Column for June 24, 2010

I look at the birdbath and bird feeder as a microcosm of American society. I wrote at the begging of May how I've had more birds and squirrels at my feeder this year than ever before. It is amazing that the birds and cute, gray, bushy tailed rats can empty the feeder in less than a day. I fill it up almost daily now. I have spent more on birdseed so far this year than I have spent on most previous years combined.

There are a few observations I have made over the past few months. Even if the feeder is empty, birds and squirrels still come by the feeder to check to see if there is anything to eat. When the birds see me coming, they will actually fly away, perch on a wire or tree limb, and as soon as I leave the freshly filled feeder, flock to it. I have actually had birds angrily scream at me when the feeder is empty until I finish filling it again for them.

I see more squirrels on my little quarter acre of land than I have ever seen before. I am pretty sure that some of these squirrels do not live in the old pecan tree behind my house. Instead, they seem to sneak across the property border and plunder the feed. Birdseed is not even meant for squirrels, but they don't seem to mind. When I have bags of birdseed set out under my carport, squirrels will invade my carport and tear into the bags of seed.

When I put the seed bags into an old trash can that I am using as storage, the gray, illegal alien squirrels actually ate through part of the plastic garbage can to gain access to it and plunder what was never meant for them in the first place. They leave seed hulls all over my carport.

The one good thing the squirrels do is to rake out seed from the feeder and spread it on the ground. When they do that, many birds and other squirrels do actually benefit from their labor. Apparently the birds let the squirrels do jobs that they, in theory, are not willing to do themselves. I doubt that is truly the case, since when no squirrels have been handy, I have watched an ambitious bird actually shoveling out seed from the feeder to the ground with its beak. There is an obvious parallel to society here.

It is all part of my birdie stimulus spending plan. Birds and squirrels have come from all over the neighborhood to my feeder. Why they come to my feeder in particular is a mystery to me. Perhaps they are looking for a better life than they can find where their own nests are located. Maybe the food supply is just scarce on the other side of the neighborhood. Either way, the birds flock to my feeder more than that of my neighbors and more than any other year since I have been living in this house.

The seed is meant to supplement the animals' own ability to find food, not be their entire source of substance. I would hope that these now dependent birds and squirrels are also searching for worms, insects, berries, nuts and whatever else birds and squirrels consume. The handouts I provide are not meant to replace their own food chain. It seems that some take advantage of the free food more than others.

I get birds of all colors. Gray ones, black ones, red ones, blue ones, and a variety of color mixtures all flock to my feeder. Some are more common than others. Both birds and squirrels seem to take to the water supply in my birdbath. I have to rinse out the birdbath and refill it just about every day. Some days it takes less than an afternoon and it will be bone dry.

Regardless of whom the bird feeder and birdbath are meant for, the common factor is that when I put out an abundant supply of free food, I have an abundant supply of consumers wanting the handout. When I don't put out the food, the birds and squirrels find another way to get their sustenance. America could learn a lesson from that.

I almost feel like the federal government, giving out more in handouts than at any other time in my living here. The big difference seems to be that I can afford the birdseed. I guess if I charged the bird food to my credit card to pay it off years later with a huge amount of accrued interest, I would be more like the federal government.

Column for May 13, 2010

I already miss the month of April. Besides being a pretty girl's name, April is a pretty month and perhaps my favorite of the year. Each year, I look forward to the first part of the old, "April showers bring May flowers" expression. At least here in North Carolina, April showers bring April flowers. Once it hits May, the flowers are pretty much gone and the temperature gets uncomfortably hot.

March can be rough or mild, but when April 1 rolls around, I just plain enjoy North Carolina for at least 30 days. This year, as soon as May 1 hit, the weather turned hot and uncomfortable. April weather is sufficiently mild so that we can open the windows during the day and enjoy a temperature that is cool enough to not run the heat and warm enough to not have to run the air conditioning. Because of that, April is an economical month because we don't have to pay as much for Selma's over priced electricity to make the house comfortable.

Each April, my lawn starts to come to life after its hibernation. I have to get out the old lawnmower and get it running for the first time. I pick up a lot of limbs in the backyard after stiff winds blow out old, dead wood from my ancient pecan tree. Of course we can not forget the pollen that comes along with April, either. My pine tree in my back yard was just a sapling when I first moved there, and "Little Tree", as I call it has grown tremendously since then. Little Tree also covers my automobiles, car port, and yard with nasty yellow pollen. This year seems to be about the worst I remember in my 22 years here in the Tarheel State.

I have put more bird seed into my wild bird feeder and put more fresh water into my birdbath in my front yard than in any other year I can recall. I am not an avid bird watcher as my step-dad used to be, but I enjoy watching the doves, cardinals, robins, and black birds come and partake of the feed I put out for them. I also get to watch the psychotic but persistent squirrels attack my feeder. I have tried several different types of feeders in times past. I have found two kinds that squirrels can not totally destroy but still can steal from. The one good thing about these cute rats with bushy tails is that they cause a lot of seeds to fall to the ground so that the doves can eat. Doves seem to be too clumsy and stupid to get on the feeder so they scavenge off the ground. Basically, they seem to be retarded pigeons, but are still neat to have around.

My bird bath has gotten quite a work out this year. I sometimes have to fill it twice a day, and usually every day at a minimum. I laugh when I see birds jumping in and out of the bath. There is a group of black birds that love to all come to my bird bath at the same time. I affectionately refer to them as the "town council". They all sit in a semi-circle on the ridge of my bird bath, chatter at each other, and take turns jumping in to the center of the bath, making quite a splash. When one has taken its turn, the bird hops out and another chatter box hops in the bowl to splash around. This may go on for quite a while. I can never anticipate how long their council meeting will last or whether or not there will be enough members to have a quorum, just as I have seen in times past here in Selma government.

Spring is symbolically a time thought of as a renewing or of new life. The Bradford Pear trees come to life with gorgeous though short lived blossoms. My dogwood trees and azalea bushes in my yard come to beautiful, fragrant bloom, although the dogwoods did not have as nice flowers this year as usual. In the vein of new life, my wife and I also found out in April that a new LaPlante will come into this world at the end of the year.

Because of the pleasant weather and the sheer beauty of nature during that month, if every month could be April, I would never want to leave North Carolina.