Rebirth

This is the time of year when I am always amazed my plants have survived the winter, especially the older trees and shrubs in the backyard. The apple tree, lilacs, pear tree and viburnum are leafing. The dogwood is showing buds that will become flowers two years after half of the tree died and had to be cut down. The daffodils, after several false starts when the weather turned cold, have bloomed in profusion. Many of the irises I moved to another plot last year are growing despite chipmunks at first digging them up. 

After the haircut (Margo D. Beller)

As usual in the spring deer found a way to get through a weakness in the netting to eat some of the euonymous bushes as they started to put out fresh growth. So the fence posts were straightened and increased, the netting restrung. Before doing that I hacked the euoymous shrubs back severely. The plants are secure but now I wonder how I'll be able to do maintenance when the daffodils die back in a few weeks.

I have not dealt with putting the canna pots out front yet because we've had weather see-sawing between above and below average temperatures. With the chipmunks in mind I am going to limit what pots I put out front, including any herb or vegetable I may buy to grow.

Finally, I had to give my houseplants a haircut after leaving them untended (except for watering them) all winter. They won't go out to the enclosed porch before Memorial Day, and I plan to be very careful to monitor for any insect invasion, such as last year's fungal gnats.

Before it was brought inside for the winter in 2024.
(Margo D. Beller)

The most problematic, as usual, was the big houseplant.

You'll recall I had allowed this once-small houseplant to get so big it had become very difficult to move in winter, especially up and down the three steps to my front room. Last year I tried leaving it outside but when the wind blew it would fall over, despite its bracing. I moved it inside the porch into the corner where it would get a few hours of sun. Alas, when it got very cold the plant became very stressed. I've never intentionally killed a plant and wasn't about to start. So I brought it inside to the kitchen, but it didn't get any natural light there. I wound up moving it into a corner of my vestibule where it would get some light from the front room.

After several months a strange thing happened: Despite dim light and dry heat, it started growing new leaves for the first time in years.

First that growth was at the top, the new leaves scraping the ceiling. But then the plant started growing from the bottom. Now what to do? Well, when the top leaves started dying en masse, it was easy to decide to use my lopper and chop down what had become an unwieldy tree. With the braces that had held up the plant now gone (and used to reinforce the deer fencing) it was much easier to move the pot to the front room.

Spruce at right, watching the big plant.
(Margo D. Beller)

The other morning I told Spruce Bringsgreen, the blue spruce we planted in 2007, what I had done and why his plantmate would not look the same when back on the porch this year. Last year Spruce had watched over this plant once I moved it inside and fretted about what to do as winter approached.

"That's OK," he said. "I understand why that had to be done. Rather than kill it outright you gave it a new chance to live and grow."

True, I said, and that's what Spring is all about - rebirth.

Greeting the Dawn

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. -- Marcus Aurelius

A few weeks ago my husband and I spent a few days on Cape Cod, the windswept peninsula of eastern Massachusetts sticking out into the Atlantic Ocean. We spent the daylight hours birding. One day our travels took us along the western coast of the peninsula, which faces Cape Cod Bay, far beyond which is the mainland.

This particular day we stopped at the many beaches, with a break for lunch. Our last stop, late in the afternoon, was First Encounter Beach in Eastham. What we found surprised us - not ocean birds blown closer to shore in the strong wind as we found at other beaches but a parking lot full of cars pointing toward the water. Even as we slowed down more cars came in behind us and parked.

We realized these cars were coming to watch the sun go down.

We have seen this in other shore areas. Find a west-facing beach and you'll see people arriving to watch the sunset. The sun lowers into the ocean and when it disappears people applaud. Then they drive home.

Sunrise, Florida, 2010 (Margo D. Beller)

First Encounter Beach was a perfect spot for locals, and maybe other tourists visiting or renting nearby houses for the summer. We got out of there before the cars would be departing on the one narrow road and were back at our room by dark. We returned well before sunset a few days later to do our birding, with few cars in the lot.

I don't understand why people want to watch the sun set, and why they applaud, as if this is a show put on for their benefit. When the sun sets the darkness comes and I am not a night person.

I prefer watching the sun rise. When I started birding and could do it only on weekends I'd leave the house early on a spring morning and drive to a particular location where the rising sun would be accompanied by bird calls. It is peaceful and quiet on a marsh and I would feel blessed to be alive to enjoy it. It's also peaceful and quiet early on a winter morning at my house.

In winter the sun comes up in a position to hit me full in the face as I sit in my chair on my enclosed porch. I watch as the light increases, shining on the steam rising from my neighbor's chimney. Then the sun slowly appears at the edge of my neighbor's roof and the light washes over me. At this time of year, when the sun rises later, I don't get the full benefit for very long on this porch. If I'm lucky I get five minutes of sun before its arc brings it behind a tree. 

As the sun rises the birds become more active at the feeders, the bigger or the more aggressive birds pushing others away. When the sun is at its brightest I close my eyes and enjoy the warmth while i can.

Perhaps the people applauding the sunset are just happy they made it through another day. Maybe they prefer sitting in their cars late in the afternoon to waking early to catch the dawn. Maybe they like the sunset colors or a feeling of fellowship with strangers, like sitting at a drive-in watching a movie.

That's their choice but not mine.

Montauk (L.I.) sunset, 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

The rising sun is a symbol of new possibilities and another day to exist while, to me, the setting sun means an ending. It is the same reason why I prefer to see the colors of the budding trees in spring to the gaudy colors of the dying leaves in autumn. 

Rebirth will always beat out death, even vividly colored death, every time.

Coming Back to Life

I am still grieving the loss of one of my dear friends, and I still hate this time of year for the shorter days and dying leaves and pods that will soon have to be raked to the curb.

April, 2017 (RE Berg-Andersson)

But there are times I am reminded that with every loss comes rebirth.

My friend is gone but my grandnephew is nearly 15 months old and growing like a weed. The cardinals and their young are still flying around the backyard. The catbirds are leaving my yard but the white-throated sparrows will be here soon for the winter. I have taken in the hummingbird feeder and I will soon be putting out the seed feeders for those passing through or staying around.

I was at the Scherman Hoffman sanctuary, the closest New Jersey Audubon facility to my house, to watch for hawks on its observation deck with Birding Ambassador and author Pete Dunne and a small crowd of people hoping to see a large kettle of broad-winged hawks. The temperature and humidity made it feel more like mid-August than mid-September, which has followed the pattern of this wacky year when we had summer-like weather in spring and fall-like weather in late summer.

Same are, Sept. 16, 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

I left the platform after an hour to hike the hills and valleys. I saw little in the way of birds except for a young female common yellowthroat warbler I pished out of the weeds. Everything else were birds I could've seen or heard in my backyard, including several turkey vultures.

I was trying to walk off my internal agitation, trying to remember why I enjoy birding. I have cut back for a number of reasons, including health concerns. I need a reason to keep going.

Then I walked into a field that had been burned back in the spring to get rid of invasive plants and allow for the seeding and growing of more native plants.

So where there was once scorched, seemingly dead earth were fields of long, seeding grasses I believe are a type of fountain grass and brilliant yellow goldenrod, along the lovely white fall flower with the ugly name of White Snakeroot.

Life after death. The priest at my friend's funeral went on about her happy life now after death and I thought how in my particular religion there is no concept of heaven and hell, just the here and now.

(Margo D. Beller)

So I am going to try to concentrate on the here and now. I am going to stop and enjoy the wildflowers now blooming, including the goldenrod and New England asters you see above. I am going to take walks and listen for what might be passing through. I am going to live in the moment. You can call it selfishness or mindfulness or whatever you want. I just need to get through this down period and hope for better days soon.