Lots Of Birds…

…including downey, red-bellied, nuthatch, chickadee, house finch, cardinal, jay, and lots of Little Brown Jobs.
Feeder nearly emptied in half a day.

“Our politics, economics, advertising, and religions (New Age and Old) are awash in credulity. Those who have something to sell, those who wish to influence public opinion, those in power…have a vested interest in discouraging skepticism.

As I've tried to stress, at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes-an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking, working together, keeps the field on track.”
—Carl Sagan

More at: Compendium

Thirteen Years

I got a reminder yesterday from my original blog site wishing me happy thirteenth. If nothing else, a daily blog does force one to pay attention.

Trouble is, remembering that far back is sometimes difficult. If what follows has been posted previously, my apologies.

Where kin are relations of kind, kith is relationship based on knowledge of place—the close landscape, "one's square mile,"as Griffiths writes, where each tree and neighbor and crow and fox andstone are known, not by map or guide but by heart. Kithship, then, is intimacy with the landscape in which one dwells and is entangled, a knowing of its waymarks, its fragrance, the habits of its wildlings.

Kithship crosses dimensions of knowing that bring us to intimate specificity: book learning, alert wandering, knowledge of species close to home and recognition of individuals within theses species, knowing who lives there and why, knowing who is flourishing and who is failing. Kithship enlivens and complexities kinship, and it is essential if the fullness of kinships’s wisdom is to be lived.

“Starlings, Infinity, and the Kith of Kinship”
Lyanda Fern Lynn Haupt
Kinship, Center for Humans and Nature

FURTHERMORE, I have now begun to convert my other website (the commercial one) into a repository or compendium of my stuff plus other stuff—other stuff I find valuable and interesting. It’s also supposed to be a harbor of refuge (or a secluded bower in a welcoming wood) during this odd and disturbing time. To get there, go here: Compendium

Going Sideways

Lots of air rushing north to south, but still not wintery.

Say not the Struggle nought Availeth

BY ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

Say not the struggle nought availeth, 
     The labour and the wounds are vain, 
The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 
And as things have been they remain. 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; 
     It may be, in yon smoke concealed, 
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
     And, but for you, possess the field. 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking 
     Seem here no painful inch to gain, 
Far back through creeks and inlets making, 
   Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only, 
     When daylight comes, comes in the light, 
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 
     But westward, look, the land is bright.

Trying To Deal With The Fantods

Fundamental hinge point facing the nation. Here’s hoping.

Fifty robins (approximately) enjoying the remaining fruit of Vi/Anna’s NATIVE crab apple. (Photo doesn’t really show them all.)

Clematis seeds showing off their odd star-shaped seed clusters.

Ginkgo leaves (luckily a male tree, so no stinky seeds). Ancient tree with unusual fan-shaped leaves.

Gutters Cleaned…

…again. (And, I believe gutter cleaning was the topic of my first blog some November many years ago.)
Also on the pre-winter-better-get-it-done list, the three old-fashioned window screens were replaced by the three old-fashioned storm windows. (All the other windows in the house have been modernized, but we like these three old-timers, and they are not too difficult to manage.)

Witch-hazel flowering, as it does at this unusual time of year. Who pollinates?

Young Ohio buckeye done for this year but fully ready to get growing again come spring