Birdseed

I read this article a while back about the price of birdseed and how it was on the rise. And then I neatly tucked it into the back my brain only to recall it while standing in front of the seed at the store.



The article wasn't kidding.

Bird Retreat. Maybe not the most frugal idea I've ever had. But pretty neat regardless.

I told you that story to tell you this one: A Continuation

When my Dad was 8 years old he had a cap gun that he loved to no end. According to my grandmother he spent all of his waking hours that fateful summer playing with the cap gun. I don't know, I guess it was 1966 and not much else was going on or something, either way, times were tight and that was his latest toy. Also, in 1966 we were not worried too much about child safety because said cap gun actually shot out a little "cap". Don't most of today's cap guns just make a little poof?

Anyways.

In 1966, my grandmother had a bit of a menagerie of birds. Come to think of it, they had a menagerie of animals. Several dogs, several birds, and a Caymen Alligator. The poor Caymen would meet a tragic fate at the hands of my father, but that's a later story. On this particular day, my young dad had his sights set on one thing and one thing only: my grandmother's beloved canary.

There are two versions of this story that circulate through family lore. It really depends on who you choose to believe.

The version by my own Dad goes a little something like this:

I was just sitting there in the living room, watching Captain Kangaroo on TV when Mom's canary flew to perch on the top of the television set. I accidentally shot my cap gun in the general direction of the bird and she fell over, dead.

I think it generally goes without saying, I don't believe this version of the story, ONE BIT.

The second version of this story goes a little something like this: as transcribed from my Aunt B,

Your father was a mean little boy. I mean, really mean. He would guard our front yard and not let people walk on the sidewalk in front of our house. Mean, okay? Mama loved that canary. She would let it free to fly around the living room and he would perch on her finger if she whistled. Your father, as you can imagine was quite jealous of Mama and the bird. Did I mention he was mean? 'Cause he was also jealous of anything that might love Mama too. So, he took one look at that bird that day and killed it...on the spot. It's a wonder he isn't a serial killer now.

That's the version I believe. Because you take one look at these pictures and try to deny that my father was a mean kid:



So yesterday when Jon managed to kill a bird while it was innocently eating in a retreat I created with my own two hands, I knew I finally had my equivalent bird story. Especially when Jon denied aiming at the bird that he killed, "it just flew in the way of my shot" he said.

Right.

And Dad just accidentally killed the canary on his TV set.

Before and After

I worked hard all weekend long to finally reap the rewards of my little backyard makeover project. On one hand I can count the number of things I've planted in my lifetime, they all happened on Saturday.

I am so thrilled with the end result. Not because I think it's some kind of masterpiece, but because it's all a product of my hard work. It's a very satisfying and rewarding thing to be done with.

Here is the before, a tiny space that housed two shepherd hooks with feeders on them. All in all it worked wonderfully as a space to attract the birds.



However.

This:



Is so much more amazing.

When everything starts really taking root and spreading out I imagine it's only going to get more amazing. I can't wait.

And yes, I sat on the patio waiting for the first birds to arrive after I filled the feeders. It took about 5 minutes!

The Details:

• The tree is a flowering dogwood, which according to my research does well in containers.
• We can't plant the tree there due to a lateral field in the backyard, so the only option was container planting.
• There is a dogwood bush in the back, on each side of that a compact holly.
• The white shrubs on each end are azaleas.
• All of the flowers, except for the red petunias, are perrenials...including English Daisies, Salvias and others I can't recall the names of.
• Clematis is the only thing missing, it will grow up the trellis.
• Oh and I suppose Mulch is missing as well, I simply haven't bought it yet.

Redbud

One of the casualties of this Backyard Makeover project is that I tend to exhibit my father's traits when undertaking a project of this magnitude: go on full throttle until something is done, over-exert myself and then spend days recovering from it all.

Perhaps it was the adrenaline of the project itself that kept me running all weekend despite pretty fair warning signs that all was not well with my body. Whatever the case, while I was hurting yesterday, nothing comes close to the pain I've experienced this lovely Monday.

If I may vent...

Every single step I take hurts. My legs are aching, my back is killing me, the palms of my hands and heels of my feet are sore, and my poor shoulders are wishing they didn't belong to me anymore.

I'm miserable.

I've managed to pop nearly every available painkiller in this house: Aleve, Advil, Tylenol. Nothing has so much as dulled the pain. I'm sort of longing for the early days of Dad's health problems when he had a cabinet full of narcotics.

Which is why earlier I approached him with an idea. I'll simply insert a tube into his abdomen and siphen off some morphine from out of his pump.

Brilliant, right?

Yeah. He was less than thrilled with the thought.

So until I score something on the street (kidding) (kind of) I'm at a bit of an impasse with the retreat/sanctuary. Or at least until I finish buying what I need at Garden Ridge tomorrow and decide where I want everything.

If you check out my Flickr Photostream you can see some initial work on the retreat thing. Trust that it is bigger than appears in the photos and that no plant or birdfeeder in those pictures is where it will end up...probably.

In the meantime here is a picture of what probably did me in this weekend.

You see, my favorite tree in the whole world is a Redbud that resides in the frontyard of my childhood home. For years I've told my parents that their current house is simply bare without a Redbud.

And for years my father has reminded me how much he hates to mow around trees. In a fit of stupidity yesterday I treked off into the woods near my house with a couple of willing 13 year olds to find (and dig up ourselves) a Redbud tree.

Turns out, when your daughter arrives home with a Redbud she dug up herself you kind of have no choice but to get over your problem with mowing around trees and plant the damn thing.

Becoming One with Nature

When I was four years old my mother sent me outside on a post-rainy day and made me play in the mud. When everyone else's mothers were chiding them about staying clean, mine was forcing me to get a little dirty.

She claims mud builds character.

It goes without saying that despite her best efforts, I've never become friends with dirt. I happen to think it is everything we say it is: dirty, nasty, grimy, filthy, disgusting, and mighty gross to have stuck underneath fingernails.

And up until this weekend I've managed to spend the eighteen years since I was four avoiding it.

You see, it all began a few weeks ago when I got the brilliant idea to expand our bird retreat, or sanctuary...I haven't decided on what to call it yet, into a rectangular backyard masterpiece.

Why yes, I have been watching a little too much HGTV lately.

But that's besides the point. The real story here is that I decided upon this retreat officially on Thursday night. By Friday morning I was spray painting the area to mark for digging. SPRAY PAINTING. There is like no turning back at that point.

Roughly an hour into digging the sod out of the ground I realized it might have been easier to own a garden tiller. Another half hour and one google search later and I figured out that was $200 I probably wasn't going to talk anyone into spending.

At some point in the day I ended up at a nursery and Meijers with my Mom spending that same $200 I couldn't talk anyone into for a garden tiller on various perennials, shrubs, trees, bird feeders and soil.

And by that night I was on my hands and knees in the mud digging up this rectangle in our yard.

The same mud I've spent most of my life despising.

I've never been so dirty in all of my 22 years. Nobody else has ever witnessed me so dirty. The neighbor kids were in awe. My father couldn't believe his eyes. And my mother?

My Mom was proud.

22 years of trying and her daughter finally got into the mud, willingly.

22 years and I'm thinking I need my head checked.

(The "project" is still not finished. I'll have more of my "Backyard Makeover" tomorrow. Maybe. If I can still move in the morning.)

(For the record: I still hate mud.)