I spent most of today gardening—spent far too much time (and money!) in a nursery on account of a coupon in the mail for a free 4” pot of mums, normally $1.99 (boy they got me good!). My friend Jessica tells me to regard it as an investment in the house. Hopefully the deer won’t eat too much of my “investment” tonight (I have to leave things I want to plant in the front out in their pots for a few days to see what’s going to get eaten—right now I have some portulaca and pentas recuperating in the back from the ravages of the deer).
Anyway, much time was spent pulling dead leaves off geraniums, weeding the vegetable garden, sweeping up sunflower shells from the birdfeeder, etc. I also mowed the front lawn, but before I did the back I did yet more work—more weed-pulling, cutting back the Texas sage, and cutting off suckers from the yaupon holly and the abelia to clear space around the birdbath and the wind chimes Mom gave me for my birthday a couple of years ago.
To do the area around the wind chimes, I had to bend over to get underneath some branches, and when I was done I backed up a couple of steps and then started to stand up. I should have taken one more step before I backed up as when I straightened I nearly hit a branch of the holly above me. As I stood up and had to duck again suddenly, I said, “Whoa!”, and then jumped back as I could see there was something on the holly branch—and given some of the things I’ve seen in my back yard (opossum, skunk, raccoon, etc.), I moved quickly.
Once I’d straighened up and taken a closer look, I could see it was a house finch (female). It was a beautiful bird, all her feathers in lovely condition. My face was not more than 12 inches from her body, and yet she did not even twitch. I stood and talked to her for close to five minutes, and Jonathan even came from the deck and had a look at her—still she stayed there. I put my finger up to her feet (was tempted to try to scratch her head as I used to do with the cockatiels at Brian & Joy’s, but I didn’t) and she didn’t move a muscle. I was rather awed that this beautiful wild bird stayed so close to me for so long. Even when I started up the lawnmower she didn’t fly away but remained on the branch for as long as I could see her.
Finally I had to go to the other end of the back garden to mow, and when I came back she was gone. But that experience made my exhaustion this evening (I haven’t even opened up my family history software tonight) well worth it.
Posted by elizabeth at September 4, 2003 12:05 AM