BREAKFASTING WITH BIRDS

September 2004

Over the last two long weekends, we shared our al fresco breakfast hour with an assortment of friendly birds.

Some friends of ours, who live in a hand-built solar-powered off-the-grid home on 40 acres way up in the Rocky mountains, have been away. They asked us to house-sit their property, water the plants, and eat the copious crop of organic greens that is just ready to harvest from their circular straw-bale greenhouses.

(They stack straw bales waist high, and fill the center with rich soil. The vegetables planted there receive protection from the cold mountain winds but still get plenty of sun. The thermal mass of the straw radiates heat to the plants throughout the chilly nights. White porous gardening cloth thrown over the top of each circle helps to hold the heat in. It keeps the elks and deer out, too.)

On the deck is a waist-high platform birdfeeder. The morning rooster of the birdfeeder is a large blue Stellar Jay, who squawks until we fill it. Black oil sunflower seeds and millet is on the menu. After Jay jumps around and eats for awhile, the little nuthatches and titmice zoom down in fluttery groupings and squabble over the seed. There is ample room and mounds of seed, but a few of them fight for territory anyway.

When I refill the feeder later in the day, the little black headed flutterers (I’m not entirely sure which variety of bird is which) stand right there on the feeder. They don’t mind my gigantic presence. When Gypsy the dog sticks her wet snuffly nose right into the middle of the bird party, they get upset. It’s funny to hear the birds scolding Gypsy with the loudest peeps they can muster, while she tucks her tail down and sheepishly looks away. Somebody feathery is at the feeder all day long, with various groupings shifting and interweaving and taking turns.

At sundown the birds mysteriously disappear. Deer, elks and foxes begin to emerge silently. Coyotes make their presence known when the moon rises. Their primordial yipping howls wailing through the moonlit darkness, echoing off each hill in turn, invite shivers on my arms and back of my neck. I get the urge to run naked and barefoot through the forest like a wild animal myself, eating berries and hiding in the bushes. Fortunately, the nighttime temperature and the cactus dissuade me from succumbing to the call of the wild.

When we are up in the mountains, with no TV or radio or human neighbors, we are different. We are peaceful, loving people who move gracefully about our duties. At home, we are rushed, harried people who bump into one another on our way to or from the computer or garage or television or kitchen. I like the mountain version of us better. I would swear there is something in the air, down in the towns and cities, that revs up the irritability factor in people. Crowds and traffic and loud music and demanding customers don’t help the serenity factor either. I have read about microwaves from cell phones permeating the atmosphere and vibrating our cells and brains at an uncomfortable frequency. It’s possible, I suppose.

I wonder if our house will sell and we will be able to live farther away from civilization, as we dream. We can make a regular breakfast date with the birds, and schedule a monthly full-moon howl-a-thon with the coyotes. It’s possible, I suppose.
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