As we were leaving the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey yesterday after a snowy picnic, and a distant owl sighting, and the company of a crowd of very noisy bird photographers (interested only in dramatic owl pictures but not in the other birds around them, apparently), we noticed a small flock of bluebirds beside the road.
Table and chairs: Sold to me as Heywood Wakefield by a couple in Alexandria, Virginia. The table turned out to be a good replica, and the chairs are real.
Vase on table. Been with me since then, too. Junk shop in Adams Morgan, D.C.
Jug in window: Wedgwood, a sidewalk find in Windsor Terrace, last year.
Pillows. They come and go. More keep coming. Skinny la Minx covers. The Turkish embroidered ones are gifts from Bevan and Mustafa in Istanbul. I often pack them in layers beneath me when I work on the daybed. They squoosh down and re-fluff beautifully.
Throws and cover on daybed, both by Mungo in South Africa. Cotton, solid, and indestructible.
Schoolchair beside door, acquired in Harlem. Basket on it from a gift shop on 5th Avenue in Park Slope.
Spring flowers from corner stores nearby.
In their words, WSAR is "a collective effort co-ordinated by the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in the Western Cape that co-ordinates, manages and executes the search for, the medical treatment of and the rescue (or the recovery of mortal remains), of persons and/or patients whose health and/or safety is threatened or compromised in a Wilderness Environment (Mountains, Shorelines, Rivers, Kloofs, Non-mountainous wilderness areas, Caves, Deserts, Forests)."
That Wilderness Search and Rescue phone number is 021 937 0300
If you are using a foreign SIM it is +27 21 937 0300
In South Africa, there is no charge for rescue services. Read that again, Americans.
It's summer in Cape Town and WSAR is very, very busy. This is their Instagram account if you'd like to see what they do:
It doesn't matter who you are or how it happens. Maybe you are visiting from Holland and you twist your ankle on an easy and popular tourist hike, are a local who has a heart attack walking a well known route, or a panic attack on a ledge, or get lost in the mist, or stranded because the cable car shut down due to high winds and you didn't realize that Table Mountains is actually a very big mountain, or very cold because the weather changed suddenly, or your squirrel suit adventure goes tragically wrong, or you become dehydrated, or you crash your paraglider.
Or maybe you just slip and fall.
This happened to my friend Don Kirkwood last August when he was on a hike with colleagues to visit a precipitous population of endangered plants. He didn't make it. Wilderness Search and Rescue worked tirelessly in very difficult terrain to locate his him, reach him, assess his condition, inform his wife Rosie, and to get him out, by helicopter.
Last year I made a donation in Don's memory after Rosie, Don's wife and my friend, highlighted their work. I will do that every year on August 26th, the day he fell.
Right now, WSAR is raising funds for headsets and radios for their chopper pilots. Get this: until recently they have communicated with ground personnel in rescue situations via HAND SIGNALS.
A modest donation in dollars or Euros or Pounds Sterling will translate well to South African Rands (known as ZAR). And of course if you're in SA, you're donating to a superb local resource.
Your donation will make a tangible difference.
Here is the link to donate to their SOS for Life Saving Equipment
Resources:
I make enough for 10 meals. Usually, it's a beef chile, with two different beans and lots of vegetables and aromatics, but yesterday's version was chicken with white beans. The beans start soaking on Wednesday, and I build the stew the next day in the morning.
It wasn't beautiful but it was really delicious (I set aside a small bowl for myself, for lunch - the Frenchman can't do beans, sadly, so it's a treat for me).
Cooking for invisible people is not easy. What can't they eat, what do they need? Where are they from, what speaks to home? Chile - this version is a very mildly spicy bean and meat stew - seemed to cover a lot of bases, in terms of calorie content, nutritional value and possible comfort appeal. Adding the animal protein obviously excludes anyone who doesn't eat meat.
It also has to be something easy to heat, eat and serve. But it still assumes a microwave or hot plate or pot. There are none of those on the street, where people have been freezing to death. I have been pondering sandwiches.
At the fridge yesterday, half the containers left my hands straight into other hands. I was there an hour earlier than usual, and the fridge was empty, aside from a large container of cooked rice. Three containers I actually placed inside, and when I came back after going around the corner to buy some fruit and small yogurts to add, they were gone.
All three customers were in their sixties or seventies, and the last was with two little children who looked no different from all the other little kids out of school in a high-rent neighborhood. "I am feeding seven," she said, and told me where she was from in Europe.
A few months ago I might have described the customers in more detail but we don't live in a time or place where that bodes well for anyone.
Once, the fridge was packed to the rafters, including the freezer section, with meals in covered plastic bowls, all labeled, still warm. A mother and small child were looking at them and she asked him if he preferred chicken or pork. Pork, he said.
Last week, 30 individually wrapped cookies I placed in the pantry section vanished in seven minutes flat (again, I had gone around the corner to get fruit - I don't bring it with me because it's heavy and the chile is also heavy). I have many questions, most are unanswered.
But I can't forget the two men yesterday, who said quietly when I arrived, It is empty. After my first deliveries this month I was worried that the chile would not be eaten and I went back the next day to move the containers it into the freezer for food safety. I needn't have worried. The worry, of course, is far bigger.
On these coldest days - the coldest I can remember in my life in New York, and it's been more than half my life - I sometimes stay in the bedroom to work. It's where the sun and the citrus trees are. The Meyer lemon is in bloom.
The little bergamot tree has been flowering continuously for about six weeks. It won't won't stop. It has big blossoms.
Mostly, I buy winter tulips several blocks away. About a half-mile walk. At another corner store, called Food Train. Their tulips usually arrive on Wednesdays or Thursdays and I like them in tight bud, so that they last as long as possible Their latest deal is three bunches for $30, which is more than I want to spend. It's too much. But it's still $10 a bunch if you buy three, which is low. For here. Last year it was two bunches for $20. Now, if you buy just one bunch it's $14.99. Around the corner, it's just $12.99 a bunch but no deal on multiples. Way down 7th Avenue it's also $12.99 and very fresh tulips but cash only.
The minutiae.
My mother used to find it amusing that I knew what everything cost. She didn't know what anything cost.
She would have liked the tulips.
If you open a sweater up, assuming that it is empty of a human and lying flat on a nice, soft surface like a bed, Pirelli will dive right in, disappearing deep into it and curling himself quickly into a ball. This is not the time to put your hand in to stroke him. Not unless you're wearing armor. Or armour.
When he relaxes, about 10 minutes later, he will stretch his feet luxuriously, and allow them to show. You may stroke him now, and he will make a small, extended grunt of contentment, before turning himself upside-down and stretching his legs again and spreading his toes
You can see the leaves are dusty. Time for a wipe-down.
This tree barely grew last summer on the terrace: user-error, I think. A bit too much water. I have been exceptionally careful with it in the last six months and it seems to be recovering. Blossoms in themselves are not a sign of robust health; even sick trees can bloom. An evolutionary response? "She's killing us, make seed!"
There are already several tiny green fruit set among the drying petals of the older flowers. I will make the tricky decision whether to remove some (so that the tree's energy goes into foliage production).
There are signs of green life, though - four new, tender shoots growing from the trunk. Two were below the graft line (and would reflect whatever the root stock is), though, so I snapped them off, with gritted teeth. The graft line, or union, is where the rootstock and the scion re grafted together, and apparently root stuck suckers can be very vigorous.
Outdoors, everything is frozen. So the greenhouse in the bedroom is very welcome.
