Monthly Archives: May 2011

Boolie the Incompetent

An American bittern stands in tall grass at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

I’m both a night owl and a creature of habit and don’t do too well either early in the mornings or when my routine is disrupted. God help me when both occur at once.

Over the past couple of years I’ve gone to work a handful of times with my shirts on backwards. I usually wear long sleeve T’s and they don’t look too different wrong-way round — except those with pockets on the front. It was usually during the winter when I wear another shirt over it for warmth, so embarrassing but not publicly so.

One day I wore my shirt inside-out and didn’t discover my faux pas until the end of the day. I wore my shame to meetings and lunch in the cafeteria and all around the campus. My fellow engineers were too polite to point out that I shouldn’t be allowed to dress myself.

A month ago I missed my train stop on the way to work and didn’t catch my mistake for two whole stops. I didn’t fall asleep, nor was I so engrossed in editing pictures that I lost track of time and space, both of which have happened before. I just missed it. In my defense, even though I got off two stops too late, according to the signs and announcements on the train I got off two stops too early. But I know better than to trust them, even as I write this the train says Yellow Line when it actually is a Blue Line. The train was also unusually crowded so it was hard to see outside and notice the scenery, but even so I was rather chagrined at my mistake.

But the coup de grâce was yet to come. My wife woke me on a Friday morning to tell me she had to leave for work early and couldn’t give me a ride to the train station, so I’d either have to walk to the train or drive to work. Since I had an early meeting I decided to drive to make sure I got there on time.

At the end of the day I called my wife as I walked to catch the train home. Since she wasn’t in, I tried a couple of times on the ride home, reaching her as the train was nearly at my stop. At which point she wondered why I was on the train since I had driven that morning.

Oh corks!

I was too tired to loop back to get the car, but we needed both cars on Sunday, so after spending Saturday at Ridgefield I left early to get the car. I hated to leave, it was raining and I love Ridgefield in the rain, plus the birds were getting active, so I was kicking myself as I turned around to make my early exit.

But then I noticed a couple of bitterns in the tall grass. They are normally solitary creatures so they were probably courting, and probably successfully as I’ve seen them in close proximity a couple of times since then. One of the bitterns blessed me with a pose in the tall wet grass, a final picture before I had to leave to fix my latest bout of incompetence.

My latest but not my last.

Yellowheads and Yellowthroats and Yellowrumps

A male yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon's) perches on a cattail at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Spring migrates to Ridgefield in flashes of yellow. Yellow heads, yellow throats, yellow rumps. Yellow-headed blackbirds, common yellowthroats, yellow-rumped warblers. Plus the goldfinches which wintered here are back in breeding form in their splendid yellow coats.

I like to spend every spare moment at Ridgefield during the spring, at least on cloudy or rainy days, but this morning I deliberately slept in. A long week left me run down by the end and I knew better than to push too hard. After doing yardwork during the day and then taking Ellie up to the dog park for some extra playtime, I checked the weather maps late in the afternoon and saw the rain rolling in fast so I packed the car and headed up to Ridgefield.

I was especially hoping to see western tanagers as I saw one at work this week, but I didn’t see many migrants today. Not to worry, the bitterns and ruddy ducks kept me entertained. I had better luck with the migrants last week, including this male yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon’s) flitting about the cattails of South Quigley Lake, showing off all his yellow patches save the one for which he’s named.

Tomorrow promises rain so it’s a good candidate for an all-day Ridgefield jaunt. We’ll see if my 5 a.m. self agrees. On that note, it’s time for bed.

Boolie vs. the Garden, Spring Edition


Delphinium trolliifolium grows in our backyard

Thankfully I took a quick snapshot with my iPhone after planting our new larkspur as the slugs didn't take long to strip it bare.

We have a little slice of the Columbia River Gorge taking root in our backyard in Portland. One of my wife’s colleagues does research on a larkspur species that grows on the western side of the gorge, Delphinium trolliifolium, and gave us one of his research subjects when he was done with it. I’m not sure of the exact nature of his research, but perhaps it’s to see if bigfoot would rather eat larkspurs or decorate its den with them.

Our particular plant was grown from seeds collected at the trailhead to Angel’s Rest, one of my favorite trails in the Gorge, so I was happy to give it a home in a shady section of our yard. The slugs were happy too as they quickly devoured it. It normally blooms in late March to early April so the hungry little gastropods ruined our chance for flowers this year, but there’s hope for the next. I put some slug bait around it and now there is a lot of new growth springing up. I don’t usually put out slug bait, even the new safer kind as I prefer the live-and-let-live approach, but it was the only way to try and save the plant.

The slugs may have done in the lobelia as well that we planted last fall as part of the new hummingbird garden in memory of my mother-in-law, as it hasn’t poked up out of the earth yet. One of the salvias has also shown no signs of life, perhaps the unusually wet winter and spring did it in, but there have been at least some signs of life from all of the other new arrivals. The new dogwood in particular did just fine during the winter and is now leafing out like crazy.

Some of the other new plants are showing signs of late night devourings as well, so perhaps I need to apply the slug bait a little more liberally until the plants are better established. I think most of our garden slugs aren’t native, so there’s that at least.

I was also pleased to see that the handful of ferns I transplanted from the side of the house are unrolling new fronds, I was most worried about the one with delicate lace-like fronds but it seems to be doing the best of all of them. Between the ferns, the trillium doing the best it ever has, the new hostas sprouting up, and the new larkspur hopefully making a comeback, Redwood Corner is starting to take shape.