It's a tough life

out there in the mean streets of the Northside

Each morning, rain, sun or snow, I sit outside and enjoy one or two cups of coffee. The only weather condition that pushes me indoors is wind. I have a blue patio chair and a small glass table set right into my flowerbed. The chair legs are stabilized by slabs of flat rock I’ve gathered from scree fields all over, like from Idaho when I spent a night in a fire watch tower there last summer, and Oregon when I drove to the coast in March. A hike along McDonald Lake or a spot up the Blackfoot corridor. 

The flowerbed is a new installation this year and at first I tried to get my daughter to plant it for me. One thing led to another though and I found myself in a nursery loading up a cart with starts, none of which go together whatsoever. I said the hell with worrying about shade vs. sun plants and dug spots for all of them in my north-facing plot. On the south side, all I have is asphalt so I bought an old shutter and two cinderblocks from the home resource place and put pots of marigolds and poppies on this makeshift bench where I can see them out my kitchen window. A frilly white rosebush came off the sad plant rack at Lowe’s looking half dead and truly despondent. It has since surprised the pants off me by perking right up and blooming heartily. 

Hodge-podge of nursery plants alongside collected scree-field stones.

My noisiest neighbors are the birds. Here’s what we’ve got: a deranged robin whose raucous singing begins pre-5 am and does not cease for much of the day. He doesn’t really have a song - it’s just chirp! CHIRP! Chirrup? Then there’s the chickadee who gives the robin a run for his money with his loud-and-arrhythmic calling, both alarms and whistles. A nearby house wren trills a soothing, if repetitious song, and has a lot to say all day long. A friend aptly called him the corner preacher. Always, in the background, house sparrows chittering. The other night I woke around midnight because a flock of carousing geese was cruising low overhead, as rowdy as a cluster of young people out after bar time. Our meadowlarks are beginning to fade back into the north hills BUT! yesterday I saw a hummingbird at my feeder and then at my petunia basket! It’s a whole start-and-restart process with these birds. Here is 21 seconds of house wren: hear him call at seconds 1, 7, 13, and 20.

And then, the mammals. My cat got into a fistfight with a neighborhood tough not too long ago, through the window screen. I’m going to say Gracie lost, because the outside cat bashed my screen out of its housing, and Gracie fell off her ladder as a result. But the next day she held her own against an orange cat who came around looking for trouble. It’s a tough life out here in the mean streets of the Northside.

One day a year or so ago I was sitting at my dining table next to the same window when I looked up and spotted a deer gang in the alley. Four of them, striding along as sure as the Jets ready to rumble. And, there’s the raccoon. She glides gracefully along the top edge of the tall fence separating our courtyard from the neighbors, and let me review for you that gliding gracefully is quite a feat for a roly-poly raccoon.

The fence bandit. May 2023.

I spend a lot of time on trails and in the woods, and would prefer to live there. But fact of life, I reside in a place surrounded by apartment buildings and older single-family homes interspersed with industrial-looking new infill townhouses, though on the fringe of civilization. I try to appreciate the diversity of my neighbors because if I cannot do that, I will be crazed by the closeness of everything crowding in on me.