Rites of Spring
Mar. 3rd, 2008 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluThe slow-popcorn bloom of spring is gaining momentum. Pop. Pop, pop. The saffron-yellow crocuses have been joined by purple ones, and the daffodils begin, singly, to flash their frilly skirts.
Friday morning we spent making the house semi-habitable for house guests, since the pet sitter would be spending the nights of Potlatch at our house so we didn't have to. I was taking an empty box out to recycle and stopped in wonder, half-way out the door. There are dark pink buds and flowers all over that shapeless lump of greenery next to the back porch. "Good God," says I. "It's an azalea." I don't know how I never noticed before.
From the living room, I saw the plum tree on the front lawn has also started to bloom. Frothy, strawberry-milkshake pink blossoms, as it turns out. They're the double kind. Just one or two, here and there, so far. Pop, pop.
And around ten in the morning, the flicker came by. That's a hell of a noise, until you suss out what the heck that is. If you're in the living room it sounds like an air compressor kicking to life, or a large dog growling, somewhere up the chimney flue. In fact, it's the handsome local flicker, pecking away at the metal rain guard over our chimney top. The flue makes a nice echo chamber.
The jackhammer tapping is, apparently, male flicker-ese for, "Hey, lookee! My what a very big, powerful one I've got." Big, powerful beak, that is. Female flickers go for that sort of thing. Liz assures me that every year the local papers get letters from newcomers wondering what they can do to get the "woodpeckers" to stop doing that. Not much. Throw something. And thank your lucky stars you aren't on the early parts of his route. The male flickers are firm believers in the virtue of being the early bird. But my life would not be enriched by avian jackhammers at 6:00 in the morning...
Friday morning we spent making the house semi-habitable for house guests, since the pet sitter would be spending the nights of Potlatch at our house so we didn't have to. I was taking an empty box out to recycle and stopped in wonder, half-way out the door. There are dark pink buds and flowers all over that shapeless lump of greenery next to the back porch. "Good God," says I. "It's an azalea." I don't know how I never noticed before.
From the living room, I saw the plum tree on the front lawn has also started to bloom. Frothy, strawberry-milkshake pink blossoms, as it turns out. They're the double kind. Just one or two, here and there, so far. Pop, pop.
And around ten in the morning, the flicker came by. That's a hell of a noise, until you suss out what the heck that is. If you're in the living room it sounds like an air compressor kicking to life, or a large dog growling, somewhere up the chimney flue. In fact, it's the handsome local flicker, pecking away at the metal rain guard over our chimney top. The flue makes a nice echo chamber.
The jackhammer tapping is, apparently, male flicker-ese for, "Hey, lookee! My what a very big, powerful one I've got." Big, powerful beak, that is. Female flickers go for that sort of thing. Liz assures me that every year the local papers get letters from newcomers wondering what they can do to get the "woodpeckers" to stop doing that. Not much. Throw something. And thank your lucky stars you aren't on the early parts of his route. The male flickers are firm believers in the virtue of being the early bird. But my life would not be enriched by avian jackhammers at 6:00 in the morning...
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