UPDATE: I wondered what the Cooper’s Hawks would do when all the smaller birds and rodents were gone, and now we know. Rather unceremoniously, the hawks left. Seemingly, every single one. It was literally like over night. Maybe this is that circle of life. With the departure of the hawks, the other birds are quickly…

There has been a patch of orange cosmos at 4th and Wilson in Royal Oak for the last seven or eight years. It’s nothing huge, just an extension to the larger bed in the boulevard, near the happy-hand-stand soldier statue. The first year I planted, I cleared away a rusty pile of scrap iron to…