Happy Birthday, Julie Zickefoose!!!

In my family, the written word has always been a prominent love language. Every year since I was 10, my mom has dutifully crafted a celebratory blogpost on my birthday--a couple of weeks ago, she published the 15th! Some are poetic while others are more of a narrative, and all include a highlight reel of photos that sum up my recent history. Anyone who has me mixed into their Facebook algorithm has probably seen them. Liam gets them, too, as did my dad and our first dog Chet Baker (Curtis usually gets a gotcha-day post). So I'm not sure why it's taken so long to strike me that I would like to write a birthday blogpost for my mom. I'm drafting this post on the actual day of her birth, July 24th, but given my ~creative process~ it probably won't see the light of day until it's a bit belated. But good things take time, like the pot roasts and fruit crisps and chicken pot pies she puts in the oven. Since I moved away, I've been trying like hell to recreate her meals, so I know how it works. 

Simply put, I am so proud of my mom. I've always been proud of her, but the feeling has expanded even more these past few years. One of her main fears around my dad's passing was no longer having someone around to do the big land maintenance tasks he'd always (albeit infrequently) done, like weed whacking and mowing the fields with the big tractor. With me living elsewhere and Liam at college, she was essentially alone with our property. If only she could have seen herself now! She has fearlessly figured everything out and tackled the biggest projects of her life on that land, pruning and planting and mowing and growing with a keen eye for beauty and the utmost respect for native wildlife. She has made great connections with local landscapers and Amish roofers (who she also sometimes hires to hop on the tractor), and taught herself how to weed whack. She spent months doggedly heading out every day with hedge trimmers and eventually freed our overgrown orchard from the multiflora rose and grapevines strangling it. She has reclaimed and maintained all of the trails on our land that had been grown over for years. She completely cleaned out and reorganized our basement and garage, which both formerly looked like portals to hell. And now that all the refuse is gone, my favorite part has been watching her dream up and indulge in small but significant aesthetic improvements; namely her new patio. I know she's made my dad so proud with this--he would always sit in the yard with a beer on summer evenings and dream up ideas just like that one. 

Grilling surprise steaks for my birthday after she cleaned the cobwebs off of my dad's old gas grill and taught herself how to use it. I honestly never thought I would taste that again. (And before you ask, Liam's tattoo is temporary!)

Just a few of the dogwoods freed

While undertaking everything listed above, my mom also continued her life's work of supporting and documenting all of the wildlife around her. All by herself, she creates a bastion for birds, bugs, plants, animals, and everything in between. Within her considerable sphere of influence, baby bluebirds don't starve when there's a late spring cold snap. Monarchs, fritillaries, skippers, and swallowtails have ample butterfly weed and milkweed to sustain them. Rare and beautiful orchids thrive on what was once barren cow pasture. And bobcats have clawed their way back from near extermination, leading kittens down the well-maintained meadow paths each summer. My mom has stacks of journals filled with her observations of every kind of living creature, and can tell you things like exactly how many unique species of butterflies she's found on the property (77 with a new addition last week!) and the approximate arrival dates for any migrating bird. Through her actions and wisdom, she has shown me that one does not need to have a PhD in order to make meaningful and valid contributions to science. 

Showy Orchis on our land!

Painting by her, of course

The amazing thing is that most everything I've written so far will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone connected with my mom online. She's not only made these observations for herself--she has crafted them into alluring stories and shared them with the world through books, her blog, and social media (@juliezickefoose on Instagram if you're not already there). She has made the wonders of nature accessible to anyone willing to read. It recently hit me that when I marvel at how much she's taught me about the natural world, I have to multiply that by at least a few thousand to even begin to capture her influence in this world. In a time when the natural world needs well-informed allies more than ever, she has provided a spectacular and invaluable service. 

And of course, to top this all off, she is an absolutely incredible mother; the details of which I hold close to my heart sometimes. Being able to go home to her is my greatest privilege in this life and truly keeps me sane. She has taught me lessons and ways of being that will echo down through generations of our family to come. Every day I am a little more like her, and it's always something I'm thankful for. Because to be like her is to save the world. Happy birthday, mama. 

Beyond Luck

Tonight, I'm coming to you live from the 8th floor of an airport hotel in Lisbon, Portugal. My room primarily overlooks a BP station and a roundabout, but in the distance I can see the city proper under a cloudless sky. Under normal circumstances, I'd be taking pictures of the incredible tiled buildings and watching the sun set over the water, but Lisbon (and much of Portugal) is in a bad spot with COVID right now. So instead, I've ordered in and am remembering the layover Oscar and I had here two summers ago on our way back to the States. While the words "overnight layover" may make some people cringe, I have had nothing but great experiences with TAP Air Portugal connecting to the Canaries through Lisbon. They service much of Europe and actually have really good airplane food, so check it out if you're in the market (#sponsor #me #TAP). Pictured food is not from the airplane but rather an amazing little restaurant called Alpendre that we stumbled upon while in the city. 

                      

Back to the present, because I have a story to tell from today. Today was the day that I left the island. (yes, many tears were shed, but that's another topic!) My original travel plan was as follows: 

-Wake up at ~5:15 am to get ready, finish packing up, eat breakfast, walk the dog, etc.

-Leave around 6:15 for the hour-long drive across the island to the port

-Take the 8 am ferry to the southern port of Tenerife (the ONLY ferry leaving the island before 2 pm. If you ever travel to the Canaries, take my advice and do not arrive or depart on a Sunday)

-Arrive at 9 am and use a walking/taxi/bus combination to leisurely make my way 20 minutes over to the southern airport 

-Fly out to Lisbon at 2:15 pm

Sounds easy enough, right? There are two ways off of La Gomera (ferry and plane), and I had chosen the ferry because it would get me much closer to the Tenerife South airport, which is where my flight to Lisbon was departing from. There are two daily flights to Tenerife, but they only service the Tenerife North airport, which is a full hour's drive from Tenerife South with traffic. I hope this makes sense for the sake of the story--It's all second nature to me now, but sometimes I look back and marvel on how I managed to piece together the inter-island travel systems largely through TripAdvisor reviews before heading to Canarias for the first time. It is really confusing! 

From https://eas.unige.ch/EWASS2015/travel.jsp

Anyway, I finally got to bed last night around 1:30 after a marathon packing session. Oscar and I sat together and both set our alarms for 5:15 am, knowing that we couldn't miss it. My head hit the pillow, and the next thing I knew, Oscar was shaking me awake. I opened my eyes and saw light outside, and had one of those classic stomach drop adrenaline rushes. We were supposed to be leaving in the pitch black. What happened?! It was 7:30 am--I should have been aboard my ferry, but instead I was still in bed an hour away. How could it be that neither one of our phones sounded? I've definitely had mishaps with mine a couple of times in the past, but we'd been setting and waking up to alarms the whole trip without a problem, so setting two almost seemed like overkill. And no, we did not sleep through them--I am incapable of doing that and Oscar is sensitive as well. 

Still bewildered, I jumped up to get my laptop because the only other way off that chunk of basalt was by plane at 10:30 am. I coughed up the euros for the last-minute price hike, and we got out of the house with just enough time to drive the hour to the airport. The lady at the check-in desk very graciously ignored my 30-pound baggage excess (moving across the ocean is hard, okay?), and before I knew it, Oscar and I were saying goodbye. As hectic as the morning had been, we were so grateful to have had a few more hours together. When you're in the final stretch, each minute feels like a gift, and we had really gotten a windfall. 

I boarded the little propellor plane and braced myself for a stressful transfer upon arrival in Tenerife. The flight was set to arrive to Tenerife North at 11 am, and my flight to Lisbon was boarding in Tenerife South at 1:30 pm. I would need to get my bags and find a taxi immediately for the hour-long ride south, and just pray for short check-in and security lines once I got there. It was doable but very risky, and would have a disastrous domino effect if it didn't work out. I put in my headphones and tried to relax, but after a while I noticed that we weren't descending like I would expect. The flight is just 30 minutes long, so it's pretty much up and right back down. The captain eventually came on over the intercom and said that Tenerife North was experiencing some strong gusts from the vientos alísios (trade winds), and had a thick blanket of clouds drastically reducing visibility. His plan was to circle the airport to see if things got better, but if not, we would have to divert to Tenerife South. 

Tenerife South. 

WHAT?! As everyone else on the plane groaned, my eyes got wide. There's no way I could be that lucky. I've flown that route probably 15 times and it's never been diverted. I kept my hopes low as we circled above the northern panhandle of the island 10+ times. The chances of landing in the north and making my flight in the south were getting slimmer and slimmer. I watched the compass on my phone go around and around until finally, it held steady moving southeast. Sure enough, the captain came on again, this time leading with an apology because the flight had officially been diverted. I'm telling you, I could not believe my luck. Not only was I saving the large chunk of money I would've spent on a taxi, but this was actually even easier than my original plan. I felt terrible for everyone else (because I was definitely the only happy person on that flight), but Binter Canarias (the airline) would take good care of them, and many of their connecting flights had been diverted to Tenerife South as well. 

Scratchy plane windows and beautiful weather everywhere in Tenerife except the north

As soon as we landed, I called Oscar and told him the news. He was just as incredulous! We have concluded that this must have been the work of our dads. We talk about them all the time--what they must be doing up in the sky, what they'd think of our lives now, and how they might be looking out for us. My dad was the #1 travel logistics expert, so I know he must have had a hand in today's events. 

Thank you clouds <3 I spy with my little eye four Canary Islands!

Any remaining doubt was wiped away as my little plane from La Gomera was about to touch down and "Citywide Rodeo" by The Weepies started playing out of a shuffle of my 569-song playlist. My dad played me that song as we roadtripped across Ohio when I was probably 10 years old. Some things are just beyond coincidence; beyond luck. 

Until next time, my loves!