We feed birds. In the winter we have a bird feeder that we fill with seeds, grains, cracked corn and things the bird books say birds love yet never seem to eat. It provides us with a little joy at seeing the avian life come to our back yard to dine and live in this most harsh of seasons.
In the summer we still put out food but as most of the birds we have seem to prefer to feed on the ground, the feeder, although filled with food, is mostly ignored except for the bits that have fallen to the ground where the doves, the wrens, the thrushes, the yellow thrushes we call canaries, blue jays and cardinals all gather. And we have cats. Two of them. One, the alpha male concerns himself with maintaining the integrity of his territory, patrolling the yards of the neighbourhood to keep other cats in their places. He also doesn't see very well so hunting for him is an exercise in futility. Something he has figured out. The other one, although well fed, overly fed in fact, is the typical hunter/killer feline. When something in the yard moves he goes into the hunter/killer cat pose, low crouch, tail twitching, slinking towards the prey in short bursts of stealth. Luckily for the birds his girth means he is not the most athletic of animals and so we have only once seen a victim of his skill. Both mice and moles seem to be an easier catch as they show up mornings on our lawn, stiff and inert, waiting for the crows to come and carry them off.
We have morning doves that perch on the wires or the fence and survey the territory, coming in to feed or strut and then taking off with that squeaky wing sound as though they are in need of a good oiling. They are attractive birds, feminine looking as though they all are the pretty but vacuous members of the bird world.
As I said, we like these birds, wish them no harm but know that the presence of the hunter/killer cat no matter what his skill level, is a threat to their lives. So for the summer we put the food inside the fence that surrounds our swimming pool. This allows them safe eating on the ground, safe from the cats and allows the social, hierarchical fights of the bird world to be carried out uninterrupted.
Now that we are in the latter part of summer we have one dove that comes each evening to the cache of food on the ground, pecks around a bit but mostly just sits on the warm concrete and stares out over the pool. He hunkers down, his soft breast resting on the ground, gazing over the water and seems to be lost in thought or reverie. Other birds sing their evening songs from the trees, some small birds flit to the feed to peck around, stocking up for the night ahead but he mostly ignores them. He just sits and stares. When this first began the hunter/killer went into high alert. He slinked down from the deck, kept low to the ground, moving furtively until he was positioned behind the dove and hidden by the barbecue. Then in the moment of attack his hind quarters twitched, he raised his haunches and sped towards the dove. He may have had the unsuspecting bird except for the chain link fence between the two of them. At full speed he made for the bird and then, then ran head long into the fence. It's a wonder he didn't break his fool neck. The startled dove flew off in a moment of panic as the slightly dazed and very disappointed cat watched it go. This replayed itself the next evening. The wary dove, the hunter/killer cat, the stealth, the rush to kill, the chain link fence and the disappointment. Now the bird and the cat had both figured out their advantages and disadvantages. A Mexican standoff of sorts in the cat/bird world.
The dove still comes most evenings to rest, perhaps to compose poetry in its head and to be calmed by the reflecting waters of the pool. The cat still stalks but now just creeps as close as it can and sits and watches the dove. The dove, aware of the cat is mostly nonplussed by this traditional threat and so is free to enjoy his evening dreams. The standoff continues with the dove secure inside the fence and the cat dreaming of it not being there.

Ahh, mid July and the promise of summer is here in full force. This is what we dream about all winter, wish fervently for on those cold dark days of the year when the world is all black and white and the sun is a filtered ray of paltry light. This is what we want to see, when in January we look through the frosted window. We want to see green grass, leaves on trees, flowers a-bloom in thought out plots of colour. We want to look out at the garden to see what we are going to eat that evening. We want the smell of fresh cut grass, more than anything we want that first whiff of mown lawn in the spring.
Is there anything better than using the garden hose to wash the dirt off a freshly pulled root vegetable and then using your pocket knife to cut the end off and take a bite. Or picking a young pea pod (as I just have) from the vine and tossing a few incredibly sweet peas into your mouth.
Ahh summer. It's sitting in the shade of a sun umbrella with a languishing cat by your feet, a bit of a breeze, a cool beer and the chirping of birds as they flit back and forth to the pile of seeds you put out. It's the sounds of children down the street screaming with delight as they run through the sprinkler. It's the sight of your neighbour as he polishes his car in the shade of a tree. It's the greeting of "gudday" or "evenin'" that you say with a nod of the head as you acknowledge the passing stranger as you sit on the front porch. This being a small town that stranger is more than likely to pause and comment on the evening weather or the state of your flower bed or how pretty the cat is - again the cat rests by your feet.
As the day cools and the supper dishes are put away the front porch is the place to be on our quiet street of early twentieth century houses. When we moved here we commented that our street and a couple of the surrounding ones looked like something out of a Frank Capra movie set. We'd walk the darkening streets as the day ended and front room lights came on and if all the modern cars suddenly turned into 1920's models and Jimmy Stewart had come out of a door and tipped his boater to us we would not have been surprised. We live, in a small way, in a 1920's or '30's urban landscape.
Summer is the time of year when you can't stay awake during the day and can't get to sleep at night, all because of the heat. It's wakening out of a mid afternoon slumber to find the ice in your drink has melted, the unread book is resting on your chest and the plans to, to do something, has gone from your memory and anyway it's now too late to begin to do whatever it was you were going to do.
Summer nights are ceiling fans, a light sheet only as a cover and pillows flipped and flipped again to get that cool spot. Its open windows and a gentle stirring of the lace curtains. It's the sounds of young people walking home, shy laughter and steps in unison. As the late night news ends the last of the sounds is our neighbour letting the dogs out for one last "go" and him whispering loud enough for the whole block to hear, "bad dog, git home here, come here, c'm here" and at last the quiet descends. Sleep creeps up upon you and another day is over. Ah summer!

Destruction, homelessness, despair, all played out in my back yard.
Mice. If only they weren't so problematic. They gnaw, chew, spoil food, cause fires, spread disease and once they've peed on something it stays smelly until the end of time. If only they weren't so cute. They need to be more rat like. Need to have less of the aww factor.
In the book "The History of Myddle" (Richard Gough (b.1635) written 1700-1702, first published in 1834) the writer claims that the old people of his day believed if you put a piece of cheese and some old rags in a box and left it overnight a mouse would spontaneously be created.
Robbie Burns wrote an ode to his "...earth-born companion,/An' fellow mortal!" and lamented his part in "Thy wee bit housie, too in ruin!".
What other rodents have had a bard for the ages write a beloved poem just for them? Non other I think than Burns' "Wee sleeket, cowrin' tim'rous beastie,".
Mice. We set out poison for them, trap them, set cats upon them, hold snakes in higher regard than might otherwise be just because they eat them. Other than a mosquito buzzing in the dark as you try and sleep what other sound than that of a mouse in the wall can keep you awake and pondering the death of another?
This morning I picked up a canvas tarp that previously in the week I had tossed out of the workshop. It lay for days outside the door, still folded, waiting to be used. A gentle spring rain had begun to fall and as I was about to toss it back into the shop a bit of fiberglass insulation fell out of the folds. Then a ball of soft, shredded paper. Then a fat brown mouse.
The mouse tried to scamper back up hill to where it's home had been and I set the tarp down to make that task easier but now panic had set in and retreat was the preferred option. So off he or she, went, waddling rather than scurrying to the safety of the low space under the porch. Never to be seen again I've no doubt unless it turns up one morning on the lawn, stiff and inert, the victim of a killer cat. I'll leave it then where it lay and by mid morn a crow will have swooped down, picked it up and completed the cycle of life and death.
But now I think of the poor thing, huddled against the cold on the bare ground where cats roam and hide from the rain. Scarce hours ago it had warmth, a secure home, a cache of food gathered from beneath the bird feeder, a future firmly ensconced in the middle/upper class of mousedom. Now it's homeless, the day has turned cold and the falling rain chills to the very bone. Where will the bits of insulation and paper be found to build a new home? How long until night falls and it is safe to gather seeds beneath the feeder? And the cats. Once securely locked out of the shop they are now denizens of the same haunts under the porch. How long until death, premature and unwanted, finds my little brown friend?
A last mouse tale.
One winter I had hiked along an unused logging road, had got to my destination, heated a meal in the shelter of a rock face and as the day waned I retraced my steps back to my truck. As I walked I saw ahead in the distance something scurrying along my foot prints in the snow. I stopped and watched this little thing get closer and closer, climbing in and out of the indentations, expecting at any moment for it to see me and veer off into the forest. But it didn't and only stopped at the very toes of my boots. Stopped, stood on it's back legs and looked up at me. A little grey and brown mouse right out of Central Casting, right out of Walt Disney or Pixar Studios. Beady eyes, big ears, hands held over it's chest, whiskers twitching. I spoke to it and then bent over, picked it up in my mittened hand and held it up level to my face. We looked at each other momentarily, I turned, set him down on the path behind me and we both continued on our journeys.
Such attractive little fellows and so nice to have these little interactions with things wild. Having said that however if I ever found them in my house I'd whack then with a broom and toss their battered little bodies outside.
Such is life. Wish it weren't so at times but so it is.
Posted by Albe

I love going to auctions. Went to my first one about ten years ago to buy some old tools for my workshop, got'em and was hooked. Over the years I've got some great deals, a General table saw for forty five bucks was one of my better ones. Some of the stuff you buy comes in a box with a bunch of other stuff and this other stuff occasionally yields some pleasant little surprises. I have an old manual telling farmers about the dangers of those new fangled inventions like electricity and automobiles. I have a Christmas toy flyer circa 1953 with toys I remember my parents buying for me. There's pill boxes for morphine, yard sticks with two number telephone numbers and old glass bottles from a century ago. Last weekend I bought that light pictured above. I thought, when I was bidding on it, that it was an old railroad light but once I looked at it I knew it just didn't fit that genre. So I looked it up. Turned out it's a tail light for a car, a model T car, model A car but a car before they had the electrical system fully worked out. One side is red, facing rear; clear, facing the licence plate and blue/green facing out. The picture below is courtesy of Shorpy.com - one of the best web sites for old photos. Check out the rear of the car. There's my light. Then look at the cat facing, it has the same light on the passenger side front window.
Got it home, filled it with kerosene and fired it up. Works, but then why wouldn't it. It doesn't get much lower tec than this. Now if only I could get a car to go along with it.

Well here it is, another February, another entry. Surely to god you would think I could manage more than one little note a year. Seems not though. But anyway here I am on yet another somewhat uninspiring winters day. The sun is trying valiantly to shine through the clouds but the wind and the cold are succeeding in keeping me indoors.
What a change from yesterday when it was a shoes and sweater day, coffee on the porch and a brilliant blue sky. Then came the snow, then the wind. Mid way through the evening the lights flickered, flickered again and died. So for a little more than half an hour we sat by the light of the fire, lit a lamp and tried to think of what we would have done if we were pioneers. I suggested listening to fiddle music on the ipod but that somehow didn't feel like something our log cabin dwelling fore fathers would have done. Before we had a chance to actually get desperate enough to figure out what we could do by lamp light the power came back on and we went back to watching TV. In our defence though we do have an old TV. No big flat screen with Hi Def and surround sound for us. Nope, we still have our old tube technology, state of the art circa 1990 Zenith. You gotta admit that having that old thing is sort of pioneer like, almost akin to churning your own butter or reading the catalogue for amusement. Will probably be carting it off with me to "the home" when I go. These damned things never seem to die and I'm not one for tossing a perfectly good thing just because it's old or there is a newer version. Except for computers that is.
The big kerfuffle around the valley these days is our member of Parliament has once again spoken a thought in public and has for a moment taken her head out of her ass just long enough to stick a foot in her mouth. Cheryl Gallant, remember that name because when you look up redneck, ineffectual, ignorant or homophobic you will see her picture as a perfect example of the type. The first thing she did as an MP was to utter some redneck idiocy that had her censured, told to shut up by the caucus and placed forever in the backbenches. She then yelled homophobic comments during a parliamentary debate which sealed her fate as a person to be ignored. She is, I'm sure, barely tolerated by her party but she fills for them the function of occupying a much needed seat in a minority government. Now if she would only keep what passes as thought, to herself.
Her latest pearl of wisdom is to tell the men and women who work on the ocean that the government should not be responsible for trying to rescue them should a tragedy occur. This of course was said in front of an audience of people who had been rescued and the loved ones of those that had been lost at sea. The stupidity of the woman is mind boggling. And the bright lights of the valley keep electing this do nothing who's biggest accomplishment is doing photo ops for things she has no involvement in but are a benefit to the area. Speaks volumes about the locals and their commitment to quality representation.
Posted by Albedo Effect at 10:54 AM 0 comments