In Birdland summer is winding down. We are on the other side of the drought. After a couple of soaking rains and days of wild thunder, I woke this morning to heavy skies and a gentle mist. Of our two kinds of Black Eyed Susans, the delicate ones are tattered, now just spots of brown, petal-less eyes on drying stems, like a ramble of connect-the-dots drawings. But these will bring the Goldfinches. The sturdy Susans still stand, and the Jerusalem Artichokes have joined in with their golden petals. Michael is experimenting with drying them. My husband had the good idea to hang them upside-down in a warm oven, and that seems to work better than the microwave (layered in paper towels for 2 minutes on high) as he read online somewhere. The microwave is okay for keeping the color, but even one layer of paper towels crushes the flowers a bit.
He's been drying Zinnias too, and I'm thrilled with my Zinnia bed in the south corner of my Corner Meadow. Gayle gave me envelopes of seeds she collected from her own garden, and I scattered them there. It is now a profusion of pink and orange and yellow (even if the flowers are growing between the weeds—now that the ground has softened with a little rain, I will go out and pull them). Butterflies of various colors dance, and I've discovered that hummingbirds like Zinnias too. But take a close look at the flowers. You'll see the pompon of colorful petals and growing out of those are tiny yellow flowers. How can they resist such beauty? How can we?
The rest of the corner meadow is now bursting with Goldenrod and White Heath Asters. I wait all summer for the asters to come; their feathery foliage adds texture to the meadow, but its real star power (forgive the pun) is in its blooms. Tiny white daisies pop like twinkling stars coming out as the dusk falls. Aunt Jane always called them White Heath Daisies, and I thought it was just her fancy, naming them for our town (we are Heaths way back) until I looked them up on my INaturalist app and found that is their true name. These asters are wonderful for bouquets, lasting much longer than their cousin, Daisy Fleabane, who bloom early in the summer. They look like baby's breath amongst the Zinnias and Jerusalem Artichokes.
I'm glad of the rain, but the drought was good for one thing: laundry. I got in a rhythm of popping a load of laundry in before bed, putting the machine on delay so it would wash in the night, avoiding the peak hours. Then in the morning my first chore (after feeding the critters) was to hang the laundry. It was always dry by noon, and hanging laundry is one of my favorite chores. It is my meditation. It takes longer than throwing the clothes in the drier, but I get to catch my breath and listen to the birdsong. This is my downtime, and the simple, repetitive chore reminds me of a dance—grab some pins; bend to the basket; shake out a shirt; pin it with one, two pins; bend to the basket; shake out a tea towel, anchor it to the shirt with the third pin, repeat. I plan out my day a little, but mostly I just try to pay attention. What do I hear, smell, see? I find this little patch of mindfulness in these anxious times helps. A few hours later I do it backwards. It goes down faster, but then I get to carry the basket to the basement and fold, smoothing out the wrinkles with my hand, feeling how the wind has softened the clothes, how the sun has erased stains. It's silly, I guess, but I really look forward to this part of my day, feeling a tinge of regret that soon enough it will be too cold to stand in the frigid wind with wet hands.
With the wildfires on the West Coast directly affecting two of our sons (in Seattle and San Francisco) climate change has become even more personal for me. I wake up and check the fire maps, check the air quality—and worry. A young person in Monticello is publicizing September 25 as the Global Day of Climate Action. I had not heard of it before, but you can find out more at fridaysforfuture.org. On Facebook, she is hoping to draw attention to actions we can take before it's too late. Now the mist has stopped falling, though the sky is still laden with clouds. Maybe if I throw in a load right now, the sun will be out again by drying time. I'll try it.
Work in Beauty; Listen for Peace; Blessed Be
Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. If you’re missing your weekly dose of Birdland Letters in the News Gazette, you can still read them every week in the Piatt County Journal Republican. Consider subscribing to support your small-town newspaper. You can see pictures about this week’s post on Instagram @BirdlandLetters. Mary can be reached at letterfrombirdland@gmail.com or via snail mail care of the Journal Republican, 118 E. Washington St., Monticello, IL 61856. She wants to thank her friends for writing and will answer you all soon.
The Link LonkSeptember 25, 2020 at 02:08AM
https://www.journal-republican.com/opinion/birdland-laundry-days-at-an-end-for-now/article_89fc95b0-fce5-11ea-ac07-9ff4e5900a13.html
BIRDLAND: Laundry days at an end...for now - Piatt County Journal-Republican
https://news.google.com/search?q=Laundry&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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