Thoughts on a Late Spring Night

Ronald Walter Tipton, Downingtown High School Class of 1959



After a good day at work, things fell apart at home this evening. Bill came in from mowing the lawn (which has to do every three days with the weather we're having down here on the Delmarva peninsula) and I told him he was "stinking." I guess I could of been more diplomatic (you think?) but I apparently wasn't thinking. Why Bill got mad was that he had just taken a shower but apparently was wearing the same shirt that we was wearing when he mowed the lawn. He wasn't really "stinking" but did smell of sweat. As I age I am losing some of my faculties but one that I have not lost is my sense of smell, much to Bill's displeasure. I apologized to Bill but he's mad and probably won't speak to me for a while. That's how he deals with his anger. I sometimes lose my temper but I quickly get over it. Bill is different. I hurt his feelings and it will take him a while to get over it.

This episode tonight just shows you how fast things can go awry after a good day. I was working today filling in for a co-worker who had other plans. I am not scheduled to go back to work until the Fourth of July weekend at which time I'll be working three days in a row. Normally I work every Monday night but another co-worker wants the Fourth of July weekend off so she can be at her son's graduation from infantry school and see him one more time before he ships out to Iraq. This means I have the next three weeks off.

Next week I was planning on going to Pennsylvania to see my Mom and attend the Downingtown High School Class of 2009 as a special guest. Each year the Downingtown High School invites members of the 50th anniversary class of Downingtown High School as guests to their graduation ceremonies. It doesn't seem like that long ago that I graduated but it has been half a century. Hard to believe. I'm not sure that if the kids of today's graduating class is even interested in seeing old fogies like us but I'll go anyway. It will be interesting for me. The picture on this blog is of yours truly 50 years ago when I graduated from Downingtown High School. My Mom took the picture. I was the first person in my family to graduate from high school (also the first to graduate from college.) This is the only picture of me at my graduation. So young and innocent. So much ahead of me. So fast the time has went by. And now I'm here, checking the weather forecast for next week because I don't want to make the 2 1/2 drive to Downingtown, Pennsylvania in the rain.

A few years ago I decided I don't like to drive in the dark. Now I avoid driving in the rain. I doubt if any of the members of the Downingtown High School graduating class has even given one moment's thought to those self-imposed driving restrictions. If anyone asks me to speak, I'll tell them this is just one of the "benefits" they can look forward too when they are guests at the DHS graduation of 2059. One thing is for sure, I won't be there.

New Bluebird Nest!

New bluebird nest





















Purple Martin eggs




We have a new bluebird nest! After a delay of about ten days, mama and papa bluebird have built a new, neat nest. The bluebird pair is apparently the same because the Biggest Bluebird I’ve Ever Seen, is again perched atop the bluebird box. Of course there were a few forays into the bluebird box by the errant house sparrow but the Biggest Bluebird I’ve Ever Seen quickly took care of that unwelcomed intruder.

In a day or two I expect to see four small blue bluebird (what other color would they be?) eggs in the new bluebird nest. In about a month the new baby bluebirds will be grown and out exploring their new world just like their sisters and brothers are doing now.

The swallows have built a nest in one of the other bluebird houses. Their pure white eggs are nestled in another neat nest lined with white feathers. It’s interesting that each bird has its own unique nest. The Purple Martins don’t build so much of a nest as they line the bottom of their aluminum compartment with broad pieces of straw. The Purple Martin eggs are also pure white. Only the house sparrow eggs are a tan with brown dots. The house sparrow nests are a mess. Everything and anything is in their nest from trash to straw and plastic.

The Purple Martins quickly claimed the last compartment in their tall six apartment birdhouse when I removed the sparrow nest on Monday. From what I can tell the Purple Martins have already raised one batch of young ones and are now working on the second batch. I think the Purple Martins only raise two batches of young ones before they leave for the season.

This year, for the first time, both of the gourds hanging beneath the Purple Martin house area occupied by swallows. One gourd was occupied by another Taliban sparrow but it only took two cleanings to get that sparrow out of there. I think the house sparrows took up in my neighbor’s birdhouses.

Each evening Bill and I sit out on our deck and watch the Purple Martins sort out their pecking order. We enjoy their graceful swooping of the swallows over our back yard looking for a meal. The bluebirds seem to be more preoccupied with guarding their nest and feeding their young. They make no noise at all whereas the Purple Martins are always squawking about something. We will miss them all when they leave later this summer. Then the quiet in our backyard will be deafening.

Plants or Travel?

Me at Pepper's greenhouse in Milton, Delaware













One of my two new raised flower beds

Yes, I purchased more plants today. I wasn’t planning on buying more plants but when Bill and I were at Lowe’s this morning, I saw forsythia plants at a price that I couldn’t pass up. After I purchased the forsythia plants, the floodgates were opened to filling my cart. I couldn’t leave Lowe’s with a half empty cart. I also purchased a variegated barberry bush, a burning bush and a couple sage herb plants.

Then what did I do when I got home? I unloaded the plants and then took off to Peppers to buy some annuals for color in my new raised flower beds. So I’m thinking “Ron, aren’t you spending a lot of money on plants?” I answer “Yes, you are Ron.” Then I asked myself “What would you rather do – spend a couple thousand dollars taking a trip or spend a couple hundred dollars stuffing my backyard with plants?” The answer was easy, the plants won.

I haven’t traveled since 9/11. The last time I took a plane, I didn’t have to take my shoes off before I boarded the plane. I don’t want to take my shoes off to board a plane. In fact, I don’t plan to fly again until they get rid of that ridiculous requirement. It’s phony. It's a feelgood measure by those in charge of security to convince themselves they're doing something. How many potential shoe bombers have they caught? No thank you, I'm not going to subject myself to air travel these days.

Travel these days is such a hassle. While I would love to visit my brother and his wife in South Carolina I can’t bring myself to jump through all the hoops it would take me to visit them. I would love to visit Johnson City, Tennessee and the western North Carolina mountains where my father spent the first 10 years of his life. I haven’t been there since 1996. To visit would be so difficult. I would have to either drive my car or connect with a series of flights and rent a car. I just don’t have the energy. What I do have the energy for is working on my backyard to create a natural habitat for the local birds and insects. I get immense satisfaction from working in my backyard. I love listening to the Purple Martins training their new young to fly. I love seeing the swallows gracefully swooping down on my backyard scooping up mosquitoes. What I don’t like is the stress and aggravation of travel. While I would enjoy seeing the people I visit, getting there is the problem. I also have to consider the expense. Now that my hours have been cut back to once a week, I don’t have those extra discretionary funds. My choice is obvious.

So, I will continue to look for that spot in my backyard that needs just the right plant. Gardening is my joy and passion. It’s better than a backyard pool.

Backyard Update

Swallow peeking at me from her nest.















Swallow eggs in birdhouse.








Here is the latest on my backyard bird sanctuary (except for the house sparrows.) The bluebirds have built another nest in the same bluebird house. The first crop of baby bluebirds are now on their own, now it’s time for the second batch of new bluebirds. Last year the bluebirds also raised two batches in this same bluebird box. I'm happy to say it looks like a repeat performance this year.

This year for the first time, swallows have taken up in one of the other bluebird houses. Their pictures are featured on this blog. There is also a swallow nest in one of the two gourds hanging from the Purple Martin house. Last year the only swallow nests were on my neighbor’s porch. They built a mud nest right over his front door. While it was cute and interesting to watch the baby swallows grow, the mess they made wasn’t too cute for my neighbor’s company. This year my neighbor took down the hook the swallows built their nest and moved it over to the side of his porch where the mess wasn’t so noticeable.

One house sparrow pair continues to build a nest in one of the Purple Martin apartments. I cleaned out that last nest about an hour ago and I don’t expect to see them back. I checked the five other apartments and they all have the white Purple Martin eggs in their modest nests. One of the apartments was formerly the house sparrow nest that I had taken out at least a half a dozen times before the Taliban Sparrows gave up. I don't like cleaning out their nest and I hope this is the last time I have to do it. My backyard bird habitat is for native bird species only.

This year we’re getting plenty of rain unlike the past two years in which we watched the farmers’ fields of corn burn up from lack of rain. With all the rain we also have plenty of mosquitoes. I’m food for the mosquitoes but the mosquitoes are food for the birds in my backyard. My backyard is ecology 101 at work. As I type this I hear thunder rumbling in the distant sky now. More rain, just what we need.

My goal when I moved to our new home in Delaware was to create a backyard habitat as a sanctuary for the local natives species birds. Yesterday Bill and I finished putting in the two remaining raised flower beds that border the edge of our acre of backyard. Anchoring each flower bed is a bird bath. The bird baths are probably the main attraction for the birds in our backyard. Now that I have two new raised flower beds, I’ll have to get two more bird baths. That brings the count of bird baths in our backyard to eight. One can never have enough bird baths in their back yard. Believe me, they’re all used. On especially hot days I have to change the water several times. No complaints from this quarter though, it is a labor of love. But there are a lot of dirty birds out there.

No More Blizzards

The past couple of weeks Bill and I started a new habit of visiting the local Dairy Queen in Lewes and ordering a Blizzard. To be specific, we ordered a Banana Cream Pie Blizzard. After yesterday we decided to end that short lived habit. Sure, the Bizzards are good. In fact they are delicious. However, they must have about 5,000 calories because after we devour one of these Blizzards we’re not hungry for at least the next 24 hours. I guess that's what happens when you receive your minimum caloric requirements for the next week.

It was a nice little tradition while it lasted. We got out of the house, took a pleasant ride through downtown Lewes and slurped our Blizzards watching the fisherman and boaters play at Breakwater Junction in Lewes. We can still take our ride and watch the scenery in Lewes, but we will have to do it sans the calorie laden Blizzard.

Yesterday was a wonderful sunny mild day here in southern Delaware. Bill and I headed off early for Loew’s to pick up ten bags of dirt for my new raised flower beds. We will have to go again this morning, ten bags weren’t enough. While I love planting and tending my raised flower beds. It is my favorite outside activity. But I have to face the fact that I’m just too old to be lifting these 40 and 50 pound bags. Right now I am aching all over. I feel like someone beat me up. I feel like the first day after I joined my high school track team and was sore from the first time calisthenics. I’m sore but it is a good sore. Maybe I should be flinging around more 50 pound bags of dead weight dirt to get myself in shape. But on second thought maybe I have to face the fact that I’m no longer a 17 year old getting in shape. My shape has long since left. The strength just isn’t there anymore. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t in shape anymore.

So, it’s off to Loew’s to pick up two more 50 pound bags of Miracle Grow potting soil, bring it back here, struggle mightily to distribute it over the new raised flower beds and then collapse onto my bed. No more heavy lifting for this old gardener. From here on out it’s planting and weeding for this old man...............and no more Blizzards.

Good Neighbors

As I was leaving for my daily walk through the Oyster Rocks development Bill asked me “Don’t you want to take your camera?” Anyone who knows me personally knows that I almost always have my Canon Powershot A560 digital camera strapped across my chest. It was late and would be dark soon and I didn’t think there would be many opportunities to take any pictures. But, as I have learned from past experience, that one time that I didn’t take the camera with me was the one time an opportunity presented itself for a unique picture. I asked him to get my camera for me.

Bill got my camera and handed it to me as I exited our garage to being my daily walk. As I walk down our driveway who do I see but my neighbor Bob walking his dog with his house guest for the weekend. As Bob introduced me to his friend (Gene), I asked if I could take their picture. I told Bob this would be the “June” picture of the photo calendar I have made every year as gifts to my friends. Bob and his friend Gene graciously posed for the picture featured on this blog. Oh yes, Bob’s dog (actually his wife’s dog) Heidi also graciously consented to having her picture taken. Actually, she didn't have a choice.

This friendly neighborly interaction tonight is just another reason I love where I live. In Pennsylvania we had a big house and a lot of land (7 acres) but the neighbors were at best indifferent and sometimes hostile. That has not been our experience with our neighbors here in Delaware. Bob and his wife are also retired. They moved her from New Jersey to escape the high taxes and enjoy the good life near the ocean. Bob is an avid fisherman and his wife loves the beach. We all love the relaxed lifestyle (and the low taxes.)

Earlier Bob and Bill (my partner) were discussing how they were going to put up a decorative fence around the very ugly transformer that borders our joint property. I cannot imagine having a conversation like that with my neighbors in Pennsylvania. Maybe having good neighbors is just the luck of the draw. If that is the case, then I won when I moved to Delaware. Good neighbors, something I will never take for granted and something for which I am very thankful that I have here in this wonderful state of Delaware.

Reflections on a Rainy Friday Afternoon

Yesterday was cloudy. Today a gentle rain falls. While the rain is good for the local farmers it isn’t helping my energy level to do something around this house. Gray skies and rain has a way of doing that to my mood. While I like to hear the rainfall on the side of my house and watch the rivulets of water running down my windows, it doesn’t encourage me to attack my storage room downstairs in the basement and finish unpacking the boxes I moved down here in November 2006. Yes, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I still have unpacked boxes from our move from Pennsylvania almost 2 ½ years ago. I have to wait for the mood to hit me. That hasn’t happened yet.

I don’t have to go to work at the hotel until Monday so I have the whole weekend off. Unfortunately, rain is forecast for the next five days. Bill and I just about have the two new raised flowerbeds ready to be filled in with dirt. We will have to put that on hold until clear skies appear again over our southern Delaware skies. I also work next Friday at the hotel then I’m off until the Fourth of July weekend in which I work those three days in a row. That means I’m off a whole three weeks! I would love to visit my brother in South Carolina and take a swing up to my dad’s roots in the hills of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, near Johnson City, Tennessee. However, I don’t have the money for such a trip nor the energy. I think at 67 I am beginning to wear out.

Yesterday I called my Aunt Mabel who is 87 years old. She’s not doing well. I remember something she told me years ago. She said she knew she was getting old when she was 72. She said that was when she realized she didn’t have the boundless energy she had all of her life prior to that year. My Mother said something similar around the same age. After hoeing eight rows of corn in my Dad’s vegetable garden, she told me “Ronnie, I just can’t do this anymore.” I now understand whereof my aunt and Mother speak. Yesterday I put in a good two hours digging up the area for the two new raised flower beds. It just about killed me. I took a two hour afternoon nap to recoup my strength. This is scary because I’m only 67. There was a time when I thought 40 was old. Of course that’s when I was 22 years old. Now that I’m an Old Geezer I think 67 is young. Ha! Actually I don’t feel bad about getting old but there definitely are more aches and pains now that I’m approaching my eighth decade on this earth.

Not to change the subject, but I will. The bluebirds haven’t set up their new household yet but I think that is because the bluebird parents are still looking after their previous batch. Yesterday afternoon I saw several bluebirds flying around my neighbor’s house. However, as the picture on this blog attests, the Big Bluebird is sitting atop the bluebird house. He has been chasing away all potential tenants such as the Taliband House Sparrow and swallows. I predict within two weeks a new bluebird nest will be full of five tiny blue eggs. This is one my great joys of living where I do so I can have a backyard habitat to provide a safe and secure nesting location for the bluebirds.

Yesterday I pulled down the Purple Martin house to check to make sure there weren’t any dead baby Purple Martins like I found last year. Two of the apartments had baby Purple Martins. They were so quiet when I open the front door to their apartment. The other apartments had nesting material but were empty of baby Purple Martins. As I suspected, those young Purple Martins had already taken wing. It’s interesting to see them learn to fly. At first they venture out only a few feet before they fly back to the Purple Martin house. Eventually, they soar higher and further out from the house until they’re just a speck in the distance. I don’t know how many Purple Martin batches there are but I do know they make the back yard come alive with their lively cacophony of noise.

The rain is falling against the window like it does in the movies. This is a good time to snuggle up to a good book in my bed and drift off to a Friday afternoon nap. Life is good in southern Delaware, even when it rains.