for Owl!

Presque Isle State Park is a mighty nice hunk of habitat for a snowy owl. Comprised of marsh, dune, and Lake Erie shore, it undoubtedly looks a whole lot more like home to an Arctic owl than do the unbroken forests of West Virginia and southeast Ohio, described by Project SNOWstorm co-founder Scott Weidensaul as "hostile territory."

This map

Snowy Owl: Flying on a Prayer (And Creance)

Creance: Fr. A light cord attached to a hawk's leash to prevent its escape during flight training.

Have you learned a lot from the Vienna, WV, snowy owl? I sure have. Following this one bird from November 27 to January 20, tracing his movements and the fall and rise of his fortunes, has been a deeply absorbing exercise. From the moment I saw him, I felt a calling to find out all I could about

Snowy Owl Update: Healing Fast!

It's hard to believe that the snowy owl captured near the Grand Central Mall in Vienna, WV on Dec. 21 has been in rehab now for almost four weeks. On January 10, our family was invited to visit him in his private quarters at the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia in Morgantown, WV, about a three hour drive from us. For obvious reasons, wild birds being rehabilitated for release are not on

The Snow-Owl's Drift

So I ask again: Is it asking too much of the human
imagination to think that a snowy owl that experiences pain on flying knows
it’s in deep trouble? If the answer to that is no, then this: Is it not
possible for an owl in trouble to deliberately make its way to a place where
humans couldn’t fail to find it, and wait for help? If the anecdotes cited
in my last post are to be believed, this

Can a Snowy Owl Ask for Help?

Let’s consider the journey of this young, naïve owl from the
Arctic Circle to Parkersburg/Vienna, West Virginia. What can he know of humans? What can he know of power lines,
highways, fast-food restaurants and speeding cars? He may not have even seen a tree
before he started his journey. He’s a blank slate. For whatever reason, he ends
up sitting on signs at the intersection of I-77 and