Garden Center Birds

The people at Thomson's Garden Center know us, because we spell our name wrong, with a P, and because we're the bird people. So while we were prowling around the roses and begonias three staff members came up to make sure we'd seen their special birds.

First was a robin who'd built her nest on a stack of trellises. It was clear that nobody was going to be taking any trellises until she was done raising her babies.


Resolute is one word I'd use on her--trying to melt into a background that isn't there, staunchly sitting her eggs as the weekend garden center traffic swirls all around her.

But the best was yet to come. "Go look at the bee balm," one employee said, and I headed for its tall paired leaves.

Nobody was going to be buying any bee balm for awhile, either. Cats prowl all around the garden center, but somehow none of them had keyed into this ingenious nesting place. The staff didn't know what kind of bird had built the nest, only that it was little and brown.

A glance upward confirmed Mom's identity as a song sparrow, and we told the cashier and she wrote it down so she could remember it. What mattered was not that they could name the birds, but that they all cared enough to protect the nests.

It wouldn't be long before the song sparrows left; they're about 6 days old here, and would only stay in the nest another five or so.


Inside, another point of local pride: gazing balls made right here in Marietta by the Silver Globe Manufacturing Company. The tiny factory is a real trip--gazing balls all over the old cement block roof, and a huge pile of busted gazing balls out back. The workers climb up on top of it and eat their lunch, in between hand-blowing glass balls--a southern Ohio and West Virginia tradition, that somehow has not yet been outsourced to China. Well, you'll find lots of cheap foreign gazing balls, but the original and best ones are made by Silver Globe. They're always coming out with new colors. Here's Thomson's display. Makes your eyes roll back in your head.



I was proud of our hometown garden center, even if they spell their name wrong.

Spring in Marietta

It’s spring in Marietta.

The deciduous magnolias dance in the breeze, their softly perfumed flowers blowsy and extravagant. This time of year, I drive slowly down Marietta’s brick streets, marveling at the sometimes perfect pairing of house to tree. This is one such, a gracious cream-colored house with a rosy magnolia confection gracing its flank. Oh, perfection.

The petals remind me of a fawn’s ear, delicately veined in pink.
Inside, the zillion stamens proclaim its tribe: the Ranales, or magnolias. They include tulip trees, sweet bays, Carolina pineapple bush, and the classic Magnolia grandiflora of Tara. Summer afternoons in Virginia, I’d bury my nose in the creamy, waxen flowers of our shiny-leaved grandiflora, vying for perfume with orange and black beetles. I can still recall the scent, though the tree has long since been cut down.I'm posting this from the parking lot of Curley's Motel in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I'm so busy taking pictures of birds up here that I haven't taken time to download any. I don't know when I'll get Net access again (I'm poaching at Curley's), so I decided to post this Sunday afternoon as I'll be traveling all day Monday.

Despite the frantic nature of my previous post, I began having fun the minute I got behind the wheel on the way to the airport on Friday. It is ever thus with big trips--the preparation is awful, but the trip itself almost erases that angst. If I didn't have so many other cherished life forms depending on me for so many things, it might not be so hard to get away. Talks went great. Whitefish Point Bird Observatory Spring Fling Festival, really fun. Terrific, kind people. Sleeping like a rock. Go figure. I guess I have to go to the Upper Peninsula to get some sleep.

Weather report from the U.P.: 38, snow squalls, peeks of sun. Don't want to guess the wind chill factor. Seen today: northern goshawk, long-eared owl, saw-whet owl. Common loons in breeding plumage. Yeah. This isn't Marietta. I have worn absolutely everything I packed--four layers including long underwear, two hats, two pairs of gloves. Off to find lunch at a restaurant near a spectacular high falls. You'll see it all in time.

Crazy moment: Cellphone rang while I was watching a common loon in breeding plumage powering by my frigid perch on a hawk observation platform. It was Bill, watching a least tern from his platform at So. Padre I. in Texas, thinking about me.

Life is good again.