Around the Place

Order clothing from India, oh India

Suffering so

Oh India.

They come in a big sturdy box, only a week's time, faster than Target's two day delivery which takes a minimum of ten days and quite likely more than two weeks.

A box of sherwani, dhoti, kurta, all of silk and cotton and brilliant colors, trimmed in gold braid and shiny buttons and intricate embroidery. Fascinating. Unbelievable. Where did this come from? Who made it? How did they manage to do it so quickly and so well?

Oh India.

Order a book from a bookseller in Indiana, oh Indiana

Suffering so

Oh Indiana.

Book goes from Indiana to Las Vegas to Salt Lake City and now sits in Albuquerque out for delivery sometime tomorrow. Or later. Eventually. Only 10 days since order placed.

The Life of the Buddha, Wake Up! Yet another Kerouac to add to the growing pile. 

I wonder what he had to say.

Suffering so

Oh Kerouac 

As he writes of himself, Ti Jean.

C'est vrais, c'est lui.

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Trees have been losing their deadwood, day by day, branch by branch. Slow, methodical, somewhat tedious work. Samu. The lower branches are mostly done now, the higher ones will take some time and planning and preparation. The cut and broken off lower dead limbs are mostly destined for the burn barrel where they form a nice fluffy ash and cobs of charcoal, the ash to spread over the ground, the charcoal for later barbecues and such if there will be any.

Birds will miss some of the higher dead limbs when they're gone. Birds perch and poop on the dead limbs and in the mornings they chirp and sing happily. When the dead limbs are gone, they'll find new perches and they'll poop and sing and warble as birds will do. The ravens will come and perch on the very top limbs and caw and call and chitter and yak at folks passing by. "Tok-tok-tok-tok-tok" These ravens around here are very conversational. 

From time to time, flocks of grackle will assemble in the trees. If anything, they are more conversational with one another and with people passing by than even the ravens. Their vocabulary is complex and detailed. They tell one another stories of grackle love and longing and mock the humans underneath.

An owl. A hawk. Another owl. Perhaps an eagle unseen. Woodpeckers. Robins and wrens. Our trees host so many bird varieties, and a few have broken into the house to raise their babies in the attic. Swallows are due back pretty soon. As noted by a friend, "Swallows are damned messy." Well yes. Yes they are.

In late fall and through the winter sandhill cranes spot on our house, one of the oldest if not the oldest in the area. They circle high or low deciding where to land for the morning or afternoon feeding. Usually they take over the stubble field of the farmer down the road, roosting by the hundreds, lifting off, swooping down, chattering among themselves, prodding for grub-life in the soil, nibbling at the stubble left by the farmer for the cranes.

Once we thought at least a few of them would land on our place, they were so close. But no. We had no stubble. They flew on.

The Return of the Swallows

Swallows on the wire out front

Seems that I forgot to mention: the swallows have returned.

Two pair of swallows have been nesting in the eaves of our front porch for years and years now, though they're probably not the same pairs every year but more likely the descendants of those who hatched them in previous years.

Last summer, however, a nasty boy who was staying with the family across the street came over to our place while we were still in California. He got himself a stick (there are plenty of them lying around) with which he commenced to bash and batter at the swallow nests. He destroyed one altogether, severely damaged the other.

When I got here and saw the destruction, the boy came over to proudly confess his misdeed. I had words with him, pointing out that swallows are a protected species and interfering with their nests is a crime. This gave him the willies, of course. As far as I knew, the birds had finished nesting for the year when he did his damage, so technically, he had not actually broken the law (though I'm not exactly clear what can and can't be done vis a vis swallow nests). But I put the fear into him, and I hope he never interferes with a swallow's nest again.

Meanwhile, May 1 came and went this year, and there were no swallows to be seen. I thought perhaps they weren't coming back, or maybe they came to scout but found so much destruction they decided to roost somewhere else. The places next door on either side of us have been vacant for a while, and though they don't provide quite as sheltered a nesting site as our place does, they'd still make relatively quiet places to raise a bird family.

Well, one evening I went out the front to look at the stars, and what do I see overhead as I'm passing by the swallow nests but a swallow snoozing in the damaged nest and evidence on the ground of repairs started on the destroyed nest. This would have been about May 10th, somewhat late for the birds' return, but still within a reasonable time frame to raise at least one brood before the end of summer.

For some time, I only saw the one swallow day or night. Then, a few days ago, I saw both pair, flitting and chittering about, one pair working diligently to repair the ruined nest, the other pair apparently working on hatching some eggs.

It's taking quite a while to rebuild the destroyed nest but both birds of the pair work diligently in the morning and the evening to assemble a new one.

Swallow working diligently

Must be difficult to find appropriate mud because of the drought. We have a birdbath in front, but we also have a feral cat colony, and the birds are very wary. I've seen lots of different birds use the birdbath, but never the swallows. Instead, they sit on the wire above it, chittering away to one another about the cats down below, and then they fly off to wherever they are getting their mud, soon to return to add to the nest(s). There have been several repairs to the damaged nest as well.

(Oh, regarding feral cats and birds. We have an absolute abundance of many species of birds around here -- drought or no drought. They nest in the trees and the eaves in their multitudes, and the cats are seen to stalk them from time to time. In the more than six months we have been permanent residents, the cats have caught two birds that we know of, both doves. The claims that feral cats will catch dozens of birds each during a season seem to be somewhat... exaggerated to say the least.  The cats love to stalk the birds to be sure, but the birds are not exactly stupid about predators, and they mostly seem to be perfectly capable of eluding their stalkers.)

Some people don't like swallows because they're messy. Yes, the area below the nesting sites can become pretty foul pretty fast when there is a brood in the nest. We just clean it up, but some people get so aggravated by the mess, they want to chase the swallows away. I can understand the feeling, but I have more sympathy for the birds who are just doing what comes naturally to them. It's not really that hard to clean up after them in any case. And the baby birds are cute!

We're glad, very glad the swallows have returned.

The Birds

 
Sandhill Cranes and snow geese at Bosque del Apache NWR, Michael Mauro/Mauromedia

One thing we've noticed since we've been here in New Mexico is the abundance of bird life. We've had swallows nesting in the eaves of the front porch forever, and we've noticed lots of grackles, doves, sparrows, larks and other birds proliferating in the area and on our trees, but over the week or so that we've been here permanently, we've discovered that we're under the flyway for sandhill cranes.

We knew about the snow geese and other geese that use this flyway, and we knew there were cranes on the other side of the Manzanos and Sandias, but we didn't realize they were local here, too. They don't just fly by in great flocks, they feed in the plowed or harvested fields not far away, sometimes by the many dozens, they apparently use the saline lakes in the region, and they are a nearly constant presence. I can hear them outside now.

The Festival of the Cranes at the Bosque del Apache NWR near Socorro is November 13-18, so we may have to take a little time to visit. The count of sandhill cranes stands at 300 as of a couple of days ago. I think we've seen -- and heard -- close to that many overhead at our place quite a few miles north.

I've seen lots of raptors in the area as well, including one huge golden eagle sitting placidly on a fencepost down the road and a whole bunch of Cooper's and red-tailed hawks among others.

Of course the ravens and the crows are common; they love to follow the horses around in the field nearby. Woodpeckers love our trees. I'm not surprised, the droughts having left a lot of dead branches which we have not had the opportunity to clear and may not do in any case unless we need branches for more coyote fencing.