Staying Put: Blossoming Weigela

We've lived in the same house now for eight years, located on the downhill slope of the northern edge of the Rock River valley as it cuts through the last vestiges of the Prairie Coteau that stretches all the way from northern South Dakota through southwest Minnesota and into northwest Iowa.  We've come to expect a few things living here, some of them typical:  every spring a robin nests in the arbor outside our sunroom door every spring and baby rabbits are birthed somewhere in the vicinity and eat off our beans.  There's the problematic--a plague of slugs grows like gooey warts on all varieties of plants  come high summer--but also the wondrous: in fall, monarch butterflies gather in bounteous blessing in the sheltered corridor between our house and our neighbor to the east. 

We've somewhat put our stamp on the yard that we inherited.  The bed out front has been transplanted with tall grass prairie plants--little blue stem and black-eyed susans, Russian sage and purple coneflower, but the plants in the backyard remain problematic: a purple-leafed tree sends up succors by the hundreds; two red shrubs filled with prickers simply annoy us; the grapevine over the arbor has never produced like it should, at least partially due to happenstance pruning on our part.  This year, I didn't trim any of those backyard shrubs and they're looking wild and unkempt, though the added foliage has apparently created the perfect love nest for the rabbits who are off to a prolific start propagating their kind. 

But perhaps due to my inattention, one of the unknown shrubs behind the house is blooming like I've never seen it bloom in eight years, producing small pink, trumpet-like buds up and down its long-armed extensions.  As my wife watered the garden--so that the teeming rabbits will have something to eat--and I cleaned up some rotten wood on the back patio, a whirring in the bush caught our attention.  There, darting in and out of the tiny blossoms just inviting enough for their small beaks, was a hummingbird so small that I doubted what I was seeing.  It was no bigger than a large moth, the like of which also proliferates around our house.  As if to confirm that it was indeed a hummingbird, just then an adult showed up momentarily, a male with dark hood and brilliant ruby throat in the dying light, absolutely stunning.  In a moment, he was gone, but the size comparison between the feeding bird and the adult male made clear what we had here:  these were baby hummingbirds, only a fraction of the size of their parents, and they were absolutely feasting on these flowers.

As we watched, we saw a second bird, then, ever more improbably, a third, fourth and fifth--an entire nest of hummingbird babies, hovering at each flower, darting in and out, high and low on this bush I'm note sure ever bloomed before because I'd always over-trimmed it.  Children came from playing in the neighborhood to see the phenomenon, some of them mightily unimpressed by the glorified moths in the bush, all of the babies unremarkable in their brown color except for a slight striping on the mad rush of their wings.  It's something they might never see again, I want to tell them, but just let them watch for a minute or two before they run back to their game. 

This morning, a google search lands me as close as I can get to the bush type: I think it's a type of weigela, a plant native to east Asia, either a Weigela Florida or perhaps even the poetic Wine and Roses Weigela.

In either case, it's beautiful, one of those unexpected gifts of nature that, as Annie Dillard has noted, surprises you with its wonder and extravagance, makes you catch your breath, was under your nose all the time and yet failed to arrest you with its wonder until, voila, it's glory shines forth in blooms and hummingbirds.

It's enchanting; it's entrenching.  We've got a thousand reasons to leave here; between us, we literally put thousands of miles on  driving to jobs further down the coteau.  Further down the coteau, too, we could experience wonders such as these.  And yet, as the memories and moments of wonder stack up in this place, it becomes harder to leave, even against what many would call "common sense."