How to enjoy life.

 

 

It’s April 21^th, the weather; disappointing. My herb patch would normally be brimming with one-foot tall lovage, a couple of rhubarb pies already in the making and the apple tree ready to showcase its’ majestic apple blossoms.

So much said for the weather this year. The heater is still on; winter-jackets falling off dinner table chairs and the yearnings for the warmer months linger on every Canadian’s lips.

Mind you, the birds seem to be adjusting just fine as observed by one of my neighbors.

 

“Good Morning Gawri,

I was up at 4.30 this morning and birds were already awake chirping, then as it became light the sky was filled with them in flight over the wetlands in all directions as though they had to get somewhere in a hurry. There is a pair of swans picking out a nest site at the point of the bend of twelve-mile creek. There is also a pair of swans getting ready to build a nest on the pond opposite my balcony.”

 

Oh yes, it’s that time of the year again. The summer visitors have already taken residency in my backyard. The Red Cardinals who return every year into the cedars and I’m sure there is an egg or two somewhere in there as Mr. Cardinal stands watch while Mrs. Cardinal goes about gathering food. His brilliant red decorates my nude apple tree like a Christmas ornament.

 

I did see Mommy Blue Jay feeding her baby on the rogue branch that I refuse to cut due to the high volume of animal activity it attracts. I get a bird’s eye view from my favorite spot in the living room.

 

Territorial disputes are common between Grackles and Red-winged blackbirds bickering over nesting sites. They always try to destroy other bird’s nest to reduce competition.

 

This brings to mind an avian horror story that occurred two summers ago. My neighbor came rushing out of her kitchen, one beautiful sunny spring day, because she had heard some sort of a commotion in her backyard she thought warranted some investigation. To her dismay she saw a couple of grackles and a couple of robins arguing over what looked like a piece of food. Soon she came to realize that one of the grackles held a baby robin under its’ feet. The baby bird barely having any feathers on its’ body; its’ partner in crime pecking at this newborn chick. My neighbor quickly ran to fetch her broom to help this poor baby but unfortunately one of the grackles started to attack her instead. She watched in horror as the grackles left with the crying baby robin and flew away into the distance. It was alive when then they took it. The robins gave chase but the baby robin probably ended up being someone’s meal.

 

I see a nest in the apple tree. Someone has borrowed the old squirrel drey as a makeshift bird’s nest. Last summer a young raccoon suffering from distemper used this same drey as a cooling station.

 

 

As for the robins; it’s location, location, location.

They are aplenty, scouting every branch, post, flowerpot and pipe for that perfect location.

A pair or two always return to the crab apple tree in the front yard. Do you see the robin in the nest?

 

 

Lets not leave my lovely doggie “Izzy Boo” out of all this excitement. He has some serious beef with one particular bunny in the backyard. He’s been busy chasing the cottontails in the mornings and evenings… and if he doesn’t feel like the bunny is worth the chase, he’ll just eyeball the poor thing.

Once, while Izzy was sniffing the spring air a bird whizzed past behind him. Izzy turned around and you could see the expression of wonder on his face, “what was that, did I miss something”?

The squirrel clan has a sturdy home in the neighbor’s fir tree. They scurry down that tree early in the morning, the very moment I put out the birdseeds. I swear they have someone on sentry duty up there.

 

 

My dad’s family lived in the outskirts of the city in Kajang, Malaysia, a place called Prang Besar Estate. We’d visit my grandparents, aunts and uncles during family gatherings. I remember once my uncle and my dad saw a black squirrel on a tree. My uncle told the kids to come out to see the squirrel. I had never ever seen a squirrel before. All of us were excited.

All the children, about twenty five of us ranging from five to fifteen and a few adults frenzied out with sheer commotion to see the squirrel.

As I reached outside I was disappointed to see but a shaking of branches in the distant trees. We had scared the squirrel away. I grew up in a town house, in an area devoid of trees and wind. A price paradise pays in the name of development.

 

Now after a few decades later I can’t get enough of them. Grey squirrels, black squirrels, chipmunks, red squirrels… they are all welcome.

I cherish and soak in their beauty when I see them galloping between the cedars.

 

I can’t really get enough of this squirrel-watching pastime: I don’t mind them frolicking on my patio furniture, jumping onto the rooftop from the trees, stealing nuts from the bird feeder,  digging up my tulips all the time, running away with building material for their homes namely fuzzy layers underneath the barbecue cover and burlap from around the plants. When I see white fluff hanging from a drey I smile.

 

 

Hissing ganders stand watch over their nests. Ducks circling above makes me wonder if they ever get dizzy. There is magic happening everywhere and we are a part of it.

 

At the end of the day as I sip my first cup of coffee looking out into my unending bustling noisy surrounding I see not the late arrival of warm weather but a harbinger of renewal, new life, positive energy, and I celebrate nature as its profusion on flora and fauna envelope my senses.

 

A lot has happened since my first posting on May 1^st 2013.

A few graduations, new business ventures, a new puppy, a few books in the works – self-publishing is hard work, Bunica’s Tomatoes was requested for 2014 Blue Spruce Award entry. Would have been awesome if I had won, getting older and wiser and finally tackling the French language.

 

As the saying goes; take life in strides.