Jaci Dawn

We have been “suffering” a May heat wave here in the northern Willamette Valley. It’s been dry, sunny, and warming up into the upper seventies (Farenheit) – and even close to that lovely 90° mark. The heat doesn’t bother me, but this early in the season, it brings out the worst allergens (Aah-CHOO!). So it is with welcoming arms I greet the upcoming cooler, rainy days.

The flowers are blooming steadily now. I planted two roses, a hops rhizome, and sowed seeds of naturalized wildflower mixes (Renee’s Garden seeds). Oh, and lots of nasturtiums. My husband put in the vegetable garden for the first time in three years, and I can’t wait to make home-made catsup with those plump Roma-style tomatoes in the Autumn.

I have been tinkering at yard art. This is a beer bottle stuffed into one of those corn cob holders for feeding squirrels (they don’t work, or I have picky squirrels who prefer the easier pickings of the bird feeder).

Speaking of the bird feeder, I changed things up a bit with bird baths and feeders. We now have two small platform feeders in the backyard, plus the two regular feeders in front. We feed black oil sunflower seeds, suet+mealworms, and mealworms with sunflower seeds in the back. In addition, there are five hummingbird feeders and now, five bird baths of varying size. There’s so much I could write about the birds that come to our little haven to drink, bathe, eat, and find nesting material. We have juncos, song sparrows, spotted towhees, house finches, bushtits, cinnamon-backed chickadees, black-capped chickadees, downy woodpeckers, scrub jays, and robins. We also get Eastern fox squirrels and Eastern greys.

But let me tell you about our friend, Corvie, so named because he belongs to the family Corvidae. I moved the bird baths to the back yard to discourage his antics, but he has learned that we no longer have big dogs loose in the yard, and his antics have spread to all five bird baths. Usually, he sticks to the one out front, which is nice because today I found a dead mouse soaking in the water and I was able to merely hose it off into the daylilies.

This was the mess left after he “washed” a hamburger bun in the water. he washes all of his food, much like a raccoon. The dead mouse asn’t the worst: I’ve found dead chicks of other bird species soaking in the water. Currently, he’s finding peanuts somewhere and we have peanut shells floating in some of the bird baths. I change the water daily so the other birds can have a go at it.

I was recently contacted by a cousin in Florida, who is helping out a distant relative in Maryland. We all tie into my great-great-great-great grandfather, Thomas Force Palmer. The cousin who called me is descended from my great-great-great grandfather, Joseph Snow Palmer. This has opened a whole new resource of family history. I am so excited to learn more about my family’s heritage.

For Mother’s Day, we hiked a short section of the Salmon River Trail out of Zigzag, Oregon. The couple we hiked with have health issues, so it was a very leisurely walk amongst the old growth fir, cedar, and hemlocks. The trail is heavily used, which is not the kind of trail my husband and I usually hike (we go out there with the wild animals and no people). Lots of dogs on the trail – but we did not meet a single dog owner who was disrespectful of other people.

Left to right each row: false Solomon’s Seal, Hooker’s Fairybells, Indian plum (faded), Oregon oxalis, salmon berry (edible but not tasty), Scouler’s corydalis, yellow violet, and one giant trillium (I put my boot into the photo for comparison).

In addition to the wildflowers, it is a wonderful fairy world of roots, ferns, mosses, lichens, stumps, and eco-systems growing on the surface of dying ecosystems: downed trees providing the nutrients for more trees growing out of the timber.

We stopped in Sandy, Oregon, for a brew.

If you know me, you know I like my beer. Boring Brewing Co. used to be located in Boring, Oregon (sister city to Dull, Scotland). They lost their lease and had to start over in a new location. Same great beer (their hot Scotch ale – pictured – is wonderful).

Tomorrow, the rains return and weather will become normal: cool, cloudy, wet. That gives me a little reprieve from the hay fever (until the next heat wave). It also means that my peonies won’t simply all bloom at the same time and fade quickly, but they will bloom slowly and linger. I love peony season.