The Diploma

I snapped this picture about 12 years ago, and I was ecstatic to have captured this species of bird -- the rufous-sided towhee is a very secretive bird -- on camera.

I've seen them down in the woods by the river; when I hear their call, I search for a glimpse of them. Not often successfully, either.

This year, I saw a bird scuffling around in my euonymus bush, saw a flash of orange-ish feathers about the color of a robin's breast. A robin? In a densely leaved shrub? That made no sense.

This past week, the mystery bird made his appearance right by our pool, scratching around among the river rocks and fallen leaves. It was a towhee!

You saw a bird, what's the big deal?

The big deal is that when we moved here, twenty years ago, our back yard was dying grass. A feeble fig tree and a twig-like little persimmon starved in the far corner. The patio off the kitchen was unusable because of the summer sun that baked the cement as soon as it was dawn. All along the east fence, there was a rock-hard hill of clay soil so inhospitable it wouldn't even grow weeds.

Earlier that year, I'd read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, and was full of ideas for terraforming barren ground. Our back yard was going to change.

We put the pool in, and then I began planting. Over the next twenty years, we had a myriad of shrubs and plants that came and went; the pampas grass, a perennial morning glory, and beautiful breath-of-heaven went nuts and tried to take over the world. But the real foundation came when we planted podocarpus gracilior (Fern Pine) on the south side off the kitchen patio, and a hopseed, a eucalyptus, and a lemon tree on the eastern side of the patio. Then a nandina (Heavenly Bamboo), the euonymus, and a few years later, another podocarpus.

What was a desert is now a woodland, and the summer sun comes through the 'forest' canopy only in little sparkles. Under that canopy, a monstera deliciosa thrives beside a large-leafed philodendron. White-crowned sparrows return each year at fall equinox to scratch and feed in the undergrowth; goldfinches pack the feeders; scrub jays patrol the branches to scream if they see a cat.

But this year, a towhee.

For me, that's a lifetime achievement award.

Don't Name Them

When we surveyed our pond one spring, we found that out of all our original goldfish, only Rosie was left. The fancy ones, Sully and Margaret, Swishy, Paris, and Face -- a Great Egret had been raiding our front yard and had eaten all our named fish.

A couple friends donated their goldfish to us, and our old crew had had some babies, so we had plenty in the pond once again. Alex turned to me as we watched them and said, "This time, don't name them, please."

I never have named the fish again, either. They are all singly or as a school, "Fish." They come and they go; raccoons and egrets and cats take them as they can, and babies are born, dark and tiny, growing into orange delightful swirls.

This picture is of the podocarpus gracilior that shaded the south side of our house.

Yes. Past tense.

We have a rat (or two) in our attic this year, and after lengthy arguments for months with the pest control company rep, in which I refused to cut this tree down because it shaded so much of the house from the fierce summer sun, I walked down the narrow side "yard" and had a look at where rats might be entering the house, and a closer look at the tree.

Suddenly rats weren't really the focus of my concern. Where two other fern pines (that's the podocarpus) had been planted at the same time off the back patio, the trunks were about six inches in diameter. For whatever reason, this creature's waist was more than sixteen. It was poised and ready to take out the fence, and indeed, had already knocked off a couple roof tiles. Lush and beautiful as it was, rat or no rat, it had to go.

Last night, after the tree guy had given his estimate, I went out and took a pic of the tree, and got a bit teary. I love all my trees very much. This morning, when I walked out onto the street to see the result (the tree cutters arrived at 7:15 am) after it was gone, it was horrible, like Sherman's march to the sea. A desert. A wasteland. A bald-faced side of the house.

The view is now horrible from the inside of the house, too. A big bay window looks out on ... fence. No foliage, no birds playing in the evergreen branches, just boards.

We're leaning towards a few nandina in that area, to make a graceful foliar display year round, but I will always miss this ... Tree.