Nesting Instinct

If you're a female and you don't live under a rock, the term nesting instinct is likely familiar. You know, that  feeling that you get  sometime in your mid to late 20's, sometimes in your  early 30's - it's that little voice inside your head that says, "Tick, tick, tick -time's a wastin' girl and you better get to it and do it."   Make babies. Throw away the diaphragm, toss out the pills. Reason takes a hike, and hormones rush in.

It's a big step, and all it takes is about 10 seconds. Zap! You're pregnant! now start decorating the baby's room, shopping for cute little onesies and diapers and really expensive diaper bags that come in really cool colours and patterns now with all sorts of pockets and pouches for baby necessities while travelling to your mom's for an hour to escape the fact that this is a REALLY BIG STEP you took, and it lasts a lifetime!

Deep Breath!

Yup. Nesting.

 But imagine being a bird!! And doing it every year. And every year the kids leave - yay! so you can get busy and do it again, and again. That is what you do, if you're a bird. You take a leap of faith one day, and plop out of the nest. Then you fly around free as a bird for a short shiny spell.  Then some brightly coloured gadabout catches your eye, and before you can flip him the bird, there you are - sitting on a  bunch of eggs! Feathering your nest and waiting for the "pick, pick, pick " to start so you can start flying hither and yon catching bugs like a crazed  bird brain, burping them up into outstretched beaks leading to huge empty stomachs, and then off again, and again, and again! Then one day, the fluff balls take a leap of faith, and you fly 2000 miles south, and do it again, and again.

Oy.

Is it any wonder then that some birds build rather uncomfortable, flimsy nests that barely qualify as a nest? That appear to be just a bunch of twigs thrown at a branch? Not for the Green Heron a cozy, grass lined pouch swinging gently to and fro in the soft summer breeze while hugging the beautiful little oriole chick inside, safe and warm. Nope! That ain't happening. It's more like  - there's your nest. Don't  like it? Hah! So leave!

The Green Herons' "Kronk!"  is about as rude a call a bird can have- kind of like saying  "Git outtta my way! Here I come with food. Open yer mouth right now!"  And I'm  guessing it's a good thing the babies are so gosh durn cute, or Tired Old Bird (Mom for short)  probably wouldn't even bother feeding them!
Just look at those little eyes...what's not to love!?

Diamonds in the Rough

We all have our reasons why.

Why we like  red instead of blue, sweet instead of sour, tuba instead of bagpipes.  Perhaps it's genetically coded in and we have no one to blame but our forefathers and mothers who were either hunters or gatherers

back when it all began.

I'm pretty sure I'm from the gathering clan.

There's a body of evidence that would seem to indicate that this is true.

 I like nuts.

And berries.

Salads I sometimes crave.

Coleslaw? Yum.

And tender green shoots in spring? Heaven.

I am NOT a hunter.

Although some of the clan have tried on occaision to convert me.

Once I actually went hunting for partridge with two of the members of the  Hunting Clan. They put a shotgun in my hands, showed me how to load a shell in it, aim, and fire. Then left me standing amidst a bramble of raspberry canes

and told me to shoot when they flushed out a bird.

So, there I was licking raspberry juice off my fingers, admiring all the butterflies flitting about when this gray fluffy bird came streaking 

right over my head!

I ducked and yelled, dropped the gun which fired off into the bushes, hopefully not hitting anything, and sat down and started shaking and babbling away,

apologizing profoundly to all creatures great and small for even contemplating shooting one of them.

Never again.

That the was the moment when I knew I was a gatherer.

But it's no a simple thing. There's much more to being a gatherer than just picking berries and eating candied pralines.

Over the years, I have come to realize that it impacts my lifestyle and the choices I make in dozens of subtle, and some not so subtle, ways.

I live on a beach. Beside a river.

This river abounds with wildlife -both the hunting and the gathering kind.

I 've seen bear, fox, deer, mink, beaver, porcupine, raccoon, rabbit, otter, mouse and moose; fish, frogs, snakes, newts, turtles and lizards.

Lots of birds and bugs and butterflies.

And I've come to realize that this beach is their home as much,

if not much more than, it is mine.

My neighbours, who only live here in the summer think I'm a little

wonky -or maybe a lot wonky. I love the reeds in front of our place.

It's not rocket science to figure out that this is an important part of the natural life around here. Why some would go so far as to recognize that it's Habitat.

And that it should be left alone.

My neighbour's disagree. They call it weeds, and every Sunday morning in the summer, they can be seen on the beach with their rakes, their ATV's and their rusty bedsprings, dragging through the weeds in front of their places.

They prefer desertscape to riparian area.

They have offered numerous times to kill the weeds out front of our place.

I have told them numerous times that those reeds and grasses serve a very special  function, providing food sources for some, cover for others, and protecting the entire beach from erosian. Meh!

They don't care.

Their rough patch is my diamond mine.

And so we have agreed to disagree.

And when they mention in passing that there doesn't seem to be as many swallows or butterflies as before, I just look at them, then invite them over

to our place to watch the river flow.

Six Decades: Part IV

This Six Decades Monologue isn't flowing too well.
I keep getting side tracked by the present. 

That said...and so it came to pass that

 somewhere between a rock and a hard place, the truth will rain down. Decisions are made, knowing deep inside that there are consequences that may not be the ones originally intended.

And you know...you just know.

That what you are about to do is probably not the smartest thing you've ever done in your life..but you do it anyways.

That is to say, I did.

I got married. I was 20 years old and he was 23.

I had completed my Bachelor of Arts in under two years, and I had gone to work in a residential school up north in Moose Factory. The boy I met just before graduation from university was IT!
But he wouldn't move in with me...
his parents wouldn't like it he said.
(Warning flag waving, and being ignored.)

Prior to putting the wedding invitations into the mailbox,

I sat holding them in my hands for an hour, looking at them,

and telling myself it was "just the jitters."

But it wasn't Jitters.

It was Me. Calling Home.

I was just too busy being young to answer.

The night before the wedding I asked my Maid of Honour

if she would also come to my divorce.
Because I knew that there would likely be one...

And so I became a missus.

We just never really seemed to fit quite right

and for a while we had fun trying.

Lots of fun.

Then lots of not so much fun.

Eight years in came the first real grown up moment- realizing that the only thing that needed changing wasn't him or me,

it was us.

We were like oil and water.

Gemini and Scorpio.

Rabbit and Rat.

All depended on which upper authority was in vogue that month,

but it came down to this everlasting thought:

You get what you accept.

And so we rejected each other.

This version of that time doesn't include the drama, trauma, pain, and heartbreak. Those were the things we felt for several years after.

But neither of us ever tried to re-invent our particular wheel.

We both knew we were wrong then and right now. 

It would be a frosty Friday in hell before

we ever warmed a bench together again.

I have a million thoughts about why so many people make so many bad choices for their "life mates", but so many books have been written, so many careers as marriage counselors established,

that I am not going to

even begin to say

 what I think.

Other than we blessed each other with

two wonderfully amazing, creative, heartwarming children.

And that's what I will cherish forever  

about Heartache # 1.

Our True North Strong and Free

We Canadians would rather flag a taxi than fly a flag.

We'll happily put little paper flags in planters and tree stumps on July 1st, but we will rarely be caught hanging a big, real one from the front porch. And for the entire summer?? Unh unh, not gonna happen.
Somewhere in between the War of the Roses and the War of 1812, it got sorted out that those, those.. people...who didn't end up on God's fair isle were fated to go to that vast empty Hinterland  beyond the realm and across the pond  to preserve  His (or Her) Royal Majesty's majesty. And they gave their word to do so  with appropriate decorum and dignified deportment.

It was further decreed that the Masses of the Hinterland  (MoH's) would not bump into people, pets or inanimate objects. And if they did so, they would say, " I'm sorry." And, if the people, pets, or inanimate objects bumped into them, then the MoH's would say, "OH! I'm sorry!"

In the event of  a disagreement with anyone about anything, then the MoH must quickly defer, and say, "Oh.Well then. Of course, you must be right." And if, in the rare circumstance, that it was absolutely certain that the MoH was indeed, right, then the MoH must say, "Oh dear. Well, I am sorry. But, uh, I am right. Sorry!"

We're such a sorry lot. Why people from away even make fun of us for saying sorry so much, for being so friendly,  so polite, so forgiving. Not for us the dropping of a ball at midnight, nor the thunderous ride through tiny towns with a lantern. Nope..too attention-getting. Too dramatic. Too much like  a TV mini-series.

No, we didn't run with bulls anywhere, either. (Rode them, yes, but only when at the Calgary Stampede.)  But we did  name a chocolate shop after a woman who did try to warn HRM's troops about a possible invasion from below the 49th parallel. Laura Secord is sweetly remembered every Easter and Mother's Day in The Hinterland.

And when Nature is your daily guide, over time you learn to take note and you start to see things  a bit differently.

No. We don't do self aggrandisement well.  We may brag from time to time, but it's usually not about the nation as a whole, it's about individual accomplishments..like Terry Fox, Wayne Gretzky, Shania Twain, Guy Lombardo (yes, sorry, he's Canadian), Alexander Graham Bell (ring a ding ding), Dr Banting  (insulin treat for your diabetes), Thomas Edison (light's on), John Hopps (please tell airport security if you have a pacemaker), Peter Robertson (screw this in tight), Gideon Sundbeck (here, zip me up please)..and of course, things like Canada Dry, Canadian Club, Poutine and Beavertails (yum to the last four). And Blackberry (not the one you eat, though, there's a thought)
No, we don't like to show our official colours (red and white) because we are so much more than that.

In 1967 a book was published entitled Call Them Canadians. A table top anthology of poems, prose and pictures that attempted to define a Canadian.

One short poem has always stuck in  my mind by poet Miriam Waddington:

We are not one but two,

We are not two but four.

We are not four but many.

And sometimes,

We are not any.

It's the song my paddle sings, it's my canoe, it's my kayak. And while I ply the waters of this land, it's the songs I hear of the lonesome Loon, the Whip-poor-will,  the howling wolf, and the little Song Sparrow.

This is a land and a place that people have been trying to define and then subjugate for 600 years, but they still haven't quite  managed to..yet. And it's because of the weather.

It's , "It's 40 below, got a heater in my truck, and I don't give a F#*k, and I'm off to the Rodeo!" Who would write a song like that?? unless they've been to Canada in January.

We got used to the Hinterland. Embraced it. Made "Canada's Hinterland Who's Who" a Monday night favourite on TV. It's still running, http://www.hww.ca/index_e.asp and celebrating Canada's  incredible nature. But that 's not all that's uniquely quirky about us...there's also Bob McDonald's Quirks and Quarks..a radio show about science --that people tune in to CBC Radio to listen to! And speaking of CBC...no matter where you are in Canada, you can get CBC. Everyday. Same friendly voices, same earnest commentary, same silly jokes, same breaking world news. Essential in a country that has five time zones and half an hour later in Newfoundland.

                                                     What a place!

                                                       I'm sorry.

I can't define it.

But it is me.

A Place within me.

Shaping how I see the world around me,

and how I wish the world to see me.

This weary old world could use a little more Canada.

Happy Birthday!

We All Need a Little NYC. Really.

Mention New York City and those who have been smile knowingly, and say,  " I love it!! and I am going back as soon as I can."

Some who have never been and are NYC virgins say, " Meh..don't need to go there! Too big, too busy, too expensive..why shoud I do that

when I still haven't been to Biggar, Saskatchewan?

and it's bigger than New York, yucka yucka."

Some who have never been and are NYC virgins too, say " I can't wait to go!! It's big city mecca, the big apple, the whateverwhereverwhenever!"

And everyone is absolutely right.

But...once you go, you know.

It's an ode to urban. A capitalist's dream. An anarchist's orgasm. Sensory overload. Everything you ever wanted...and nothing you can't find.

Be all. End all.

It is the definition of superlative.

There is no end to the litany of descriptors, to the age old icons,

to the visions, the views, the captions and the quotes.

It is simple chaos. 

And all things in between.

Incredibly brilliant architecture.

Breathtaking parks and monuments to greatness.

Endless opportunity and bottomless depravity.

Wit and witless. Charm and ignorance

It's the entire ball of yarn.

Constantly being unravelled and rerolled.

It is Everyman's City.

It is Gotham. It is Camelot.

It is all places betwixt and between.

It may be American on paper..but it's really a Country unto itself. 

The vast majority of visitors find it familiar, and happily, feel at home, once the country bumpkin urge to jay-walk is quelled.

New York is the American dream personified.

Greed capitalized. Culture refined. Cuisine defined.

It is the alpha and omega of western style.

It is empathy. Sympathy. Boredom. Indifference.

And especially Patience and Fortitude.

A lesson to be learned on every corner.

A must see - again and again, and once more with feeling!

This is the City your dreams and your nightmares created.

If you don't feel alive here, you're probably not.

It's New York.

New York is the end game.

If it won't work here, it won't work.

Weird. Wired. Wonderful.

An ode to hope and humanity.

Go!

You won't be alone.

Just do it. And do it. And do it again.

Six Decades: Part III - Slightly Sidetracked

I was filled with such great expectations!

By dickens, I was going to explore the pros and cons and ins and outs and ups and downs of how I got to be ME. Here and now.
But what I found happening as I edged ever nearer the precipice of the age that shall not define me is that I didn't really feel like I had a lot to share of earth shaking significance. At least nothing that would change your world. Of course, lots has changed mine, constantly and perpetually, world without end.
But right after the last installment I stalled. (And I went to New York City- we all need a little NYC.)

And after walking for hours in Gotham, my feet begged me to pay attention. I had no choice but to submit. And so now it's time to confess that I have a foot fetish.

Not the kind that makes you think of quirky high heels, slightly sleazy, I feel queazy, let me nibble your toes stuff. No, not the fun stuff.  But the  "at 16 years old I had a bi-lateral bunyon-ectomy" stuff. And yes, it's appropriate for you to think, "What?"
What it means is I had bunyons removed from both sides of both feet because they had impeded my abililty to pedal - and I saw a podiatrist.  He said I needed to have the surgery, or I would be a "cripple" by the time I was 40. Today, and everyday since this operation, the doctor remains politically incorrect and I have been fine, and so have my feet, thank you very much.
The most outstanding outcome of the event (other than a life long love affair with foot rubs) is that it took place 2 weeks before I was due to enrol at university and  check in at the residence at University of Guelph.

And so begins Chapter the Next.

I'm 16 years old. Early acceptance for spring admission to University...time to get there...
My feet are wrapped in cotton bandages, many times around each foot, protecting surgical incisions that excised bone, and were stitched together, a total of 296 times, equally shared left side, right side, left foot, right foot.
Protecting this mass of bio-hazard bandaging, were 2 very attractive green garbage bags. One per foot.
And so I arrived on campus for the very first time and  entered the U of G residence, with my Mom and my sister Jane.
"Hi!" We said to the group of guys standing in the entrance hall.
"Hellllloooo!" Funny Big Guy said, " What floor are you on?"
"Uh, top floor  -6th I think? Is there an elevator? 'Cuz, uh, I can't walk just now..?"
"Well", said FBG, "that's not a problem!" That guy over there will take your trunk up to your room, via the elevator, and YOU, little lady , will just hop on board my back. Hie yup!"
And -there is not one false word in this testimony- he hitched me onto his back, and I rode him up to the 6th floor of U of G residence, with Mom and Jane following behind to catch me if he fell.
Now, THAT's a first day of school.Colour me lucky and rub my feet!

Six Decades: Part B

And so we moved to Canada's capital. I silently sobbed from Lloydminster to Lashburn, my father's birthplace, and a distance of about 25 miles, and then I   just couldn't sustain the sadness for the loss of my first love anymore. I was, after all, moving to Ottawa, the capital of Canada! Totally exotic and beyond any pre-conceived, not conceived, and any other -eived
notions. Ottawa had big department stores  and skyscrapers. For a child of the prairies, this was heady stuff. Oh. Ya. It was also the capital of Canaduh...what-evvv-errr.

We arrived in early summer - time enough to get enroled in school -advancing a year to accommodate the fact that the prairie system only took 12 years, but in Ontario, kids needed an extra year to learn everything . Who knows? And 50 years later? I don't care. I got to skip a  grade.

And all of a sudden I was a big city kid, knowing absolutely no one  and in high school. I learned very quickly how absolutely alone one can feel in the middle of 1000 people.  And immediately on the heels of that lesson, I learned that the creepy term "Peeping Tom" was rooted in reality. As in someone was in our backyard, staring at me sleeping, night after night. CrapandshitI'mscared!

So big city living meant that this whack job (WJ) liked to look through the bedroom windows of teen-aged girls. I discovered this thanks to the next door neighbour's dog, whose barking woke me one night. In the morning we discovered that pervert WJ had dragged cement cinder blocks under my window.  The next time it was huge sawed off tree stump,  and then later a cement sewer conduit...all under my bedroom window, so he could stand on the peeping aide and watch. Me. Sleep. I was 13. 

I won't drag this particularly tawdry incident out. The police were called, stake outs were set up...did I say I had to act as bait one night?  I did.
But he was in fact caught just down the road from our home, on a ladder, peeping into the 2nd story window of a blonde 14  year old.
I don't know if he ever went to jail, or court, or even received much more than a reprimand. I hope so.

I know when I hit "publish" I will be sharing this incident with friends, acquaintances, and a few strangers. I've decided, after much consideration,  that I'm okay with that.

So, my first year in Ottawa was interesting to be sure,and  I think that experience may have influenced me in some ways.

Ed...to be continued

Six Decades: Part I

This particular birthday has been bothering me a lot over the past while. Ever since other friends, acquaintances, colleagues, et “all” have been hitting this milestone, and many in spectacular ways.

Some have sailed gracefully into the seventh realm...taking pictures of themselves dancing; sitting on mountain tops; eating unpronounceable foods in faraway places; building new homes on remote islands; walking ancient trails; being with original friends from long, long ago; setting new standards, new rules, new lives.

Me?

I survived. And I’m alive. Not famous in the big magazine sense of the word, but the local newspaper has  reported alot of stuff I’ve said and done over the past 12 years  in an official capacity for the City for which I work. And I printed one copy of my blog, http://www.susansgonetothebirds.blogspot.com when I achieved 5000 readers status. So now I own a 476 page soft-bound book that I did, indeed, write. One book.   One copy. No sales yet.  

At 60, (well, 59 yrs, 355 days) I can say with certainty, that I have never really fit in. I have very early memories, at less than 2 years old where my Mom was handing me to the sitter, arm cradle to arm cradle and I didn’t want to be passed off.  Collectively, they almost dropped the struggling Susan, but, again, collectively, they managed not to.

I remember potty training too. Amazing really...sitting on a little robin’s egg blue, tin-enamel pot in my parent’s bedroom, when the sitter came barging in and insisted that I stop, and put my diaper back on! I clearly understood that  she didn’t want to have to deal with baby Sue’s shit poo, and really? Who can blame her?

In grade 7, at Lloydminster Junior High School, several things happened all at once on a sultry June night in 1963. I was awarded a whack of medals for scholarly aptitude, and athletic aptitude, and dramatic aptitude..clean sweep and heady stuff for a 12 year old girl who really just wanted to kiss a guy and Lynn Brown in particular.

First Kiss: 12 years old, in the back of a car (that his older brother was driving), flying 80 miles an hour towards Sandy Beach, with the moonlight casting shadows from behind. I watched as his head leaned towards my head, and we both turned, and my knees melted, and ... is  it any wonder that my parents decided it was time to get their 3 pubescent daughters out of this small town?!

I think, re-reading what I’ve just written, that this is as good a place to pause as any. Not sure where this journey is leading me, but most assuredly, we’re on a little journey.

...to be continued

Just Singin' the Loonie Tunes

If you live in Canada, you will know the call of the Loon

and you will likely have been told by scolding old school marm-aladies

not to mimic their call especially in the spring

when they are calling for their marm-amates.

Like this."ohhhhhwaaaaallaahooahhhhhh" or something remotely similar.

Loons are right up there in Canadian iconism with beavers 

and Mounties

and Justin Bieber.

How a 16 year old kid from Stratford can take the teenage world by storm

is beyond me. (Obviously, as I never did it.)

But, gasp, I just don't get it.

(Sorry, Justin.)

So now I know that I have crossed the line.

I'm old.

And you're not.

That your handlers want you to sound like an American ghetto kid from wherever it is your newly acquired accent comes from,

in order to attract more and more teenage angsters is,

of course, their right.

And yours, too.

I just happen to think it's all a tad loonie.

A bit of a scam...the art of persuasion,

the machine in motion and the tail wagging the dog  puppy.

 This just in.

I just shared.

Just like you're doing

 on all the tv talk shows.

And to quote a wood burnt sign that used to hang at the ye old family cottage,

"Ve get too soon oldt, and too late schmart.

Just in time

for y'all  to think about.

Spin Cycle

In the background is a peppy little voice cheerfully chattering  about the nautical look, and how we can now take it the office. As she burbles away, I stare at this nautical look, and I wish I could. But I don't think that's what the etalk hostess means. This spring has been so long coming, that now that it's here, I find myself slightly off kilter. Not quite in focus and a bit soft.

Like dawn on the river. It holds me spellbound as I count hundreds, no thousands of ducks and geese, gathering, gabbing, gobbling, and going on their way. I sit and wonder where they have been. Where they will be tomorrow. I want to know their unknowable journeys. I want their promises to return. Again and again.

Like violets, and daffodils.

The cheery greeting I am given upon arrival is worth the long winter's wait.

And I smile, happy that they're so...so relentlessly yellow! 

They wink and nod with the spirit of spring.

Like little red squirrels who have waited for months to scold someone.

Anyone. Me.

Like a tightly coiled furry little spring, he can't stop moving. Or chirping.

"I'm alive! I'm alive! You are too! What are you doing? Where are the peanuts?

Get the nuts! I'm alive! I'm starving here! Hurray! Hurry.

No, don't stop. Don't look at the birds. I know they're cute. So am I!

Okay, one little look... Hurry!" 

How can one look just once?

This place has me on spin cycle.

I love Spring.

I'm alive.

Down By the Old Mill Stream

My Mom and Dad were pretty "Hip to the Jive", as they used to say. And they had this huge collection of LP's (Ed. note: gentle reader born after 1980, you may have to look this one up) to prove it. There were the Mills Brothers,  Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, The Lemmon Sisters, and many other collections of albums, including some by the Langevin Symphonette Society- the precursor to elevator music....or Muzak, as it's known amidst the  mad men. Musak is actually a patented type of music delivery system for elevators, department and grocery stores. Shoppers, it has been proven, buy more when there is perky, cheerful music to shop by. And they fight less when a funeral dirge is droning in the background of the outdoor stadium as the losing hometeam exits. On the same note, it is also why municipalities often play opera outdoors and illuminate an area with zit highlighting black light to deter teenagers from hanging out late at night.
But, I digress.
Back to the old mills, brothers.
On a recent country drive, looking for signs of spring, we took the road less travelled, and followed a local area map to Burnt Bridge Road. It is always, to me, a bit of a shock to find a lovely, hidden little patch of nature, and one of the thoughts I find myself always thinking at these times is, "Has anyone else been here before? Am I the first? " I might add, that this is asked hopefully, as I am one of "those people" who will find secret places to sign my name, like on the inside of window frames in my childhood home the day we moved, so that years later, it would be discovered that I had lived there. I know. Sad. But true.
In this particular case, I most assuredly  wasn't the first...but I felt like no one had been here for  at least awhile...

I've lived in the Ottawa Valley for about 25 years, and have never seen this grinding stone, or heard of it's existence before. But indeed, here it sat. A round granite monolithe in the middle of sort of nowhere.

And it had a friend.

You know, when you're expecting something, like say, the Eiffel Tower to appear because you happen to be in Paris -when it appears, you're excited and slightly giddy, because it's smaller than you thought it would be, but exactly like it's supposed to look like. Only, uh, smaller.

Well. That's remotely what this was like.

"Well, lookie here!! Two grinding stones, in the middle of absolutely the bush in the middle of the  Sunday drive to nowhere!"

And they're big! Well, teeny mini stonehenges, but still -about 5 feet in diameter. They didn't roll here all by themselves, that's fer sure!

(We don't get out much you now know.)

So, the Burnt Bridge had actually been rebuilt and standing on it, I could pick out this year's now not so secret   picnic spot to which you're all invited.

(on the right..see? where the sunlight hits just right?)

And time was spent in that ponderous moment wondering "where does all that water come from? Where does it go?"

 Someone should have built a grist mill here a hundred years ago!

Oh. They did.

Clever, resiliant, reliable pioneers.

And while there were a few water watchers down by the old mill stream,

 it became apparent that they'd rather be left alone.

Out in the middle of somewhere.

Someone had already signed their name. So, of course,  I didn't.

Acting Naturally.

 As Spring slowly, slowly unfolds this year the lessons Nature

wishes us to learn become apparent.

Things are seldom simple.

And  they are seemingly not what they seem.

First and foremost, Nature is in complete charge.

If She wishes that there be snowstorms in April, so be it. 

This is not about You.

Well, that's not quite true. You will learn how quickly hordes of little tiny Common Redpolls can empty a feeder full of niger. And you may also learn how much better off you'd be if you'd only taken advantage of the bird seed sales last week!
Should have done that.

The camera that was on sale just after Christmas would have captured the feeding frenzy a little better too, proving Nature's lesson that he (or she)

who hesitates is lost generally pays more.

You may also learn that if you must take a picture through screening, then you should have installed the lighter coloured screen and not the black stuff.

Yes, Nature helps us to see many things more clearly.

There is an art to seeing.

If you are a Hermit Thrush you need to blend in and be almost invisible in front of your prey. If you're a human trying to capture a Hermit Thrush with a camera you need to be quick. And lucky.

Sometimes you really can't see the forest for the trees. And  what you think is  a leaf is in fact a Purple Finch. This was  a lucky shot, only discovered after

the fact, with the aid of the digital magnifier.

Nature doesn't need one of those. Ever. She knows exactly how things

are meant to be in order to blend in, you dull earthling dolt. 

Of course, being in complete control of this little blue planet, third from the sun, Nature is not always nasty. In fact, after proving beyond every single solitary reasonable doubt just who's in charge, She  usually sends us something breathtakingly beautiful.

A Loon calling plaintively throughout the night, searching for completion.

There is no nicer Evensong.

And just to be very sure you get every lesson you need to learn, the occasional oddity will be tossed in your direction. Just to make sure you're paying attention. That in the midst of chaos, you've kept your sense of humour.

Believe me.

Until we accept that Nature's in charge here,

and learn how to live within our means,

we're going to be needing it.

Happy Earth Day.

This is a Whine Tour

While winter still insists on scratching it's cold brittle limbs against the window and pelting us with what would be rain if it weren't ice, it's a good time to at least think about birding.

One lovely mellow day last fall I went for a drive through the rich plains leading down to the river - an area of lush farm fields and ditches overflowing with tasty treats for wandering warblers, sparrows, and hawks on high.

It's an old area, on the edge of the Canadian Shield and hunted by the Algonquin over 6000 years ago.  Samuel de Champlain lost his astrolabe near here on one of his visits, and the Voyageurs plied the many lakes and rivers, laden with baubles and beads to trade for furs to warm the tops and bottoms of  European royalty.  Over time it became a destination for Irish, Scottish, Polish, German, and French settlers, hoping to escape famine in Europe in the early 1800's.

The day of my drive, the sun was warm, and lazy bees were making slow work of the meadows, lopsided and laden with pollen, they bobbed beside me,

while bright beady eyes followed their movements.

The Yellow Rumped Warbler is one of the first warblers

to appear in the spring, his cute little butter bum seen flitting

in the bushes and along the edges of fields.

The Song Sparrow is one of the first sparrows to make it back to the Valley. I know for a fact that they have returned, because I've heard then calling out and heralding the rites of Spring. Although I suspect that today

they are hunkered down, hopefully inside a barn out of the wind and rain.

Most likely wondering when the sun is going to shine, and wishing they'd lingered

a little longer  on the  south side of Lake Ontario!

Here in the middle of winter, a day of rain and temperatures hovering around 0 would have everyone saying things like, " Wow, is it ever mild!"

But in April?? Not so much....

Oh crap!

I have just proven, again, that Canadians  will always find

some way to talk about the weather.

Must BE the weather that causes this national trait!

Little Goosey Gander

Little Goosey Gander

Wither do you wander?

Upstairs

Downstairs

In the master's chamber.

(Who dreamt up that little ditty? What could it possibly mean?)

I have no idea what it means! But I do know that over the years, given all the crap and oil and crap and oil that has been placed in the way of all creatures great and small, I have developed a profound respect for any thing with wings who manages to fly by me!

Welcome back  Canada Goose, my  personal harbinger of Spring.

Honkkkk...honkk...hey You! Featherbrain? You listenin' to me?

yes'm.

for more views of the skies around this world, check out
http:www.skyley.blogspot.com