The Birds of High Summer

by Geoffrey Ives

It’s high summer here in Maine so after supper I like to sit in a lawn chair carefully placed in the middle of our busy garden. There’s still a few more hours of daylight left, but the sun has dropped behind the house and the resulting cool air brings a relaxed late afternoon atmosphere to the backyard patch we call home.

Sitting quietly in my chair I begin to notice things in the garden — things I might miss while weeding or just passing through on a pest hunt. From my position I can easily perceive details like ants exploring a beet green or a snail mounting the crest of a chard leaf. I can also peer through dill and sun flowers and observe far away hills and the rolling horizon of southern Maine.

Every so often a sortie of chirping and peeping barn swallows swoops into the garden area, some scouting and some landing briefly in front of me, scraping a section of bare soil for their favorite insect snack. I’ve never been able to determine which insect they prefer from the garden floor, but they come back every summer afternoon to make their passes and brief stops. The evening swallow expeditions go on daily until Labor Day when suddenly they disappear leaving only the tense caws of a few black crows echoing across the meadow, while a slight nip to the breeze presages the coming Maine winter.

From my seat I also notice that the bluebirds in the birdhouse at the garden’s southeast corner have a third (I think) brood of babies coming along. The babies pop out of the box occasionally, when mom tells them it’s safe. They’ve a patchy blueness to them and they test their flying skills in neighboring bushes while mom and dad keep careful watch nearby. Besides their lovely song of quick trills, Bluebirds communicate with wing waves — a short, brief lifting of the wing like a semaphore signal. I’m not quite sure what it means but the babies do it instinctively, which is funny to watch. The parents still bring insects back to the nest for the kids to eat. Mom and Dad sit on a branch above the box, insect in beak, and just wait for quite a while — caterpillar dangling. I don’t know why they wait but they do. When they finally fly to the box a chorus of baby cries erupts, “Feed me first!” and “I need the bug most Mom,” and perhaps, “Jimmy always throws-up in the nest Ma, don’t feed him.”

We’ve got new human neighbors this year. A couple moved into the log cabin next door with their six (count em — six) children. I call them the Louds, but I don’t know their real last names yet. At first I wasn’t sure I could calmly incorporate their kids’ yelling and crying into our backwoods rural sound track, but I’ve come to find the sound of kids playing outside in the neighborhood somewhat soothing. The kids get up late, much later than I do, and they go to bed late too. And based on today’s noises they’ve apparently acquired some sheep, which only adds to the farmish atmosphere around our house. For some reason, I like that.

My garden seat lets me focus my thoughts on very local things. At times I might think about work or family but it’s really a place for no-work thinking. Ideas parade through my mind as I sit. Ideas about the garden, sections I need to attend to soon or plans for next year’s garden. There’s always an area or two that requires attention — better soil, more weeding or perhaps a new raised bed project for the fall. And sitting and thinking lets you incorporate what you’re learning in the garden this year into your knowledge base for future years. Sitting here helps the garden teach.

Still sitting, I notice my sunflowers are in bloom now. I’ve let quite a few volunteer sunflowers grow at random from the previous year’s detritus or from bird droppings. They provide random shade for basil and beans which I think helps the soil stay moist and keeps plants growing during the hottest summer weeks. I love the look of random sunflowers in the garden. I imagine from my chair that Native Americans might have approached their gardens in a similar fashion, allowing what works to pervade while curtailing that which doesn’t work — but who knows. I’m a descendant from colonial American immigrants and very few of those guys paid much attention to how the ‘savages’ maintained their gardens.

Native Americans grew squash, pumpkins, and cucurbits here in New England. These plants made their way here from Latin America long before it was Latin or American. The Indians supposedly grew corn, squash and beans as a threesome. I tried this but found it to be pretty weedy, so I guess I’m not into threesomes. This year I have squash in raised beds. I put the pumpkins in a patch where last fall I had removed a bush and replaced it with a year’s worth of kitchen compost. Things seem to be going well so far. But I remain very concerned about stink bugs.

Stink bugs ooze a bluish-green liquid when squished and this gives off a very strong and bitter odor. You may have found them in your house in the fall and winter. They look like dark gray shields with legs, about the size of a dime. These stink bugs are an invasive species introduced from Asia a few decades back. Thanks Asia. They assault squash and pumpkins. You may get away with squash nicely for a year or two but once they know you’ve got squash they show up in droves and overwinter in dead plants and compost piles. You’ll see them by the thousands sunning themselves on your pumpkins and turning all your squash fruit into rotted hulks of useless mush. They ruin cukes, zukes and summer squash equally.

There’s nothing like storing up a batch of acorn and butternut squash for the winter. And I love salting and baking pumpkin seeds for snacking in the fall. So I made squash and pumpkins my priority this year. That means stink bugs are designated enemy numero uno (with apologies to Spanish) for this year’s garden. I am not aware of an organic insecticide that discourages or kills stink bugs. You can spray with a clay powder mix which deters them for a day or so, but once it rains they are back. This means that, just like for slugs and cucumber beetles, hand picking stink bugs was in order for this year. Lovely.

Stink bugs hang out in the hot sun and mate. Must be nice. They lay their eggs on mostly the underside of the large squash leaves. You can rub out the eggs with your thumb and finger when you spot them. Look for rather interesting geometric arrays of dot size red eggs on your pumpkin and squash leaves and crush them. Right now removing stink bug eggs happens every time I walk into the garden.

Happily stink bugs have a big weakness — they freeze under pressure. When a cucumber beetle sees me coming to squish them, they typically bolt — unless I go out at night with a flash light (Yes — I do that.) A stink bug just stands there. You can gently pick them up and drop them into soapy water, ending their life of squash and pumpkin mayhem.

I am happy to report that as of mid July no stink bug eggs have hatched in my squash patch. I’m pretty sure. I’ve deposited an average of four stink bugs a day in soapy water. Let’s see if I can keep this going.

Back in the garden chair, the swallows have retired and the hermit thrush and veery are singing their evening songs. These two birds are of the thrush family, as are robins, and the bluebirds. Their rich melodies echo across the backyard valley. Last night, as I played piano inside, one hermit thrush came very close to the house and sang. As if in response to my electric melodies, he or she returned the favor.

Mom bluebird is once again perched on her box. A rare lull in the garden cacophony takes hold as the sun descends behind the distant New Hampshire mountains. I can hear muffled children noises inside of the Loud’s house. Then suddenly, breaking the silence, I hear a screeching “Argh! I’m going to kill you!” One of the twins loudly vows revenge for some affront. Leaving my chair I walk past the melon bed. Bending down, I casually lift up a vine of blooming cucumbers exposing a stink bug who stupidly freezes. I grab him and quickly move to one of my strategically placed soapy water cups and drop the bug in for its first and final garden bath.

I head to the house leaving the bluebird gazing over her section of the garden and I wonder if the whip-poor-will, gone for fifteen years now, will ever return. A garden in the country is full of contradictions, victories and defeats; successes and failures; beginnings and endings; boredom and deluges. Like life.

If you sit quietly it will teach you this, but you will forget. The Loud’s kids are screaming again.