Martha and the Christmas Bird Watch

A couple of months ago, when the weather was completely fall like, I thumbed through a Martha Stewart Living magazine and waited in the dentist's office. It was a new dentist, and my first look at Martha's magazine.

It is a large format magazine, with pictures of life on a grander scale than, say, Time, or People magazines, that I would normally expect in a dentist's office. I flipped idly past vast interiors and precious dinners, but was stopped short by Martha's garden.

I'm not making this us. Martha does not clear out the garden growth at the end of the season. My dears, do not bring in those tall stalks to spray paint and arrange artfully in the foyer--that's paraphrasing, of course. Leave them until spring.

The two young women who schlep to the compost made no complaint, and so my garden looks like this:

I can only say, I'll never do this again. Some of these stalks I would not have spray painted in any event will not be difficult to clear out come spring, but that August lily will be one wet mess.

Recall you mother told you to wear clean underwear when leaving home, and the front room generally is tidy, against the entrance of a surprise visitor. This morning two cars stopped in front of the house and did not move on for some time. The windows were down, folks were hanging out, surveying my front yard. A woman in the recesses of one car was writing down everything they reported.

I realized it is the Great Christmas Bird Count, but not before I also thought they were assessing my flower gardens. They were counting all my flying pigs, bless them.

Since we have had no sun for thirteen days, and I am counting, and no prospect of sun for another thirteen, here is a woodpecker from last winter. The Bird Counters probably saw him again today.