The Indigo Boys

It is my dream, to live someday where I can walk to get a fresh loaf of bread and a damn good cup of coffee1, and also never hear a leaf blower again. This is unlikely in the United States due to the last one. Several attempts by municipalities to ban them have been defeated in court by the makers of these obnoxiously loud machines. And if they did ban them, their drone song would be replaced by a lawnmower, a weed whacker, or maybe a snowmobile, jet ski, or motorcycle. At least the new electric mini bikes are quiet. Vive les énergies renouvelables!

This song was stuck in my head (and still is) for a few weeks, but I couldn’t identify it. I tried Shazam and other apps, but whistling the tune did not work. Thankfully, Firecracker recognized it and sent it to me, and I’ve been playing it a lot. (Note: if YouTube ads bother you: Firefox browser, Ublock origin Ad-blocker, and Distraction-Free YouTube extension are your friend.)

Ooh, crazy’s what they think about me
Ain’t gonna stop ‘cause they tell me so
‘Cause 99 miles per hour baby
Is how fast that I’d like to go

Can’t keep up with my rhythm though they keep trying
Too quick for the lines they throw
I walk to the sound of my own drum
It goes, they go, we go, hey yeah yeah yeah

Oh, here we go
Feel it in my soul

And the whistling drowns out leaf blowers!

As I sat down to write this, a distinct whining noise pierced through the music playing. As a homeowner, I immediately thought that the HVAC or the pool pump had burned out a bearing. It’s not my joke, but one that I love, so I will repeat it. When you’re young and rent and hear a noise, you think “that better not be a ghost.” When you’re old and have a mortgage, you hear noises and think “that better be a damn ghost, and not something leaking!”

This was neither a leak or a ghost. My neighbor was using the leaf blower to clean his car or his driveway. In the suburbs, everyone either manicures their lawn or has landscapers, and they all work together to do it on different days, to ensure you get to hear them nonstop. Cleaning the lawn, the sidewalk, the driveway, the street, and sometimes climbing on the roof at eight at night to clean out the gutters.

Now, in a city where I could walk to get damn good coffee and a croissant, there will be other noises, but it’s somehow less annoying to hear a truck or a jackhammer in a city than to hear the screamsong of the nightmare machines from seven in the morning until ten at night, because there’s a leaf somewhere.

My lawn is trimmed to the legal minimum and is mostly clover at this point. When it’s all clover and dandelion I will concede victory and never mow again. The bees love it. The birds love strutting through it for bugs. My neighbor looks upon dandelions as if they are sunny-faced little gremlins who strangle babies with their fronds.

I like dandelions. They remind me of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.

Our town has a community garden for people who don’t have land to garden, and there’s a pollinator section that also draws in bees and birds. It’s next to a hilly forest of walking trails, and abuts a sand quarry with just enough unused space in between for a small wetland, which migrating birds use as a stopover.

This is where I saw my first Blue Grosbeak and Orchard Oriole; there are lots of Eastern Bluebirds when the trees have berries, and right now there are Indigo Buntings galore, if you don’t mind trespassing. I saw one of these blue birds when I first moved here, and it was such a bright blue that I felt like someone was painting the trees and I was hallucinating. The nature area nearby is called Blueberry Hill, and I’m not sure if there are lowbush blueberries, or if it was named for all the blue birds.

That’s not all they get; there’s a radar installation nearby that serves as a roost for a Raven, but he’s been scarce. But the Northern House Wrens love to perch on the barbed wire and belt out their songs.

There was also a Mockingbird trying to feed this fledgling who fell from the nest, or the nest is on the ground somewhere… there was no tree in sight. Maybe they hopped to shelter after falling. The parent was angry that I was walking nearby, so I left them alone.

After you pass the garden, there’s a field where Barn Swallows hunt for bugs. I don’t have a camera fast enough to get good photos of them hunting, but I liked these.

If you venture further along the ridge of the sand quarry, you are greeted by Pine Warblers, Chipping Sparrows, Catbirds, and occasionally Red-bellied woodpeckers. I’ve shared photos of a large Red-tailed Hawk I saw here; Turkey Vultures ride the thermals over the sand, and the Swallows zoom and hunt. But in the space between the hill and the quarry is where the Blue birds roam. I didn’t have the good camera when someone pointed out Blue Grosbeaks a few years ago; this time, there were Buntings, and I was ready.

There was an Eastern Kingbird holding court, a few Cedar Waxwings ignoring the little tyrant, and an Indigo Bunting singing his heart out. I managed nice shot of a Pine Warbler, a very common but elusive bird here in the Pinelands.

But I came for the Indigo Buntings. I first saw this bird in Delaware on a bike trip, they were hunting in a field, but I had no camera. I sat a while and watched them. Today I got to watch them longer, and admire their persistence in singing while the wind blew their feathers all mussy.

The pollinators were out in force. Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, Silver-Spotted Skippers, and Spicebush Swallowtails. And I spooked this Whitetail Deer.

This is the suburbs, too. There were dirt bikers and people on scooters trespassing on the sand and having fun on a hot early summer day. Girls in Daisy Dukes walking the dunes, dog walkers and parents with strollers on the trails.

If you can drown out the noise, it ain’t all bad.