More Spring Photos for the Winter Weary

Here are more photos of a friend's garden in Green Hills, and of scenes at Percy Warner Park.


Fot those interested in The Bird Report, in the past day or two the Wood Thrush, the Blue Grosbeak, the Great-Crested Flycatcher, and the Summer Tanager have arrived.

Saturday night we had torrential rains and flooding along the Harpeth, though it was minor compared to two years ago.

Spring Garden in Green Hills

These photos were taken yesterday. A friend who lives in this house inherited the wisteria when she bought the house 20 odd years ago. The wise previous owners had trained the wisteria to a tree. If they had not done this, 20 years of wisteria run amok might have demolished the house!

Scenes from a Spring Walk Edwin Warner Park- Nashville, Tennessee April 8, 2013

I can report that the Parula Warblers, the Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers, and the Yellow-rumped Warblers are here.
At least they are on schedule, unlike our spring, which is 4 weeks late-

Big Poetry

How much poetry can $200 million dollars buy?

Ten years ago the demented heir to the Lilly drug company fortune donated $200 million to the magazine "Poetry". When younger, Ruth Lilly had sent her poems to the venerable little magazine, and been rejected. Out of spite, she bequeathed
"Poetry" a fortune.

Reading poetry in this country is far less popular than entering an egg-kicking race, and that is a sport that has yet to be invented. Our colleges spew forth legions who call themselves "poets". And yet there are no readers. There are a few platitudinous Pulitzer winners who have some audience for their work, which is easily understood since they write the same thing over and over.

Surely $200 million could buy another Yeats. Or a dozen Frosts. Poetry brought to you by Prozac, Eli Lilly's big winner. Leave it to Americans to meld Big Pharma onto what is now a minor art.

But if nothing else, this country believes in the power of money. So once again. What can $200 million buy?

I went to the "Poetry" website to find out.

I was looking for a poem that could stand beside the best we have. Something that aspired to be as great as W.B. Yeat's "John Kinsellas's Lament for Mrs. Mary Moore".

I found a poem called "Saltine". It was about the cracker and its 13 little holes all lined up in a row. At the end it drew some conclusion about crackers vs Southern Crackers, but it was hard to be certain of this, and it was hard to care anyway.

Perhaps $200 million could at least buy a decent line. Something as good as Auden's "The lion griefs loped from the shade, and on our knees their muzzles laid, and Death put down his book".

How about this line:

"Ragazzi everywhere, the pus in their pimples pushing up like paperwhites in the mid-day sun".

It sounds as though someone needs to give "Poetry" another $200 million.

One Swallow Does Too Make a Summer!

I was sitting on my porch this after noon when I heard the chittering of a barn swallow. He was solo, but that was enough for me, and maybe tomorrow the entire flock will come back to their nests in the parking sheds.

No bobcats seen today at the park. It was so warm I expected to see the black racers along the rock walls, but I think Nashville's winter weary hordes kept them underground. There was mass dog walking going on as well and bicycles everywhere.

I heard no warblers or gnatcatchers, but they cannot be far away.

A Real Nashville Bobcat.

My dogs and I are sick of snowflakes and gray weather. So today, in mid-morning, we took a 30 minute walk along a road near the Steeplechase course at Percy Warner Park to cheer ourselves up. We saw Jill- over- the ground blooming
and winter honeysuckle and the race course infield was yellow with the rare, low growing Nashville Mustard. I heard not one migrant bird singing, for they are waiting for greener trees.

But had the trees been leafy we might have missed what was sitting high up in a bare tree.

At first I thought this animal was a fat raccoon, but since it was up in the air it was not going to fly away, and I had a good look at it as I came closer. It was a coon sized cat with an owl like face and eyes, and a thick stubby tale. He watched my every move closer,
and when I was near enough to the tree I was stunned to see that it was a bobcat.

Fifty years ago, I saw one one evening near a field by the Little Sugar River in North Charlestown, New Hampshire. I was a young girl then.The bobcats up there shared the forests with fisher cats and porcupines. Here in Tennessee, they live around armadillos, possums, and timber rattlers. There are many fawns for them to eat since deer in the Warner Parks are as numerous as ants. In fact two years ago, not fifty feet from the bobcat tree, I saw a fawn's leg lying beside the park road. I thought then it was a coyote's work. I had seen a family of coyote pups in a field there one spring-

I just read that bobcats are rarely seen, for they like the night. This one hadn't read the book, and he was out when he wanted to be.

There is always a surprise waiting at that park for ramblers with dogs who are going no where in a hurry. They stop. They look. Up and down. They don't have music players attached to their ears. And when the first blue gray gnatcatcher comes back they will hear it. And when the bobcat surveys the world from a tall tree, they may be lucky enough to see it.

New Additions to the Tee-Tiny Experimental Kitchen

I have been experimenting with Vin Cotto and with Verjuice for the past month or so. They are new to my kitchen but not to the world, and Verjuice has been around since antiquity. Both are non-alcoholic. Verjuice is a sort of grape vinegar that I think will be useful in an herb dressing to put on summer tomatoes. It is clean tasting and tart.

Vin Cotto, which comes from boiled grape must, is sweet, and if molasses were made from figs I think this thick dark syrup would taste like it.I bought several bottles, and have already used up one. It is a nice topping for ricotta and brie cheese and a tasty sweetener to add to muffins and pastries.

Some might call these "hard to find ingredients", but I think that term does not mean what it used to. If you have a computer, and if the creek hasn't washed out your driveway so that UPS cannot get up it, you can add both to your pantry, though they are not dirt cheap.

But we all need a little luxury from time to time-