Last spring I decided I wanted a bird feeder in the backyard. I spent a happy hour with the knowledgeable and helpful staff of Wild Birds Unlimited, where the variety of feeders and food is almost… Unlimited.

Just as I finished my list, Joe happened to call. When he learned what it would cost, he balked, and said we should talk it over. I was quite downcast on the drive home, until I remembered that my 70th birthday was approaching in July. Joe agreed it would be a good birthday present, and told me to send him my list: auger pole, a curved double hanger, an antimicrobial tube feeder, a dinner bell, and a bag of seed. Now I had five months to look forward to feeding the birds. Anticipation of pleasure is, in itself, a very considerable pleasure.- David Hume

 

David Hume image:slate.com

I spent a lot of those five months in North Carolina, taking care of my sister Luli, who was dying. At the end she was in UNC hospice, a beautiful place in Pittsboro, with a bird feeder outside every guestroom. Though she was beyond comfort, the birds were a comfort to me. And when I was at home the birds and the bird feeder became an obsession.

Hospice called just before 7am on August 16. As soon as I saw the phone number I knew Luli was gone. Then came the dazed time. I weeded and pruned in the garden, sadly bedraggled after two months of spring drought and five months of neglect. I floated around in the pool, singing and crying. And I watched the birds. I sat on the deck with my binoculars, using the Cornell website for identification: tufted titmouse, cardinal, brown thrasher, Carolina wren, Carolina chickadee.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

images: titmouse wilddelight.com  thrasher pinterest  wren animalspot.net

I haunted the Wild Birds store, and bought meal worms, a squirrel baffle, a bird bath, and suet seed cakes. Spending was out of control, so I put myself on a weekly allowance for books, birds, clothes, plants, and all other gifts to myself. The allowance has reduced both my spending and my money-guilt, and it has expanded my bird feeding array – two poles now, two dinner bells and a tube feeder, a humming bird feeder, and a jury-rigged bird bath.

 

     

 

I am still trying to solve the problem of the bird bath. First I had a shallow plastic bowl resting in a ring on the pole. No birds came. A drip or spray will attract birds, but the whole array is far from running water and electricity. I found a floating plastic lily pad with a solar pump, but it quickly squirted all the water out of the bowl. I bought a deep metal dog dish, but birds don’t like deep water, so I bought rocks to put in the bottom and anchor the pump in the middle. When the sun is bright, the water shoots high, and I have to refill the bath every morning. And sometimes the pump comes loose and floats to the side, squirting all the water out in half an hour.

Cleaning the bath every week is an elaborate process. I keep it high to deter leaping cats, so I have to climb up on my kitchen stepladder to take it down. What with rocks and water, it is very heavy. The rocks go into a bucket with a dilute bleach solution, and then I rinse them over and over with the hose.

I keep coming up with new ideas. The birds have now discovered the water – maybe if I return to the simple plastic bird bath they will come even without the spray. I’m appalled by how much time I spend thinking about this.

Birds love worms. While meal worms are $12.95 for 500 at Wild Birds, you can buy 1000 for about the same price on the internet. I have a standing order for 1000 a month. I keep them in a container in the back of the refrigerator. Every morning I put a few into the dinner bells.

The worms gross out Joe and Amanda, a welcome bonus. For the worms’ weekly feeding (they get a piece of carrot and 8 hours at room temperature) Amanda insists I move them from the kitchen counter to a shelf in the atrium. I have chased her out of the kitchen with the worm-box.

Even in bulk the meal worms aren’t cheap, and the cost comes out of my allowance. I’ve just learned about earthworm farms, used to create rich compost. I’m trying to find out whether I can replace meal worms with earthworms for the bird feeders. It would be another gross project which I would enjoy discussing with Joe and Amanda.

The birds kept me company until November, when I suppose they all went to Miami and points south to escape our unusual cold.

image:123RF.com

 

This last strange, fierce winter not only drove away the birds, it froze almost everything to the ground. The garden beds were bleak and brown. I pruned all the deadwood, reducing the shrubs to small stumps.

I survived Thanksgiving without Luli, and Christmas without Luli. I didn’t struggle to write. I only wrote three blog posts, and never looked at my novel. I held on to the idea, like a life raft, that the first year of loss would be the hardest.

The birds returned in March, and I returned to the deck with my binoculars. I am delighted when a new type of bird visits the feeder, and am beginning to understand bird watchers in the wild, with their life lists.

I first saw doves pecking around the grass under the feeders. Then they discovered the worms in the dinner bell, hopped inside, and stayed until all they had gobbled them all up; the wrens and cardinals were out of luck.

Cardinals zip across the yard in pairs, and often the male feeds the female. They are nesting in the bamboo and in the scraggly woods. Yesterday a female fledging flew to the feeder and ate some worms, followed closely by an adult male who perched above her, watching. As they flew off an adult female joined them and the three entered the woods together.

 

fledgling cardinal  image:terra4incognita.wordpress

 

Last week the first blue jay came, repeatedly. It flew in from the clump of wild growth, visited all three feeders and the birdbath, flew off to the bamboo. It returned to all the feeders and flew off to a tree across the yard. It came back once more, flew to the fence, and then went about its business.

Along with the birds, my garden has returned. The frozen bushes I had cut back began growing again. The beauty berry and princess plant covered themselves with leaves, and the lantana began to bloom. One of my favorites, whose name I have forgotten, blooms in summer with a small red flower. It stayed dead while everything else came to life, but the other day four leaves appeared at the bottom. In Luli's Garden, that I planted in September in her memory, the gingers poked out of the ground.

My writing roared back to life. In less than two months I’ve written 30 pages and plotted out many new scenes in the novel I thought I would never finish. I had to force myself to take a break from it to write this.

From this hard year of mourning I’m learning patience and faith. The birds, the flowers, the writing will come when they come. I can’t hurry them. And though a world without Luli sometimes feels unbearable, I know grief will subside in due time.

 

   
Luli's Garden