Helping Birds Decorate Their Nests

You’ve heard the saying, “Looks can be deceiving.” That statement describes our little terrier’s coat. When you meet him, he looks like a sleek pooch who doesn’t shed.  That’s true July through February. However, when the calendar says spring, he gives March Madness a new interpretation.

Most folks who meet the winter Buster love to pet his silky fur and rub his soft ears.  Let them visit before a spring de-thatching, and they’ll wear Buster home. That little guy sheds like a champ. If there were Olympics for losing winter hair, our pet would win a gold medal.

Once we’re well into summer and he’s down to his hot weather duds, I forget about his ability to fill brush after brush with taupe fluff.  Throughout the cold months, I don’t think a thing about Buster’s special talent, but come those first warm days, and I remember he’s a nest building bird’s best friend.

As soon as I spy that first filament separating from a follicle, we spend spa time together.  I don’t know that he sees getting repeatedly swiped with a grooming glove as pleasurable, but I’m on a mission to capture that loose hair before it gets on me or someone else. He’s just a little guy—only 14 pounds, but he fills the grooming mitt or the wire brush time after time with handfuls of velvety fiber. 

 

For years, I tossed his winter long johns in the trash as quickly as I gleaned them even though I’d heard of folks who harvest their beloved beasts’ hair and spin it into yarn to use to weave or knit. That seemed over the top even considering how much raw material my little  half Jack Russell sloughs off each year. I figure he’s good to supply a child-size sweater.

During my musings, I read that birds line their nests with anything downy, including pet hair. Aha, the ultimate repurposing without purchasing a spinning wheel and the accouterments to take up either knitting or weaving.

Learning to up-cycle my pooch’s fuzz to improve neighborhood bird real estate changed Buster’s spring curse to a blessing.  Instead of being upset that his winter growth falls out, I pledge to capture every strand to share with robins, sparrows, wrens, flycatchers, cardinals, orioles, and even blue jays. 

Old Sol’s rays beat down to warm the tops of Buster’s and my heads and shoulders while balmy breezes riffle over us. As I comb my little friend to retrieve nest-decorating supplies, I hope my companion enjoys his western Kansas version of a tropical beauty treatment.

Spotting Buster’s fuzzy discards lining a bird nest makes those hours grooming him worthwhile.  I like thinking the coat that warmed him through cold winter days keeps future serenaders toasty and comfy until they fledge into summer skies.  

Growing Bookworms or the Blessings of Community Libraries

Watching how much my two-year-old granddaughter loves books reminds me of a seven-year-old,  toothpick-legged child who thought she was a big girl when her momma handed her her allowance on Saturday mornings. Along with that shiny dime, that little girl’s mother permitted her to trek uptown-- first to the dime store and then to the library. The coin was spent in no time.  It took much longer to wander up and down the bookshelf aisles searching for the perfect three or four titles to carry home so she could escape into those well-turned pages for a week of exciting adventure.

Yes, that scrawny little gal was me. I loved my weekly visit to the library. Spending that dime occupied a half hour or so of exploring the toy department from top to bottom. I combined this with obsessing over an old-fashioned candy counter where glass compartments housed chocolate stars, jawbreakers, licorice, and caramel clusters among other treats a clerk scooped onto a scale before bagging my treasure. Munching on gooey chocolate all the way home was satisfying,  but showing off my book selections to my mom highlighted the morning.  And the best was yet to come. . . .

Hours of joyous escape and new knowledge patiently awaited me as I examined each cover to decide where my escapades would begin.  After I piled the books in reading order, I’d curl up in a sunny, warm spot in the house—maybe in the living room or on my bed where I could escape into other lands and other lives.  My grandma’s house had a great walk-in closet I could turn into my secret domain for hours while words danced off pages into pioneer wagons or princess castles or Nancy Drew mysteries.

When I had little girls, they, too, loved trips to the community library where they could scan shelves just their height until they found books that begged to go home with them in their little totes. When they entered their toddler years, our local librarian hosted a scheduled event that made this place even more appealing.  It was a terrible day when you were too sick to go to story hour.

Every time I open the door to a library, I never know what journey I’ll experience. I’ve traveled through the ages in a page-filled time machine. I’ve met kings and queens, famous soldiers and presidents, along with some rock stars.  I’ve read tales that drew tears and sighs and those that made me laugh until I had hiccups.  I discovered the key to avoiding boredom amongst all those silent friends.

What would life be like without public libraries? As a lifelong card owner, I can’t imagine.  What I have learned doing research inside those walls is that not every town had a library.  It took a zealous ladies’ organization or a combination of clubs to start libraries in prairie communities.  In Logan Kansas, women recognized the need for a library in their little town and, with rustling skirts, got to work establishing one that still exists today. 

Ellis Kansas can thank the Union Pacific and a specific employee, Mr. Dorrance, for starting their library.  It seems appropriate the city fathers named a street after the person who made such a difference in his world. Hays, Plainville, Stockton and 56 other Kansas towns can thank Andrew Carnegie  and local taxpayers for their fine libraries. 

The first Carnegie Library in Scotland had the adage “Let There Be Light” above the door. I like to imagine such a motto exists in some form above every library entrance. 

It's Not Good to Want a Thing Too Much

One of my favorite novels to teach was John Steinbeck’s The Pearl.  I loved his use of landscape, the very human ways the main character Kino and his young wife Juana faced ills that befell them, and truths about human nature the author unfolded in quotes that emerge from my memory at odd times. One of those instances occurred last week.

Ever since we moved, I’ve anticipated planting a garden behind our shed.  A neighbor used his tractor to till well-rested soil to crumbly powder that sifted through my fingers like sand through an hourglass. After gardening on a rocky hilltop for almost two decades, I was giddy thinking about tucking seed potatoes and onion slips into fertile earth.

While some folks use an almanac to tell them the best time to plant, the weather channel’s rain predictions guide me. There’s nothing like a heaven-sent soaking to get seeds off to good start. Based on the report, it looked like Mother Nature would aid me in christening my new seed plot.

According to the internet, I could expect a 90% chance for moisture. That offered good odds even in these dry times, so I cut up seed potatoes, prepared onion slips and bulbs, and organized packets of early season seeds. The whole time I loaded my garden cart with supplies, words rattled inside my head like seeds in a dry gourd—“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away . . . .”

Those syllables haunted me because I couldn’t remember where I’d heard or read them. In my imagination, I saw an Indian woman saying them, so I started a mental inventory of books, movies, and  TV shows I’d read or seen, hoping to come up with a source. Finally, I recalled John Steinbeck penned them decades ago when he told the parable of a young man and his pearl of great value.

Straddling rows of freshly planted Yukon gold, Kennebeck, and red Pontiac potatoes, I wished mightily for rain and remembered Steinbeck’s words. Surely the weatherman was more correct than a long dead author. When I rose from popping onions in fresh-plowed earth, a desire for sprinkles crossed my mind only to have that repeating quote attack. 

It made me wonder if a similar superstition drives farmers to understate their dreams for good harvests. I don’t know that I’ve heard an agriculturist boast about the quality of a crop in the field.  Too many factors can drive either production or prices south to make a person with expectations still rooted in dirt voice hope. 

Sunday dawned damp and gray. Perhaps I hadn’t wanted rain too much. Surely I had wished just enough. I turned on my computer to search the weather report. Rain was north and east of us, not over us. We’d had a hint of moisture, but not the real deal. 

This experience helps me understand why farmers are cautious. Steinbeck must have learned this restraint growing up in an agricultural region. Perhaps words he attributed to a young mother living beside the Sea of Cortez initially emerged from the mouth of a farmer visiting John’s father’s feed and grain store in Salinas. 

Serendipity on Highway 183

Some words stick in the mind, and serendipity is one of many rattling around my cranium. In college, I hung out at a retreat called Serendipity House. I’d never heard the expression before, so after my first visit, I hit the dictionary.

 Imagine learning this fun-to-say term meant happy accident or pleasant surprise. That definition fit the old two-story home that served as meeting place and comfort zone for on-the-cusp-of-adulthood young people. Since that time, other unexpected pleasures have made me smile and recall that melodious word along with the warm feelings that accompany it.

Recently, I lucked into one of those unanticipated bits of fortune that make me realize how blessed I am to call this prairie home. My unforeseen benediction required a sequence of events to fall into place. Once they did, I recognized I’d encountered a mini-miracle.

Yes, there are big miracles that no one can miss, and there are tiny wonders that happen every day that we may or may not recognize. Fortunately, this one snapped me like a full-stretched rubber band so I knew I had enjoyed something pretty darn special.

My happy adventure began in the wee hours before dawn. My husband and I awoke dark-early to drive to the Platte River so I could crane watch. He knows I love seeing tens of thousands of my favorite birds staging along its shallow waters, so he humors me with these Spring  junkets. It doesn’t hurt that a nearby Cabela’s is a great place to warm up after a frosty bird watching endeavor.

When we hit Highway 9 in the deepest shadows of pre-dawn, I noted the full moon that had shone into my bedroom window the night before had journeyed from East to West, where it hovered like a big ol’ communion wafer. By the time we reached the bridge over Harlan County Reservoir in Nebraska, pale rose and lavender fingers infused the eastern horizon, but the only star-spiked black outlined that buttery globe in the West.

Somehow, I got so busy watching dawn break that I forgot to keep an eye on that sinking disc. North of Holdrege, Nebraska, sunrise was in full display. A huge yellow sphere pierced orange skies when I thought to look West. Instead of the retina-blasting glow in the East, pale blue silhouetted a fading ball that was only a whisper of its earlier brilliance.

That particular section of Highway 183 permitted a clear view to the East and to the West so that I could see almost the exact moment that sun and moon were directly across from one another like round ends of dumbbells. If I’d been home, I’d have missed seeing this alignment of two perfect orbs because of interfering rooftops and a slight rise west of our house. 

In this serendipitous flash, every sense tuned into the cycles of light and dark that drive human existence. The imaginative side of me considered that for an instant, my husband and I swung in a prairie hammock whose ends connected to both sun and moon.

While I expected the exciting part of our quest to be skies and cornfields filled with thousands of sandhill cranes, that part of the day was just the cherry topping the hot fudge sundae. The instant of discovering me suspended between rising sun and sinking full moon will trigger 1000s of future smiles and the joyous repetition of one of my favorite words--serendipity.