May Pleasures

It’s nearly the end of May and where has the time gone? If you’re like me, you might wish the winter months flew by this quickly. The lengthening days don’t seem long enough to enjoy all that is available to do, see, hear, read, watch, and ponder.

Let’s go: first are chores (I always want to get them out of the way)

• gardening (dividing, planting, sowing, weeding, watering and of course amending the soil with special potions including worm castings, mycorrhizal inoculum, and Moo-Doo)

• bird tending (jelly containers which are emptied before the day is over, a new stick-on window feeder with meal worms, making nectar for the hummingbird feeder, an oriole feeder with nectar and orange slices, suet cakes for the woodpeckers who still visit)

• trying to ensure that the grackles and house sparrows don’t eat everything (a failure…taking the food in for 3-4 days deprives all the other birds and within an hour of putting feeders back out, the grackles and sparrows are there and the food nearly gone)

• closet change-over (putting away winter and taking out spring and culling summer things all of which need ironing and donating the rest)

• porch and deck sprucing up (then tending the inevitable low back, knee, and hip aches and pains)

Next are things seen:

• the greening of the earth and blossoming of so many trees and flowers

• the arrival of birds who migrate back during the spring (hummingbirds, house wrens, European starlings, Baltimore orioles, Scarlet Tanagers, Red-wing Blackbirds, Chimney Swifts, and more to come)

• kids learning how to ride bicycles (from the youngest with training wheels to older ones on big kid bikes riding alone)

• skate boarding by adults, some nearly as old as I

• shorts (on kids and adults) as soon as the temperature hits 55F

• paragliders from the mountain cliffs

• long lines at the local feed store, nurseries, and hardware stores

Following are the things heard or listened to:

• the dawn chorus coming earlier and louder…so many bird sounds

• jubilant shrieking of kids (living near a school is a barometer of mood near approaching holidays and vacations)

• small craft overhead (the drone of small private planes traveling to who-knows-where)

• playing a lot of Paul Simon in the car

• podcasts (Ffern’s ‘As the Season Turns’ at the start of every month, “The Moth” true stories told by the people who lived them, “Huberman Lab”, “Making Sense” from Sam Harris, “This Jungian Life”, “Where Should We Begin” from Esther Perel)

• screams in the night (bobcats, fisher cats, or foxes…it’s mating season tho still startling)

What I’m reading, have read, or re-read:

• “Memories, Dreams, and Reflections” Carl Jung autobiography, “Dreams, A Portal to the Source”, by Jungian analysts Whitmore and Perera, “Joyful” by Ingrid Fetell Lee, “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle, and “The Best American Essays 2023”

Recommended film to watch (just one, the others, not so good):

• ‘Smoke Sauna Sisterhood’

• Not a film but I faithfully watch the Cornell Lab of Ornithology webcams, my favorites: the Wisconsin American Kestrel Cam (nest of 5 hatchlings with blue fluff! and the mom who is an incredibly beautiful little falcon) and the Northern Royal Albatross

Finally, what’s been on the menu the most:

• Rhubarb (especially good with traditional strawberries and my secret ingredient ground fennel)

• orange, fennel and Kalamata olive salad

• Asparagus, peas, artichokes, avocados, fava beans, naval oranges, pineapples, radishes, chard, watercress

• Aperol spritz (main ingredient is rhubarb, did you know?), Sauvignon Blanc

It’s a short list this month because being outside has taken precedence over everything else.

To end, I’ll leave you with this poem by the Welsh poet William Henry Davies

In May

“Yes, I will spend the livelong day
With Nature in this month of May;
And sit beneath the trees, and share
My bread with birds whose homes are there;
While cows lie down to eat, and sheep
Stand to their necks in grass so deep;
While birds do sing with all their might,
As though they felt the earth in flight.
This is the hour I dreamed of, when
I sat surrounded by poor men;
And thought of how the Arab sat
Alone at evening, gazing at
The stars that bubbled in clear skies;

And of young dreamers, when their eyes
Enjoyed methought a precious boon
In the adventures of the Moon
Whose light, behind the Clouds' dark bars,
Searched for her stolen flocks of stars.
When I, hemmed in by wrecks of men,
Thought of some lonely cottage then
Full of sweet books; and miles of sea,
With passing ships, in front of me;
And having, on the other hand,
A flowery, green, bird-singing land.”