A Wish that Worked Out

This time of year is a good time to remember traditions that remind us of generations who came before us. One of the best culture keepers in this region was an Ellis County historian named Lawrence Weigel. He visited my classes each year in the early 90s to share tales about Volga German customs involving Christ Kind, Belznickel, and New Year wϋnsching  (winching) traditions with high school freshmen. Nodding heads confirmed that some youngsters’ families still practiced these Old World activities. At the same time, puzzled faces and blank looks revealed that others were clueless about such customs. My own Volga German family didn’t pass on these stories so I was thrilled to learn them. Every January 1, I think of Mr. Weigel’s anecdotes about families calling on one another on the New Year to share wishes for health, long life, good luck, peace and health, and eternal happiness after death.

As only a beloved grandfather figure can, our lecturer described a festive day of visiting, feasting, and a bit of tippling. Part of this practice involved parents teaching youngsters to recite a wish that ran something like this passage I found online, “ Ich wϋnsche euch ein glϋckseliges Neues Jahr. Langes Leben. Gesϋndheit. Fried und Einigkeit. Und nach dem Tod, ewig Glϋckseligkeit.” As families traveled door-to-door or farm-to-farm, children lucky to be the first visitor or a beloved relative earned a coin for their efforts along with a handful of nuts or sweets. I’ve listened to more than one elder tell stories of reciting this rhyme to collect spending money. Recalling such memories always brought a sparkle to their eyes and a lilt to their voices.

According to Mr. Weigel, this occasion was also a day for young men old enough to marry to court available local maidens. If I recollect correctly, he explained the Romeos announced their arrival with a shotgun blast to the sky. I’m not sure how romantic that was, but young women possessing several color-coded ribbons eagerly awaited noisy suitors. I can imagine girls biting lips and pinching cheeks to increase their rosy tint on an already cold morning. I’m guessing a certain amount of shy smiling and foot shuffling took place as well since adults and younger siblings stood nearby to supervise the show. Girls would pin their good will tokens on callers’ lapels, saving a particular color for a special fellow. I’d love to hear one of these stories firsthand.

Storekeepers certainly would’ve encouraged this custom since so many families produced much of their only holiday food rather than buying it. Despite their customers’ self-sufficient natures, demand for ammo and fripperies at the local mercantile would’ve increased merchant bank deposits during days leading up to this holiday.

This time of year on social media, I see folks sending one another this New Year greeting. I hope area families continue to share customs that crossed the sea and traveled overland with their ancestors. These are little traditions, yet they remind us of brave forebearers who left the familiar to offer descendants a better life. Many of us can honestly say this centuries old good luck wish has worked out well.

An Unexpected Cooking Lesson

It’s curious how common items either go out of use or their intended purpose alters. One of those is the nutcracker. Most people nowadays think this term refers to a seasonal ballet where they might enjoy watching children or grandkids dressed up as old-fashioned ornamental German nutcrackers wearing military-style hats or as dainty sugarplum fairies. Others may store treasured family heirlooms until they retrieve them to decorate their tree. I recently had occasion to realize that actual nutcrackers frequently found in auction boxes serve a real purpose.

As a kid, my family bought whole nuts at Christmas time and offered them in a decorative bowl along with a metal pincer-style device and a silver pick for getting at hard to reach nutmeats. This practice continued a custom both my parents grew up with during the Depression. Their frugal families passed on a ritual long followed by their ancestors.

At our house, one of those traditions included filling Christmas stockings with an orange, an apple, and either some unshelled peanuts or whole nuts. Knowing many generations practiced this holiday tradition reminds me of a time when fresh fruits and nuts were luxuries one enjoyed only on special occasions. Despite knowing I’d see nuts every holiday that required a special opener, I never considered the nutcracker tool an essential kitchen utensil until I recently received a 5 lb. bag of fresh pecans.

An Oklahoma friend lives near the many groves in Eastern Oklahoma and shared his bounty. When I first saw lumpy grocery sack, I imagined it full of ready to eat pecans. When I opened this treasure trove, I realized my mistake. This freshly picked harvest had gone through a mechanical cracker to make it easier to extract the tasty center. However, I had to peel away shattered outer husks and separate the two pecans halves each shell once protected.  

It didn’t take long to understand why nuts are holiday treats and why some people esteem pies, cakes, cookies, candies, and butters made with them. As a person who considers walnuts, pecans, peanuts, cashews, and almonds edible only when served by themselves but not in baked goods, I missed this message growing up.

After I spent a couple of hours freeing nutmeats from shells, I understand why I find nutcrackers at almost every auction I attend. They were essential in old time kitchens. Cooks didn’t go to the store to buy a sack of already shelled nuts. They roamed creek banks to harvest nature’s encased proteins and then spent hours extracting meats from hulls. Knowing how my grandmas made use of everything, I’m sure they saved the inedible material to create fabric dyes or enrich garden soils.

This lesson humbled me. I’ve enjoyed preparing family recipes from scratch for decades. I never considered how I take for granted buying already-ground flour or churned butter quarters at the market. This nutty experience reminded me that not-so-distant family cooks would consider such easy access to ingredients an extravagance.

Temperature Is Relative

It’s funny how different bodies react to weather this time of year. Take a gander next time you’re in a public parking lot and study folks wandering to and from vehicles. You’ll see eccentric sorts wearing Bermuda shorts and flip-flops like it’s the middle of July. Someone else will cruise from warm store to vehicle in jeans and a sweater-- lips and hands rosy with not a goose bump to indicate it’s below freezing. The woman shuffling to the car parked next to you might be covered Eskimo style so that you can’t tell a human is bundled inside that ski mask, sweatshirt, parka, snow pants, and boots. During your watch, you’ll see every fashion variable in between.

Each family has a mixture of these thermo-types to establish the range. Polar avoiders hate being cold and layer outdoor wear from top to bottom even on mild days. Auto-insulated folks, on the other hand, travel with a heavy coat in the car in case of bad weather but actually put it on only once or twice a winter. As long as those individuals wear long sleeves and pants, they don’t mind the cold wind’s bite, and they stride happily in brisk breezes that cause flags to fly at a 90 degree angle.

How two people with the same genes can have entirely different internal thermostats is a mystery, but it happens often. Schoolteachers see examples daily. Siblings arrive at school-- one in a tee shirt and no jacket while brother or sis sports long johns peeking from edges of multi-layered sweatshirts and jeans. 

Knowing this, remain alert to see who thrives in frigid weather. These folks are never happier than finding themselves somewhere that cool dawns and dusks require folks to wear jackets. Once temperatures go arctic, these individuals are in hog heaven. They come home from hunting, sledding, or feeding cattle with fogged up glasses, icicles hanging from eyebrows or mustaches, and Rudolph-style noses. As they peel away outer layers of clothing, they complain the house is too hot at 68 degrees.

Polar avoiders need to take advantage of such friends when temps plunge. Those early shiverers can stir up soup and cinnamon rolls while frostbite addicts cover heads with Stormy Kromer caps, zip insulated Carhartts, slip into heavy-duty mittens, and grab a big shovel. After an hour or so, the heat lovers can glance outside to see cleared driveways and evenly cut trails to garages and sheds. True cold devotees stay out long enough to scoop good size openings in the yard where pets can relieve themselves. They scrape snow and ice to the point wimpier loved ones could leave coats in the car because they won’t be outside long enough to need them.

This brings to mind a Wyoming road crewman. On a sizzling August day, he answered the question, “Do you prefer working outdoors in summer or winter?” After a moment’s thought, he grinned and said, “Winter. You can always add layers. In summer you’re limited to what you can take off.”

Stories Are Important

I don’t know that celebrate is the right word for what Americans did December 7^th, but we certainly should remember that date. Those who read news or social media were reminded throughout that day to recall military personnel who faced multiple enemy attacks at Pearl Harbor 75 years ago. History lovers followed up with FDR’s response to this event. What we can do less of these days is listen to stories of living survivors.

Western Kansas men and women answered duty’s call that December day. Hardly a family lived that didn’t send victory mail to loved ones serving in the European, African, or Pacific theaters. Those soldiers lucky enough to return lived among us. They labored as farmers, ranchers, teachers, entrepreneurs, preachers, law enforcement officers, bankers, and other occupations. They were our parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, spouses, friends, and enemies. Some shared recollections so others could better understand sacrificing for the greater good.

 As time passes, more of these heroes become memories. Over 16 million Americans served during WW II. By 2016, the Department of Veterans Affairs calculated that approximately 620,000 of those individuals still survived. As 2017 slides into view, that number drops daily. Unless families presently have a soldier in service, it’s difficult for children to understand the intensity that turned so many youngsters just out of high school into valiant warriors.

For us whose loved ones, friends, co-workers, and teachers wore a WW II uniform, their legacies influenced our lives. I grew up listening to an uncle’s stories of surviving the Pearl Harbor attacks. A Kansas farm boy, he never expected to experience such carnage when he joined the U.S. Navy in 1940. He returned to start a family and teach school. Two generations later, his granddaughter bravely served in Afghanistan.

Another uncle performed his duty on ships guarding the Pacific. He wasn’t a talker, but his service made his family proud and inclined my dad, his younger brother, to join the Marines and serve during the Korean Conflict. That, in turn, inspired later relatives to wear USMC insignia as they protected their country.

Getting out of uniform didn’t end a soldier’s service. Many filled post-war teaching positions. History classes in the not-too-distant past  included lessons from people who fought in hedgerows and survived torpedoed ships. I found t those instructors’ knowledge so valuable that when I began teaching, I asked my students to interview former veterans. Among those stories, we discovered a resident who’d seen the atomic bomb explode. Another pupil’s neighbor helped liberate Dachau. Interviewers learned a survivor couldn’t talk about some experiences without choking up even after 45 years.

These stories provided primary sources that taught the importance of protecting freedoms many take for granted. Suddenly, we’re discovering this information now exists only in books or on film. I hope Americans never forget such difficult times or citizens who left loving homes and comfortable lives to face unrelenting enemies. Their remaining messages remind us to capture the experiences of still living veterans. What they share is profound, necessary, and fleeting if it isn’t recorded.

Out of the Comfort Zone—or Joining the Local Christmas Cantata

I grew up in mostly metropolitan areas. To give you an idea of what that means, my high school graduating class included over 1000 students. In that world, youngsters don’t participate in every program that interests them because competition is stiff and resources are limited. While cities offer exclusive options, small towns require inhabitants to survive outside comfort zones.

During my school years, I played competitive sports, but I never participated in a music program. Yep, I was a BAD singer. This meant I never experienced the effort and cooperation it takes to produce a musical extravaganza. After contributing to my small town’s Christmas cantata as a narrator, I realize performers as well as audiences enjoy unexpected blessings. Individuals experience life more fully because they participate. They discover they’re necessary to the group’s success even though they aren’t as good as they wish they were.

I learned this early in my teaching career. Every student had to play sports and join music so our 1-A school could field teams or have a band. I know there were students who sang every bit as badly as I do, but they got better because they had to. How do I know? Because I coached youngsters who weren’t natural athletes, I learned that by the time they played several games, everyone mastered skills enough to contribute. This also rings true for those joining small town Christmas presentations.

Our director’s a wife, mother, and businessperson who serves along with her mother-in-law every year to extract maximum ability from locals willing to involve themselves in the project. She directs both bell choir and singers who perform beautifully year after year. I still can’t sing, so she and the choir invite me to narrate each holy season.

Since I never enjoyed such experiences growing up, I’ve learned much. Putting on a program requires tremendous effort and commitment. Volunteers leave dishes in the sink to practice for months prior to the final performance. Bell choir members concentrate and replay pieces until they function as a single musical unit. To complicate matters, each plays at least two differently toned bells in every song. It would be difficult to learn one new tune, but this group masters many.

A variety of our community members make up the choir. Young and seasoned-- from students to house wives to farmers to professionals, they gather  starting in early autumn to polish infrequently used skills. Seeing these folks uptown, who’d guess they are sopranos, altos, tenors, and baritones gifted enough to solo. From the narrator’s podium, I watch neighbors evolve from tentative, shy performers to confident, bold professionals who lift audience hearts on performance night.

If I didn’t live in the hinterlands of Kansas, I’d never have worked with so many dedicated fellow residents to produce a celebration not only of Christmas, but also of the best small towns offer. Anyone willing to participate belongs.

An Unexpected Bonus

Two days before Thanksgiving, I heard distinctive turkey talk in my back yard. Tiptoeing, I crept with camera in hand to the deck so I could watch and photograph 20 Rio Grande poults, jakes, and adults. This flock wandered into town from a not-too-distant creek to inspect lawns and flowerbeds as their   keen eyesight located insects slowed by chilly morning temps. As I enjoyed this unexpected surprise, I realized that it’s only been in my lifetime that Kansans get to enjoy such a scene. From the early 1900s until Kansas Fish and Game reintroduced this once native species in the 60s, turkeys were extirpated from our landscape.

This conservation experiment took time to get off the ground. Early transplants got off to such a slow start that even in the late 70s, biologists were still trapping Texas and Oklahoma gobblers to rehome in Kansas. My husband helped release some these captured birds in western Kansas. I recall the thrill of spotting a flock foraging along a creek or river because seeing them was so unexpected.

In the beginning hunting seasons lasted only days and few drew licenses. Over decades, units and seasons expanded until almost all Kansans can now turkey hunt during spring and fall. In some units, hunters can buy more than one permit to harvest what some consider the best meat they can put on the table. Bird numbers are strong enough that modern nimrods can opt to stalk with bows, shotguns, or muzzleloaders.

While not every farmer appreciates this creature, many, like our former neighbor, are glad to see turkeys roaming wild again. That gentleman saved garden and table scraps to toss into the barnyard to attract them. The little girl who lived down the road used this flock as models for her 4-H photography projects and earned at least one first place ribbon for her pictures of nesting turkeys.

Supporting this game animal doesn’t benefit only our diets. Across America, wildlife departments have reintroduced these birds so that their populations have grown from 1.3 million to well over 7 million nationally. This has led to more than a $10 billion economic impact nationwide, with Kansas receiving an ample share of funds.

If you have a hankering to provide freshly harvested turkey for Christmas dinner, it’s not too late to buy a license and join the second half of the fall hunt. Camoup and pursue your bird in units 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 from December 12 through January 31, 2017.

Maybe wild turkey feasts aren’t your thing. You can still enjoy a country drive to watch flocks forage along creeks and edges of fields. If you’re out at dusk, you might see these ungainly birds fly to roost in an old cottonwood tree. Seeing something built like a feathered basketball with a long neck and wings take to the air offers its own entertainment.

Thank goodness our state Fish and Game Department joined the national movement to restore turkeys to our state. Kansans can enjoy hunting, photographing, or simply watching them parade through the countryside or town.

I Nearly Didn't Make It

Those who live far from four lane highways and interstates must consider a new issue when we travel to distant appointments. In the past, you could figure a mile a minute on open highway in good weather. Tweak that for town speed limits and stoplights. Only during harvest season did you expect to deal with slow moving, oversized vehicles. Nowadays, travelers heading south down Highway 183 from Phillipsburg anticipate a slow jaunt not behind just one wind tower or blade in tow, but several. Fortunate drivers will cruise at a crawl until they pass those behemoths.

Recently, I’ve experienced instances heading to an appointment in Hays where I found myself thrilled that my family trained me to leave well ahead of time no matter what the reason. Here’s the dilemma. How early does one need to depart when caravans of wind turbine carriers take over a road designed for 65 mph traffic and roll along at 40 to 50 miles an hour?

The other day, my dentist worked me in for an emergency appointment at noon. I calculated mileage and slowdowns through the five communities along my path. Under perfect conditions, I’d arrive in 1 1/2 hours. In less than optimal circumstances, I’d need another 15 minutes, so I left 35 minutes early. You can imagine my chagrin when I spied slow-moving vehicle flashers at Glade.

Initially, I figured I’d pass the warning vehicle, turbine truck, and the pickup ahead of it with blinking yellow lights before Stockton’s city limit sign. No worries. I had yet to note two additional long, white, ultra-wide pillars and their escorts. My hopes sank when those became visible once I reached the region’s highest hill. Darn! I counted fourteen vehicles trapped ahead of me amongst these diesel tortoises’ creeping procession. I looked in the rear view mirror and noted at least four agitated drivers behind me. Nineteen of us were murmuring unkind thoughts about the economic benefits of wind generated electricity.

At Stockton, my bladder announced the arrival of that morning’s coffee. I’d passed one turbine team so there was no way I’d listen to nature’s irritating call. By Plainville, that organ screamed on high alert, but by then, I’d overtaken the other two units. Uncomfortable beyond belief, I writhed in my seat and set the accelerator for the speed limit plus tolerance once I exited town.

That 24 miles to Hays was miserable. Side roads called me to pull over until I glanced in my rearview mirror to see the bright orange end of that huge pillar trailing behind. In response, I squinched around until I found a tolerable position and maintained speed. No way was I letting either that convoy or a trooper slow me again.

By the time I reached Wendy’s, I had just enough lead for a pit stop that would permit me to stay ahead of my nemesis. I reached the dentist with two minutes to spare. That’s a close call for someone who’s been taught to arrive at least 10 minutes early to all life events.

Old Ideas Have Merit

Even though I clerked, waitressed, mowed, and lifeguarded to earn my way through college, I had only one career-- an English teacher. My husband’s path was similar. He worked first as a fish culturist for Wildlife and Parks, but when a game warden position opened, he applied and served in that field until he retired. Imagine learning during the last few years I taught that students currently graduating can expect to have 25 different occupations throughout their professional lives. How do you prepare youngsters for that?

 My colleagues and I offered students a foundation in basics along with practicing the ability to adapt. A task that seemed daunting until I discovered something important during genealogical research. Heavens, most of our ancestors’ jobs haven’t existed for generations or aren’t in demand today. Those dead relatives often recalibrated in mid-life when lost markets or industrial revolutions collapsed livelihoods.

Through family stories, I knew my genepool often worked as teachers, preachers, and storekeepers. Their other occupations surprised me. One fellow was a wool comber. I had to think about this until I realized he lived in rural England before factories existed, during a time when wool or flax was raw materials for clothing. Apparently, his task involved combing freshly sheared and washed sheep hair so that spinners could perform their magic. A weaver friend works with this fiber from the time it’s harvested until it’s turned into yarn and understands what this job entails. However, it’s her hobby, not her livelihood.

Another relative listed his occupation as tanner. This made sense since I know a professional who prepares elk and deer hides for those who make either furnishings or rendezvous apparel from scratch. However, he’s the only one I know specializing in this lost art on a grand scale. Besides, it’s a sideline to his western décor business.

A distant great-grandpa designated cooper as his profession. I looked that one up because I wasn’t sure what it involved. Before cellophane, plastic, and paper packaging were common, coopers either constructed or repaired barrels that families used for storage and shipping. While modern ones are molded from plastic of some kind, wood deteriorates. Finding functional containers at antique sales isn’t at all common while locating a cooper to repair one is nearly impossible.

One ancestor was a glover during Massachusetts’ early years. I wondered how he earned enough to support his large family before realizing colonial Americans wore gloves far more often than present day ones do. He’d have maintained a supply of sturdy hand gear sewn from hide as well as finer dress wear created from supple nubuck or suede. In addition, women bought cotton and wool gloves for fashion and warmth. Since he paid taxes and left a will, he must’ve had ample business.

A common factor in my predecessors’ jobs was that few required college degrees and most demanded specific skills a person could apprentice to learn. According to Mike Rowe’s Foundation at mikeroweworks.org, many youngsters sitting in desks today could fill thousands of available jobs if they trained for a semester or two at a vocational school rather than spending four years in college. Seems like old ideas still have merit.

What’s Gonna Happen to History?

One of my favorite pastimes is using primary sources such as letters, diaries, old account books, and news stories to interpret the past. Learning about history directly from someone who lived it sparks an interest that brings that era to life better than any textbook can. You can imagine the fun a retired English teacher and self-professed Cather geek is having reading The Selected Letters of Willa Cather.

Once I got over the guilt of reading postings my favorite author never intended for public consumption, I’ve relished every letter. I particularly enjoyed those offering insights into O Pioneers! My Antonia, A Lost Lady, The Professor’s House, Song of the Lark, and Death Comes for the Archbishop.

Her business correspondence reveals how involved this artist was involved in everything from the selection of covers, paper, fonts, and artwork and fascinates me. More personal missives disclose that she loved the West and those who called it home. Here’s a woman who left Nebraska to spend most of her life navigating life in the world’s largest cities. Despite her urban prowess, she tells one mail recipient that she’s “just a corn farmer.” In other notes, she details Southwest adventures and how she hopes her novels set in that locale make its beauty clear to those who’ve never visited.

Her letters aren’t terse communications. She writes so that you sense you’re eavesdropping on private conversation. I loved when she explained how novels poured from her pen. In one passage she mentions how writing is akin to channeling as if she’s the receiver of otherworldly signals. Though she’s been gone decades, I feel like I’m chatting with a friend to learn how her artistic process works.

In addition to insights into this Nebraska novelist’s published collections, Cather offers tidbits about life in the early 1900s. Her readers view Pittsburg, New York, Europe, and Red Cloud to learn about theater, opera, magazine editing, setting up apartments, socializing, and eventually World War I through her observant lens. Her commentary about editing is so frank that I’m sure she’s spinning in her grave to think private words are now public. Her anecdotes about France after the war personalize that tragedy more clearly than anything except battlefield photos can.

As I savor this peek into the past, it makes me wonder what future students of history will lose now that so few of us compose beautifully written conversations with friends, loved ones, and colleagues. Digital contacts are typically brief and to the point, sharing few insights into a writer’s character. Besides, once a computer program is outdated, it’s difficult to access stored material. How many of us have floppy discs we can’t open?

It’s a thrill to crawl inside the mind of a writer I’ve loved since I was a teen. However, this time machine made of postal notes sets off noisy alarms. Good historical research requires access to primary sources. If we have no well-written letters and journals for future historians to examine, scholars lose personal perspectives into the era they study. What a loss!

A Belated Sort of Ghost Story

Compared with the thin-veiled night of October 31, the more flamboyant July 4^th doesn’t seem much like a time to expect a haunting. That may be true in normal circumstances, but when you live in Ellis County where you’ve heard stories about the Blue Light Lady roaming rolling hills southwest of Hays, one day is as good as another to encounter disembodied spirits. Our grown daughters still recall the scare of their lives on rise overlooking old Fort Hays.

The little girls’ holiday began with bags of poppers and sulfurous snakes that stained our sidewalk black for months afterwards. After they shrieked at those exploding, powder-filled tissues and lit licorice nib-size buttons that wound into stinky coils, we cooled off at the swimming pool. Later, we cranked ice cream, fried chicken, and baked chocolate cake while my husband patrolled Cedar Bluff. He promised to get home in time to watch Hays’ firework show.

Early July means the sun doesn’t set until after nine, so our sunburned blondes were tired by the time their father came home. Hearing the door open, they wrapped themselves around his legs, hollering, “Fireworks!” He stalled them long enough to grab cold chicken and cake before piling in the car.

Instead of following the highway, my hubs told us he’d drive the back way, south of Ellis. Eventually, he took a dusty country road that eventually overlooked the festivities below our lonely hilltop. A game warden, he’d driven these county roads and knew exactly where we’d have the best view. As neared our destination, a niggling memory inched from the recesses of my mind. I recollected students writing essays about spotting the legendary Blue Light Lady near our targeted parking spot.

Those teenage stories often included realistic encounters with a wandering spirit. Despite suspecting that many such sightings were designed to trigger scared girls to leap into brave boys’ arms, I didn’t want to meet this ghost.

My husband dismissed my concerns with a big grin, and big ears in the back seat begged to watch the show from Blue Light Lady Hill. Apparently, all my loved ones were game to meet a disembodied spirit. I, on the other hand, had encountered a ghost or two and wasn’t eager to hang out with ectoplasm.

We put the car in park just after dusk and lowered windows to catch evening breezes. Immediately, mosquitoes telegraphed every nearby bloodsucking insect, alerting them that dinner had arrived. While smacking buzzing torpedoes, we talked about the nurse who cared for cholera patients at the fort and succumbed to the disease herself. According to the story, she convinced her husband to bury her near the hill where she wandered the prairie every day. All of us were sad to think about her short life, but the irritating drone of invading bugs and the first flashes of early fireworks preoccupied us.

As darkness deepened and exploding diamonds punctuated black skies, my daughters and I stared transfixed at the magic of gunpowder combined with colorful chemicals. Perfectly timing his treachery, our driver cried, “What’s that?”

Our eyes flashed to his corner. Horrified, we spied a monstrous hand covering the windshield. We shrieked like actresses in monster movies. The instigator laughed hysterically. He’d pulled a good one on his gullible girls.

He laid the groundwork by taking us to Blue Light Lady Elizabeth Polly’s old haunt. Then he encouraged our ghost story recollections. In the dark with showers of descending sparkles to distract us, the rascal slipped his long arm out the open window, wrapped it over the glass before him, and scared the peewadlins out of his daughters, wife, and a horde of mosquitoes.

I’m guessing Elizabeth Polly’s ghost laughed heartily at our expense that night. If we’d have quit screaming, we’d have heard her chuckles accompanying sounds of exploding fireworks and droning insects.

More Than a Privy

Several friends recently gathered for supper. One thing led to another once our stomachs were full of home-cooked food, and childhood recollections soon had us laughing aloud. We discovered that rural Texans and Kansans share similar tales, with those growing up in the country contributing more than one outhouse story. These memories triggered mention of the fancy Brooks Lake Campground outhouse, which, it just so happens, thrives under the care of a Kansas couple.

The term “fancy outhouse” generates several mental images. If I hadn’t seen this facility already, I’d envision the multi-level crapper at the Encampment, Wyoming, museum. Designers constructed that particular two-holer to accommodate DEEP snow. Designers built one toilet a floor above the other so that summer users accessed the lower level while winter patrons crossed towering snowdrifts to the now reachable second floor. I’m not sure how functional this was, but it was enterprising.

Brooks Lake’s fancy US Forest Service pit toilet began as a standard single seater with the expected signage you’d find at any campground. These rectangular government postings instruct you to close the lid following use or explain how to avoid bear conflicts. Typically, camp hosts clean these sites and stock toilet paper and hand sanitizer. However, the responsible parties at Brooks Lake exercised originality to make their facility unique.

 When we fish the nearby lake and stream, we encourage newcomers to take a camera along when nature calls. While our friends shake their heads in confusion before they open the privy door, no one leaves without snapping a photo to share with loved ones back home.

So what makes this potty stop without running water, heating or cooling devices, and only the most basic of paper products special? Initially, you note a cozy rug softening your entry. Then bright posters identifying local wildflowers and birds catch your eye. These lighten the mood of the imposing bear warning posters that intensify any outdoor experience in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, including a visit to the loo.

 Finally, guests find themselves examining a table displaying a wilderness lending library stocked with popular mysteries, romances, adventures, and science fiction along with magazines. Fellow campers add to this collection as they finish books and periodicals brought from home.

For fun, these clever camp hosts included an old rotary dial phone in their display. I suspect youngsters visiting this latrine have no idea what this is, but the older generation chuckles when they spy this out-of-place décor. One clever camper commented, tongue in cheek, on his USFS evaluation that the phone didn’t work.

I once chatted with the caretaker of this loobrary and asked what inspired his clever efforts. This fellow Kansan couldn’t recall the initial motivation, but he mentioned the result was that users kept the facility astonishingly clean. Ultimately, this made an unpleasant job easier as well as more interesting because these custodians never know what books, magazines, kitschy doodads, or funny comments they might discover tucked amongst their own contributions.

As a writer and former English teacher, I seek life truths in every day experiences. The veritas in this story is that anyone can positively affect another’s day, even while cleaning toilets. Who doesn’t love finding surprises in unexpected places?

A Wizard in a Cowboy Hat with a Paintbrush for His Wand

If you ask youngsters to name a wizard, they’ll immediately offer Harry Potter’s name. I have news for HP fans. The real wizard lives in Wyoming, and he wears a cowboy hat. His wand happens to be a paintbrush. This is all true—I and other artists worked with him for a week to improve our use of light and shadow in our paintings.

What, you say! Yes, a real cowboy early in his eighth decade uses a paintbrush and earth-tone pigments to turn a flat canvas into a vision of soft buckskin baby shoes that look as though you could pick them up and place them in your palm. This magic takes less than seven hours when he’s not wrangling livestock or riding into the Wind River Mountains after this year’s elk. The man takes props such as his son’s worn,  beaded baby moccasins and an old brass bell, puts them in a lightbox, and tugs his spectacles down to get a closer look at the combination. Within an hour, he’s roughed in a sketch to direct his efforts.

Students of varying abilities hang on every word as he narrates a painting from concept to finish. They focus on the back of a well-worn, dark felt cowboy hat that amplifies the wisdom of 70 plus years. Every now and then, this man of a thousand talents turns to his audience, who note his crinkled eyes and his broad grin. He loves to get the group laughing whether it’s through his imitation “Golleeeee,” that reminds them of Gomer Pyle or his audacious chuckle that states outright, “It’s a good day to be alive.”

Tom Lucas started painting his senior year of high school during his first art class. At that time, he determined he’d master using a limited palette. From the looks of his finished paintings, his sales, and awards, he’s succeeded. Now he shares his how to’s with others who want to breathe life into their own art with a few well-directed strokes of color.

Over decades, he’s built homes for family, worked numerous occupations, and earned scores of friends and acquaintances’ respect. Surprising even himself, he’s become a public speaker, filling in for the preacher when called upon. Modestly, Tom explains he never thought to fill a pulpit, but everyone sitting in church is glad he did. His message is obvious: God works through his humblest servants. It’s clear that’s true when you see a man who’s learned to speak effectively despite the cleft palate that troubled young Tom.

So where does Lucas’s paintbrush wizardry fit in. His students can explain that. Obviously, he uses a brush and a little paint to turn light and shadow into life-like drama in his own work. However, his most amazing gift is his ability to scan and analyze student paintings. In a flash, he instructs how to incorporate a delicate stroke of color to reveal what the mind perceives. That lucky learner will never see the world the same way again.

As one of his pupils, I marvel at his ability to zero in on exactly what needs improved with a deft brush of paint. Using the student’s palette to repair issues that troubled the aspiring painter, he swiftly transfers knowledge that took him decades to master.

If you told Tom he’s a wizard, he’d blush and give you a country boy, “Ah, shucks.” It’s obvious he feels blessed to earn his living painting and teaching. His students would tell you they’re lucky to learn the secrets of light and dark from a wizard in a cowboy hat whose paintbrush is his wand.

For those of us who learn from him, we’re lucky to be in the presence of a master of both painting and good-heartedness.

In Praise of Wild Game

A fellow hunter recently posted an invite to his and another friend’s 23^rd annual wild game feed. We won’t make it this year, but seeing the reminder began a lively conversation at our house. We couldn’t help but talk hunting and its rewards—healthy, delicious meat, friendship, and great stories. That’s what this wild game feed is all about. Longtime companions joined by newcomers share their best recipes and swap tales as an October sun sets over Cedar Bluff.

As a cook, I love arriving at a cabin overlooking steel grey waters, red and sere grasses, and golden cottonwoods to discover counters and tables laden with overflowing pans and platters of meat. Old standards like grilled bacon-wrapped dove breasts or fried pheasant or quail tease nostrils and eyes as guests first arrive. Presentation gets creative. Innovative cooks deliver casseroles of wild turkey tetrazzini and enchiladas for those who like ethnic foods. We’ve had Asian variations and twists on McDonald’s McNuggets. Brave appetites savor rustic offerings like fried chunks of snapping turtle or rattle snake and the occasional mystery meat.

One year, a trapper froze some of his harvest in anticipation of this event. He and his wife marinated and grilled meaty strips for us to sample. A line of folks with empty plates kept him busy at a Traeger preparing second servings. Diners enjoyed debating the source of this food until he eventually told us we’d eaten slivers of bobcat steaks. Once he shared this info, several diners lost their appetites for this dish. I’m guessing they owned house cats. At first, I shared their response until I recollected reading trappers’ journals from the 1800s. Many of these historic writers praised cougar meat over elk or moose. I’d always wondered about this. After trying this smaller cousin of the big cat, I decided these old- timers’ praises had merit. 

While native game serves as the focal point of the menu, several cooks specialize in homemade jellies from wild fruits. One of the participants spends time in Montana every summer where he competes with bears to pick gallons of native huckleberries. His jellies and cobblers always get rave revues. Another friend brings her wild grape jelly that she makes in years when she can beat birds to the purple orbs. For those who’ve never tasted this treat, they’re missing out. Others offer chokecherry and wild plum syrups and jellies to slather on homemade rolls and biscuits. No one leaves hungry.

One of the organizers worked with a news writer who also contributed to Saveur foodie magazine. After attending as a guest, he joined us one year specifically to gather information for an article. He’d grown up in eastern Kansas and wasn’t yet a devoted hunter, angler, or wild game cook. After reading his article and seeing that he clearly understood the conservation ethic driving the efforts of these sportsmen, I was glad he shared their story. I hope his essay opened people’s minds about harvesting and preparing wild game.

While food is the focal point of this special event, the shared hunting stories make it memorable. This good friends’ feast weaves our lives together through shared hunting and fishing tales.

The End of an Era

Recent headlines that Bass Pro Shop purchased Cabela’s empire for 5.5 billion dollars triggered lively conversations at our house. Like many folks, we’re wondering how our outdoor shopping habits will change. We frequently visited relatives in Sidney, so we had a front row seat to watch this corporation expand out of a red brick warehouse to its current multi-store empire during forty years of marriage. Over those years, I’ve written several columns about family adventures at this American landmark. Recalling our affection for Cabela’s led to memories about its predecessor—Herter’s.

Coincidentally, I happened to pick up a boxed 903 Herter’s deer call at a garage sale this weekend. When I handed it to my husband, he immediately recalled glorious hours he spent pouring through old catalogues to make his childhood hunting, fishing, and trapping wish lists. Watching him share these happy reminiscences gave me a peek at a boy filled with dreams of Daniel Boone-style adventures. I’m guessing this current generation of outdoor enthusiasts feels the same when they flip through Cabela’s catalogues.

As soon as we started talking about old Herter’s mailings, my husband could tell me exactly which ones he saved. He could also detail accounts of his orders of fishing lures and hooks as well as his hunting and trapping supplies that included decoys, traps, and a special knife. For a youngster who grew up a few hundred yards from the Kansas River in the Flint Hills, Herter’s offered the very best Canadian Guide-tested materials to guarantee success in the field and on the water.

 Hearing him recite this litany reminded me of distant days when delayed gratification ruled young lives. I heard disappointment in his voice as he recounted the high school canoe trip that took him and friends to Waseca, Minnesota—home of Herter’s actual store. Unfortunately, the travelers arrived after business closed and left before it opened.

Like many fellows who grew up during the 60s and 70s, he didn’t have much money, so he hauled bales, pulled weeds, and performed other farm chores until he fill out that order blank and attach a cashier’s check. From our earliest dates, I heard from relatives and friends about how hard my husband worked to reach his goals. When he bought my engagement and wedding ring, Herter’s missed his order until he replenished that account. However, until they closed, he relished reading and rereading each page of their seasonal mailing and planning the next year’s list

Like many friends, we began marriage with little more than a few hand-me-downs and a supply of old catalogues, traps, decoys, and fishing supplies bought throughout the years. Before we got on our feet, Herter’s went bankrupt and closed. Since then, we’ve diligently scouted auctions and garage sales to find remnants of George H’s outdoor empire. We’ve collected boxed deer, crow, duck, and quail calls along with the famed Bull Cook book sent as a Christmas gift from my brother. He shares my husband’s love of pouring through those old catalogues and finding memorabilia in dusty corners of second hand stores and garages.

The business deal between Bass Pro and Cabela’s makes me wonder if a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts will stash catalogues and treasure purchases carrying Cabela’s logo the way we saved our beloved Herter’s ephemera. It’s the end of an era. Who knows what will take its place?

Mother Nature’s Trick on Fall Lovers

Mother Nature must’ve guffawed til her sides ached as she read scores of first day of fall memes flooding the internet. How ironic that fellow lovers of colorful leaves, cozy sweaters, pumpkin patches, and simmering soups wiped dripping sweat from brows in 90 plus temps on the cusp of our favorite season. For folks who’ve eagerly awaited brisk mornings and hoodies, last week’s sultry heat didn’t just set us back; it wilted spirits. Don’t worry, though. We’ll recover as soon as morning thermometers hover in the thirties or low forties.

It’s interesting to read friends’ posts during this hinge between summer and autumn. It doesn’t take long to know who loves frosty winters, pastel springs, simmering beach-weather summers, and my favorite-- fall. When I scan Facebook, I see clearly why some of my friends and I connect. We love this time of year that others see as a harbinger of doom.

We love nature’s colors as foliage morphs from green to yellow, orange, bronze, and crimson. We love gunmetal grays that dominate skies this time of year. We love native grass hues as they switch off chlorophyll production and turn on dormant mode. We love watching birds stage in voracious hordes in preparation to migrate. We love those crazy cricket serenades that foretell dropping temperatures. We love high school football games with its scent of freshly buttered popcorn.

We love knowing hunting seasons have begun so our freezers will soon be full of freshly harvested game. We love standing over the stove to stir soups that smell of onion, garlic, tomatoes, basil, oregano  as they simmer and perfume our homes. We love kneading flour, yeast, eggs, oil, and water into crusty breads we’ll bake, slice, and toast with cheese to eat with our soup or chili. We love others who understand our quirky fixation with this time of year.

I understand why some dread this season. Daylight shortens. Calendars mark the beginning of regimented activities, the end of lazy days at the pool, the last days of garden production, and the beginning of paying a rising winter heat bill. Despite recognizing others’ distress, I can’t help but wake up smiling when the autumnal equinox tells me summer is over. It means my favorite birds, sandhill cranes, will soon return, winging and singing their song across russet and golden fields on their way to New Mexico’s playas. I’ll hear their ancient cry and imagine elk bugling in the background though I know that hasn’t happened across our state for nearly a century.

My fellow autumn lovers are nesters, folks who love snuggling tight at homes with loved ones. This season appeals to those who savor each diminishing sound as cooling nights shut down summer’s harsh decibels. This begins a time of introspection and contemplation. Summer will return for those in mourning. For those of us celebrating its end, ignore the heat and brew a pot of cider. Raise your mug to toast golden days ahead.

Control: An Illusion

Control: An Illusion

Humans are funny creatures. Some imagine we control much that happens in our world. Because technological advances during the last two centuries eradicated small pox and put men on the moon, it’s easy to buy this idea. Believing we direct our lives makes us feel safer. However, anyone who lives in Kansas understands our species doesn’t control of much of anything but putting satellites in orbit and operating a remote that allows us to picture what weather might do. With that little button and functioning electricity, we can react to nature but we can’t regulate it. Recent weather has made that abundantly clear.

Though memory tends to be short, few of us have forgotten the multi-year dry spell that parched ponds, streams, and rivers into dried mud, shriveled prairie grasses to sere curls, and decimated trees. Watching evening news programs offered no comfort. Grim-faced forecasters highlighted maps of nearly every Kansas county in bright colors that confirmed what we saw daily—we suffered extreme drought.

In reaction, town councils voted to restrict watering while individuals opted to place rain barrels and other systems in yards and fields to capture every bit of moisture available. Gardeners promoted drought resistant plants and xeriscaping to manage a non-existent resource. Appliance and hardware stores marketed low-flow washers, toilets, faucets, and showerheads to conserve water.

Amazingly, in only a few months, the scenario has changed. Instead of facing a water shortage, businesses advertise sump pumps and dehumidifiers to waiting customers. Home improvement departments that promoted fixing foundations weakened due to dry conditions now publicize efforts to prevent leaky basements. Ironically, area residents must figure out how to channel water away from properties rather than to them.

Our ancestors faced similar issues. Where do you build a town? Those who build along a creek, river, or stream in dry years, have easy access to drinking and household water. Heck, enterprising sorts might build a mill to grind grain or produce electricity to light homes.

One wet season changes everything. Overnight, residents who prided themselves on wise planning and convenient services find raging torrents sweeping houses from foundations or eroding roadways. Such experiences have occurred far too often in the last month. More than one first responder team has recently rescued folks from cars or houses. 

Not only do storms that tint the radar in shades of red, pink, and purple dump deluges on saturated soil, plunging temperatures alter those molecules into baseball-size ice chunks. Heavy winds turn such projectiles into artillery that shatters glass, pulverizes siding, shreds crops, and convinces anyone living through the assault that Mother Nature knows how to wage war. Goodland residents will stay busy repairing and rebuilding property for months after this latest weather event.

Over a single summer, Mother Nature has reminded us life can change overnight. Ponds overflow, rivers surge over banks to wipe out roads or flood communities, and wind-driven hail shreds siding and splinters glass. Pressing a remote’s on button provides a preview of the show to come and sometimes offers time to prepare ourselves for the result. However, it doesn’t control what’s about to happen. Neither do we.

Continuing a 100 Year Legacy

Who doesn’t love a birthday party, especially one celebrating 100 years of existence? Kansans, in particular, are primed for this special blowout since we  live in the Central Flyway. As a result, we directly benefit from the centennial of the Migratory Bird and Treaty Act and its later companion, the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (aka the Duck Stamp Act). In general, waterfowl hunters and birders profit most, but every Sunflower State resident can appreciate migrant birds winging across our skies or landing on nearby waterways and refuges.

In a century, hunters and other conservation efforts have protected and managed migratory species so that we expect to see cranes, geese, ducks, and other transient waterfowl. That wasn’t always so. Because so many market hunters decimated populations to sell either meat or feathers, populations suffered. According to one source, “As many as 15,000 canvasbacks were shot in a single day on Chesapeake Bay during the 1870s.” 

When concerned hunters noted declining numbers, they contacted legislators. In response, Congress passed the Lacey Act (1900) and the Weeks Maclean Act (1913) that prevented transportation of illegally taken game across state lines, spring waterfowl hunting, and migratory game bird marketing. Soon after, the Migratory Birds and Treaty Act (1916) strengthened initial efforts.

Unfortunately, lack of funding made it difficult to enforce these laws and support President Theodore Roosevelt’s refuge system. Some might consider it ironic that hunters stepped in to meet this need. I ask who better to identify this concern?

To complicate matters, waterfowl populations declined from 100 million to 20 million during the DustBowl drought years. Franklin Roosevelt sought solutions from the Beck Commission. Their response was to conserve more habitat. Unfortunately, inadequate finances left planners with empty coffers.

Ducks Unlimited explains that FDR appointee Jay Darling was an avid duck hunter and a conservation-minded editorial cartoonist. As head of the Bureau of Biological Surveys (eventually the US Fish and Wildlife Service), Darling supported and designed the first Federal Duck Stamp in 1934. It depicted a pair of mallards. Initially, that stamp cost each hunter $1.00. Like most expenses, this one has increased. The 2016 edition sells for $25.00. Fortunately, 98% of that fee directly supports habitat development. Since the program’s initiation, sales exceed 700 million dollars. According to the Federal Wildlife Service, the result is more than 5.7 million acres of conserved habitat.

Not only has does this act support waterfowl conservation and management, it also encourages wildlife art. Artists compete annually to display their efforts on this collectible stamp. Depictions include Darling’s first two mallards to mergansers, wood ducks, Canada geese, and now trumpeter swans.

Thank goodness, hunters protected this resource and funded habitat development. However, you don’t have to hunt to enjoy the results. You can view waterfowl at any of our state refuges and lakes. Collectors can haunt auctions and antique shops in search of stamps, decoys, and other ephemera. Photographers can combine Kansas sunrises and sunsets to perfect shots of transient visitors. Gourmets can explore endless recipes for delicious goose or duck dinners. Only lack of imagination limits possibilities.

That said, non-hunters as well hunters can support migratory bird populations by buying a Federal Duck Stamp online, at the post office, or local sporting good outlet. In a little over a 100 hundred years, responsible hunters/conservationists have made sure these species continue to thrive.

Follow That Sign to Shake-up an Adventure

While I’m not much for adventures that involve crowds, loud noise, or frenetic activity, I enjoy out of the ordinary explorations. We unexpectedly hit the magic button on our latest road trip and found ourselves looking through several families’ no longer needed treasures and eating Indian tacos. Even better, a Shoshone grandmother prepared our food under blue Wyoming skies. While we ate, we enjoyed visiting with her husband, a tribal artist whose work hangs in offices and homes around the world. 

The key to our unplanned side trip was a garage sale sign stuck along the ditch of a road through a reservation. Once we spied the invite, we said, “Let’s see what they’ve got.” The irony in that comment is that both of us are over sixty and have plenty our own loot we could sell and not miss. Despite knowing we have dust collectors decorating our home, we can’t help but inspect what other people have spent a lifetime acquiring. Heck, who knows when you’ll find a petrified dinosaur tooth or a Made in Occupied Germany teacup?

While we didn’t find dinosaur dental work or rare porcelain, we did find aged buffalo horns, an antique hunting knife, a heavy chef’s skillet, local literature, and homemade Indian tacos made by a professional.

Over decades, I’ve learned garage sales are perfect places to sample local foods. In Northwest Kansas, I’ve bought German bierocks, hertzen, spitzbuben, and Bohemian kolaches. You know when you see the “homemade” sign, you’re in for a treat. There’s something about a woman serving her family recipes that makes her put her best work into what ends up as food for gods.

The lesson learned on this journey was that women everywhere share this  tradition. The silver-haired elder shaping a dough ball before frying it in hot oil was every bit as proud of her traditional food as women in Ellis, Rooks, Rush, Russell, and Trego Counties who tempt taste buds with mouthwatering fare. As she swiftly formed  an oval, the cook explained she could never make her recipe in batches that served less than 80 people. With that kind of practice, it’s no wonder forming those discs looked so easy.

I like making fry bread myself, but this woman’s was better than mine. As I listened to the bread sizzle on the camp stove, I told her how I mixed my simple ingredients. In a flash, she identified two ways to improve my recipe. Ironically, one of those was the addition of butter flavored Crisco to the flour mixture until it crumbled like pie dough before adding liquid. She also let me know my use of milk  darkened and hardened my product. After seeing her golden results, she’s right.

We ate under mid-August rays, savoring chili, lettuce, tomato, and cheese –topped fry bread and discussing Indian art, native colleges, and garage sale bargains. By the end of our meal, we knew one another’s names as well as our preferences for serving this traditional staple. 

Following our instincts and turning into that garage sale was the best part of our expedition. We may not have found an ancient fossil, but every time I make fry bread I’ll smile and recall this chance encounter where I learned to cook from an expert.

A Turkey Thanksgiving

It’s the time of year when turkey producers dream in dollar signs. In a few months, their products will be bagged, tagged, and on sale in the frozen food department of area grocery stores. Cooks in charge of Thanksgiving dinner will be saving tasty recipes picturing birds roasted to golden perfection and surrounded by a platter of colorful accompaniments. Diners who prefer wild turkey to farm-raised stock are eyeballing native flocks to see where they feed daily and roost at dusk. While humans plan their upcoming feasts, camouflage –toned Rios and Easterns are living in the minute, enjoying a banner grasshopper crop.

This spring’s ample rains nurtured fields, yards, and ditches full of cultivated plants and weeds, favorite hopper foods. Hungry, leaping insect hordes explain why roads, fields, and yards in our area appear animated. If you ramble around your yard or a nearby field, you’ll rustle up at least a hundred prickly-legged characters who spring shoulder high from the ground and dangle from the fibers of your shirt or cling to your hair. It’s enough to make a finicky person gyrate like a 70s disco dancer.

Recently, we visited friends in the country who share their property with a number of hens, gobblers, jakes, and poults. It’s a thrill to drive up their road and spy ungainly birds wandering over pastures and into the farmyard. If it isn’t mating season, it’s eating season and these walking drumsticks have big appetites. You can count on watching them scratch and peck at any seed or insect in their vicinity. This year, grasshoppers reproduced like crazy, so plenty exist to fatten feathered foragers.

Since my friend and I enjoy gardening, I hoped to check out her little oasis. She quickly apologized, explaining how hoppers had decimated both her vegetables and flowers. I understood exactly what she meant since I had stems in my own flowerbed sporting well-gnawed leaves that looked like poorly woven fish nets. As we stood outside lamenting the sad fates of our spring dreams, part of her turkey flock wandered near, heads bobbling up and down as they gobbled grasshoppers.

In an area with so many delicacies to choose from, those poor birds struggled to decide which bug to eat first. Once they swallowed their prey, they intently moved on to the next crunchy critter. In a matter of minutes, they wiped out more than my friend and I might have squashed in a day of smacking and stomping. We quietly cheered on this squad of hens and mostly-grown poults. In the distance, gobblers worked the edges of a field, leaping into the air like a hovering  basketball rebounder to snag an escaping hopper.

Perhaps some of the turkeys I watched this summer will end up as the main course of a Thanksgiving dinner. Whoever enjoys that banquet should know that turkey scored a feast that lasted for months. In fact, area gobblers heading to roost struggle to attain lift off with their stomachs full of once-leaping protein snacks.

Swallows Attack Lawn Dart Teams

What’s more fun when families get together than some friendly rivalry? Our most recent gathering enjoyed some spirited lawn dart competition where daughter proved she could aim and hit the mark every bit as well as her dad, uncle, and husband could. Her victories weren’t the only surprise during this adrenalin generating family feud. A nearby swallow nest packed to the brim with fledgling young flew right into the middle of their game.

When the participants set up the perimeter lines and target zones, they considered the swallow nest situated on a pole high above our fence. After some discussion, players decided their activity wouldn’t disturb the young family. Their play extended far beyond the area where mom or dad traditionally flew out of the nest, scolding trespassers.

During the first game or two, this distance appeared satisfactory. However, as noise levels increased, the tuxedoed parents grew ever more agitated and flew closer and closer to those carefully lining up their darts with the target.

  

Those of us sitting in the observation seats on the patio had a clear view of the increasingly irritated birds. At first, they swooped above our players’ heads by a good foot. When the focused team members ignored their shrill cries and frantic flutterings, the birds’ trajectory dropped til they cruised inches above the competitors’ hair or scalp, depending on which player they targeted.

In a further effort to appease angry swallows, the players moved their field of play over as far as they could without being in the busy street. Unfortunately, hostilities had escalated to the point that nothing the humans did satisfied the birds. The black and white torpedoes plunged right above my mom’s head, riffling silver hairs when she walked out with a water pitcher to refill their birdbath—something they’d accepted all summer long.

By the second night, we thought the birds’ emotions had settled and they’d gotten used to having extra humans in the yard. Nope! They ordered a backup crew. Instead of the two swallows who’d dive-bombed the games the night before, six birds performed acrobatics directly above the players as they focused their concentration to place weighted darts inside a yellow ring on their opponents’ end line.

Players and audience tried to figure out where these extra attackers came from. We had only one swallow nest in the yard though we had seen other birds flying about the neighborhood. While we puzzled this mystery, lawn dart competition continued til we celebrated a victor.

After our guests left the following day, we noted they weren’t the only ones absent. Our swallow family had exited as well. That offered a huge hint as to the source of the extra attackers.

We knew the babies were nearly grown. We’d seen them peeking out the bird house opening and then making awkward, short flights as their parents taught them to hunt nearby insects. They must have been more mature than we realized and emerged from the nest fully capable of joining the parents’ attacks on nearby humans.

As family gatherings go, this was a good one. It was great to see one another and to see a nearby bird household in action as well.

When Faking It Isn't a Bad Thing

When Faking It Isn’t a Bad Thing

All of us have attended weddings and marveled at beautiful bouquets a bride and her attendants carried down the aisle. Those of us who enjoy flowers appreciate well-designed arrangements that brighten the sanctuary. Then our roaming eyes note the corsages and boutonnieres that mothers, fathers, grandparents, and groomsmen wear. In the past, brides were at the mercy of their mother’s garden or a savvy florist for these bridal necessities. Every blossom was freshly cut and arranged  just before the wedding. Nowadays, wives-to-be visit hobby stores to select realistic silk flowers that hold color and shape before and after their nuptials.

Like all new trends, this one got off to a slow start and guaranteed a bit of snooty commentary among guests with old-fashioned sensibilities. However, manufacturers realized the potential for these everlasting blossoms and tweaked their product until it’s impossible to tell whether you’re looking at someone’s garden glory or a fake. Who hasn’t slyly fondled a silk plant or arrangement to see if it’s the real deal? It doesn’t take much imagination to see why this market succeeded while others didn’t.

I’ve discovered that weddings aren’t the only place silk flowers are lovely to look at and affordable. Folks who live in deer country are discovering they can design colorful flowerbeds that brighten their yards and last all summer for the same price they’d pay for garden shop plants.

For readers who’ve never dealt with a determined doe or buck with an acquired a taste for tulips, daffodils, geraniums, and daisies, the gardener fights a losing battle. Those wily critters can leap high fences, gobble tender leaves and blooms, and exit before you can ask “Whitetail or muley?”

This summer, I’ve watched several does mow neighbors’ and my healthy plants to stubble, so I’m familiar with their sneaky strategies. Nothing frustrates a green-thumbed dreamer more than going to bed knowing their prized plant is about to flower and coming outside the next morning to find sheared  stumps it its place.

A nearby resident figured out how to deceive the local herd and still enjoy a colorful yard. As I walked past their waist-high fence week after week, I noted delicate iris, hyacinths, tulips, daisies, and daffodils. After seeing these always perfect flowers, I wondered why their blooms lasted so long. Curiosity overcame me until I wandered close enough to examine their garden more closely. Yep, they’d torn a page out of a bridal magazine and loaded their bordered beds with silk plants. Apparently, they didn’t buy cheap stuff because this greenery looks real.

I’d loved to have seen the face of the deer that bounded over that fence to sample that first fibrous petal. If I didn’t relish the act of potting tiny sprouts  and nurturing them as they grow into lush, leafy foliage filled with swelling buds, I’d be the silk plant aisle’s best customer. Those deer would need a mineral oil dosing to clean their systems out after they’d invaded my fake jungle.