Baltimore oriole, male

THE NORTHERN ORIOLE, also known as the Baltimore Oriole, is an unusual bird, as well as one of rare beauty. The male has distinctive bright orange and black plumage, party attire in a field of grays and browns in the woodlands of the Northeast. Perhaps this festive creature avoids being eaten by hawks by rarely alighting on the ground. It flits in the upper branches and dramatically swoops from one position to another as if on a trapeze. How else to explain the Oriole’s survival given his outrageous outfit? 

The bird’s whistling, flute-like call is also distinctive and unmistakeable. We get very few Northern Orioles, but the ones we do get are easily identifiable from their perches in the woods. The whistle sounds human and they vocalize for many hours during the day.

My teenaged son and I have followed the Oriole’s habits for a few years and our amateur study of the bird is marked by both tragedy and uncommon bird-to-human communication. (more…)

ELISE WRITES:

I’ve been reading your blog for some time now, and I thoroughly appreciate what you write. Your blog posts are always refreshing and challenging. I wanted to ask if you would be willing to consider writing on the topic of the role of daughters within the family unit and of society as a whole. Your posts affirming the work of housewives (as in one of your recent posts) are encouraging – but as an eighteen-year-old homeschooled daughter wondering what the next chapter is in her life, I would be very interested to hear your thoughts about daughters.

I would love to someday marry and be the best wife, mother, and homemaker I can possibly be – but we’re talking about the (irreplaceable) role of the mothers, the wives here – what about daughters living at home? Is it enough to stay simply at home, being a help to mother in areas including housework, homeschooling, cooking, tending a vegetable garden, etc.? Do you think a young woman should get a job, or start a home business, so that she isn’t a “burden” on her parents? (more…)

THERE are many excellent versions on the Internet of “Semper Fidelis,” the United States Marine Corps march written by John Philip Sousa in 1889. Here is a good one and you can hear the Marine Band playing the song in 1909 here.

To our military heroes on Memorial Day, we march for thee.

THE PICKAXE awakens a lust for power, or at least it does in me. This simple implement, invented by technological minds when levers were still new, inspires visions touched with grandiosity.  The thought of prying glacial boulders from the subterranean depths, of digging deep ditches, or of uprooting the feet of massive trees, all with little effort, springs to mind. The fact that one may never come close to truly spectacular feats doesn’t matter. It is the dream, the enlarged sense of possibility, that counts.

The pickaxe has been idle all winter, propped under the eaves, silent and magnificent, it’s tapered handle suave and elegant against the wall. Even careless neglect, days in damp dirt, never seem to harm its blade, pointed on one end, like a finger, blunt and flat as a spatula on the other, so very much like a hand, but much better. In early spring, the sabbatical ends and by May, I am always vaguely aware of where the pickaxe is. I almost never forget where I have left it a day or two ago. It is like the gun to the hunter, or the net to a fisherman, a material extension of being, an extra limb.

A pickaxe isn’t feminine.  But I don’t care. That assault of the earth, that moment when the flattened blade cuts the surface, as if ripping open an envelope with a long-anticipated letter inside, even when it clangs against a buried rock, is so intoxicating, I wouldn’t give it up to please anyone or to improve my image. I’m anti-feminist, but not anti-work, not anti-pickaxe. No one really likes to dig compacted earth, especially if it’s full of rocks and roots; that’s when you have to pry and pick and paw at the ground, begging for an opening. Men are better at this of course because they’re stronger, but I don’t have a personal chain-gang of diggers and I wouldn’t even want one. Digging is for lovers. Lovers of the ground. (more…)

LYDIA SHERMAN WRITES:

Here is an English translation of “Vackert Väder,” or “Beautiful Weather,” the Swedish hymn which inspired the song by the quartet Kraja:

 In this sweet time of summer
Go out, my soul, and be happy for
The gifts from the great God.
Look, how the earth is decked
Look, how she, for you and me
Is in wonderful bounties. 

(more…)

THIS IS a famous, intensely evocative photo, taken in 1894, of Alexander Graham Bell, Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller (seated). Bell introduced Keller to her famous teacher. Keller wrote in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, about her first meeting with Bell:

Child as I was, I at once felt the tenderness and sympathy which endeared Dr. Bell to so many hearts. That interview would be the door through which I would pass through darkness into light…

… [H]e is never so happy as when he has a deaf child in his arms. His labours on behalf of the deaf will live on and bless generations of children yet to come; and we love him alike for what he has himself achieved and for what he has evoked from others.

She dedicated the book to him. (more…)

THE FOOD JOURNALIST Michael Pollan approvingly quotes a statement blaming feminism for wrecking a culture of shared food and civility. His assertion seems far too timid given that millions of children now eat chicken nuggets in front of the TV. But Anna Clark at Salon objects:

Blaming feminism for luring women out of the kitchen, stealing the ritual of the family meal, and thereby diminishing “one of the nurseries of democracy” is both simplistic and ridiculous. It’s true that shared meals are powerful spaces for building relationships and “the habits of civility.” But if we’re going to talk about who’s to blame for our current culture of processed food, why not blame untold generations of men for not getting into the kitchen, especially given Pollan’s characterization of the family meal as having a meaningful role in cultivating democracy? If it’s so important, why is their absence excusable?

That’s right.  Men have been doing nothing all these years while women slaved away in the kitchen. Here’s an all-points bulletin: Do not accept a dinner invitation from anyone named Anna Clark. Unless you like chicken nuggets.

  (more…)

PEOPLE who make bread are the happiest people in the world.

Look at this painting by the Dutch master Jan Steen, The Leiden Baker Arend Oostwaert and His Wife. Notice how glowing Arend is and how sallow his wife. That’s obviously because he is the handler of the dough. Kneading dough is an unparalleled sensual experience and Arend’s countenance speaks of this ancient reality. I mean, it’s almost unparalleled. Anyone who makes bread from scratch at least once a week is guaranteed sanity and a better disposition than if he didn’t make bread once a week. People who never make bread suffer from repression. It doesn’t matter what it tastes like. Making it is good enough.

(more…)