Day 12 Belonging

Everyone has a space in my garden, even punk-art Aegopodium, but I try to keep that space small-ish.

I’m thinking about the current discussion about birthright citizenship. What it is like to not feel like one belongs in either the country of one’s birth or the country of your parents because one does not speak the language, know the smells, or have familiarity with the customs?

Some things in Nature don’t care. Pollen doesn’t care. Seeds will sprout and thrive wherever they have the opportunity. One of my favorite things? Volunteer plants in sidewalk cracks and on building structures. A good reminder that human work is an answer but not the only answer on what can exist here.

Seed on the Wind

Day 11 Sprouts and Pollen

Tiny little fragile sprouts. Trying not to trample them.

Day 10 Pining for Pollen?

5.14.25 Still covered in pine pollen. The grit is everywhere…. I know I was complaining about the rain last week, but I could use a little help to clear the air… It’s always something!

Day 9 So itchy! Pine Pollen

My car is covered in fine yellow dust as it is parked below enormous white pine trees. A 30+ yearly reaction to pine pollen, I finally was curious as to why it is so irritating today. I looked at microscopic images. I don’t have new ideas as to why it’s so annoying, but I do know why it flies all over the place…each pollen grain has two air sacs which presumably help the pollen disperse on the wind. Here is a synthesis of the many images of pine pollen I reviewed today.

Day 8 too many words!

I’ve been writing so much. I decided to say less. Here you go!

Day 7 Good Faith+Hot dogs

The birds are really singing this rainy day. The harmonic trill of the hermit thrush echoes through the little valley behind my house. The pew pew pew galactic shooter call of the cardinal cuts high across the trees. The songs of sparrows, mockingbirds, chickadees, finches, and tufted titmice seem to crowd the air around the rumble of the brook spilling along at what looks like full capacity.

All of this rain, and the brimming waterways, the installation of the new pope, and the possibility of baby raccoons in the shed has me thinking about Noah’s ark and good faith. Noah’s Ark is such a great story (Yes, because of the animals. I might have mentioned? l love animals). So much rain, so much trust that it would stop, so many predators and prey on one boat. With the grey moods that come with grey skies, a loss of habitat, and an endless horizon of water, what an existential and management nightmare! It’s a story of good faith. This, too, shall pass. Change is inevitable.

It wasn’t so long ago that my neighborhood was muffled by a snowy blanket. It felt like a long winter - like spring would never come. Just when we thought this is the last snow, another came. Repeatedly. But disregarding the snow and the raw temperatures, the snow drops broke ground and bloomed. Life repopulated our treetops, vernal ponds, and yard. Now, my corner of the earth is donned in bright green. It’s easy to take it for granted. It’s so normal, expected and yet so miraculous and surprising. The peas I planted yesterday are sprouting already. It sure is grand magic. All the birds that seemed so quiet and gone for months are calling - present and accounted for - ready to raise young. Oh the drama of it all!

And although I am a lapsed Catholic, I am not a lapsed human. I like this guy, Leo XIV. I was really moved by his words that I heard untranslated — I understood “Peace” and other simple words. I heard when he switched to Spanish…and was moved to tears by this signal he wished to communicate with perhaps the largest group of Catholic people. I don’t mind he didn’t speak English - it signaled that the world is big and not everyone needs to speak English. That the cardinals picked him feels like an act of good faith. That he’s from Chicago - a diverse town that engenders hard work, humor, and civic pride is also a plus. As a lapsed Chicagoan, I gotta say, its people are real salt of the earth. Yes, that’s funny because Chicago sits on a giant freshwater lake. I love Chicago. It’s a logical, cultured, smart city built for living in with plenty of skyline and flat vistas to take a long view.

I’m now living in Vermont - a kingdom, this season, of green expansion… I know the plants will fight for space and resources, but I may ask all the plants, mostly native, many from other continents and climates, to consider peace. I’ll make strong borders for some and make space for some communities to grow and mix. It’s an act of good faith. What can grow will grow, and bloom.

In a spirit of celebration of the Chicahhhgo pope I present an ode to the Chicago Hot Dog - a culinary delight involving a poppy seed bun, hot dog, yellow mustard, sweet relish, tomato slices, diced onions, pickle spear, pickled peppers, and celery salt. And In honor of my beautiful verdant rainforest I offer you a possible contender for the Brattleboro spring link. Buon Appetito! Buen Provecho!

Hungry?

Day 6 Community Asylum Seekers Project Art Marathon 5.8.25

I’m once again rewarded by my luck or foresight to have a stated goal of Sifting Mud. Does this allow playing in the garden and weeding to be part of my project? I might find out if the weather finds a way to stop raining. In the meanwhile I enter my shed in search of tools or gloves or pots or some gardening paraphernalia in order to make baby steps into the new season. A familiar smell gusts out through the opening door. I’m pretty sure I know that smell…it’s a little scary. It’s a little exciting. It might mean that the raccoons are back and there might be a new litter!

I have a lot of stories about raccoons. One year I looked out the window to see them crawling through the open windows of my spouse’s car. That was a good one! Last year I casually mentioned our family of adorable baby raccoons and learned to never ever discuss such things with farmers. It turns out farmers just don’t like them. Even wonderful organic farmers that you might love dearly and forever have strong opinions. Nope. It’s a little scary. It’s a little exciting. It’s a little baffling. Along with their incredible beauty, raccoons can carry a bad toxin in their poop that affects humans.

I know that smell means there is poop, but it also likely means there is a lot of cute adorableness in my shed somewhere if I want to go poking around. The farmers scared me well enough with talk of horrible neurological diseases that I likely will cede the space and just imagine those tiny racoons huddled in a little nest just beyond my office window.

Last year, during the throes of conflict between my fervent wildlife protectionism and intellectual understanding I should protect our family’s health, maybe even make this paramount, I talked to the local naturalist. She wondered what the problem with having baby raccoons was? She told me to let them be and not evict them. I did try at some point to limit their access to our shed, but apparently failed this spring. Af first I was a little surprised by my lack of success, but then remembered I left a hole open last year and never shut it after they left. I admit I’m delighted that they seem to be back, especially since it just keeps raining and raining and raining.

In any case I have plenty of N95 masks to clean up their poop when they grow up and move out. Maybe mama will show off her babies to me some night. I really hope so. I seem to love them already. Don’t worry I won’t make you a painting of their poop. Here is a cartoon of my upside down attitude towards wildlife. What can I say? My formative years were spent consuming cartoons and nature shows. My bias is permanently skewed toward the small creatures.

Day 5 Community Asylum Seekers Project May 2025 Art Marathon

I played around in the garden the other day…and true confession, there is a weed that I sing to. I thought it was called Agriponium, but because I’m writing this blog, I needed to fact check the spelling. I found out it is actually called Aegopodium podagraria or, appropriately for this Vatican’s Conclave first day gathering, bishop's weed, or gout weed. It is very persistent and loves to live in my garden.

A friend came by many years ago and cautioned me to rip this plant out aggressively. I let it go the first year. That was a mistake. It doesn’t look bad, but it does prevent other nice things from happening.

So the song I sing? The song that gets stuck in my head every year from May to October? It’s sung to the tune of the Ramone’s “Psychotherapy” ( it might get stuck in your head for a long time but if you dare, it’s here). My song is basically just singing (incorrectly) Agriponium over and over again, instead of singing “psychotherapy.” It’s Very Punk. I guess even more so, now that I know I’ve been singing the name wrong or else singing it with a punk accent.

Indeed this song has made me name Aegopodium this year’s winner of “MOST PUNK” (since it is yearbook time). Along side it in the garden is Bittersweet, also a weed that loves to grow in my yard. It wins “MOST PERSISTENT” and to make good on the ant drawing I promised…. Black Ant wins “MOST ENERGETIC”. I’m sure there are some more winners to be announced this month. Stay tuned!

Day 4

I have an acute case of plastic guilt. I honestly don’t know what I am doing as a human at the top of the food chain. My guilt might be pathological. I ought to be a fuzzy woodland creature that makes cool stuff all day and which will rot away eventually. No meaning issues, no storage issues, no legacy issues.

Because of my extreme plastic guilt, I tend to be bad at garbage. I recycle what plastic that can be recycled, but mostly I just keep it around. For instance, those long twist-ties that hold things like lettuce together?

veggie twist tie bouquet

A piece of wire between a layer of plastic and a layer of paper - they could be useful! I curl them up artfully and keep them in a vase….I have been doing this for years.

Another collection I have is from the newspaper which comes once a week wrapped in a plastic bag and sealed with a heat sealed plastic strip. You know the ones?

plastic strips

This is about half a year’s worth.

I was tidying up this morning and decided this has gone too far…but what to do with these rigid strips? The only thing they are good for is to be a strong band around something or maybe I could weave them. So I started to weave them together. And since there weren’t really enough, I added twist-ties. And now half way through it is really boring looking, time consuming and a little annoying to keep doing, especially since now I’ve begun to make a mess. I started this because I was TIDYing

Let’s analyze the problem right now. First, white is not my first choice of color to work with. Second, what is it? It could be a small mat. Not really that useful decoratively or any which way. Then I start to think of course, it’s not useful…it’s art! It’s a commentary… here it is in process…

Oh, this is really funny. I’ve been doing this for a long time and took the photo…but only now can I read the words on these dumb twist-ties I’ve been struggling with for hours — can you read it? Enlarged on my computer, it clearly says, “Tagback.com to recycle.”

UH…yeah….read the fine print! My bad…hilarious!

Day 3 5.5.25 Raino de Mayo

What a great, wet, green spring! I drove about 12 hours in the rain this weekend. I saw a lot of windshield wiper action, a lot of grey skies and grey roads and green grass and green trees. Admittedly my eyes are a bit bleary after so much blurry beauty. Here is one vision I saw and another I am working on manifesting. Can you guess which is which?

Day 2

I thought a lot about ants today. There are ants in the kitchen, in some of the house plants. I don’t really mind although I hear a lot of complaints from those who do. To my mind, it’s their season. They are busy at work aerating the soil, cleaning up waste and, most importantly, opening peony buds. Peonies are just so impressive in their florid flooziness and their sweet scents… and that all of that showy goodness requires the work of some fastidious assistants who are just trying to feed their family. I like to think of the ants as roadies for a Dolly Parton type of flower show.

I watch a lot of ants scurry up and down our cherry tree…. it’s time for them to raise aphids to feed their babies. I found a leaf with a herd of aphids being tended by one black ant. It’s a tiny world I know so little about. At some point I will try to stop the ants from raising their herds in my cherry tree. They damage the fruit…and I do love cherry pie…so I’m not always so understanding. Right now I can still afford to be curious and amazed.

It used to be said that the weight of all the Earth’s ants would outweigh the humans combined weight. I think this no longer holds true with 8 billion of us now. I think this means a lot of people are complaining about ants. There are still more of them than there are of us.

I ran out of time to make you a decent drawing of ants… this will be forthcoming but for now you can look at this photo I took. I hope you are not grossed out and can see how amazing this really is. This ant is upside down, under a leaf, five feet up off the ground. It is tending a brood of aphids to milk their secretions for the ant babies under ground. That’s a pretty good commute to get “milk.”

Day 1 Tickled or How I Roll

It’s a beautiful day here in Southern Vermont. The sun is shining. A gentle breeze plays in our flowering cherry tree. The birds are singing and shamelessly mating (now showing in the kitchen window). The air is aflutter with bees, butterflies, and so many unidentified pollinators. The frenzy of warmth and springtime is soooooo distracting!

This morning I spent too much time setting up an email address associated with this event. Why did I tie myself to this administrative task? Can’t I play outside instead?

Procrastinating the production of promised art I went out to look at the garden. I cleared some dead stems. I piled up a few leaves, pine needles, and sticks. I stuck my hand in the mulch and soil to unearth some plants coming back to life. I cleared the winter blanket off a Chinese Wild Ginger plant – literally sifting through the dirt and, Son of a Gun? I saw for the first time that this plant blooms! It was FULL of flowers. Earthy, bruise-colored flowers crowded around the base of its stems, barely out of the dirt (and not a little dirty, in another sense of the word…)! I sifted earth and found a gem or seven. Then I went to look at my Western Wild Ginger plant. It was secretly blooming as well!

Huhn. These blooms have been hidden for all the years they have been thriving in the shade. We’re talking 3-10 years for these plants that I, myself, planted in this garden. I had no idea.

Well, what can I say? Did I manifest this or did the Earth and this event manifest me? What a way to start! I found gems on my very first day! Of course, it could be argued that I just surprised myself with my fleeting, overtaxed memory. I planted these plants, surely, I must have known they would bloom! But I like this story better: I set an intention to find beauty in the dirt and lo and behold it came true! It was just like a wish granted by a genie buzzing out of the Earth, our magic lamp providing everything we need, being dusted off and polished for the new season.

Chinese Wild Ginger

Chinese Wild Ginger Bloom

Wild Chinese Ginger Watercolor in Birdsong

Western Wild Ginger

Western Wild Ginger Bloom

And if that weren’t enough – While I was painting amongst the ruckus of the birds and the running frolicking squirrels – two WOODPECKERS showed up.  Here they are:

two woodpeckers