May 27 Valley Life column

May 27 Valley Life column in AG Weekly
Killdeer vigil keeps gardener's dogs busy

The birds this spring have been simply amazing. Out here at Pauly's Folly, I've counted as many as 20 plump robins perched on the rim of an old claw foot bathtub, drinking alongside flickers and starlings. The finches and nuthatches were too numerous to count until we put the birdfeeders away. Now they are gone, off in the fields, eating or nesting.

Like other country folk, we have our share of starlings and magpies. So far, the magpies haven't become a nuisance and in spite of my efforts to shoo them away, the starlings have nested in the back of an old iron stove we keep outside for aesthetics. And yesterday, I saw my first hummingbird.

But the birds that have me up early and outside with my morning cup of coffee are the killdeer. These noisy but persistent birds have made a nest -- right in the middle of my driveway.

Actually plovers, these noisy birds have been interesting to watch. Every time I walk toward the clothesline, two adult killdeer cry and drag their broken wings, making so much noise you'd think they were dying. The first time it happened, I thought they were teasing the dogs, but the second time it happened, I started paying attention. I knew they only acted that way to draw danger away from their nests.

I started hunting and sure enough, even though it took me the better part of the day, time I should have been using to plant my garden, I found out why they were yakking.

The nest was barely noticeable -- no twigs, no feathers or twine to make it soft -- just a small indentation in the gravel.

Since the nest was located in the direct path of traffic, like in cars and tractors, I marked it with a stake and a flag. Then I began my vigil. First, there were two eggs. Then there were three. The next thing I knew, there were four spotted eggs in the small gravel nest.

I've been watching the nest for a couple of weeks now and the parents are getting used to us, even the dogs, who they lure away with their fake broken wings.

Caley, the Lhasa apso, gets so tired of chasing Mama and Papa Killdeer she lays down in the shade and watches, bored with that silly game. Cocoa, the rambunctious poodle, still thinks he can catch Mama or Papa Killdeer, but the killdeer know better. With their pitiful cries, they lure him out to the fields, then fly safely back to their eggs.

Last week, when we had those hot, record-breaking days, I felt sorry for those poor birds. It was over 90 degrees and there they sat in the gravel, incubating those eggs, which can take anywhere between 23 and 28 days to hatch.

"Made me want to take an umbrella out there and protect them from the sun," I said to my friend Joyce when I told her about the nest.

"The babies come out running," she said, knowing more about killdeer than I do.

"Oh, good." I said. "Caley thinks she's a cat. She chases anything that moves."

I have a feeling the next two weeks could be interesting.

May 20 Valley Life column

May 20 Valley Life column in AG Weekly

Check your lilac trees for fairies

"I am thinking of the lilac-trees,
That shook their purple plumes,
And when the sash was open,
Shed fragrance through the room."
- The Old Apple Tree by American novelist, Mrs. Anna S. Stephens

Lilacs, no other flower is as fragrant, not even a rose. Often called the poor man's flower because they are so easy to propagate, there's something nostalgic about lilacs. All I have to do is take a deep breath when they're in bloom and I'm a child again, lying under my mother's lilac bushes, sucking nectar from the purple blossoms. Back then, I didn't know lilac was considered magical, that it could be used to make cookies, cakes or cream cheese spreads, or that some people believed it had evil properties. All I knew was lilac smelled good and made me happy.

Aside from being pretty to look at and even nicer to smell, the lilac is steeped in folklore. A symbol of new love, lilacs have been used in spells, love potions and spring tonics. Some people believed its fragrance could transport them into fairyland or the supernatural world and that the lilac's irresistible scent drew fairy spirits into the garden. Others believed a bath in lilac water would enable one to get a glimpse of a future love.

Legends claim lilac was originally planted in New England to keep evil from the property and that the fresh flowers could be placed in a haunted house to clear it of evil spirits. Some English believed it was unlucky to bring the lilac flower into the house, as it was associated with death and sadness. Others believed shades of purple had a tendency to drive men mad and people were cautioned not to look too long at the purple lilac, or else they would go crazy.

Common purple lilac bushes can live for hundreds of years and it was one of the plants most commonly brought from Europe by settlers and planted around their homes in the New World. Besides being beautiful and reminiscent of home each spring, lilac was also practical. Its dense shrubbery helped shelter homes from the wind.

Out here at Pauly's Folly, the lilac are in full bloom, smelling so sweet, I'm sure if I look, I will find a whole slew of fairies sleeping in the blossoms. I'm tempted to move my computer outside so I can work under the lilac trees and enjoy the heady fragrance. Instead, I think I'll pick a bouquet and bring it indoors. That way I won't frighten away the fairies.

May 13 Valley Life column

May 13 Valley Life column in AG Weekly

Give Mom a big hug this Mother's Day

I have one of Hank Ketcham's "Dennis the Menace" comic strips posted on my bulletin board. In the strip, Dennis is asking Mr. Wilson what to get his mom for Mother's Day. Mr. Wilson’s reply is "Combat Pay."

Every time I see the comic, I smile. There's no doubt being a mom is probably one of the hardest jobs around. Once they bring their little bundles of joy home from the hospital, mothers are on the clock 24/7. There are mouths to feed, diapers to change, clothes to wash, and scratches and bruises to tend. Over the course of one day, a mother will not only be housekeeper, day-care teacher and head cook, she will also be laundress, computer guru, taxi cab driver and referee.

With long hours and no time off, even on vacations, if stay-at-home moms received a salary for their work, according to Salary.com, they would earn an estimated $134,121 per year. Based on the study, "working" moms would earn $85,876 annually for the "mom" portion of their work, in addition to their actual "work" salary.

For everything they do, moms rarely get a thanks, let alone a paycheck. But Salary.com has come up with a way to fix that. They have created a Mom Salary Wizard that calculates a mother's paycheck based on her personal location and hours worked in each of 10 different roles. Now you can create a hypothetical Mom Paycheck and Mom Pay Stub, which you can print and e-mail to your mom and it won't cost you a single penny.

So, if you are looking for something unique to give your mom this year for Mother's Day -- or for any other day for that matter -- zip over to Salary.com on your computer and complete the Mom Salary Wizard to determine your mother's current salary. Be sure to include enough compensation for the biggie -- Combat Pay.

Even if it's all in fun, you know your mom deserves it. Even when she tells you, and means it, that all she really wants is a hug.

May 6 Valley Life Column

May 6 Valley Life Column in AG Weekly
Fresh horseradish clears stuffy sinuses

"P-U," my husband said as he walked through the kitchen to refill his coffee cup. "What's that awful smell?"

As if he didn't know, as if he couldn't tell from the tears streaking my face.

Hands busy at the food processor, I gave him a smarty smirk. "Go ahead. Take a deep breath, then get out of my kitchen."

My sister-in-law once said it's best to harvest horseradish in months that have an "r," which means I should harvest horseradish in January, February, March, April, September, October, November or December. Since I didn't get to it last fall, there I stood, the last day of April, feeding large horseradish roots into my food processor, trying to remember not to inhale every time I opened the lid. The windows stood open wide; I had a fan going to blow the caustic fumes outside. Even so, my eyes were watering, and my nose was running. Good, I thought, now maybe my sinuses would drain.

According to my herb books, horseradish has many healing properties. It stimulates digestion, is a good diuretic and promotes perspiration, making it useful in treating fevers, colds and flu. Medieval people regarded horseradish as an aphrodisiac, claiming it could cure everything, including toothaches. Known as one of the five "bitter herbs," it is traditionally served at Passover.

At our house, we don't use horseradish to cure fevers or stimulate digestion, we use it as a condiment, and if I wasn't so lazy, I wouldn't need a whole day to harvest the roots. I could harvest it anytime I wanted to use some, fresh from the garden.

But I'm lazy and like to make up big batches, which I store in glass jars in the refrigerator and freezer. That way I only have to smell up my kitchen once or twice a year!

April 29 Valley Life Column

April 29 Valley Life Column in AG Weekly

Spring runoff is spectacular at Shoshone Falls

With a promise of breakfast in Twin, I coerced my husband into taking me to Shoshone Falls Sunday. I had followed the reports of record water flow and wanted to see for myself what early settlers saw when they viewed Shoshone Falls more than a hundred years ago.

When we arrived at the park a little after 8 a.m., people were already gathering, snapping pictures of the falls before they headed off to church or other destinations.

The reports of high water proved to be true. From a horseshoe rim spanning almost a thousand feet, the water tumbled to a churning caldron below while birds darted in and out of the rainbows bridging the canyon walls.

"Now I know why they call it the Niagara of the West," I said to my husband. "It's so amazing, it's simply surreal."

From my perch at one of the lookouts, I felt like I was watching one of those Imax movies, the ones that have you soaring over mountains and lakes, where you have to hang on to the railing to keep from falling. But this wasn't a 3-D movie; this was the real thing. The ground beneath us shook as if to prove it.

After snapping a few more pictures, we hiked up the centennial trail for a panoramic look at the falls. We stopped to take more pictures at one of the lookouts and came away laughing, our hair and jackets wet from the mist drifting down the canyon.

"Absolutely amazing," I said, lifting my arms to the sky.

The Snake River was flowing at an estimated 18,000 cubic feet of water per second, and even though it wasn't as impressive as it must have been a hundred years ago, before the river was harnessed for irrigation, I was mesmerized by the tumbling water.

It isn't every day you can step back in time, but this weekend I did as I pretended to be an early settler seeing Shoshone Falls for the very first time.