A Pelican in the Wading Pool

Nobody told me when I married a game warden that a pelican would take up temporary residence in my children’s wading pool. Nor did I realize my two tiny daughters and I would spend a couple of days throwing our hooks and lines off a bridge over Big Creek trying to catch enough fish to satisfy that visitor. On the other hand, that eating machine never expected to vacation at our house either.

This event occurred in the late 80s somewhere around Memorial Day weekend. City workers called to explain an injured pelican was devouring gold fish in the  power plant pond. Despite their efforts to banish it, the bird was in the water gobbling little fishies.

This intruder had to be evicted. Every kid in town, little and big, loved that rock pool where they tossed breadcrumbs and oatmeal to tempt orange and white swirls to the surface. Even to feed something as exotic as a pelican was no reason to sacrifice the community fishpond population.

While my husband already knew about pelican beaks, the girls and I learned swiftly to stay out of range of that powerful weapon /lunch sack. Mr. P wasn’t at all happy about his forced removal and tried scaring us with clacking sounds manufactured by snapping jaws. It wasn’t worth risking hand or finger amputations to save frantic gold fish.

 I distracted this fellow while my brave partner snuck behind to slide a huge rubber band around that slashing defense mechanism. Once we had it disabled, we could see a broken wing had driven the creature to the city watering hole for dinner. Who knows how far the crippled bird had walked to fill its rumbling belly. We carefully swaddled it in an old blanket and hauled it home to figure out a plan.

Three decades ago, cell phones and instant communication were a thing of future, and the rehabilitator Wildlife and Parks used wasn’t answering the phone that weekend. As a result, we brainstormed a strategy to care for this creature our daughters had named LA Looks for the spiky top notch on it crown.

The girls volunteered their little blue wading pool to house our guest and their services as fisherwomen. Each had a Mickey Mouse pole they used to cast off the wooden bridge east of our house. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so their dad left us baiting our hooks as he drove off on patrol.

After catching a few palm-size fish, our youngsters released them into the water-filled container Mr. Looks now called home. My husband had unbound the critter’s beak so it immediately slurped up our meager contribution. We stared in disbelief at how swiftly he scooped our catch into his mouth and how far his pouch distended once full of flopping protein. It looked like an expandable bag until he slid those critters down his gullet. Then it shrank immediately back to its previous size.

The bird immediately searched the water for more food. Obviously, a few little perch weren’t sustenance enough, so the girls and I headed back to the creek. We filled a stringer to feed our guest, and once again, his response dazzled us. 

It occurred to me there was no way the human part of this equation could keep up with the pelican’s appetite. I needed to make a trip to the IGA fish department. All the way there, I wondered what it was going to cost to board this fellow until he went to the rehabilitator. I prayed my budget was as big as his stretchy pouch in case he had to stay more than a day.

Along with fish the girls and I caught, we supplemented LA’s diet with frozen whitefish. These codcicles confused him at first, but he eventually slurped them down the hatch. 

While I’d never want to feed a pelican week after week, hosting one for a couple of days was delightful. We were happy to learn LA Looks survived  surgery to show off how many fish he could tuck in his pouch for nearby zoo patrons.

Take Art Classes To Become an Expert Four-Leaf Clover Finder

St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone for another year. With the flip of that calendar page went the need to wear green and an urge to search lawns for lucky four-leaf clovers. The more common three-leaf variety representing faith, hope, and love symbolized Ireland’s most famous saint. Add a leaf to that trefoil and you get luck as well. Finding a shamrock with that extra something is the difficulty. According to some statisticians, only one in 10, 000 possesses the lucky fourth.

As a kid, I loved the challenge of discovering any shamrock. The same girl who struggled to spend 10 minutes solving a tough math problem could wander with her eyes to the ground for an hour or two until she shouted she’d sighted a fortune-enhancing chlorophyll producer.

What I’ve learned since is that paying attention to art instruction would have improved my chances for success. Yes, painting and drawing classes teach people how to spot the rare and unique.

When I was a youngster, I loved to draw and mess with clay, but I never took the coursework seriously. I considered art class a place to relax and have fun without straining my brain. Because I didn’t focus, I missed lessons that could have changed how I understood my world.

Over the past three years, I’ve reconsidered my attitude toward art and started taking as many painting and drawing classes as I can. What I’ve discovered is that learning to shape, shade, and adjust hues and values trains the mind to perceive. I thought I saw just fine all those years before I applied myself to really looking at something. However, the trip home after my first painting class revealed how many subtleties my untutored eye had missed.

Green and yellow are a multitude of hues. Study a grove of trees or a wheat field and try to identify all the shades present. I bet you can’t name all the colors right before your eyes.

Look at a lake, pond, or stream. Would one box of eight crayons allow you to depict that view even if you’re good at blending and shading? Could you do the job properly with a box of 64?

Examine the sky. Which part of it is lighter and which is darker? Does this pattern occur every single day? Does an approaching storm alter your observations?

How does incoming light affect a scene? Where do highlights and shadows form at different times of day or under varying conditions?

Though I’m still in the early stages of developing an artist’s eye, my few lessons have changed how I experience my world. I look for shifts in color and form. I seek what’s different. I search for repetition. There’s more to observe than I realized prior to stepping outside my comfort zone and putting a paintbrush in my hand in my AARP years.

 If only I’d paid close attention to those long ago art teachers, my educated eye would have zeroed in on so many more four-leaf clovers. What might I have done with that extra good fortune . . .?

   

Bread: Machine Vs. Handmade

Here’s a challenge: can you tell the difference between handmade and machine made bread? Handmade means no mixers, no dough hooks, and no electronic devices of any kind until it’s time to pop those risen loaves or rolls in the oven. If taste buds can’t tell a significant difference, why would anyone choose an old-fashioned technique to do a job?

I had a bread machine for years and used it when I taught so I could come home to the comforting aroma of baking bread that accompanied the meal simmering in my crockpot. It was a way to produce home-cooked food without having to eat European style at 8 or 9 p.m. 

Whether it was my imagination or not, I thought handmade bread tasted better, so when I had time, I skipped the plug-in contraption and learned to crank out a pan of rolls or golden loaves nearly as fast as I could measure ingredients into the mixing bucket and push buttons. Along the way, I discovered hand mixing and kneading reduced stress that knotted my shoulders and made my head ache. The fragrance was a bonus, but bread machine provide that as well so it can’t factor into the debate.

Recently, a friend and I quibbled over the merits of hand vs. machine made. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. You get the smell, taste, and freshness both ways. What you don’t find with appliance-made bread is the sensory delight of combining flour, oil, eggs, water, sugar, salt, and yeast into dough.

The other day I mixed five cups of flour into a soppy yeast sponge with my fingers and then kneaded the result until it was ready to rise. Creating that recipe, I realized I relish this aspect of bread making. It returns me to those wondrous childhood days when friends and I spent hours mixing dirt and water to a perfect consistency to manufacture loaf and pie-shaped mud confections to bake on broiling summer sidewalks and driveways. 

I should’ve recognized the warning signs of becoming an artisan baker even then because my companions always tired of this activity before I did. I’ve exchanged gooey, thick mud for sticky dough squishing between my fingers, but that sensation of preparing ingredients to the perfect consistency and then forming them into shapes ready for hot cement or oven is the satisfying part of both activities. 

The good news is my stress-busting, adult bread-making smells much better than the muddy concoctions of my youth. In addition, dirt pies never make it in the door let alone to the table when you talk about flavor or sanitation.  Bread rules over mud pies any day of the week.

In truth, it doesn’t matter that you use a bread machine or Kitchen Aide mixer to crank out a warm, crusty loaf. No matter how you make it, you produce that yeasty aroma that says all is well with the world and fresh flavor you won’t find in plastic-bag-encased-slices on grocery store shelves.

The real difference is that hand-made bread allows bakers to experience the evolution of dough from sticky glop to an elastic mound that sounds like a baby’s behind when patted. For those who savor touch as well as flavor in culinary creations, we’re compelled to dig in to our elbows to fully enjoy the flavors that satisfy our stomachs and spirits.

Spring Jig to Snow Shovel Waltz

It’s only been four weeks since Punxsutawney Phil popped out of his burrow on Gobbler’s Knob  at 7:28 a.m. eastern standard  time and didn’t see his shadow. According to legend, believers could do a happy dance because an early spring was just around the corner.  For anyone living in Kansas, that ground hog- inspired jig turned into a long waltz with a snow shovel.

Despite passing days and ample sunshine, many still have three to four foot reminders of the storm that blanketed our landscape and discredited Phil’s prognostication. On Saturday, I noticed clusters of big blue stem peeping through acres of melting snow, but seen from a distance, the prairies still sport a white topcoat.  Old Man winter is hanging on tenaciously despite warm weather’s best efforts to come calling.

Considering that Phil has only a 39% success rate, perhaps those optimistic  high-steppers should have waited to celebrate.  But, after this recent sunny weekend, maybe he was right and spring is in the air as well as in our steps.  If robins have anything to say about it, they’d tell us the rodent was right on and that white frosting on the prairie will soon turn to mud or running streams.

Even though most yards are still snow-covered, I saw at least a dozen red-breasted harbingers of warm weather hopping over a patchwork of grass and snow during my walk to church. I heard more trilling from neighborhood trees and shrubs.  Compared to the silent birds I saw fluffed and huddled during the height of the blizzard, these feathered visitors were an invigorated glee club celebrating the melt.

This robin invasion is a good sign that Phil is right and winter is over.  Daffodil, crocus, and hyacinth blooms will soon punctuate our flower beds.  The runoff from this late snow should produce lovely bouquets that some of us had given up hope of enjoying.

Not only did I relish watching robins scrounge for early worms as I ambled by, tiny streams trickled where the curbs and pavement met.  Watching the water flow on both sides of the road reminded me of narrow creeks I’ve hopped over on outdoor jaunts. I wondered if a listening device monitoring these rivulets would make them sound like rushing torrents.

We can hope this water is meandering its way into local creeks and eventually rivers.  It would be wonderful if the herons that nest nearby had to wade in deep water for their dinner once they return from South America. Won’t they be surprised to serve up dinner without having to fly to  a distant pool.

Whatever water does make it into ponds and streams will fuel a frog chorus as temperatures rise  and darkness falls.  A side benefit of this current sogginess is we can soon sit outside evenings and listen to the clinking ball-bearing sounds of chorus frogs or the bristly leg rubbing imitation that cricket frogs produce or the funny southern drawl of a Woodhouse toad. A little spring moisture gets more than robins singing.

Punxsutawney Phil may have gotten our hopes up that winter was over when he didn’t see his shadow.  However, the moisture from this late storm that changed many a jolly jig into a snow shovel promenade provided optimism for a greener, noisier spring than western Kansans have enjoyed for some time.  

Growing Older Has Its Merits

Growing older has its merits. You’ve made enough mistakes that you are wiser and more thoughtful. You’re comfortable with yourself. You take others’ opinions and feelings into consideration, but you know what you believe and consider that when you make decisions. You’ve survived catastrophes and tragedies enough that you understand time and love soften pain. Despite physical infirmities and the fact that when you reference commercials, movie stars, and music of your youth, youngsters don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Getting a monthly AARP magazine is a blessing.

That said, gray hair and wrinkles have downsides. One is becoming the oldest generation. The recent deaths of favorite uncles remind me that my husband and I are joining the ranks of elders. That’s hard to take when I think about how much I relied on these individuals for guidance, clarity, humor, and acceptance when I faced challenges or when I needed to know something about my family’s heritage.

An uncle by marriage survived the bombing of Pearl Harbor and served in the Pacific throughout World War II. He came home to be husband, father, and career teacher. Despite battle traumas Uncle Jay certainly faced, my brother and I knew only a kindly man who loved his wife, daughter, and a silly little dachshund. He kept an immaculate yard to de-stress from his classroom. To this day, when I think of him, I see Jay with hose in hand spraying down his already clean patio, watering his trees, or helping the love of his life with household chores.

My dad’s second brother Bob also came to maturity serving in the Pacific. He, too, loved his yard and garden and spent hours growing beautiful roses and luscious vegetables. I recall sitting with him in his front yard watching flocks of mallards fly in to feast on corn he set out for them every day. We didn’t talk much, but the pleasure he felt at these simple activities was evident. He found his peace in nature.

My dad’s oldest brother Seedy was a rough and tumble guy who’d grown to adulthood during The Depression and early Kansas oil boom years. When I consider him, I think of hard hats and rig clothes. My aunt kept reminders of his luck on a kitchen shelf. He and a drilling crew survived a fiery blow out, and the carbonized eyeglasses and tin headgear reminded me that life is tenuous.

This gruff uncle entranced his nieces and nephews by putting his thumb to his lips and blowing on it to make the brim of his hat rise. As a little girl, I tried and tried to make the same thing happen with my little straw cowgirl hat with no luck. I’d missed the part where he leaned back against the wall to create leverage.

Uncle Seedy always found coins in my cousins’ and my ears. Every time we visited, he mined a bank full of quarters and dimes out of these orifices. My joy in this activity continued when I took my little girls to visit him. Not surprisingly, they shared the family trait of sprouting money in their little ears. My aunt later told me a great-uncle had performed this trick with my dad and his siblings. Uncle Seedy loved passing on the magic.

Losing these men means missing their presence and their sense of homegrown fun at family gatherings as well as their wisdom and stories. After they passed, I longed to hear their insights about events that occurred before my time. They enriched my understanding not only of my universe, but also that of my parents.

It’s hard to think about stepping into their shoes. I don’t feel worthy or knowledgeable enough to carry their torches. I still can’t make my hat brim rise when I blow on my thumb or find money in children’s ears. 

Along with the benefits of aging come burdens. 

Frugal Fun

Go to enough auctions of people who survived The Depression, World War II, the blows of the 50s, and the one car families of the 60s, and you’ll find  boxes of small square table cloths and probably more than one deck of regular or pinochle playing cards and maybe a box of dominoes. These inexpensive, reusable items were ingredients for Friday and Saturday night good times as well as the center of family gatherings at holidays.

In small towns across Western Kansas, diehards still host Friday night pitch and pinochle parties and break out the cards when family comes for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The backbeat to a shuffled deck and sound of dealt aces, spades, clubs, and hearts hitting the table is the murmur of laughter and shared stories. The music of chairs scooching across the floor resounds as folks rise to go to the refreshment table to reload plates with salty pretzels along with homemade sweets and finger foods. Add a perking coffee pot and ice clinking in a tea pitcher, and you have a regular kitchen band accompanying the festivities.

I recently learned to play pitch and discovered what I’ve been missing all the years I haven’t joined in card games. This laughter-filled camaraderie requires concentration on the hand you’re playing, the hand you think your partner will play, and the ones your opponents hold. It’s much more fun than sitting in front of the TV or reading a book.

 Not only are you contemplating what to lay down next, folks of all ages are sharing their stories. This multi–generational interaction is good for the brain and spirit. I wonder if scientists know how much longer regular card players’ minds remain sharp versus electronically entertained brains or how much happier card players are than plug-in fun folks. Though I wouldn’t want to give up reading as a favorite pastime, card playing may cut into some of my page turning.

While we no longer worry about childcare, I can see where pitch or pinochle parties are a great way for young couples to socialize on the cheap. Several families could employ an older brother or sister at bargain rates to play games and entertain little kids while parents enjoy a few hours of grown-up time. This kind of adult/kid play date is win/win for everyone. Kids party with their buddies while mom and dad match wits and visit with friends.

Keeping fun local cuts down on gas expenses and refreshments can be as easy as ice tea and pretzels. A web site devoted to card party snacks encourages keeping food simple. Serving chips and dip or salsas takes up room while eating them increases the risk of marking cards. A community card party I recently attended suggested participants bring finger foods, which added to the fun at the tables. Because everyone brought a dish, no one worked too hard or broke the budget on an evening’s entertainment.

In today’ casual world, people don’t expect tablecloths when they play pitch or pinochle. However, it’s good to tear away from the TV, computer, or electronic games to sit down with friends and family for an old-fashioned good time. You’ll use your noggin, catch up with neighbors and loved ones, and go home glad you joined the fun--guaranteed.