The View from the Outer Pen

There is an eight foot fence surrounding our back yard, That is mostly for privacy for Bow. It means that delivery people and others who mistakenly drive onto our property don't immediately have to spot Bow and start gaping at him, if he happens to be outside. But the privacy fence does not keep Bow from seeing things that are going on in the outer yard, if he wants. He can climb high and get a view of what is going on in the world beyond.

From the top of the bench rim, you can see the nearby tulip tree and the Weigela bush in the distance.

The tulip tree is getting ready to flower.

The old, dried out blossoms are still there, but this year's green flower heads are already visible and getting ready to open.

When I go to check on the Weigela blossoms, I know that Bow is watching me, and he sometimes vocalizes in my direction to let me know.

The Weigela blossoms have been open for a while now, and they are getting a little droopy. Their petals are falling one by one to the ground.

Still there are insects who find them attractive.

Sometimes I have trouble putting a name to the insect.

But sometimes they are just the familiar honey bee.

Back in the pen, Bow has a clear view of the flowering dogwood.

You can see the orientation of the pen toward these trees in the short video embedded below.

When I go for my afternoon walks, Bow also gets to be outside, if he wants to be.  Our grass has not been mowed yet, and so I get glimpses of tiny little flowers shooting up that I might otherwise never have gotten to see.

The clover flowers are so delicate and fresh.

Dandelions, both young and old, are making a nice showing.

These little tiny yellow flowers are so pretty, whatever they are called!

To make the flowers grow, sometimes all you have to do is not mow the grass for a while. The same is true for trees. Much as I hope that the new fruit trees we planted in the orchard will make it, there is a very good chance that some of them will not. When you "plant a tree" you are doing a very unnatural thing. It's not at all what the tree huggers would have you believe. You are not planting, but transplanting. You are tearing out roots and making them grow someplace else. It's a shock for the tree. Some survive and some don't.

But if you just don't always mow the lawn, you will be amazed at what shoots up all on its own, without any work on your part. On the other side of the driveway from our majestic tulip tree, a baby tulip tree is growing.

Nobody planted it. It just volunteered. But already it is getting ready to blossom. This little tulip tree, if left undisturbed, is better than any tulip tree I might buy in a nursery to plant, because it already has strong roots here.

Of course, just because a plant is growing, that does not mean its survival is guaranteed. Predation takes place at every level of the trophic pyramid. This peony by the lagoon is getting ready to blossom, but will those black ants let it?

When I get back from my walk, Bow usually wants to go back inside, and he tells me so.

Bow needs my help to unlock the metal door, but he opens the glass door all by himself.

What the Day Brings

Yesterday was a warm day. Bow spent much of it outside.

I noticed in the morning that the white hyacinth in the front yard had opened its flowers for the first time this year.

The flowers in the morning

At least, I think it's a hyacinth, despite the fact that it does not have that canonical tower of flowers, all the same, and emanating form a single shaft. I suspect that my hyacinth is neglected, and that is why there is such a poor showing. But still, I thought it was beautiful!

I am not a gardener, and I don't make the flowers grow. I take no credit for this hyacinth's success, but it does cheer me up to see it bloom. In the afternoon, I checked on the forsythia bush, and I saw that insects were taking advantage of its blooms.

Some people do garden, and it is their life's work, and the success of their plants represents their own effort and their own success in life. I honor the true farmer and the true garden keeper, but that is not who I am.  My work is different. Watching the flowers bloom is entertainment for me, respite from my daily work.

 A friend asked me why I don't plant things right on the outskirts of the outer pen, so Bow could see me work in my garden. My work is Bow. I can turn my back on him for a moment, but not long enough to concentrate on a task. Indoors, I can get to him right away if he needs me and I am on the computer. But I cannot go back in the pen from the outside with ease. I would have to go back into the house and go all the way around. So that's one reason I don't garden. But it's not the main reason. It's just not what I do. It's not my contribution to life. It's not my gift.

My task is to prove that Bow can spell. My job is to explore the way language works to transmit information, even when speakers are not aware of it, to tease apart social skills from language skills, to show that while language changes in the particulars, over the long run it does not change as much as you would suppose, because the changes are circular.  My mission is to explain things that people do not see with ease, like the pernicious nature of the Neutrality Act and why it matters very much how we look at historical figures like Aaron Burr and Jean Laffite, and to allow others to see that women's suffrage existed in America long before 1920, and that the problems that we have today do not stem from giving women the vote, but from the fact that we allow people who are in debt to vote away the rights of the people who are owed money. My task is to get the Debt Collector produced.

This morning I had this exchange on Facebook with a complete stranger.

• Stranger: You notice how things have gone downhill since women got to vote?

  
  
• 

  Aya Katz Things have gone downhill since property ownership, not being in debt, and being worth fifty pounds stopped being required in order to vote. In 1776 single women in New Jersey had the vote, and it was good.
• 
  

  Stranger: You may be right there.

Does it matter? Will it stick? Maybe, maybe not, but I think it is worth trying. Will it matter thirty years from now? I've been thinking about that ever since I read this post by  a friend

http://photographytoday.sweetbeariesart.com/will-this-matter-thirty-years-from-now/

The issues I am striving to clarify will matter thirty years from now. But if I am not successful in making people listen, it's true that maybe my efforts will have been in vain.

Thirty years from now, the Neutrality Act, if not repealed, will still matter. The rights of creditors will still matter, whether they are upheld or denied. Language and how it works will still matter, and the cognition of chimpanzees will still be important. But will anybody care that yesterday the hyacinth bloomed in my garden?

The flowers had opened up quite a bit by yesterday evening

No. But it keeps me sane to be able to go outside and look at the flowers. To me they are not the main event, but just something that helps remind me that the show must go on regardless. They are like the unimportant gossip about what each day brings that keeps us interested in life, between major plot points.

By evening, when I looked at the hyacinth blossoms, they had opened up quite a bit and their pollen was spilling out.

Just before sunset, with the doves cooing in the trees above us, I knelt and examined each petal. Thirty years from now, none of this will matter. But sometimes we have to feed the soul so it can live to fight another day.