Ordinary Beauty

Here’s one of the things that will keep my busy in my retirement: watching and enjoying the wildlife in my backyard.

You might not catch it at first glance, but in the photograph below, at the top, a mother raccoon is peeking out from between the tree trunks, encouraging her offspring below to climb the tree. The little one did not manage so well.

6:48 a.m. Northern Flicker outside my west window, Hairy Woodpecker outside the east window, and through the north window I can see a raccoon beneath the Western Cedar. (There is no south window.) It is already 54 degrees outside and the cast of the sky gives me hope that at this time tonight it will be plenty warm for al fresco dining.

My life is lush and I love it.

This morning the flickers are landing on the house roof. I’ve never seen that before; is it because of the owl feather?

This morning I found a feather on the ground. Wing feather, large, soft, “striped”.

I believe it is an owl feather. I’ve never seen an owl feather of this ilk–so large and “striped” as this is. But I recognize the velvet quality of an owl feather. And, when I saw it on the ground, pretty much it told me it was from an owl.

Some people believe that owls portend death. Like the “death” card in tarot, I believe that death is symbolic of endings. So it seems only right that I found this feather outside the door of the office which will very soon be my former place of employment.

However, I am not so inclined to view owls as symbols of death, as much as they are so many other things.

I have a crush on the raccoons. The other night I saw the babies for the first time this season. I’d forgotten how immensely adorable they are, with their little tribble purrs, tiny Zorro masks, and a tendency to both stray from mom and cling to her.

We admittedly “encourage” the raccoons, as our friend, Hannah, puts it. We leave snacks for them, on the theory that it’s better for all of us if we voluntarily feed them rather than have them roaming the streets prowling garbage cans. And with the recent appearance of the obviously nursing female (we call her Jane), we’ve been certain to provide for her (and hers).

I have been keeping myself up too late at night, hoping Jane will bring her twins around again.

The problem with commuting in a convertible, is that when I go to work in the morning the sun is in the east and when I drive home at night the sun is in the west–so the sun always shines on the same side of my face–the righthand side, which is now sunburned :-)

plastic garbage bag
wind blows slowly down the street
city tumbleweed

This lovely raptor arrived Saturday morning and perched for awhile in the big leaf maple outside our bedroom window (the maple which is so very far yet from having leaves).

In the afternoon, she returned to perch in the cherry tree (and that’s the pink tone you see in the background of the photo). We watched her for about an hour, perching, hunting, swooping. She caught one mouse, but glided into our sliding glass door and dropped it–then retrieved it and flew off again to the cherry tree branch (I never thought I’d have to put WindowAlert decals at the ground-level parts of the door!).

She spent a good bit of time in the cherry tree, blending in splendidly with the color of the bark and having a nice heavy cover of cherry blossoms. The squirrels here are quite used to romping in that cherry tree, and twice a squirrel roamed very near the hawk. Her wings opened and she became extra large, and then swooped.

I am not sure if she was aiming for a squirrel snack, or if she was just discouraging the little mammals.

We were able to see that this hawk is banded. David, owner of Flora and Fauna Books just around the corner from us, had told us about a man who has been banding the Cooper’s hawks in Discovery Park, and so we have been on the lookout for any bands. Our girl today was wearing a blue band on her right leg, marked 5X and a silver band on her left leg.

Oh. And pretty much once she arrived, all the finches and chickadees and juncos and sparrows, made themselves scarce.

This is me. Well, this is me as seen by a woman who can see things most mortals can’t.

There’s a lot to this portrait, that I’m not so qualified to go into, but I will say that the experience was marvelous, and I have a lot of new information to use as I ponder myself and my future.

If you want your own portrait painted, please contact Elke Macartney.

Terrific wind blowing in the dark morning. I see the silhouettes of the trees and bushes bouncing around with a force that I have not seen here. The noise is deep and thick and I am anxious.I do not know why big winds cause me to be edgy, and perhaps it is only the wind in the dark which disturbs me. But I am tense and have been all these hours since the sounds first woke me.

Because it is winter, the maples are naked and I am grateful for that–grateful for the “quiet” because there are no leaves to thunderously rustle in the gusts. But their bare branches rub against each other with an eerie squeak and there’s a whistle now and again as the wind flies through them.

The tops of the pine and the fir trees are at least graceful as they bend and that beauty distracts me from my sense that they will snap loose and tumble in just another moment.

And now, just now, the rain has come. Big drops falling, adding to the noise, more fodder for my foolish angst.

I will crawl back into bed soon–as daylight creeps into the sky and tempers the sharp edges of this weather–and I will sleep deeply while my world whirls around me.

Cold.

Clear.

Bright half moon in the 6:27 a.m. dark.

Stars.

I was just now outside putting chow out for the pups. It is still quite dark, the wee twinkle lights in the tree lighting my path. I opened the chow bucket and from my bent over position glimpse a bright glow on the horizon, tucked in the valley of the silhouette of the tree branches. The tree branches that had only just lost their thick, broad leaves.

A large white moon, drifting down to sleep, its edges gently stroked by the tips of the tree branches.
It was one of those sweet right-time right-place encounters with simple, stunning beauty. Anywhere else in the garden the moon could not be seen. Another two moments, and the moon was gone.

Last night in my dreams there was a large blue pool and in it turtles swam. One was especially large and I rode on its back.

Eighteenth-century hermeticist, Don Pernety, saw the tortoise as “the symbol of the raw material of the Art.” Of course, there are multiple cultural references and linkings of the tortoise to the universe, the cosmos, the gods.

Later in my dream, I was being handed the turtle and to accept it and cradle it I had to release from my left hand, three thin, short snakes.