tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64174172851813510892026-04-08T03:45:58.143-07:00Julie Zickefoose on BlogspotI'm an artist and writer who lives in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio. With this blog, I hope to show what happens when you make room in your life, every day, for the things that bring you joy. Strange...most of them are free.Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.comBlogger2497125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-72482845395794753002025-12-06T19:16:00.000-08:002025-12-06T19:16:14.476-08:00A Hummingbird in WinterI was minding my own business when several people tagged me at once on a post in a local portmanteau Facebook group, MOV What's Happening. It's kind of a like a NextDoor for Marietta, Ohio and Parkersburg, West Virginia, with everything from the latest convenience store robbery video to fires, car wrecks, lost pets, hair salon recommendations and pleas for help with a hummingbird in December. Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-58682543259846899962025-11-08T11:35:00.000-08:002025-11-08T11:35:25.835-08:00Liam is 26!! Liam is 26! I know. I can't believe it either. And this is, I think, the first morning he's woken up since I started blogging in 2005, without a birthday post all ready for him. But I don't think he minds. This was taken at his breakfast birthday party in Columbus and I don't think that's Hi-C in his glass!Yeah, your mama was found slumped over a book at 8 pm last night, and that's all she Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-17896885792907431992025-10-25T10:52:00.000-07:002025-10-25T10:52:13.033-07:00Hard Work, Old Memories, and Sweet FriendsY'all, I have struggled with these wedding posts, more with each one. Here's the thing. There was SO much to do, all built around this looming deadline of The Wedding. Much of it was, at least in my mind, necessary. House renovation. Brushpile burn. Garden enclosure razed and rebuilt. Rotten deck beautifully replaced. That had to happen. But some of it, I know, is totally peripheral. Was anyone Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-33475770106355283212025-09-26T08:45:00.000-07:002025-09-26T08:45:13.228-07:00Oh Rotty Deck, It's Time to GoOh my. What a bittersweet thing, to come back to this post I finished on September 11, and see our beloved Curtis Loew loafing along all through it. He was wound into our lives in the most beautiful way. I have not had the heart to post on the blog since he left us on September 12, but as Robert Frost noted,"In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on." So youJulie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-10816419641965832772025-09-14T08:21:00.000-07:002025-09-14T08:21:54.245-07:00Curtis LoewYou looked into my eyes, came forwardPressed your forehead into my breastbone and the world went still and fell awayAnd with it, any doubt thatYou were coming home with me.You stood on my bag so I couldn't leave the shelter without you.You also used the full power of mind control.Feburary 19, 2019, CHA Animal Shelter, ColumbusYou'd been chained near Gallipolisthe first four years of your Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-87665300027907447242025-09-11T10:31:00.000-07:002025-09-11T11:39:27.675-07:00The Brushpile That Wouldn't LeaveWe planted it in September, 1999, just about this time of year, 26 years ago, when I was big with Liam in my belly--he would be born only two months later. A palm warbler landed in it just as Bill and I stepped back from laying a running hose at the base of its slender, whip-like trunk. It was a weeping willow. The palm warbler's benediction seemed like the ultimate good omen. I remember Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-45034897630186752572025-09-08T09:22:00.000-07:002025-09-08T09:22:12.287-07:00 Jurassic Garden
Once the renovation was complete, my focus turned back to the outdoors. There was the matter of the vegetable garden, protected by Jurassic era fencing of four different kinds and heights. It dated to the early 1990's. Every time Bill and I had another type of critter get in--a baby rabbit or a woodchuck, for example, we'd slap another layer of fencing on it. Stock fencing, two Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-76180126823780513162025-09-06T09:46:00.000-07:002025-09-06T09:46:27.658-07:00Hoopla, Coming Up! But First, We Must Renovate!Yep, I'm blogging again, having taken a "break" since April (What is it now, September 6?) As you'll see, it was hardly a break. I'm blogging not because I think the world ought to care what paint colors I chose for a renovation, but because I think that when you've worked hard, you should reflect on it and celebrate it. And when you and your beloveds have gone through an enormous life passage, Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-13164569429222103212025-04-06T17:35:00.000-07:002025-04-06T17:35:20.021-07:00Going Political On March 17, 2025, Phoebe and I were taking the scenic route to Ohio from her home in Indiana. We wanted the smallest backroads, the nicest little towns, and Wabash, Indiana, was exactly the ticket. I love to look at the original courthouses in small towns, built on such a grand scale and with such lofty intentions. Here resides our government. Here, you can come get your marriage Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-20305245204746085152025-03-28T07:08:00.000-07:002025-03-28T07:08:20.212-07:00About that GoldfinchOn February 27, a sick goldfinch I'd been watching for a week or more finally became blind enough to catch. Her eyes had sealed all but shut. I walked up on her blind side, and caught her in my hand as she sat on the platform feeder. Here's how she looked from above, her eyes so swollen by Mycoplasma infection that her entire head looked weird and big. This is called house finch Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-46835272432194815202025-03-24T12:07:00.000-07:002025-03-24T19:08:28.078-07:00Oscar’s Top Three Olive OilsOlive oil is a Very Big Deal for Oscar Bello Goya. He cooks with it, pours it over his food, and spends a good amount of time thinking about it, selecting it, and enjoying it every single day. When we ask him what he wants for his birthday or Christmas, it's always olive oil. Imagine. (Says the woman with the Filippo Berlio cooking oil in the clear plastic bottle, and a small bottle ofJulie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-64206203813467075502025-03-08T13:25:00.000-08:002025-03-08T13:50:22.474-08:00About That Kestrel Around January 22, 2025, a beautiful little falcon appeared, hanging around Jess' garage in Devola, Ohio. The bird couldn't fly much at all, but it managed to get atop a lawnchair, where it would perch, looking out at the wide fields stretching to the Muskingum River. At one point, Jess found it hiding in her garage. This went on for a few days. Jess knew something was wrong, so she asked Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-3663581233864857092025-02-19T15:53:00.000-08:002025-02-22T15:22:45.755-08:00 Óscar Turns 30!! Óscar Jesús Bello Goya is a man of very few possessions. After all, in January 2024, he picked up everything that he owned and put it in two suitcases to come to America to be with his love, Phoebe. After a courthouse wedding within days of his arrival (by his fiancée visa, they had to get married within 90 days of his final arrival here) he and Phoebe have been living together in the USA Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-78706571487764554782025-01-12T10:17:00.000-08:002025-11-08T11:40:23.671-08:00Curtis and the Ghost BoneWriting on January 12, the Ghost Bone has shrunk from over 9" to just 4" long. Curtis has been happily chewing it whenever he's hongry and it's not mealtime yet, or whenever I have house guests or a phone conversation and he wants to be part of it. But it wasn't always so... Curtis got the nickname Krampus at Christmas 2023 because he absolutely insisted on opening every gift before its Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-41621245695762860362025-01-05T18:00:00.000-08:002025-01-05T18:00:54.108-08:00A Spark Bird for Liam?On New Year's Eve, Phoebe, Liam, and I were texting about remembering to notice our first bird of 2025 the next morning. Liam was already back in Columbus, but Phoebe and Oscar were still here with me in Whipple. Liam got very excited about going to an actual birding place on New Year's Day and trying to see a really cool bird. A birding co-worker had told him about Pickerington Ponds Metropark Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-191470393288780982024-12-27T16:01:00.000-08:002024-12-27T16:14:09.639-08:00Requiem for a Blue JayEven seven years out from the Saving Jemima year of 2017, the year I looked so hard at blue jays I nearly became one,I am still looking at jays the way jays look at jays, searching their faces for distinguishing marksBuilding galleries of dated images, to what end I'm not sureExcept that I need know each one for who it is.You might not believe I have spent the entire day Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-47841236906189219552024-11-18T16:49:00.004-08:002024-11-18T16:49:37.543-08:00Epic Beautification 3: Hobbit House One brushpile, I don't burn. Two reasons: It's out at the end of the orchard, and burning it would certainly start a forest fire. Second, it is made up of dead wood and fallen limbs, with no brushy invasives or vines laden with seeds. Those all get hauled to the burn piles.The orchard is very long, as long as the oil road, and I need someplace to put the limbs and logs that fall across the Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-4452796968888987992024-11-13T06:48:00.000-08:002024-11-13T06:48:11.319-08:00Epic Beautification 2: Friends to the RescueOn November 4, after days of work, my little Deere X300 crapped out on me. It kept surging and cutting off, something it's done before. The two times it happened before, there was a stinkbug in the gas tank. This didn't feel quite like that. It was too predictable. It would happen on startup, when the engine was cold, and then it would calm down. The surging would start again when theJulie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-10221775404633287672024-11-11T12:40:00.002-08:002024-11-11T12:40:20.398-08:00Epic Beautification 1 Being a chronicle of the efforts of one medium-sized woman to create an exclusive, native plants only sanctuary in the Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio. There is some hiring out, but not much. Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-68255972783400925442024-11-08T04:24:00.001-08:002024-11-08T04:24:00.121-08:00Liam is 25! My dear boy, I never realized how having a birthday that falls on or around Election Day would factor into your life; all I remember was a rush of passion one February afternoon in 1999, and it gets blurry after that. Thus did biology deliver into my arms a nearly spherical baby boy who grew into a lanky wonder.I miss you. But I always enjoy throwing together these birthday Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-90174247452665938292024-11-06T17:53:00.000-08:002024-11-06T17:53:50.229-08:00Tanagers Eating Weird StuffI have huge dark Chamaecyparis trees hanging over my north studio windows. This is bad. It cuts my light. Gosh, they were so tiny when I planted them 30 years ago! Who'd think they'd shoot up to 20' plus, and get so thick and plumy? In desperation to get my view back I have limbed them up, but their bushy tops still cut a ton of light, especially on those dark winter days when the sun seems to Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-15516608022734368932024-09-01T14:17:00.000-07:002024-09-01T14:17:28.373-07:00Tadpole Story 4: Where Will They Go? On August 20, there was a passing sprinkle. Not enough to register in the gauge, or to help at all, but enough to embolden the first mountain chorus frog to move from its leaf to the container edge.Then it did a move worthy of Cary Grant in North by Northwest.'And just as desperate (Grant played an innocent man mistaken for a spy and relentlessly pursued by the FBI).When the droplets dried up, I Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-4445481175945975342024-08-30T05:58:00.000-07:002024-08-30T05:58:42.569-07:00Tadpole Story 3: Adorable Froglets!The night I brought the tadpoles in and put them in deep cool rainwater from my rainbarrel, I slept better than I had in weeks. Who lies awake at night worrying about a couple hundred tadpoles? Me, apparently. I mean, that wasn't all I was worrying about. I've been worrying about what is going to happen if it never rains again this summer. Every single time a storm line would form, it would dry Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-30932211524663052302024-08-28T08:54:00.000-07:002024-08-28T08:54:58.176-07:00Tadpole Story 2: Down in the Muck We’re back at the tadpole puddle in my driveway, chronicling my effort to keep it going through a drought now labeled as “Extreme,” and headed for “Exceptional.” If you want to know how it's going, it's not going well. It's in the upper 90's all this week; trees are dropping their leaves like crazy, and I am disconsolate. Writing and posting this has helped somewhat. We here in Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6417417285181351089.post-35611724818284609912024-08-26T06:32:00.000-07:002024-08-26T07:21:41.958-07:00Tadpole Story 1: A Drama in Four Pieces If you were a frog or toad on Indigo Hill in southeast Ohio on April 4, 2024, the world was your oyster. Anything seemed possible. It seemed like all the water you'd ever need had fallen from the skies. This enormous Julie Zickefoosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654698829603424649noreply@blogger.com0