A big fat crow flew over, flapping its wings as it heavily landed on the neighbor’s eaves. As it clawed to stabilize on the gutter under the eaves, a hollow dull sound echoed in the air, drawing my attention. Raising my head, I saw a black bird staring at me, chewing something in its mouth.
Crows are prevalently seen here, frequenting the valleys as well as cities. Crows found in our communities like to perch on tops of towering palm trees or tips of pine trees. The presence at the backyard is rare. “What is it eating? Did it store food somewhere in the groove?” I, standing in the backyard, was wondering out loud.
It’s March. Half of my loquats are turning yellow, earlier than I remember. Loquats this years are particularly small, thanks to my negligence and reluctance of pruning. In a small backyard that only has partial sun, it is a stretch to plant a fruit tree in the first place, and I cannot ask more. What has already sufficiently rewarded me is the process of seeing it grow, from a seed to today’s canopied top, from its first flowers to clusters of golden fruit. They are the apple in my eyes.
While I was relieved from the rat’s intrusion this year, the relief is ephemeral. It later dawned on me that the crow on the eaves was vying for the fruit, as one day working from home, sitting by the window, I saw one crow struggling to balance itself on a bending branch as it lunged for fruit. Then getting off the work and reading in the backyard on 3/22, I was alarmed to see a big squirrel only a foot away. After whooshing them away, I scrambled to the tall ladder and wrapped those low-hanging loquats with netted bags. Luckily, crows and squirrels are intelligent, smart enough to know that they are not welcome here and not to return since.
Wednesdays become my favorite day of the week in the month. Beginning March, he is also required to work in office twice a week, leaving me alone working at home on Wednesdays. Being able to immerse myself in the solitude and quietness without any interruption, doing everything at a pace of my own, and in particular a respite from mundane cooking, converge to a carefree Wednesday, an entire eight hours and a home all to myself!
The scarcity of winter rain engenders another scant spring. The mountains are barely green. The stunted poppies bloom only scatteringly. On a warm March day as we hiked on a familiar trail, we saw a galaxy of fiddleneck flowers strewn all over the meadow, a scene we never saw before. With temperatures hovering above 70s for weeks now, soon these drought resistant flowers will also fade into oblivion.
回复 '7grizzly' 的评论 : Hi, my friend. Thanks for reading and your comments. Interestingly, I only remember that the flower/plant is called fiddle something, as it looks like a fiddle. So I searched online to see many fiddelhead images. And of course I wish that they are fiddleheads:)) I saw packs of dry fiddleheads in a Korean supermarket. They are not cheap.
Thanks for the word "gutter". I tried to look for the right word online, but ended up picking the wrong word. I used "lunge" here:)) I saw the word a few times, and always mistook it for "lung":)) Thanks for liking the other two words.
And hope you and Tim enjoy the cherry- and loquat-picking in a few weeks!
