Our yard is full of doves. I watch and listen as they amble along our fence, browse beneath the feeders, and coo low love songs from our roof. I follow their nests in our pear tree, in our roses and pansies, and wave goodbye when the fledglings fly away. Do they return, sometimes, when they are ready for nests of their own?
All these doves in our yard. Do they also watch and listen, wondering where we came from and where we will go?
Yesterday evening my back yard was the rainbow, my front yard the pot of gold.
(First, I apologize for the green fence. I blame the weather.)
Second, there’s a rabbit in the rose bed. It’s been there most of the morning, and I have no idea why. It isn’t grazing, just sitting in the rain as if waiting for something.
Third, there’s a squirrel on the fence above the rabbit. A full-alert squirrel, complete with full-alert scolds, waving its tail in agitation.
Fourth, there are yellow-rumped warblers. Flitting and chirping in nearby branches, the warblers add credibility to the squirrel’s alarm. (Because birds are more credible than squirrels…)
But there’s nothing to explain the rabbit’s vigil, or the squirrel and warbler alarm. It’s just a scene, a few moments cut from the yard’s mysterious context.
I feel like a child, plaintive in my need to know. I ask, again and again, “Why?” And the yard, like a distracted mother, answers with silence.
Here in the mid-Atlantic, tornadoes rarely threaten. However, along the Tennessee/Alabama state line, where I grew up, spring routinely brings tornado outbreaks. These photos are from Easter morning 1984. That window, the one nearly hidden by leaves, was my bedroom.
There’s a pale blur of silhouette, in the back yard, that is one of our confused chickens. I don’t know where they were, when the storm hit, or how they survived. I was in bed. It was about four AM when the wind grew and grew and grew into a furious whistle and wail. I remember fear, and the wincing spasm of muscle and nerve when our roof shifted with a BANG.
After the storm, after it was too late to bother with safety, we gathered in the middle of our dark house. Despite having no warning, everyone was safe and unharmed.
Mother and my older sisters surveyed the damage, which was minor. I wanted only to check on my cat. Mischief had delivered kittens, days earlier, in one of the sheds. Mother made me wait until sunrise, which may have been the longest hour of my young life. When I opened the shed, Mischief greeted me with her usual cry and purr. I remember counting her kittens, even though it was obvious they were safe.
For that matter, all of the animals were safe. The chickens, whose roosts had been rearranged so rudely, gossiped and fussed for a few hours, then returned to their interrupted routine.
The peach tree (which had never produced peaches) was a total loss, and one of the small maples in the back yard. The older trees survived, survive yet, despite losing much of their upper growth.
Here in 2012, just this morning, a classmate from high school picked up her children after a tornado damaged their school. I don’t know how she survived the minutes between hearing the news and holding her kids. Simply reading her Facebook update, her few sentences confirming that the kids are okay, made my heart race.
And this afternoon my heart still races, because the day is not over. I want to curl, catlike, around my loved ones. Around all the ones they love, and everyone in the storm’s path. Please stay safe.
My husband mowed last weekend. It had to be done. The result is a fairly even swath of topped weeds, broken here and there by dandelions.
The mower’s blade shaved off an entire generation of henbit and purple dead-nettle. Taking advantage of their new access to sunlight, a shy crop of ground-hugging weeds have bloomed in unison.
I’m frustrated by the yard’s new blooms, but not because they are weeds. I’m frustrated because they are unknown weeds. Few things bother me more than not knowing.
While I’m reasonably certain that the white petals above belong to chickweed, my wildflower guide and online research have failed to provide a name for the pale purple flower below. I suspect it may be a type of speedwell, based on those four striped petals. But the hairy leaves? They don’t seem to fit.
What am I missing? Any ideas?
Rae Spencer 