Watching the Birds Go By

We first started watching birds when we moved to Vancouver. Our neighbour Burt, down the alley, came over one day after Christmas with a long pole and a funny looking red plastic thing on a hook. He'd just been given a new birdfeeder for Christmas and he wanted to give us his old one. He even helped us set it up, wiring it to the deck railing with some old telephone wire and showing me how to slide the pole up and down when I wanted to refill the seed feeder. The kids were all excited about having some pet birds, until I explained that it didn't work quite that way. So we loaded up the seed feeder, loaded up the suet feeder, hung a seed bell for good measure, and sat in the shade of the open door, waiting for something to happen.

That was 4 years ago. In the intervening time the twins have gotten to the point where they no longer race screaming at the feeder every time a bird alights on it, and Max has gotten to the point where he can recognize most of the birds in our area. We also live in another city, not too far from Vancouver, but far enough that the little black-capped chickadees Max loves aren't around. They haven't flown across the Strait of Georgia yet, apparently!

In the photo you can see our feeder system. Simple yet effective. We have a black sunflower seed bell, a suet feeder, and a seed house (more popular in the summer months). On the other corner of the deck we have the hummingbird feeder. Hummers are not the most congenial birds around; in fact they tended to dive bomb the other birds when their feeder was closer to this system, so we moved it. Here's a post I wrote about them a few months back, I was so impressed at their ferocity. It was one of the first things we did when we moved here, too: set up the feeders.

During the summer we only keep the seed house filled. Sometimes we hang apples or cardboard rolls with some peanut butter on them (a midsummer's eve treat), but that's about it. The birds forage for themselves just fine. Mind you, we provide numerous opportunities for them to forage. Our yard is given over to flowers, vegetables, and herbs covered in either aphids, seeds, or worms, but we still tussle over the fennel seeds. We have a bird bath which the squirrels edge them out on, sadly. Come the cold weather, we set out the suet feeder, which is a mixture of bacon fat, peanut butter, bird seed, whole oats, sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds. I save bacon fat all year round, and when I get a couple of cups worth, I melt it down, add equal parts peanut butter, throw in some other things, stir well, then pour into sandwich-sized ziplock bags and freeze flat on a tray. The bag peels off easily and I can tuck it into the suet feeder - which is the same size. A little wasteful on the plastic side, I realize, but I haven't quite figured out a way that doesn't involve a container of some sort.

In Vancouver we had a very cordial relationship with the Stellar's Jays, but we have yet to see a single one here on the Island. They are cheeky, gorgeous, and incredibly noisy birds, but we miss them. I already mentioned the black-caps. We miss them, too. They are easily the cheeriest little bird around. We have the chestnut-backed chickadee, but he's a little shyer than his cousin. We also have juncos, downy woodpeckers, bushtits, nuthatches, kinglets, robins, red-winged blackbirds, hummers, Cooper's hawks, red-tailed hawks, sparrows, and even the odd barred owl. The kids know them all, thanks to this feeder system and our handy dandy Compact Guide to British Columbia Birds. It's not the most comprehensive birding book I've seen, but it's easy to tuck into a coat pocket, small enough for tiny hands, and very easy to thumb through. It also has male/female sketches (essential for figuring out things like "is that a starling or a female red-winged blackbird?), and migratory/summer/winter living habits. This is how we found out that the black-cap hasn't yet made it to our little corner of the world, although Max is readying a special suitcase...

If you want to set up your own feeder system, you must be very careful to keep the seed dry. If it gets wet it can make the birds very sick. And take care to keep the feeders where the squirrels and the starlings can't get at them (she says, to much hollow laughter).

Winter Gardening

We just had a couple of days of incredibly warm and sunny weather, with temperatures of at least 7 or 8º C, and since it was still technically Winter Break up here in Canada (I think I like the breaks more than the kids do - I cling to them till the bitter end) I headed out to the garden centre, then out to the garden. I was able to do this childlessly (ooh, cool word) because the kids were staying overnight at my parents' place. Correct that, I was able to do it slowly and indulgently because I was temporarily childless. I could actually read the tags on those trees, examine the zonal information, check the different Latin names, and stand in a bit of a daze, as per usual. For some reason my kids don't particularly enjoy this.

I love wandering through the back lots of large garden centres - you never know what you might find in them. This time I was looking for Sarcococca confusa, or Christmas sweetbox, something I'd read about in a garden magazine over Christmas. Apparently it can be topiaried (if that isn't a verb then I'm turning it into one) and smells delightful while doing so. Plus, it blooms over Christmas, which translates to: green and good-smelling in the dead of winter. This, to use the words of my friend Martha, is a Good Thing. I like anything that distracts me from the cold and gray of the post-Christmas season. And I have a large twisting topiary frame I'm just itching to use.
I was also looking for a curly willow or hazel, because the stems look so cool when used as climbing supports (see photo). My last bunch are getting a bit crumbly.
When I got to the garden centre I headed right out to the back lot, where they keep the trees and shrubs, but I was distracted by the music wafting over the loudspeakers. Maybe wafting wasn't quite the word for it, and I don't know who they had playing, but it was not the sort of music I am used to hearing at a garden centre, if there IS even any music at all. It was incredible. Amazing. Unique. It sounded like a cross between the Pet Shop Boys, Rufus Wainwright, and Feist. Very pleasant for checking out labels. I caught sight of the garden worker, with his bleached hair, neck tattoo, and pierced eyebrow, and wondered no more. Call me biased, but he looked like the sort to pick interesting music.

I found the sweetbox, which was, as promised, blooming most sweetly. It didn't look very topiaryish, though, especially when sitting next to the more standard topiary vehicle - Buxus or box. Nevermind, I tend to specialize in doing what shouldn't be done, according to Richard. So I picked up my sweetbox and headed out to the tree section, but was distracted by a type of holly I hadn't seen before. It was, dare I say it, cute. It really was. Curly leaves, lovely varigated foliage, and the oddest streak of spines across the top of the leaves, spines that bent gently under my fingers as I ran them across. It even grew beautifully. I could see it in my garden, I really could. The name convinced me: Hedge Hog. I tucked it under my arm with the sweetbox, and off we went to the tree section.

I found the curly willow, a dwarf species with bright yellow branches, and I found the Harry Lauder's walking stick (aka curly hazel), but couldn't decide between the two. The hazel didn't have the long, curling branches I was looking for while the willow did, but from what I know about willows, they are best planted a good distance away from drains and things like that. Do I want something that might get unruly, I wondered. I couldn't answer myself adequately, so I asked the fellow who had presumably put on the great music. I figured he'd be a good source for aesthetic inspiration, but his theory was that all willows are a huge PITA. I assured him that I had every intention of hacking it down regularly, and that I only wanted it for its decorating potential, but he was firm - I was better off with the walking stick, which I was not to prune dramatically. Ever. I would ruin the angles. He even gave me a stern look. I am not easily quelled, but even I felt as though we had reached an impasse of sorts; that willow was not coming home with me and it was most certainly not going anywhere near my drains. Well, maybe not today, not with him standing there, pierced eyebrow arched.

Thus thwarted, I went over to the seed section and comforted myself with a few packets of sweet peas. If you have never grown sweet peas, you really should. They are easy to grow, like shade, and are the most fabulous cut flowers imaginable. I got two packets of new ones: Streamers Mix , which promises me "the biggest, the brightest, and the sweetest of them all! A beautiful colour mixture of giant, ruffled blooms with a heavenly scent." I also got Ocean Foam, which is billed as "an extraordinary wave of beautiful colours in ocean-like shades" that has the heirloom Old Spice as one of its sires. The Old Spice series has, in case you don't know, a seriously lovely smell.

Oh, and while I was standing at the checkout, my pierced eyebrow friend came back over to see what I had bought (he approved the holly very enthusiastically and we set aside our impasse) but seemed skeptical at the sweetbox being a good topiary subject. He pointed out the frond-like branches and the large leaves, and showed me the traditional Buxus, and explained why it would be better for topiary. I hated to admit it, but this time he made a good point. I would be frustrated with that sweetbox. Not that I didn't buy it, oh no no no, it smelled too good. But I found another place to put it. Somewhere without a wire frame to curl around. And the holly (Ilex aquifolium) found a great place, too. It's up on the hill by the front drive, still looking extremely cute.

I'll get that curly willow on his day off. Maybe I'll put it in a giant pot. I might have to, because I told Richard the story when I got home and he seemed horrified that I wanted to buy a willow, considering the tender state of our aged drains.

Wartime Experiences

I meant to blog about an article from Saturday's National Post which caught my eye, but forgot somehow, and was reminded anew by my blogpal Becky, who also blogged about this article. Small world!

For some reason, perhaps because my family hails from the UK, or because my mother was one of those kids sent overseas during WWII in order to avoid Hitler (she was 4, her sister was 5, imagine that), or because my maternal grandfather was a soldier in the war, I have always had a certain fascination in reading about personal war-time experiences from WWI and WWII. Reading detailed battle accounts, hmm, not so much, although we all willingly gathered night after night to watch father and son duo Peter and Dan Snow and their peculiarly British production Battlefield Britain (Max was studying the Battle of Hastings in his Famous Men of the Middle Ages work and this DVD series gives a dramatic re-enactment, handy for your average 10 year old boy). Reading individual stories or letters from someone involved in the war, or watching dramatic reproductions on TV, though, is another matter altogether. My kids and I sat spellbound through PBS's wonderful 1900's House, Channel 4's equally gripping but very bleak 1940's House, and now I'm reading a book I happened upon in our local Sally Ann, called Mrs. Milburn's Diaries: An Englishwoman's Day-to-Day Reflections 1939-45. Mrs. Milburn, from what little I've read so far, did not experience the war quite as desperately as did the characters in 1940's House, but it's a great read, if only to see the unending stiff upper lip the Brits are famous for.

So, anyhow, I was quite intrigued to see this article in the Post, entitled "History in real time." By the way, for reasons I do not understand, the original article, taken from The Daily Telegraph, is not in the Post's archives, but the link (which I borrowed from Becky's article, thanks Becky!) is the same article that appeared in the Post. Like Mrs. Milburn's grandson-in-law, who found her diaries in a long-forgotten box in the attic and managed to publish them, Bill Lamin, of Cornwall, decided to post his grandfather's war-time letters home, but instead of publishing them in a book, Bill Lamin is using the blog format. Even more interestingly, he's publishing them in real time, which makes for somewhat excruciating reading if you are like me and want to know the end already. It's impressive and poignant to see how stoic Private Harry Lamin was in his letters. Here is one excerpt, dated 3rd October, 1917:

"Just a line to let you know I’m going on all right...what do you think Fritz came over about 5 o’clock next morning...but we beat him off...they brought liquid fire with them and bombs and all sorts...and the captain got killed a jolly good fellow too...We have just been given a long trousers again as we have had had Short ones all summer. I hope you are going on alright as was pleased to hear you are keeping in good health"

Mr. Lamin has compiled all the readers' comments into another blog, that you can access via a link on the blog page, and even that makes for engrossing reading. One reader dug up a record (?!) about Private Lamin's son Arthur, for whom there seemed to be no records and was presumed to have died in infancy.

I'll leave you to read about Private Lamin's war-time experiences on your own, and close with an excerpt from Mrs. Milburn's diary. In keeping with Mr. Lamin's habit, I'll use an excerpt with today's date:

Tuesday, 7th January (1941)

A peaceful night as far as air raids went, but alas for the Master of the House - a cold and chill through the night and then a great upheaval in the early morning. Very poorly indeed, poor dear, so we rang up the doctor-man and kept him in bed all day on a very light diet.

Poetry Friday

I had every intention of posting something New Years-ish, but you know what happens to good intentions, they have a habit of morphing along the way. I'm always reminded of the Bergman film The Best of Intentions when I think about good intentions.

So, without further ado, I give you something perfectly lovely from Shuntaro Tanikawa:

River

Mother,
Why is the river laughing?

Why, because the sun is tickling the river.

Mother,
Why is the river singing?

Because the skylark praised the river's voice.

Mother,
Why is the river cold?

It remembers being once loved by the snow.

Mother,
How old is the river?

It's the same age as the forever young springtime.

Mother,
Why does the river never rest?

Well, you see it's because the mother sea
is waiting for the river to come home.

Translated from the Japanese by Harold Wright.

Poetry Friday is being hosted today by two teachers who read a lot, at A Year of Reading. Thanks for hosting, ladies.

Does Your Lego Room Look Like This?

Here is but a small corner of the mess that is the Lego Corner of Dominic's room, a place where all three kids gather daily to enact scenes of drama and calamity (I've been there, believe it, there's plenty of calamity going on).
Today, someone sent Max a link, an intriguing link on sorting and categorizing one's Lego. It is, I say fervently, unique and inspired, but it so ain't gonna happen at out house. Wish it could, though. My little Miss Anal (or, "ah-naaaal" as we like to say) side is quite taken with the idea of seeing all those little bits and pieces up off the floor. And, as Richard pointed out helpfully, then I could actually start vacuuming. Hah. Not.

Why Are We Homeschooling?

Episode 2


I get this a lot. More than I expected to, actually, but as my father likes to point out: when I have ever done anything the way anyone expected me to. So I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised. For the most part, I try to imagine myself in the other person's shoes when I get this question, just to see where they are coming from. And, for the most part, the place most people are coming from is a place of puzzlement. They can't figure out why I would want to sacrifice my time and income earning potential just to keep my kids at home, particularly when there are plenty of great schools out there. In some ways, I sympathize; I often wonder the same thing. It's not like I set out to be a SAHP, much less a homeschooling SAHP.

Anyhow, as I sift through all the books on the shelves, thinking about our directions for the new year (should I start another Chemistry Tuesday? should we all be doing Latin? what is Max going to do with that geography book? where are those English From The Roots Up cards I made?), I find myself reflecting a bit on why we started homeschooling in the first place. It's a rather pedestrian comedy of errors, in my opinion, and, as was the case with numerous homeschoolers I've talked with, it was a completely spur of the moment decision, pushed on me by the resulting forces of a teacher who should've long since retired, a resentful principal, a very angry and opinionated parent (not me), and my son. Oh, and my son's body rash. There. You have in a nutshell. (or as nutty as I can make it) Nothing terribly intentional at all.

But I still reflect on this chain of events, because we did have other options. We could've switched schools (but I didn't). We could've kicked up a ruckus with the school board (but I didn't). We could've switched to French immersion (but I didn't). Instead, I took the most drastic option available to us at the time: let's quit school altogether and do something different. Good thing I wasn't a relentless career girl or there would've been trouble, because I am married to a relentless career boy.

At the time, no one in our immediate circle of family and friends seemed too surprised, but that was because they had already heard most of my complaints about Max's grade one experiences. Kindergarten had been a breeze; his teacher loved him, he loved his teacher, he loved his classmates, his classmates loved him. He sailed through the learning, too. Grade one was a different kettle of fish. First, there were 18 boys and 2 girls. Second, the teacher this class had came with a distressingly short temper. Third, detentions for everything, including wriggling during Circle Time, were handed out with an equally distressing regularity. Max spent most lunch hours sitting in the office with at least 6 other boys, all guilty of the crime of wiggling or giggling. I am a relatively conventional person, especially in public, but it was hard not to see the ludicrousness of this. Wiggling = detention. Now biting your neighbour, or smacking your neighbour, or stealing your neighbour's lunch, I could see how those might get you some time next to the dour school secretary, but wiggling? These kids were six years old - weren't they supposed to be wiggly? Plus, I didn't see how sitting in a office for an hour would make a kid any less wiggly all afternoon. I guess that made me somewhat complicit. I used to tell Max to be polite and listen, but that if he ended up in the office, I wouldn't be mad unless it was for doing something truly obnoxious, like biting, or stealing, or smacking. Things he never did. Ahem. But I digress.

Once the class was let out early and the teacher sent the kids home without making sure the parents were there to greet their kids. Max, who had spent hours walking the neighbourhood with me (we are inveterate alley-combers), knew how to get home easily enough, but as I wasn't AT home (I was on my way to get him), he decided to walk back to school (and we lived in a large city at the time) and wait for me there. He was six years old. He had to cross at least three large streets going and coming. Another kid's parent wrote an angry letter, protesting the terrible lack of attention to the many kids who had this happen, but was rebuffed by the principal. I think it was then that I realized that my apparently cordial relationship with the school went only so far. And then, three days before Max was due to start grade two, the rumours started: his class would have the same teacher that they'd had in grade one. To say I sighed heavily was an understatement. Max asked me if he could homeschool. I said yes. Richard rolled his eyes a bit and worried a bit more. And there we were: homeschoolers by default.

Fast forward four years later: we're still homeschooling. In many ways I feel like I have just hit my stride. Max is doing better than I think he would be doing at any public school, I have no doubt about that. And now we have the twins home with us. They did kindergarten in a public school, a charming place in that large city we used to live in, but when we moved it seemed a good opportunity to try homeschooling with them as well. So here we are. Any more questions?

Happy New Year!

I know, I know, if I were a serious writer this missive would have taken place a couple of days ago, but weirdly enough I have been way too busy reading blogs to write on my own...well, in between the brandy in my morning coffee here and there, the sleeping in till 9am here and there, and the "hey who wants to watch a movie for no good reason!" shouts to my kids at 3 pm here and there, that is. And lemme tell you - there are a lot of great blogs out there. I wish we all lived on the same block, actually. Think of the house parties we could have.

My hats are off to you all. A very happy new year to you all, too. It's been a pleasure reading your stories.