more thoughts on death, evidence of life, loss of public lands

Thursday’s sunrise.

I’m not dwelling on my eventual death, I’m not worried or upset about it, I’m not obsessing on when it might occur but the fact remains that I have far less time ahead of me than behind and occasionally I acknowledge that my time is finite in a way that it isn’t when we’re young. When we're young life seems endless. We know intellectually everything dies but it's so remote. I've reached the age when infinite starts shifting to finite. Do I have four more years or 24? Twentyfour, tops, if I live to be 100. So I think about it now and then. We all die, everything dies so that new life can bloom. What comes before birth and what comes after death is one of the great mysteries of the time in between. I tend to think of death as another birth, shifting from one state of consciousness to another. Regardless of what, if anything (I figure it's either mind blowing in a good way or nothing, either way I won't care about what I left behind), comes before or after this life, I am here now, we are here now, and this state of being 'in between' is all we know for sure. I’m not afraid of death. I have my preferences about my eventual dying; I’d rather it wasn’t painful, I’d rather pass away peacefully in my sleep when it’s time, I want to be like the old woman who woke up one day and decided she was bone tired of life and died peacefully in her sleep that night, I want to be able to wipe my own butt until that day comes. Of course, we don’t get a choice but if I had to choose between sudden and immediate death I’d take that over bed ridden decrepitude. In the meantime, well, I try to be fully present. Be here now. It’s good advice.

You know what I think is stupid? People writing 'unalived' instead of dead, 'unalive' instead of kill. Ok, I looked it up, a substitute to avoid algorithm taboos of the words kill, murder, and suicide on social media sites. Still stupid.  

We finally are getting some rain. No great downpours, just gentle rains that last more than five minutes. Friday morning before the rain, walking around the yard, the ground hard, the grasses dry and dull, shriveled, obviously suffering. Yesterday morning after that steady gentle rain Friday and night, everything looked so much happier, green and plump. We got another good strong shower later in the day.

Nesting report…I walked out the back door a while back to see the maidenhair fern on the plant stand with the wren nest had been knocked over, four little eggs spilled out. I picked it up, put the little eggs back but two weeks later, they are still there and no sign of the little wren. 

So, abandoned. The other day I noticed that the shelving unit in the garage on the same wall as the door into the house had long leg spiders' webs all over it (a constant battle in the garage) and so got the broom for that purpose and cleared them when I noticed this.

I walk by this shelving unit multiple times a day going in and out and never once noticed a nest being built there. I assume that was the nest I saw the wrens flying away from out of the corner of my eye and not the one on the motor housing. It too is apparently abandoned. A perfect little nest, no eggs, no sign of the wrens. But there is a successful nest across the street in Pam’s rose arbor. A pretty little mama cardinal, her head just visible. She did not like me taking her picture and flew over to the fence.

Robin has been keeping her eye on it and sent me this picture today. Three naked little babies.

They'll grow fast. I found a cardinal nest one year, checked on it daily, and as I recall it was nine days between hatching and fledging.

The first of the day lilies are opening. The first are always the yellow miniature ones in the front flower beds. 

There’s several clumps of early orange ones already sending up bloom scapes, still getting some of those pompom poppies. The maroon Japanese iris are past peak. I need to get my zinnia seeds in the dirt. The tomato plant that survived the freeze intact is giving me baby tomatoes

and the mystery plant sprouts in the compost bin I transplanted, the one in the top right in the above photo is acorn squash, and the other two I think are butternut but the baby fruit needs to get bigger.

I had this paragraph at the top originally but just couldn't lead off with that. What Trump’s doing outside the borders of this country is criminal but he’s not limiting his criminal destruction to the outside world. Now he’s dismantling the Forest Service with the intent to sell off our public lands for mining, oil drilling, and logging. All so that the already obscenely wealthy can accumulate more wealth that they stingily hoard. We all hope that when this all ends the great undoing will begin but our old growth forests, our pristine preserves in the arctic and canyonlands, our national parks cannot be easily replaced or returned.