for the birds

Ed tells me -- I have to use pliers on your hair. There's no other way.
Maybe I should just cut it off. Will you love me with a crew haircut?
Of course. But let's try the pliers.

I had gone out to feed the animals. Ed was sleeping in, the day was gray but not unpleasant. Robins darted for crab apples, fighting off their kin, as if there was only enough for one of them.


 



So many of our feathered friends are territorial!






I pause to do some more garden pruning. It's good to do it in fits and starts. To not waste a whole day on it. To pull and clip for an hour, then move on.

Hitchhiker seeds. You know them? You look down and out of nowhere, several dozen tiny clawed seeds are now all over you sock. There's a lot to watch out for. We  have, for example, nasty burdock seeds, but they're the size of a dime. You really need to walk with your eyes closed to miss them. But Virginia stickseed is something else: the seeds form on thin stalks. They're numerous and their lethal. I've been attacked in the past, most often when I am pruning the raspberries. But occasionally they migrate into the flower beds and today I just did not see them until it was too late. Way too late.

They are on my socks. They are on my sweat pants. They are on my bulky cotton sweater (all terrible clothes to wear when you're weeding, for exactly this reason). And worst of all, they are in my hair. If you bend down to clip and your hair dances near a stickseed plant -- bang! You are done for.

Typically patience and I mean supreme patience will get you far: you can maneuver out one seed at a time, wiggling, pinching, grasping, pulling. But this time I had unwittingly let my hair dance around the clump of seeds. Less than a quarter inch in diameter, they are coated with prickles that stick.

I try to patiently get them out. Nothing. Ed attempts to untangle the mess. Nope. A shower with lots of cream rinse? I can almost hear them laughing at me.

Finally, Ed looks to youtube for help. Pliers. Squeeze them tight, hair shaft and all, pulverize them, then remove the bits left behind.

One hour later we're done.

Breakfast is very, very late.





In the afternoon it drizzles. I could really gripe about that, since we are at the end of October and I feel the season has sped ahead and I haven't had my fill of it at all. But there is a pause in the rain and in that pause, I suggest Ed and I head out to Owen Woods.

This compact but beautiful conservation park is perhaps Madison's most underappreciated natural wonder. And it is absolutely at its best toward the very end of October. The diversity in flora is dizzying and when you take an hour's hike, weaving your way through woods, across the prairie, skirting the birch grove or the oak savanna, you can see it all!

I'm going to post seven photos from our walk. The colors here are as they were for us today.





































I began this post with birds in our crab apple, I'll end with that as well. Our young girls have always been terrific flyers. Here they are, checking out what all the robin fuss is about:






Nothing much, girls. Just an autumnal day with exquisite fall ornamentation, that's all.