Editing

Young Eagle feeding on deer carcass washed in from tide

(hard to see and not and not quite in focus)

“There is a time to live and a time to die, a time to plant a time to uproot.” Ecclesiastes 3:2

I have tried to adapt the blog around what happens in our little world each week but decided this is not the place to put all the pictures which included the R rated road killed mink outside our driveway, first fledglings juncos and pine siskins; insect life in the garden, tiger swallowtails and bees. I uprooted them and perhaps will plant them in a Picasa Web Album next week. Will let you know.
I have a hard time editing these blogs, need a better focus. I need to eliminate what detracts from the central point. What is the point? Focus, I think this is one of the major problems with my writing. I need some editors to help me stick to one focus, with one purpose in mind.

This week I edit berry cages, vegetable gardens, it is called weeding. The strawberry beds were covered in field grass, so I hoed the rows and weeded in between. It is easy to edit what is screening the sun, water and nutrients from the strawberries or vegetables. Anything that detracts from the central point, luscious strawberries next month, is uprooted. It is harder in the perennial border. The obvious like bindweed gets dealt a blow. Get it now before it is too late and takes over. The other obvious, not adding to beauty, weeds get uprooted as well. My husband feels this way about the self seeding bronze fennel in the garden. I let it go when I had no time to plan or plant the long border. It added beauty without a lot of care. Yet the roses, with minimal circulation, suffered from black spot damage. I guess my focus that year was not on the roses. So this year my husband has edited much of the feathery fennel bucketing it to the compost heap with his tractor. I know with more than one person tending a border, there has to be unanimity of focus. Sometimes a seed is planted and another uproots the seedling to make a clean slate. A weed to some is beauty to me such as Buttercups and Queen Anne’s lace. I love the look in the right place and I love the self seeding volunteers.

Maybe this is why it is so hard for me to focus my writing. I want a self seed of the Holy Spirit to come in and make it beautiful without a lot of work. I don’t want it to be something I have planned orchestrated alone but something for your glory, Lord. But it can’t happen unless you Lord edit the sin in my life that gets in the way of focus on You Lord. Help me with persistence to see it through as well.. “Purify my life so my ministry not hindered,” a quote from a missionary I know.

"Create in me a clean heart" (edit my heart Lord) Psalm 51:10-12 Help me die to myself as this deer. Renew a right spirit within me. Refine me, bring new life for myself so I can feed others growing in You. Help me to focus on You with one purpose in mind, to glorify You.

Barn Swallow lesson

Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) L 6 3/4” (17 cm)

Several weeks ago, to my delight, I noticed the barn swallows were back. Every year for almost 30 years, I anticipate their return, the long journey from South America. Upon hearing their excited chattering, I run outside to watch them fly the perimeter of the field, feasting on mosquitoes, veer toward the cottage, over the garden fence, and straight under the broad eves to the back porch light where they’ve nested for eight of those years. I’ve watched the animated chatter as the female turns around checking the nest’s fit, feeling it out, the male watching. This year I didn’t hear the chatter, just a single “chip” when three swooped under the eves. They did not stay long. Perhaps the pair was not pleased with the surroundings, pushing last year’s soggy mud mixed droppings to the aggregate below. While we were gone this last week, they built up the nest with fresh mud.

For some reason, I have been generally anxious for the last few weeks, culminating in a non gentle spirit. Perhaps it is the adjustment to retirement, perhaps it is our trouble making a lot of decisions or knowing what to let go and what to take on or build up, what is someone else’s or my problem. I think about the tasks and challenges tomorrow and next month and it keeps me from excitement and the present day peace. I have tried to organize, clean out the clutter not only of our house, gardens but my mind.

I read yesterday, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”1
I argue, “But I am human birds are not. They have no free will to be anxious.” Doesn’t anxiety depend on free will? “…be not anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”2 That’s easy to say. I guess I have a conscious choice. But I can’t drum up peace. Now, I get it. Forgive me Lord. You want me to ask you, Lord, for peace. I know I pray for others but have forgotten about myself. Give me peace and focus on this day’s task not tomorrow’s trouble.

To my delight today, peace is back. I hope it doesn’t leave tomorrow. See I forgot already. One day at a time with your help, O Lord. Yes, as you direct the birds in their long journeys and provide for their food and nest sites, help me to trust you to direct my path in this journey of life day by day.

1. Matthew 6:25-27

2. Matthew 6:33-34

Immigrant roots

What’s brought in on an immigrant’s feet,
In their bags, a bushel of wheat?
A seed softly planted in this land,
So small and unnoticed like sand
And after years, hiding underground,
Setting down roots it is found
Pernicious and invasive,
Binding everything around
To be like them and defiling many.

Convolvulus arvensis – Field Bindweed I’m talking about. The morning glory like weed, the worst weed ever, brought by immigrants from Europe and Asia, first noticed in Virginia in 1730. Now it is everywhere! One of my ancestors planted his feet in Jamestown in 1610 only to turn back to England a few years later, perhaps the damage was done.

I noticed it in our island garden in 2002, after returning from England during 9/11. We created a long border on our homesteaded land. The vine was first ignored by a hired gardener thinking it a rare plant, little did they know. It looks so small, spreading laterally over the newly cultivated long border and then tendrils reaching out to any plant beside it to twine it into a bunch. No individuality near the bindweed in the border, or freedom of movement, suffocating control instead. The song “Bind us together Lord,” comes to mind. Last Sunday our barely practiced worship team prayed for unity of the Spirit in our song since initially we weren’t working together well. God’s Spirit caused us to have diversity yet sing together for His glory. Only You, Lord, can move our spirits to work in unity without sacrificing the individuality of each of us in song. So much different then the binding of this weed.

But the worst bindweed work is underground. I read in "Common Weeds of the United States," that the roots are called “Man-underground.” The root storage stem, way out of proportion to its spindly tendrils, buried at the depth at which we store corpses, even 9 feet, grow as long and as thick as a man’s leg and can weigh up to 30 pounds! From this main root come lateral roots spreading over 4 feet on either side about 2-4 feet below the surface. This is much worse than I thought. Pulling the weeds only encourages the root to spread and chopping the root multiplies it like the brooms in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, “gladly suffering the hoe, gaily chopped to bits, it clones a new bindweed from each severed fragment.” The only way to eradicate it is to fork out the whole garden and cover it with plastic for 5 years and even then the 9 foot buried storage system root sends up shoots even after 50 years! What possible use is this weed? I read that Navahos drank an infusion of bindweed root if they swallowed a spider. Now that is stretching it. How often have you swallowed a spider?

I have been researching its demise for years. So this week, on a sunny day when the tulips and narcissus and grape hyacinth were dropping their petals, beginning to croak and the perennials starting to bud, before the bindvines started to choke, I took out my watercolor brush and a glass jar and started to paint convolvulus leaves…. with Roundup, Glyphosate herbicide, poison to the bindweed. So as not to kill surrounding plants, I painted each elongated heart shaped bindweed leaf separately. It’s the only way to possibly eradicate it, with diligence and patience. The poison gets literally to the root of the problem I hope.

But you Lord made this plant. Perhaps it is to point out the huge problem we all fight in our lives, bigger than bindweed. The roots go deep. “See that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” Hebrews 12:15
Does a bitter root of long forgotten unforgiveness or past hurts or generational strongholds thrive in me causing trouble and defiling others? I ask Christ to come into my life to help me to deal with or remove the above ground controlling and enslaving sprout vine troubles. But it is the hidden roots, either generational or forgotten unforgiveness for hurts past that keep the sprouts of pain and trouble coming. I bring to your cross these patterns of pain that stem from these roots that can only be eradicated by you and ask your forgiveness for my unforgiving spirit and ask your demise of generational strongholds perhaps even brought by our immigrant ancestors. Only you can get rid of this root of mine. And thank you Lord for the reminder through the hated bindweed.

Back Home Again

The Tree Swallows are back
Tachycineta bicolor L 5 ¾” (15 cm)

The day I posted my last blog, I walked out the cottage door to the patio and looked across the field toward the water. As if upon command, the sky opened up and in the distance I saw dots heading this way at great speed. I gazed amazed at the blue angel precision flying through the carved out of the woods opening at the water, a right turn glide to sweep the length of the homesteaded field and back. Quick turns and excited chatter announce the arrival of the swallow’s fresh arrival from South America or perhaps the West Indies and a focused feeding, a feast of mosquitoes waiting. I am overjoyed that they survived one more year to follow God’s command on their life to be fruitful and multiply. Although only six this year, I hear them chattering and then one heads right to the nest box on the post and my heart welcomes the tree swallow family back. We put up the nest box about ten years ago, after seeing what we thought were violet green swallows to entice the cavity nesters to stay. Since then we’ve been privileged to see 10 years of successful tree swallow broods.

I guess the excitement of the swallows reminds me of summers returning to Nova Scotia, my parent’s birthplace, traveling the 800 miles north by car. As we crossed the Nova Scotia border and heard the piper playing my mother and I would start crying that we were going home, and then landed at our grandparent’s home which never seemed to change. We would get together with relatives, cousins and sing, feast and have fun and have the freedom in the fields to roam.

and the House Wrens
Troglodytes aedon L 4 ¾ (12cm)

I have been trying to figure out what bird this was that claimed the old tree swallow nest box this week and concluded it was a house wren, tail not raised, returning from S. California or Mexico. The female busied herself all week gathering twigs and grass for the nest while the male sang and stood fast, protecting the territory.

A few days later, perhaps the same pair of House Wrens moved here when the flicker started drumming at 8 a.m. on the top of their box!

“In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” Job 12:10

Eulogy to Bo

“Bo”

photo by Lucinda A Bryant

Today we buried Bo, oh my
Not so much sadness but a sigh
I think we’ve shed all our tears
It’s only been about 6 years
Since she died.

That is how long she has been around
On the shelf instead of in the ground
A small box in the linen closet.
There since the cremator did deposit
Her ashes inside

Walking last week I found a stone
Beside the road, I carried it home
Stained green granite and mostly square
Right for a garden we’ll put it there
To mark her grave

I brought it to the monument place
Engraved her name upon its face
We buried her bones near the orchard bench
Fuji blossoms falling over the trench
The stone beside

Never liked dogs, nor had one it’s true
But dogs a magnet to daughter Lu
They’d follow her home, wait at the door
Begging food eyes you couldn’t ignore.
I didn’t give in.

Often found others to take them instead
‘I don’t want a dog,’ I often said
Then I learned that Lu prayed every night
“God, bring me a dog if that’s alright,”
I changed my mind

We went to a breeder where we bought
A golden retriever, mellow we thought
Bo Brackenhollow hidden under the stair
The “pick of the litter” they called her there
We brought her home

She was the bad example at obedience school
Our fault not hers, she was no fool.
We tried to lead but she just didn’t follow
We shouted “Bohiski Brackenhollow
Come here!”

Dancing for food, learning to talk

Said, "I want out" to go for a walk

Not enough walks she'd bolt out the door

To neilghbor's garden tramping hellebore

If dogs go to heaven, if they could
She'll be there dancing, begging for food
She’ll learn more words then, “I want out”
There’ll be gardens galore to wander about
Thank God for Bo

We loved her well and miss her dearly
See our loved grand dogs now here-ly

Exposed

White Crowned Sparrow eggs .08" (21 mm)

On the day I posted the last blog, I went out to the front bank where the white crowned sparrows nest every year, where we last weekend rushed to get it cleared and planted before they nested once again and saw to my chagrin, that my husband had cut the ornamental grass on the bank with a chain saw. It exposed in the center crown of the plant 2 pale blue (as the Northwest overcast sky) eggs, mottled with red brown specks, White crowned sparrow eggs. It has disturbed me all week.

From the fall of man and resultant banishment from the first garden there have been boundary disputes. When man and woman decided that they wanted to test their independence from God, “I’ll do it do it myself, thank you, don’t need your rules” kind of attitude the original boundary was crossed, the curse was given - conflict between man and woman. My husband tests the boundaries forever; I try to hold them, and dispute and the curse reigns especially in the garden. I want wildflowers and meadow, he wants manicured lawn. I want wild, untamed, a place for birds to nest, he wants it to “look good.” Anything that looks dead, even though is it just resting for the winter needs to be ripped out. I like shovels, he likes backhoes, I like wheelbarrows not tractors; hand pruners and peace and quiet, not the roar of a chainsaw.

When we first bought our place in the islands, it already had the curse. From the front of the nothing-to-look-at house to the water was what you didn’t want to look at, eroded land, large gullies carved in the clay, no vegetation in its path, except to the side, two hills of top soil that the previous owner scraped off the land, presumably to get a better view. And when they got the view of eroded land, they moved on. The first thing we did was try to heal the ravaged land. We put down protective nets, bought from a specialist in erosion control. We moved some dirt in and seeded it and the damage stopped and a field started to grow. But then my husband wanted to be able to mow it and couldn’t easily because of the slope, so we consulted a friend to help us terrace the front with three flat terraces and sloping banks in between. On the topmost bank we planted deer resistant ceanothus, rosemary, lavender, nepeta, barberry and ornamental grasses which grew lovely. We came to an agreement on the lower banks and the meadow. He would mow a path along the terraces; the rest would continue to be tall grass where the deer could hide until mowed in late July.

As a result of the curse, even the land no longer stays where it is put. The field grass has raced into the former border bank of rosemary and lavender, nepeta and ceanothus which now looks again like a meadow but with some indistinguishable heads of plants sticking through. The bank has long been a successful nesting site for white crowned sparrows. Because they arrive to breed successfully every spring through early summer from Mexico or Arizona to the same spot, I let it alone. If I wait until late summer to clear it, the soil is too dry and we were not around for the fall months, or the ground, or I outside, too frozen in winter. Although I like the look of abandonment here and there, blending in with the weeded, this bank had been too abandoned for too many years. So last weekend with the WC Sparrow’s arrival, singing loudly in a nearby bush, I decide now is the time to reclaim boundaries between the grass and the border. Because of the urgency of nesting timing, I ask a friend to help me weed and my husband to help edge the lawn, cart off the pulled weeds and grass, and bring in some enriched dirt, compost, for planting. That may have been the mistake. I had been for years defending it for the birds sake being careful where I work and here in one swoop of a chain saw, gone. Unprotected when they thought they were safely hidden in the center of the miscanthus.

My first reaction was anger. I’ve spent my energy preserving habitat so I could help birds be fruitful and multiply as commanded by God and here in one swoop, my husband who knows my focus for the bank, cuts down the grass when I was not looking. Since he had left from town when I discovered it I had time to think about this. I thought of the effort for birds to long distance fly to and nest on our bank and defend the territory, mate and finding a readymade nest in the middle of the miscanthus, the head start on a brood, now is abandoned. I don’t know how I could have protected it more. What can I learn from this? Because I noticed the cut to the ground miscanthus and eggs just hours after posting my last blog, I believe you, God, have another message for me or for me to remember - again how much you God love people even more than birds. Perhaps you God, unbeknownst to my husband, had him do this for my benefit. By your grace, I forgive my husband.1 You taught me that you, God, are sovereign and nothing passes by you without your knowledge. You had me see this for another reason and I think it has to do with blogging.

Help me face my fears of being out there, exposed, feeling vulnerable when I do a “risky” blog. I put in a lot of work, just to be out there out in the sun for the “world” to see rather undercover, hidden in a drawer. It is a beginning, not hatched yet and maybe never hatched because the bird will not come back. Am I the bird who will not come back, quitting the blog because I feel exposed? Or will you, God, continue to help me write and hover over this beginning shell of a message and hatch it yourself in time?
Notes:
1. Ephesians 4:32

"Fallen"

Dead Spotted Tohwee (alias Rufous-sided Tohwee)

Pipilo maculatus L 7 ½ (19 cm)

Friday, April 06, 2007

"Fallen" 8x10 oil/linen J. Matt Miller

“Why would I want to buy a picture of a dead bird?” was the questioning look I got when I bought Matt’s oil painting titled “Fallen”. He painted and posted it on his daily life painting blog on Good Friday.

In the past I talked to Matt about painting birds, but he said they don’t sit still long enough for real life painting. I recall last summer when our grandson, Andrew, and I sat at our dining table drawing a bird. It was a window-crashed-dead pine siskin after which we buried it with ceremony, a cross as its marker. Easter Sunday, Matt told me that he did paint a bird on Good Friday, one that crashed into his living room window. I looked at his blog and woke up on Monday knowing I had to buy the painting. I spent the week pondering why.

Yes, I have a "thing" about injured or dying birds. Ask my kids. More than once I dragged them and various boxed birds with concussions through rush hour traffic for 20 miles to the Seattle Wild Bird Center, then the only state-licensed wildlife clinic in the area. I learned a lot about helping birds survive a crash. So now, in our island home closet sits an electric heating pad and a cardboard box with towels just for these occurrences.

The picture reminds me of two winters ago. Upon hearing the all too often terrible “thud” against the window of our island home, my heart and I race outside to find a spotted Tohwee, feet up, not a good sign. As only its red eyes move, I gather it in a soft towel and place it in the box, out of the way of noise and traffic, and set the heating pad to low. All the while softly muttering, “Please God let it live”. With many hours passing and several tries taking the box outside and lifting the cover to release it, it finally flew to safety. Often when I see what I think is “the” Tohwee scratching at the grass for seed and scurrying with its mate under the lavender bushes that line the flag patio, I thank God for its revival.

Perhaps I need to do more about the ignored problem of our window glass. The Bird Conservation Network gives some solutions mentioning window glass crash as the number one human caused bird mortality with an estimated 1 billion birds killed in the U.S. each year. I’ve hung metal birds from the door frame on a raffia chord and stuck an outdoor chair in front of the glass door, neither of which works well. I pull curtains when we are gone. So today I try “designer” vertical lines of soap every four inches down the window. We’ll see what my husband says when he gets in. “I still think a barn would be best for you,” was his response. Maybe so, at least there are not many windows to crash into.

But then, God, don't you know when a sparrow (or tohwee) falls?1 Don’t we all continue to exist by Your will? You, God, say how much more valuable we are than birds.2 Stuck in my head this week is the song that we sang on Easter Sunday, “Crucified, laid behind the stone, you lived to die, rejected and alone, like a rose (or a rose-sided Tohwee), trampled on the ground, you took the fall and thought of me, above all.”3

You found me fallen because I saw and worshiped a reflection of your image, not you. I've worshipped a reflection, a visual barrier, that is the form of religion, not you; my own independence, not your way, my sometimes greater interest in birds than people, especially vulnerable children . You picked me up, wrapped me warm, and put me in a safe place. You loved me so wondrously, God, that you took the fall and died yourself, your substitute sacrifice, not for birds who still obey your commands, but for my sake, so I can be revived and set free. Every time I look at Matt's picuture I am reminded.

What is the reflection you look at and head towards that does not lead to freedom or life?


Notes:
1. Matthew 10:29
2. Luke 12:24b; Matthew 10:31; Luke 12:4-9
3. “Above All”, Paul Baloche and Lenny LeBlanc.