There’s an old saying,
“plain as the nose on your face”, that always reminds me how easy it is to be
so busy looking ahead that I lose sight of what’s right in front of me. These
days when so much about the weeks and months ahead is out of my control, focusing
up close on what is right around me has brought me a lot of peace, and makes
the rest of life look different too!
On August 23rd, I
arrived in Arivaca after 2 months in the Pacific Northwest, and when I woke up the next morning, I decided
to re-experience my garden by taking a sensory walk. I knew the best time for doing this would be very early, before I started bustling around unpacking and doing
chores, so I could experience it with all my senses before my mind woke up too
much. It was extra quiet at 5:30am
when I walked slowly into my garden, trying to imagine that I was experiencing
it for the very first time, or the way a wild creature would.
I began by focusing on
sight, taking in the first things that attracted my attention. Hummingbirds were everywhere, like a
swarm of bees, 3 species sharing what was left in the feeders.
Phainopeplas
were jumping in and out of the patio fountain and hopping in the shrubs in
numbers I had not ever seen in the garden before. All of a sudden, all flew off the fountain except for one, and then three different female birds species landed there: A Northern Mockingbird, a House Finch, and a Black-headed Grosbeak. Soon, all four females were fighting in the fountain- try saying that four times in a row!
The last of the Desert Willow flowers still hung on the
trees, surrounded by new long green seedpods. A few clouds were turning pink in the
east, new needles on the pine tree were an impossibly bright green, and a single, small
Gila Woodpecker feather was lying on the patio beneath one of the hummingbird
feeders, near dozens of sugar ants that were gathering drips.
Then I shifted to the sounds
I noticed. My own deep breaths,
the wind blowing through the trees, the distant yips of coyotes. The low hum of a single car came from
far away, headed down Ruby Road towards town. The more I stood and listened, the more sounds I heard, like
layers of musical instruments in a song floating on the airwaves. Bees buzzing in the flowers, the
squeaks of the hummingbirds jostling for position, and then a sound I missed so
much while in the northwest: the calls of the Gray Hawks.
I walked down the main
garden path, touching the leaves of the Red Sages as I passed by. The tiny ruffled leaves released their
fragrant oils onto my hands and into the air, like a thick little cloud. I left the crunching gravel of the
paths to walk over the wood chip mulch into the Sombrero Pond, and feel the
long smooth leaves of the tall grasses there.
Then I made my way to our tiny greenhouse to
taste some sweet and spicy Basil leaves, and to feel their fragrance fill my
whole sinus cavity, one of the best mood enhancers I know of. Since I was already pretty blissed out
by the rest of my sensory walk, the Basil just about knocked me out!
Upon leaving the greenhouse, a quick trip past my studio revealed another delight: the Passion Vines were blooming! The very same vines that had been decimated by caterpillars before I left for the Northwest in June (see "The Glorious Destruction of my Passion Vines"
post) had recovered completely and produced many clusters of tiny, frilly, weird and wonderful flowers!
Heading back to the house, I then saw something that I’d never
seen or even imagined before, and that was a mind-blowing way to end my sensory
walk: the sugar ants under the hummingbird feeder had managed to move the Gila
Woodpecker feather partway up the little wall around the nearby raised bed,
which contains the entry to their colony!
Some were tugging it from above and others shoving from below, and I
assume they were planning to feed it to their larvae or queen, but I don’t know
why they didn’t try to chew it into smaller pieces first.
They were unsuccessful and the feather fell
back to the patio, but they probably would have kept trying all day had I not
decided to scoop up this “tiny treasure” as memorabilia of the gift that I gave
to myself on this very special morning: time, the most precious thing I have to
give. And my new goal is to greet each morning with a “plain as the nose on my
face” experience as often as possible!
Later that morning while sitting in the sun room with our 2 cats, I witnessed another startling sight. Two juvenile female Hooded Orioles engaged in some kind of squabble (what was up with all the female fighting that day?) headed straight for the sun room window, and at the last second one of them veered off. The other hit the window just above the sill, yet landed on its feet, part-way on the sill and part-way on the leaf tip of an aloe in the raised bed beneath. The dazed bird stood upright yet motionless, and shut its eyes.
I quickly herded both cats out of the sun room so they couldn't jump up on the inside windowsill to scare the little oriole. Then I went outside to see what I could do. As I approached it, I realized that it had hit the window right below one of the hummingbird feeders, and wondered if the two birds had been absorbed in a squabble over it, because all species of oriole like to drink from hummingbird feeders. Perhaps they lost track of their surroundings while focused only on the feeder, despite the lowered blinds and decals on the window. In any case, the only thing I could think of to do was offer this poor, dazed oriole some sugar water from the feeder, as I had done with the hummingbird I rescued on March 14th (see "
One Never Knows" post).
My arms couldn't reach over the aloes far enough to pick it up, which made the whole situation so much more challenging and risky. I took the hummingbird feeder down and opened the top to get a big drop of sugar water on the tip of my finger, then slowly moved it toward the oriole's bill. I was so worried that it would jump down into the aloes and be out of reach completely, but it didn't move. I gently touched my finger to its bill, and at first there was no response, not even a blink. Then a tiny bit of sugar water must've seeped in, because it suddenly straightened up a bit and opened its eyes, but then once again closed them. I quickly got another drop and reached in again to touch its bill. This time it quickly opened its eyes again, opened its bill to let the drop in, and turned its head toward me, yet still made no move to try to fly. The third try blew my mind completely, because the little oriole was looking straight at me as I touched the sugar drop to its bill, yet didn't flinch. After it opened its bill to drink, it straightened up again and shook its feathers all over, took one hop, and then with a little whoosh, flew off into the pine. The pine with its new, impossibly bright green needles against the blue, blue sky.
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