Ginkgo, Raccoon, and Woodpecker: The Art of the Mull

I have become quite the muller as of late. Ideas don’t sprout from my head fully fleshed until I do some serious mulling first. Rather, my mind collects an assortment of conundrums and possibilities, and tosses them into my brain where—like dish towels in a washing machine—the bits swirl and churn.

Sometimes my mulling lasts for weeks or even months before a fine idea pops out of my head all fluffy clean and sweet and ready for use. I encourage you to try some mulling. It is is a wonderful creative process. It is not to be confused for even one moment with the anxiety, frustration, or teeth-gnashing that go into a typical planning process. Mulling is forged from patience, friendly curiosity, and deep, deep trust. With these pillars in place, you just need to sit back and enjoy the journey. And I have to mention patience again, because it is the keystone of the mulling process. Mulling takes time to wander from the intellect into the body and heart where deep trust lives. When the solutions come, they just “feel right.”

For most of this winter, I’ve been mulling what to do about our ginkgo tree, our resident yard raccoon, our suet feeders, and our woodpeckers. I tossed these bits into the tumbler in my mind, and let them swirl.

About this ginkgo tree: It is a skinny thing, not native to our area, perhaps grieving how it got so far from its Asian home. I’m all about native plants and trees these days, and figured something would need to be done about the sad gingko. So, toss that puppy into the mulling machine…

We discovered that the creature who had been coming for bird food every night this winter was a raccoon.

I was hoping for a possum, as they are sweet, solitary, and not destructive, but alas, the cheap trail cam we purchased managed to take a single photo of a fat, ringed tail before the unit died.Possum tracks are very different from raccoon tracks. We call them “star feet…”

Sure enough, our raccoon began living up to her devilish reputation by ripping down the suet feeders we put out on the branches of our ornamental cherry tree (another Asian interloper with little to offer any of our local bugs, bees, or birds). I’d fill the wire feeder baskets up for the nuthatches, finches, and chickadees and find the metal baskets mangled on the ground the next morning, no suet in sight.

But when I unexpectedly came face to face with the lord-bird of the forest—the pileated woodpecker—on fresh suet one late morning, I realized I needed to toss the woodpecker and the suet feeders into my mulling machine. There had to be a solution that would include a raccoon-free suet zone.

We are so new to this house, having only moved here this past November. I’ve lived in many wonderlands in my life, from the mountains of the Rockies, to the hardwood forests of the midwest, to the oak hills of California, a Northwest island, and even a two year stint on the high seas, but never in the Northwest maritime forest where we live now. Here, the ferns are as high as an elephant’s eye, and the banana slugs love singing in the rain. 

Sun doesn’t reach us much during the winter, as our beautiful tree canopy of cedars, firs, maples, and hemlocks encircle our small clearing with a quieting protective winter shade—all fine inducements to to slowing down for good mulling. We’ve had a wet first winter here, and then the past weeks tossed us unto a hard cold spell with a bit of snow and lots of slush and ice. Temps hovered in the thirties—twenties at night—the past few weeks.

Then, suddenly one morning, spring arrived. She did not stroll gently in. She strode on strong legs wrapped in a cloak of rain and 50-degree weather. Well hello!

And right in step with her came a fine solution to my ginkgo, raccoon, suet, and woodpecker ponderings. As from the mind of Zeus, out of my mulling basket it tumbled forth full grown: The skinny ginkgo would become the permanent home for the suet feeder. With some minor modifications and a bit of luck, we would have a safe place for the suet eating birds, a no-climb zone for our raccoon, and a life of purpose for the ginkgo.

Yesterday morning, I stepped outside and breathed in that clean, crisp early spring air. So different is that sweet breath from the oft-contracted inhalations of winter. You can taste it on your tongue and in your lungs—the vitality, the promise, the life!

 I assembled my tool bucket and my garden basket and called Carter for company. The upper trunk of the ginkgo is quite spindly. I know that woodpeckers brace themselves with their tails, and the lord-bird would have a hard time with that skinny pole. Poking through our wood pile, I found a piece of wider wood I could use to attach the suet wire basket to, and then affix to the tree for a good brace for birds. I do most of my building projects with duct tape, zip ties, glue— and maybe a few nails or screws if I really get my builder-groove on.

I had to take three flimsy limbs off the ginkgo, but they would not go to waste. They were gorgeous long twigs covered with mosses and lichens of many colors and mysterious names. I took the branches up to my bathroom which I plan to turn into a fake but not cheap-gaudy forest sometime this summer.

I looked online this winter to learn how to keep raccoons and squirrels out of trees. All manner of scary items with names like “porcupine wire,” “concertina,” “wire mesh spikes” popped up. Most seemed like torture devices. Metal sheet wrap, another alternative, was expensive. My trusty mulling machine kicked out a different plan: I have a huge amount of left-over pond liner. I am figuring it is slick enough to keep Raccoon from scaling that small trunk. We’ll see…

My fingers are crossed that my little project will work out well for all concerned.

The birds gave their approval. This varied thrush was one of the first arrivals…

Now, I must get to mullling on that upstairs bathroom project: How to make a fake stream? Fake forest floor? Trees? Animals? How big a rock or two can I carry upstairs? Fake rocks? Logs? The muller is churning…