On Power And Pigeons

Amazing what you don’t notice until you do. Once the pigeon chorus woke me up, the only thing that registered was my bladder. I should have noted the absence of my “white nose machine” because the pigeons aren’t usually so loud without the windows open. I didn’t register the variety of other calls either, with doves, quail, and others filling in the chorus. I didn’t notice the ceiling fan wasn’t working. I wasn’t overheated, and it’s only been the last couple days it’s been on overnight. This was one of the rare mornings where I didn’t crack an eyeball to see what time it was to determine whether I really wanted to get up. One thing and only one thing registered until I was in the bathroom.

Then things started to add up. The motion sensor light in the hall hadn’t turned on. I peeked down the hall to see sun shining on the living room blinds. An extra light pool meant the front door was open. Didn’t Steve realize that the AC was on and we needed to keep the house shut? (Yeah, still not fully awake yet.)

But hey, morning pill time, dutifully observed because the thyroid pill comes first and nothing, not even other pills, can follow for 20 minutes. I glanced at the clock to mark the time. Blank. Black. No green light on the pacemaker monitor next to it either. A little light bulb came on, the only one in the house powered by my brain. The only one powered… barely.

Power Outage! Alarm bells: it’s another 3-digit temperature day in Phoenix!

At least my cell phone works - it is, isn’t it, or are the towers down too?  Nope, I’m good. I have our power company number in it. And now I know it was pushing 6:00.

The recorded voice ”recognized” my number, the voicemail system had me verify my address, then gave me my account number (Why would I possibly want that? Come on, get on with it!!!) and assured my there would be no power shut-offs for non payment of bills in the heat, not even late fees tis year. Didn’t care, it’s always paid promptly. Then the important bit came, fed in even before I could be asked if I wanted to report a power outage. They noted there was an outage in the area and it was already being worked on. It should be fixed by 7:51.

OK, that’s good, but couldn’t they just have said 8? How do they know that close to the minute? Murphy still rules, you know.

The mental list kicked in, reviewing what I can and cannot do in the meanwhile. The rest of morning pills, fine, but no coffee. No cooking at all until I figure out where the matches got put in the great cupboard cleanup a couple weeks back. I knew they weren’t back on top of the microwave. But water is ok, and the cold water dispenser of the freezer door should still have cold water in it. I hope. With ice cream in the freezer and lots of meats and things in the fridge, there’s no way I’m going inside for either food or cold beverage. So I push the lever and … nothing.  OK, that’s not a simple lever, there’s a circuit in there somewhere. Interesting. At least the tap water still works. I did, after all, flush the toilet this morning without noting anything amiss, right? And even though there is no actual cold water in the summer, it should have cooled down enough overnight to not make me gag. I hate plain hot water, and our pipe got rerouted back in 2012  after a slab leak to its new route through the attic. The sun was just now up so this would be my best chance. If not, there’s slightly cooler bottled water sitting of the floor.  No need, tap OK.

I’d shut the front door on my way to the phone, thinking to keep the heat out, then thought the better of it since the outside was still about 15 to 20 degrees cooler then the house. So I reopened the front door, then went outside to the patio with my water and pills to enjoy the only entertainment in the neighborhood along with the coolest air available, now circulating throughout the house. That mental list, well before I got my reassurance that power would return before I baked, reminded me that there was no cool place to congregate and wait this out. Not now. Even scratching the “cool”, there was no congregating. Last resort would be wearing wet clothing and hoping for some breeze to come along. But it shouldn’t get that far. Unless Murphy….

Road trip, anybody?  Tank's full. AC works.

Patio entertainment means noticing the early rabbit hopping around, seeing the parade of 4 quail cross behind the neighbor’s fence, noticing someone walking their dog, visible between houses very briefly, and being mildly surprised that the dog the newest neighbors have wasn’t barking as usual at my being outside. He probably doesn’t understand that this side of the fence is Mine! Mine! MINE!

Then, of course, there are the pigeons.

Every year some pair tries to make a nest in one spot where roof sections overlap, offering what looks like shelter from, say, hungry hawks. While it is possible that part would work, they seldom figure out that round sticks on a sloping roof do not a nest make. What we get is a pile of sticks falling down into the aloes. This year they actually got farther along, but Steve went out and used his walking stick to knock it down (into the aloes of course), and they’ve not successfully rebuilt. There are fewer sticks however, so perhaps they’re recycling them for a new location. I know we haven't gone out for cleanup. Too damn hot.

But it’s definitely mating time. This morning there was a pair on the power wires running over and between the back yards, one of their favorite spots.  I happened  to be looking when one of the pair mounted the other. OK, I  mentally labeled which was male and which female. Duh, you’d think.

Well, that’s when it got interesting. When they were both on the wire afterward, the one I’d labeled female reached its head over in a caress to the other, then immediately flew up on its back. It sat there, calmly balanced, for over a minute, while the new “bottom” just quivered. Then “she” mated with “him.” Hmmmm….. Gay pigeons? Or is this a regular part of their mating ritual, just one I’d not observed?

There were other things  to observe while sitting out here. My desert willow tree is sporting a full crop of light green buds. In a week or so I’ll be seeing purple flowers all over. I’m sure I’ll be out here with my camera, trying one more time to get some kind of satisfying picture of them. Every year I try, and every year I just can’t capture them to my satisfaction.

The ocotillo have shed their leaves from our March rains, and while the small ones we planted after we moved in have never bloomed, I discovered the big one, struggling for its piece of sunlight while blocked by the neighbor’s unpruned citrus trees, finally managed two blooms. Sort of a last gasp before dormancy again.

The baby mesquite tree is filling out nicely, now that the quail have quit jumping up on the tiny branches to pluck the leaves off . Now, what were just leaves along its branches, regrew and became the start of new branches while I wasn't watching. I’ve been watering it without seeing the changes, only noting it still lived. There was a plan to get bird netting, but it got dropped after two stores didn’t carry any. Now I won’t bother.  At least the rabbits don’t go for it.

Another recovery has happened. We have a Mexican bird of paradise along the south fence. It blooms lightly every year, another semi-victim of the neighbor’s plants growing taller and shading it. Every year we cut it back like we’re supposed to, about 12” from the ground. The instructions say ground level up to 12”. All those dead branches were crowding pretty solidly together, so Rich and I got together this winter and took it down to a set of knuckles too big for the pruners to take out, even using our feet to knock over some really stubborn ones.

That can be interesting when the foot slips and you’re on blood thinners!

I watched the bush for months, never seeing any hope of regrowth. Had we been too extreme? I added Miracle-Gro to the watering. I’d given up on it when Rich showed me some tiny red buds just popping up from the knuckles. Cool! A few days later they weren’t visible. Dratted rabbits!  Chicken wire time again.  It’s now a dense clump of light green about 20” tall and almost as wide. - growing through the chicken wire, of course! Too late to pull it off now. Nice problem for next year's pruning.

The neighbor’s oleander bushes are just past their peak of spectacular blooms. One is white, the other a beautiful hot pink. The petals are just beginning to decorate the ground, as their branches push through our fence, though in this weather it’ll be brown again in no time.

There is a spreading clump of dark green agaves along the back fence. I think they started on the other side, as those cover more territory. Ours sent up the first blooming stalk a few years ago, and we had the yard crew take it and the dead agave out after it was done. Next year another offshoot did the same, and we ignored it. I decided finally to go pull the dead stalk out, easily done by tilting it over. The remains of its base are too shabby to bother with. But there are now 4 stalks in the patch. One is a dead one from last year in the neighbor’s yard. Of the three blooming, two are in our yard. In the week since I pulled out our dead stalk, the three flowering ones have developed a southward bend on the top, which none of the previous ones had. They’re pretty woody, so it’s another puzzle to entertain somebody waiting for the power to go back on.

According to my laptop clock, they are one minute late. Think I’ll go inside and check. Time to shut the doors anyway since it’s warmed up 10 degrees out here. Plus, there was that glass of water with those pills….

The power company”s recording now says power will be restored by “8:57 AM.” Why do they do that?

Now they say “10:57 AM.”

OK, 9:41 and power’s back. The fridge is humming, the TV clicked, the wi-fi router’s flashing it’s 1st light trying to restart, and - best of all - Steve’s lift chair works again. Think I’ll go see what’s