In just one week the local season went from limbo to spring.
Living in the mountains, we know spring in March is nothing more than a date on the calendar. There may be shoots of green and tiny crocuses and grape hyacinths that push up by April, but overall the landscape remains dull. As the white of winter fades, it is replaced with weeks on end of a kind of gray and dull brown on the hills and the trees and flowerless beds in the yard. And though the seasoned adult knows this is just the way in the natural world, it nonetheless can leave you feeling colorless and slightly moody. And filled with longings that confuse and confound day-to-day actions.
And then there is a week like this one that starts without color and, overnight, pops with that vibrant luminescence of green. The grass is at once lush and ready to be trimmed. The trees have buds and leaves and their naked selves are adding modest coverings. And the landscape changes and the views soften and the green, just the color, makes you hopeful in a way you had no idea you were so desperate to feel.
My little yard has been demanding my attention. It happens something like this: There is day warm enough and unhurried enough to fill every empty bird feeder. Some with Niger seeds, some with black-oiled sunflower seeds, and some with a combination of dried fruit and nuts. It takes less than 12 hours for the music to begin. The songbird alert is launched and the trees become filled with birds large and small, serenading day and night. Fluttering between feeders. Lingering on the porch railings. Chattering on high budding tree branches. It is a kind of music that lifts and lingers ’til the sun has set behind the mountain and left streaks of orange and purple and turquoise across the sky.
With so many Technicolor signs competing for attention, it can be understandable the more nuanced moments are often overlooked. When did the tulips open in the rock garden? The flowering trees snap from green buds to pale flowers? The chives shoot out next to the tiny mint leaves, alongside the oregano?
It was after dinner a few days ago, when I was strolling in our cul-de-sac, when a neighbor called to me from his porch. “I was just texting you,” he said in stage whisper. “Look, there, in your pine tree. An eagle!”
I live in a little subdivision surrounded by homes. At one time it was the edge of town, but that time and that open space have been replaced. There is a creek two blocks away in one direction and a little golf-course pond two blocks in the opposite direction. In between, there are mostly tract houses dating back to the ’70s. The eagle was displaced.
It was a golden. Majestic in the singular pine branches. Turning its head from time to time but staying perched and alert. We were awed by the beauty and great size. After gazing in silence for long minutes, it seemed somehow intrusive and I paid my silent respects to the powerful spirit and took my leave.
When I pulled into my driveway a few days later, after work, my neighbor walked over with a photo on her cell phone of my front yard at dawn. She said it had been taken that morning around 6 a.m. an hour I am not known for embracing and she had debated whether to call me. Instead she took a photo, of the young moose standing under the not-yet-flowering crabapple tree, eating the buds. It was crazy cool. I explained whatever the hour, when there is a moose sighting in my front yard, I would be happy to receive a call.
The rest of the week took on activity like a Disney 3-D feature. I was woken up in the middle of the night by a banging on my tiny porch outside the upstairs bedroom. It sounded as if someone was trying to get into my house. I tiptoed over to the glass door and snapped on the outside light. Three bandit-faced characters froze in place for just a minute and took a look at me looking at them. Then the raccoons scurried away from the bird feeder and climbed back down the porch.
Thursday morning I walked outside and saw the carnage along the tiny stone pathway leading to my front porch. Dove feathers were tangled in the grass many, many, many gray and white feathers. I thanked the feathers for the cooing songs I had listened to and I hoped the neighbor’s cat was satisfied with the kill count in my yard and had moved on.
And then I looked around the yard. There were bird feeders knocked to the ground in some kind of path of destruction. Knocked off tree limbs and iron posts. A few of the wooden ones were shattered. I was angry, imagining what kind of young hoodlum might have done all this. I went to survey the fallen glass bird feeder which, by some stroke of luck, was still intact by the flowering crabapple tree in the tiny rock garden.
I nearly stepped in the moose poop.
And then I had a good laugh. For reasons that escape me, my little corner of the world is populated by a teeming display of life from the animal kingdom right now. Little surprises me. Arriving home in the late afternoon, I have come to expect to see the male and female mallard ducks under the park bench on the corner of my yard nibbling on the new grass. Yes, they are blocks from any water source. Yes, they have been coming back to my yard for five or six years now.
I do not ask why anymore. I have learned to be grateful for all the noisy reminders that I share this plot of land with many, many, many creatures. Being a good steward means, at the very least, refilling those multipurpose “bird” feeders this very Sunday in the Park …
Teri Orr is a former editor of The Park Record. She is the director of the organization that provides programming for the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Center for the Performing Arts.