A Moveable Garden

Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)

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• Weather

The average high this week was 54.2°F, with a range from 59.2°F to 49.3°F, and the average low was 34.5°F, with a range from 29.5°F to 37.9°F. We got .18 inches of rain on Monday and .30 inches on Thursday, so almost half an inch in total this week. A couple of colder nights (in the low 20s) are coming next week.

• Beginnings

We saw a bobcat in the yard for the first time ever on the motion camera on Tuesday!

We also saw a black bear in the yard for the first time this season, late on Sunday night.

Saw and heard the killdeer in town for the first time this year; we’ve been checking on them every few days for a couple of weeks now, so it was pretty exciting to first hear them and them to find them with the help of Merlin.

We heard wood frogs in several places this week for the first time. Here’s a 19-second audio of them making their duck-like calls at The Fells on Tuesday.

We heard the barred owl in the backyard for the first time in a while on Thursday and Sunday nights.

The crocuses in my yard came up this week (see Gardening section). We saw our first budding red trilliums this year on Saturday as well as our first blue heron of 2024, from far away.

My nephew got engaged to his girlfriend of eight years on Saturday!

My husband got his little British car going and out on the road for the first time this year on Wednesday.

• (Mostly) Wild Flora, Fauna, Fungi

Besides what’s show above and in the Gardening section, here some other plants and animals seen this week.

Birds heard by Merlin this week in the garden, in town, at The Fells — 26 species:

• Wandering

We walked in town and looked at some art in a gallery on Monday (got wet in the little rain that fell);

and we walked at The Fells on Tuesday,

around the lake on Saturday,

and at the bog and on another trail on Sunday.

• Curiosity & Discoveries

I learned about some new pollinator specialist-native plant relationships in a webinar on Tuesday through Maine Audubon. Here are a few:

The topic for this week’s Curious By Nature webinar (through Maine Audubon) on Thursday evening was spotted salamanders and we learned they can regenerate pretty much any part of their bodies, including their organs and brain cells and brain tissue. It’s also in the same genus (Ambystoma) as the axolotl.

Also learned more about the Atlantic ocean near us in the last of the Gulf of Maine webinars (through Wells Reserve) on Thursday afternoon. This week’s program was a catchall for four divergent topics, including right whales, whose population numbers have dwindled and which are under threat from ship and propeller strikes, fishing line entanglement (which not only kills them but makes the females much less likely to breed), climate change and changing seas, and under-ocean noise.

On Saturday, we attended an open house of a small cottage near the lake we often walk around. It wasn’t much to look at from the outside but it was quite charming inside, though lacking in pantry and other storage space. And I finally met IRL a local realtor I follow on social media, who was the host. We recognised each other. 🙂

• Creating

Hmmm.

• Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard)

Body/Mind: I worked out four times (4 hours) this week and walked more than 10,000 steps on four days and almost 10,000 steps on two other days. Took a Covid test on Monday (negative).

Vehicles: Husband changed the oil in his Healey and adjusted the oil pressure relief valve. He also washed all three vehicles.

• Gardening/Yard 

I’m still not doing any garden work, with the soil temps still low and my not wanting to do too much clean up yet. Weeds are starting to proliferate, though, so I’ll be out there in the next few to do some work and some planting. We have some tree pruning from last fall to dispose of, too. I have been walking around the yard to see who’s emerged, who’s blooming, if there are any insects I can see yet, etc. Besides the birds, here’s some of what’s been in the yard this week:

• Nesting – Design/Decor, Maintenance, Supplies, Food, etc.

Cleaning/Maintenance: I cleaned some of the shower tiles on Tuesday, cleaned the toilets, did clothes laundry Thursday, vacuumed the kitchen on Sunday. My husband ran the robovac in a couple of rooms this week. He also vacuumed a hallway and sewed up a flannel shirt.

Supplies: I ordered 8 Covid antigen tests from CorDx on Tuesday (we’re running low), and ordered two healthy trail mixes, some macadamia nuts, and some protein squares from Nuts.com the same day. I also ordered a large pouch of dried milk from Amazon, which arrived on Saturday.

Food: I forgot to record some dinners, but we had veggie burgers on Wed. with arugula and sides, and I made seafood casserole on Thursday, which we had with raw red peppers that night, with raw carrots the next night, and with sautéed spinach and garlic on Saturday. On Sunday night I made a new cheese tortellini dish, with asparagus, peas, artichoke hearts, garlic, lemon zest, and shrimp. My husband made sourdough pancakes on Saturday.

• Sleeping & Dreaming

My sleep time varied quite a bit this week, with a low of 6 hours, 15 mins and a high of 8.5 hours; the average for the week was 7 hours, 37 minutes. My sleep scores ranged from 79 to 92 (twice), with an average of 85. I didn’t record any dreams, though I remembered some when I awoke. I got 11 hours, 44 minutes of REM sleep and 9 hours, 34 minutes of deep sleep.

• Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching 

New Words: Many new words in this article, Randomly Selected Botanical Terms: Phyllaries, at Awkward Botany, which I read this week, including pseudanthium – a false flower; capitulum/capitula – a group of flowers made up of densely packed, miniature flowers called florets, which are stalkless (or sessile) and arranged on a flattened central stem (or axis); involucre – a cup or bowl-shaped series of bracts [modified leaves] that holds all the florets in a capitulum; and phyllaries – the bracts that make up the involucre, which opens along with the flowers. Here’s a photo from Awkward Botany that shows these special bracts on a blanketflower (go to the link above to see more Asteraceae flowers and their phyllaries):

If you’re at all interested in sedges, check out Lizzie Harper’s Sedges: An Introduction, which has lots of detail and lovely illustrations.

Books: I finished reading Rachel Cusk’s Aftermath (2012) this week, which I mentioned last week, and I also started and finished Girls (1997) by Frederick Busch, a very dark and melancholic novel with two main plots, both involving harm to children.

I liked these excerpts from Now Is Not The Time For Flowers by Stacey Heale (mentioned the last two weeks, which I’m still lingeringly reading), on the left, about a dark side of “making memories,” and from Cusk’s Aftermath, which describes a sort of heterotopia and ends “She doesn’t know whether what she is seeing is poverty or luxury”:

Some other odds and ends I came across this week:

And as ever, a handy chart, the Scoville heat scale for hot peppers:

• Connections &  Community

Local Support: Renewed membership to The Fells on Tuesday. Bought a gift and a bunch of greeting cards from a local gift shop on Tuesday. Bought treats at the local bakery on Thursday and a Too Good To Go bag from them on Friday and Sunday. Bought fresh spinach at the local farmstand on Saturday.

Relationships: Bought and mailed a gift and card for a close friend on Tuesday for her birthday next week. Dropped off friends for a bus to a plane to Colorado on Wednesday afternoon. Sent a long email to a friend on Thursday. The permaculture group didn’t meet on Thursday (not enough people available). Salon met in person on Friday afternoon for 2.5 hours, with all five locals in attendance; we sure laughed a lot and talked more than you might imagine about feet and tiny piranhas.

• Endings

I dumped out the last of the birdseed in the yard on Monday (feeders have been down for a bit already), so that’s the last of bird-feeding — until late next fall. Unless you count the native plant berries and fruits, the insects and arachnids, and all the other wild food in the yard, which I do.

• All This Useless Beauty

A favourite rock on the bog woods trail.

The sun in this zebra grass and the skeleton of a volunteer pagoda dogwood.

The red pines trees and the clouded sky.