Cliff Swallows

I had the most beautiful evening tonite. Because of all the rainstorms this month, the landscape here is wild and green, & a late-blooming crop of wildflowers burst up. These wildflowers are different from the early-blooming ones I know in Texas: little magenta poppies, tiny pink morning glory, a spiky globe thistle as big as my fist, a yellow plant like goldenrod, a white one like milkweed or Queen Anne's Lace. That along w/the blessedly cool month has been pretty spectacular.

About 1/4 mile down the road through the wheat fields, there is a quiet bridge over a small river. It's on the route I like to walk my dog in the evening, so I go through there all year round. Even a small bit of water like that attracts all kinds of animals: egrets, skunks, turtles, snakes, etc. This summer there was a surprise though--a colony of Cliff Swallows has taken up residence under the bridge.

I've never seen them before, but apparently these are the birds famous for returning to San Juan Capistrano every year. They build nests out of mud under bridges, building eaves, or cliffs. Click here for a fascinating bunch of photographs showing how the nests are made. It's quite a feat of engineering done one beakfull of mud at a time.

When approaching the bridge now, first you notice lots of little brownish birds flying in swooping circles. When you stand on the bridge itself, you see a vortex of them swirling around both sides like twin tornadoes. I'd say there are a couple hundred of them. It reminds me of the bats taking flight from the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin. They are totally unconcerned with cars driving by, or any other distractions; they are on a mission to catch bugs & return them to their nests, & they do it over & over again with dive-bomber efficiency. From the edge of the bridge, they are so close you can practically reach out & touch their wingtips. If you watch them long enough, you can start to make out that their underbellies are light-colored, & their throats are rust-colored.

Swallows of course are known for their acrobatic flying ability, & watching just one can be pretty dizzying--but it's really something else to see a couple hundred of them doing that in such tight proximity with each other. They make a twittering, chattering noise, which is really something to hear too. It'll be even more entertaining when their fledglings start to emerge to learn to fly & hunt on their own.

Tonite I allowed myself the luxury of stopping for half an hour just to sit & watch them while the sun went down. All the stress & aggravation of the day just melted away. I wasn't thinking about anything outside of that moment, & felt filled up with the most perfect happiness. Wishing the same for you--xoxo,

Layla

Snakes on a Plane

This is one of those stranger, funnier than fiction news stories. I think we can all agree airport security gets really, REALLY annoying--but, there are times when i'm reminded why we need them. Apparently a man in Cairo tried to smuggle about 700 snakes aboard a flight to Saudi Arabia in his carry-on luggage. Yep, seven HUNDRED. They obviously must allow bigger carry-on bags in Egypt than they do in the US. The bag included an assortment of snakes, including a couple of cobras. There's not much detail in the news wire, but you can read it here: http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=5334479
My favorite part is that when the man opened his bag up he warned the police officers "not to get too close". Great!

For me personally, the threat of airline terrorism seems unlikely now; on the other hand, the threat of other people's stupidity is a Clear and Present Danger I can relate to! I'm taking a trip in a couple weeks, & you can bet i'm going to be on the lookout for anything that slithers! :)

Funnier than Fiction - Milwaukee Brewers

Okay, i've heard of some weird & tasteless promotional ideas, but this one tops them all. Believe it or not, the Milwaukee Brewers recently hosted a "Prostate Exam Night". Kind of sounds like a joke you'd expect to hear on Southpark or Baseketball. Fans willing to drop trou and undergo a rectal exam in a trailer in the stadium parking lot were rewarded w/a pair of tickets to a future game. Hmmm, kind of makes you wish for bobble head doll night, doesn't it?

The straight news: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18560179/
The smart ass version: Dead Spin

Don't get me wrong, i'm all for prostate health, but IMHO there's a time & a place for everything. Here are my questions: 1) kind of sucks for female baseball fans, or are they going to follow up w/mammogram or even (God forbid) pap smear night? 2) Who on earth thought this was a good idea? ;)

Happy Mother's (and Stepmother's) Day

This year makes my third mother's day living with Shiloh(13) Bradley(11) and Alan (sworn to secrecy!). Although I still can't claim the complete motherhood experience--they were half grown, & able to dress, wipe & feed themselves by the time we met--in honor of the holiday, here is my top ten list of Stepmom moments!

10. Early after moving in I found Bradley in his room happily cutting a piece of fabric into strips. On closer inspection, turns out it was one of my Lands End luxury flannel monogrammed pillowcases. It was part of a lovely set. His reason? He decided he wanted to "make something out of it".

9. Easter last year--after waiting a few respectable days past the holiday, I started eating the easter eggs the kids had colored. Who doesn't love boiled eggs? You should have heard the wailing when this was discovered. Turns out, when kids spend hours dying, drawing on & customizing eggs, they DON'T want you to eat them. Then they counted & figured out i'd eaten more of one's eggs than the others, which led to another round of wailing. My question is, just what did they think we were going to DO with them?

8. A few months ago I took my stepdaughter shopping for an evening. As we pulled out in the car she chirped "This is so exciting! This is girl-on-girl night!" Oops. Try explaining that one.

7. Easter this year--while easter egg hunting at his Grandma's house, Bradley found a cute little brown snake in the long grass down by the creek. He grabbed it & dropped it in his Easter basket, where it slithered down and hid in the Easter grass and eggs. Did I mention it was a lovely coppery shade of brown? Ah, what FUN we had separating him from the other children, & then from the basket, & then the snake from the eggs. Good times!

6. My first summer here I watched the kids for the beginning of spring break. I had one of those suspiciously quiet moments when I knew I needed to go check on them. I walked out into the back yard & saw 9-year old Bradley standing on the ROOF, BAREFOOT. My heart nearly stopped. One of his toys had gotten stuck & he decided to go get it himself. The first thing he could think of to say was "uhhh, my dad lets me do this all the time."

5. One day Bradley got impatient while waiting for me or Alan to help him use the hot glue gun. He wanted to make a bird feeder & that couldn't wait. He decided to take matters into his own hands, & heated up the glue stick in the TOASTER. He's very creative, that kid. Good for the birds, bad if you want to make toast though.

4. Shiloh can whine sometimes in the way only an indignant 13 year old can. Before Easter she kept asking if we were going to hunt Easter eggs. I told her I didn't know, but she & her brother could hide them for each other if they wanted. Apparently she didn't like this, because she puffed up like a blowfish, got really huffy, & said "Well that's the whole POINT of Easter is that you get to hunt eggs. Otherwise, why bother??" Oh no--does this mean I have to take these kids to church?! Pardon the expression, but i'd rather drive nails up my arms.

3. Remember my story about lending Bradley my Jimmy Buffet CD for him & his little buddies to listen to? Unfortunately I forgot there was a song on there called "Why Don't We Get Drunk & Screw." Oops!

2. This year for St. Patrick's Day Bradley's school had a "wear green" day. The night before, Alan caught him in the bathroom w/the green food coloring from the kitchen trying to "dye his eyebrows green". The funny part is, even caught "green-handed" w/the food coloring, he still tried to deny that he was doing anything.

1. After the many, MANY talks we've had w/Bradley about not ever touching candles, matches, lighters, or the gas stove, in which he SWORE compliance... This morning I woke up to the smell of breakfast cooking. He got up before anyone else, & decided to make pancakes with the GAS stove. I'll be damned if he didn't do it, too--pancakes, eggs & sausage. He said he knew he wasn't supposed to, but wanted to surprise everyone since it was mother's day. I lectured him as best I could while stuffing pancakes into the other side of my mouth.

xoxo & happy Mother's Day to all!

Layla

Spring in Oklahoma

Howdy y'all!
Well, it turns out spring in Oklahoma is quite lovely. It also happens to be tornado season. Who would think tornados have a season, like tomatoes or asparagus? People here watch the Doppler radar this time of year like a soap opera. For the first time ever I got to evacuate at work to a "safe room" because of tornado warnings. Spring here means the most spectacular thunderstorms & rain; we are in the middle of a 4-day stretch of storms right now. Last night the thunder was so loud I woke up at 2 am thinking something in the house had crashed. It kept waking me up the rest of the night. Other than my poor old dog having a minor nervous breakdown over the thunder, we've haven't had any damage. Some of the impact nearby has been quite spectacular though, esp. in Sweetwater and just north over the Kansas border in Greensburg. That poor town looks wiped out.

But of all the seasons here, spring here is my favorite, besides the tornadic thunderstorms and 30-40-50+ mph winds. Days are in the 70's and 80's, & the mosquitoes aren't out in full force yet, so you can actually stand to be outside. It's gorgeous & green right now from all the rain we've had. Flocks of migratory birds have returned for summer--blue jays, kingbirds, robins, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, scissortailed fly catchers (the Oklahoma state bird that will be gracing the back of our new state quarter). They are furiously nesting, pairing off, hunting and staking out their territories. I have a marvelous time watching them, esp. the kingbirds that hunt and catch bugs in mid-air. Our farms-turning-to-subdivisions community still has fields of wheat planted all around; right now it is hip-high & dark glossy green, but the tops are just beginning to turn yellow. The roads I walk on here wind through wheat & hay fields, past wetlands & a small river, so I see all kinds of wild activity out on my walks: snakes, turtles, cattle and great egrets, herons, etc.

The growing season here is already well underway, so spring also means fresh food! A trip to the OSU-OKC farmer's market Saturday really made my weekend. It was SO MUCH FUN! Even if you're not a tree hugger like me, it's worth going for the spectacularly good food. If like most of us you've been raised on grocery store produce , the difference in flavor is ASTOUNDING. The asparagus I bought was BY FAR the best i've ever had. I sauteed it w/some freshly picked onions & parsley, a hothouse tomato, & then tossed it w/some fresh linguine. That w/a grating of parmesan & drizzle of olive oil was a simple yet divine spring dinner. The spinach I sauteed tonite with just a sprinkle of salt & tiny dab of butter. Even 3 days after picking it was sweet and flavorful w/none of the strong, bitter overtones of storebought spinach.

Besides vegetables, there was homemade soap & candles, local honey, bread and baked goods, & the most spectacular orchids. My favorite local rancher w/grass-fed organic beef, Cattle Tracks, was there. A fabulous local dairy, Wagon Creek Creamery, had the most amazing yogurt cheese. Sadly they were sold out of yogurt already, but I did get some of their fresh cream & ricotta . We used the cream that night to make fresh vanilla ice cream The ricotta is destined to be be mixed with fresh herbs to make homemade ravioli one night this week. That drizzled with a little sauce from vine-ripened tomatoes will be a spectacular dinner. I think even the kids might eat it (if not, well then, more for me)! Pretty soon the peaches, strawberries & pecans will be in season, & the kitchen will be taken over for a weekend of jam-making and canning. I'll put my fork down now to say if you get a chance to visit your local farmer's market this month & support your local food growers, I highly recommend it (burrrrrppp!!)

Hope you're enjoying a beautiful spring! xoxo,

Layla