Birding is for the Soaps

Darling Daughter and I decided a long time ago that we should have been wildlife biologists. Watching wildlife of all sorts in their daily travails is better than soap opera TV. We decided that last spring when, while taking a sit-down break from the spring yard cleaning, we noticed some birds circle overhead. And they weren’t just circling, they were flying like they were in an airborne NASCAR race. “What are they doing,” we wondered. A few minutes of observation answered the question. The two subjects were woodpeckers. One was a girl. One was a boy. It was spring. But apparently, he had something on his mind that she did not favor. After a half hour of wheeling around my little oak tree patch, the two, who were not necessarily love birds, flew off to the woods. We could only hope he went to buy a diamond ring, but I couldn’t figure out how a woodpecker could get down on one knee to propose. I don’t think birds have knees, do they?

Birds have become a new hobby for the semi-retired me. I love sitting out on the back porch watching their soap opera antics in the early morning or on a just-before-sunset evening. Trying to figure out what bird is what, and what they think they are doing, is a fascinating hobby. Although I must report I had to tell two wood thrushes (I think that’s what they were) to “Get a room!” Those two made soap operas look tame.

The next bird to show up was, according to my bird book, a tufted titmouse. How this pretty little thing got such a strange name is a mystery. The tiny tufted titmouse is a joy to watch, especially since this family was nesting in my backyard shed. Mom and dad, I presume, were constantly in and out, feeding a rather large family. And they came to the bird feeder quite often, after eyeing me to determine if I was a threat. Must have been a bunch of babies in the shed. But they are gone now. Babies must have grown up and flown the nest.

Don’t have to be in the back yard to watch the bird soaps. Across from the office in Sallisaw is a large tree. This tree provided homes for two families – mockingbirds and scissor-tailed flycatchers, our state’s main bird. But dad mockingbird and dad flycatcher did not get along. It was a constant squabble that made soap operas boring. The dads occasionally went at each other feet first with tiny talons extended as though they were going to fight to the death. It was amazing. They never once hurt each other. Food, of course, was at the center of the bird squabble. The fly catcher lives up to its name. It perches on the overhead power and phone lines, searching for insects, and, when a flying insect is spotted, flycatcher takes to the air, and can hover (wow) while snapping up the tiny morsel. But mockingbird wanted some of the action, and the two birds often sat side by side, up in the air on those lines, both seeking the same lunch, and eyeing each other with chests puffed up. But a mockingbird hunts differently from the flycatcher. He waited till the insect landed and went after dinner like a bulldozer. Dinner in hand, or mouth I should say, mockingbird would fly back to that neighborhood high rise, the tree across the street, to feed the family.

Back in my own backyard, the crow family has already been reported on. I’ve fed them ever since I saw them, so now they like to visit where I’ve thrown the leftovers out. My crows can out do the flycatcher when it comes to cats. Guess I’ll start calling them the cat-catchers because they have run ever neighborhood cat out of the neighborhood. But just last week one perched in a backyard tree out of my sight. He didn’t know I was there, but I could hear every call he made. And oh my, can crows talk. On and on and on he went, telling some sort of rumor story to his fellow crows. I wish I could understand what it was all about. I finally had to go peek around the corner of the house to make sure it was a crow I was listening to. Yep, but as soon as he saw me he was gone. Hey! I’m the lady with the food! I wish I knew what the story was. I like to think it was like that old telephone game, when the rumor is repeated so often, the first story is nothing like the end story. On the other hand, I bet that crow got the whole story right.

And then there was the attack of the hummingbird. Being tiny does not mean a lack of heroism. This tiny guy got upset with me one day, maybe because I hadn’t filled the feeders, and flew right down in my face and told me what he thought of the empty cupboard nose to nose. I confess. That hummingbird ran me out of my own backyard. But, the hummingbird feeders have been full ever since. And just last week, that hummingbird and (would you believe) a butterfly had a confrontation in my tiny flower garden. Hummer won of course, and won flower-nectar sipping rights. After one of our wind storms this summer, I found a tiny hummingbird nest on the ground under a tree. I hope the family had already left, and none were injured in the storm. I’m keeping that nest. It is a treasure, just like all those birding observations made on a summer day in the back yard.

'That Dang Chicken'

Everybody who visits here more than likely knows that Delanna N., a founding member of The Lunch Bunch, can’t cook. I mean really can’t cook. It’s bad. She called me up one day to find out how to turn her stove on. To be honest, and I always am, sort of, I told her I didn’t know how to turn her stove on over the phone. I’m pretty sure she figured it out. Or not.

Recently, Delanna has decided she will learn how to cook. But she’s not using her stove. She decided to go the Crock Pot way. All you gotta’ do with a Crock Pot is plug it in, throw supper’s ingredients in, and turn one dial to either high or low. That’s all. That’s the way mine works anyway. And Delanna went whole hog with her newest hobby. She doesn’t have just one Crock Pot, she told me one day. She has THREE! THREE Crock Pots! Who needs THREE Crock Pots? Delanna does it turns out. ‘Could that possibly be because she hasn’t yet figured out how to turn the stove on?’ I wondered. But everyone was happy for Delanna. She is finally learning how to cook. And to prove it, she got more than one, possibly more than two, new Crock Pot recipe books for Christmas, including the one from me.

And we had good news. Over the past few months Delanna, through her new Crock Pot knowledge, has finally joined the I-Can-Cook conversations all women and some guys have eventually. Yes Delanna. We know that all you have to do is stick all that stuff in the Crock Pot in the morning, set the dial on low, and supper is ready when you get home. However, I’m a scaredy cat. I do not use my Crock Pot unless I’m home. This may be due to past experiences on my part. I do not claim to be one whit better than Delanna in the kitchen. I confess. I’ve set my kitchen on fire more than once. And hubby and mom-in-law joined in and both set my kitchen on fire once each. I forgave them. I’m still ahead. And still not leaving my Crock Pot all alone on its own. Nope, I Crock Pot only when I can be there on weekends.

Delanna learned that lesson last week. She related, “I put in the rice. I put in the soup. I put in the chicken breasts. And when I got home and opened the front door, I wondered where all that smoke was coming from. I found out all that was left in the Crock Pot was the chicken, and you could bounce those breasts off the floor like basketballs!” I cautiously inquired (didn’t want to interrupt Delanna’s new-found cooking skills), “You did put it on low, right?” “YES!” I was firmly told. “I swear! The chicken bounces!”

O.K. Now I’m not telling on Delanna. I would never have brought up her unfortunate episode with her Crock Pot if she had not announced herself on Facebook for all the world to see. Good Grief woman. She also announced how both her grandmothers are GREAT cooks, but that cooking gene was not passed on to her. She and granddaughter Bailey, she reported, went out to eat to that night, and several nights since I believe. But she did get many comments on Facebook. Friends were concerned. “Oh My!” said one. Another asked, “U need help?” One was conciliatory, “See, it happens to the best of us.” (Hum, same problem perhaps?) Others offered advice. “Looks like a Sonic night,” or a pizza night, or a Mexican night. That’s the advice Delanna took. She also got many hearty laughs by likes on Facebook, including mine. Don’t take this as an indictment of Delanna’s cooking. Yes, it can happen to any one of us. All I have to do is remember that pink pie I made (was supposed to be strawberry chiffon) that would have matched Delanna’s bouncing chicken breasts bounce for bounce. And still my friends in The Lunch Bunch did their best to get it down their gullets, until I finally told them to “Never mind,” and the whole thing went in the trash. And Delanna’s Lunch Bunch friends have promised her a night out of the kitchen while we cook in our Crock Pots. One is making barbecue and I’m taking on peach cobbler. We’ll report on those choices later. Until then, take a look below at Delanna’s chicken breasts, on which she reports, “When bad things happen to good chicken! No fail recipe. Easy as pie. Ha! That DANG chicken!”

Glad I'm a Southerner

My Internet friend has been busy again, sending all her humorous thoughts and philosophical thinking to her family, friends and mere acquaintances around the world. So my philosophical thinking is that if I have to suffer through them, then everybody else does too. Welcome to Nancy’s World.

Well, actually, the following, known as How to Know You Are a Southerner, fits me to a T. I was born a Yankee, in Ohio, but I have southern roots since Mom was Kentucky-born and reared. And now that I have live for 35 years south of the Ohio River, I think I’ve adjusted to Southern ways. Perhaps the following will also explain my change to being a Southerner.

Things I’ve Learned Living in the South

*Nancy: A possum is a flat animal that lives in the middle of the road. Me: Or is digging up my brand new flower bed, and hisses at me when I try to run it off, causing me to flee back into the house!

*Nancy: There are 5,000 kinds of snakes and 4,998 of them live in the south. Me: And my backyard, but I’ve got good at killing snakes. You gotta’ down here.

*Nancy: There are 10,000 kinds of spiders and they all live in the south, plus a couple never seen before. Me: Want to see me run screaming like a girl? Show me a spider. I will brag just a bit. When one showed up in the living room last week, I got on top the couch, armed with a flip flop (what else, this is the south!), and threw it at spider intruder. One pitch-Dead spider! I am so proud.

*Nancy: If it grows, it will stick you. If it crawls, it will bite you. Me: I love cutting down those little sticky- burr plants that grow in the lawn, and, please remember, that spider’s not gonna’ bite anybody. Ha!

*Nancy:  Onced and twiced are words. Me:  Huh?

*Nancy: People actually grow, eat and like okra. Me: Another confession; in my first year in the South, couldn’t figure out why anyone would eat slimy okra. I remembered that thought recently when filling my plate with fried okra at a local restaurant’s food bar. Yummy!

*Nancy:  Iced tea is appropriate for all meals, and people start drinking it at the age of two. We do like a little tea with our sugar. It is referred to as the Wine of the South. Me: Darn tootin. But, alas, I have not yet achieved the art of making Southern tea, and I’ve TRIED! Maybe Nancy will take me to the kitchen and show me how it is done.

*Nancy: Backwards and forwards mean I know everything about you. Me: Sittin’ around drinking Southern tea makes us tell all our family secrets. Remember hiding behind a door as a child so we could hear our adults talk about the family secrets? I loved doing that!

*Nancy:  You carry jumper cables in your pickup, for your OWN pickup. Me: How did Nancy know that? Oh yeah. She’s a Southerner.

*Nancy:  You know what a hissy fit is. Me: I used that very word on a phone call just today! I like that word. It’s very expressive.

*Nancy: The first day of deer season is a national holiday. Me: I thought everyone knew that.

*Nancy:  Everyone you meet calls you Honey, Sugar, or Miss (name) or Mr. (name). Me:  The first time someone called me Miss Sally, I was a bit taken aback. What? Then I realized it as what it is. A term of respect for the older generation in the South. You can call me Miss Sally anytime you want to!

*Nancy:  Ya’ll is singular. All ya’ll is plural. Me:  Several years ago I heard myself saying, “Ya’ll.” At last, I’m a Southerner, and darn proud of it.

*Nancy:  You understand these jokes and forward them to all your Southern friends and those who just wish they were from the South. Me:  DONE! And thank you Miss Nancy.

The Not-so-Successful Shopping Trip

At first I wanted to call our little half-day journey “D and Sam’s Not So Excellent Adventure” reminiscent of the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” But then I got on the internet to find the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” Not what I was hoping for at all. I’ve never seen that movie about Bill and Ted, and found out the movie is old, really old. Not quite as old as me, but pretty old nevertheless. The movie is what I call a teenage boy flick. . .nonsensical with lots of double entendre. Teenage boys seem to love that. Chick flicks are for the ladies of course, and blow-em-up and beat-em-up movies seem to appeal to the guys.

Perhaps I need “Thelma and Louise” as a guide. Oops. I have seen that movie, and I didn’t particularly like the ending. No, it was just me and D, trying to get some of those dog-gone chores out of the way, so it was D (nickname for founding Lunch Bunch member Delanna N.) and Sam (that’s me, who came up with the Lunch Bunch moniker in a fleeting moment of madness).

So off we went, with D driving, because she has a big car I have a small pickup. And that means, if shopping is to take place, Lunch Bunch members may need a large bus or semi-truck, because we do like to shop.

But first, there were those chores. D had to visit a federal government office to deliver some papers. I don’t like federal government offices. Those people scare me. They do mean things, like audit your taxes. Eek. And that’s why I take taxes to a professional, and why I stayed in the car. And D wasn’t all that happy either. She complained, “Those were the WRONG papers! I gotta come back.”

Then it was on to a hobby store, so we could both finish projects. I seem to have started a lot of crafting projects in my semi-retirement. But hey, it was a hobby store, and the yarn was on sale. Has anyone visited a hobby store lately? Has anyone noticed that the Christmas stuff is everywhere?!? ‘Isn’t it too early?’ I wondered. Not for crafters it isn’t. And what the heck, I needed another project. . .not really, but, hey, the yarn was on sale. “And so the Christmas crafts begin,” I told the sales clerk. She just laughed at me. D just called. Seems she bought the wrong stuff, so we scheduled ANOTHER trip to the craft and hobby store. I repeat to self, “I DO NOT need another project, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT!’ Oh please don’t let the yarn be on sale. Oops. It is.

Back on the road, the next stop was at a mall retailer, where, I was told, kitchen knives were on sale. Has anyone ever noticed how your best cutlery, and spoons for some reason, disappear like magic when all the kids and their kids and their kids come home for the holidays? I need kitchen knives. At the moment, all I own is one teeny paring knife, and here come the holidays! EEK! I searched for what seemed like hours (five minutes). Couldn’t find those knives. I searched for what seemed like hours (maybe 10 minutes) for a store clerk. Finally tackled one. She had no idea what I was talking about, and couldn’t find those knives either. She tackled a manager. “We’re all sold out,” she announced. Oh no! “But I can order you some for the same price!” Yes! I happily followed manager to a desk where she searched for hours (eh, 15 minutes). And then she announced, “They are no longer available.” NO-o-o! Yep. Back to my one and only paring knife. Now, if I could just find D. She had disappeared. After one long wait (maybe 30 minutes), D arrived and we proceeded on to the next store. By this time, I was losing any hope for any chore that I had to get done. And it didn’t end there.

D wanted lunch, and she really wanted to treat me to that new steak house. When it was obvious that no vehicles of any type were in the restaurant’s parking lot, I became a bit concerned. And when we got to the door, which didn’t open, I pointed out the restaurant’s hours to D. They didn’t open til 4 p.m. Good grief. What was a hungry shopper to do?

We went on to the next restaurant, a really close restaurant because we were hungry. It was the perfect ending to a not-so-successful trip. We got a newbie for a waiter. Waited an hour (or maybe two) for a bowl of soup for me and a salad for D. You know the good thing about Lunch Bunch members? We can laugh. We can laugh out loud at shopping trips and other obstacles and challenges. So the day didn’t end badly at all. D and I laughed a lot, and are going shopping again this week. I’m not even going to try to find knives. But I will eat!

Critters Behaving Badly, or at Least Mine Do!

All critter owners, and those who just like to observe, are acquainted with badly behaving critters. Who hasn’t had a dog that will eat all its owner’s socks, or the couch, or the house plants? Who hasn’t had a horse, or cow, or pig who knew how to escape, and had to be wildly chased and returned home?

But why are mine being so obnoxious this year? We’ll start with the wild critters.

First, there’s the deer, who are eating all the pears off my beautiful, old pear tree. If I go out to confront them, those doe diners simply stomp their feet, snort, and apparently dare me to do anything about their thievery. I turn tail and go back to the house.

Then there’s the mysterious night raider who is eating all Darling Daughter’s horse feed. This must be a wily one, because feed is in metal garbage can with tight-fitting lid. Darling Daughter has tried numerous deterrents, such as piling rocks on top of lid. But it didn’t work. That mischievous midnight raider (we’ve never seen it) just pushed the rocks off, lifted lid and dug in again. Darling Daughter told me this week that she wired the lid shut with old bailing wire. We’re on watch now, and hope the rascal can’t figure out wired-tight lids. If it does, I’m never going out there again. I think it’s the squirrels. I’ve seen them hanging out. Daughter said squirrels are not smart enough. She thinks its raccoons. But if this keeps up, I’m blaming Big Foot. Whatever it is, it’s eating well.

Then there’s my crow family. First found them hanging out when I decided leftovers shouldn’t go in the garbage, they should be composting in my future flower bed. Crows decided to dig in and feast on the leftovers. I didn’t mind. I love watching them, and happy to report that the three that visited the first time have become seven, meaning mom and pop raised a few more this summer. But one day when enjoying my semi-retirement on the back porch, my crow family started squawking loudly, very loudly. Since bird watching has become one of my new semi-retirement hobbies, I decided to just sit, observe, and discover the problem. The problem was one of the stray cats that have suddenly taken up residence in our neighborhood. Don’t know why, but I’ve seen four of them. Apparently the crows have learned how to bombard stray cats. That poor little black and white tom cat had to slink away under the weeds in the woods because all seven crows were on the attack, and I mean physically attack by dive bombing. It looked like something out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” movie. EEK!

But that tom cat came back. Cats are not dumb you know. And he brings me back into my home, where I live with two cats, the obnoxious Nutter and Holly Golightly, named so cause she is pretty and reminds me of Audrey Hepburn in the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” She thinks she’s pretty too, but all cats need to have positive self-esteem, which Holly has mountains of and which she demonstrated just last week. She is usually parked next to my on the sofa, but this particular evening, she was not. Didn’t bother me, cats wander. No problem. Until I heard the awful caterwauling. Caterwaul is defined on the internet as howl, wail, bawl, yell, scream, screech, yowl, etc. I’ve never heard such a loud horrible noise.

I jumped up. Was one of my cats dying!?! That’s what it sounded like. I began a frantic hunt. Couldn’t find Holly or her obnoxious companion Nuts, my other cat. I was sure something horrible had happened. Ran for a flashlight to do a search of my home’s darker corners, wondering the whole time if I could find a veterinarian at 10 p.m. at night. Everything became quite clear when I happened to point my flashlight at my front windows. That’s where that same black-and-white tom cat, recently trounced by a flock of crows, was trying to flirt with my pretty Holly, who is also black and white. Tom Cat (he is now named – OH OH) was on the outside ledge of my picture window, and Holly was voicing her opinion of him from the inside window ledge. Apparently he wasn’t passing muster. Apparently his appearance was worse than that. Apparently Holly was not in a singles-bar-pickup kind of mood. I breathed a sigh of relief, and wondered what would have happened to Tom Cat if he and Holly had been nose to nose. Poor little feller. Nothing good I’m sure. Tried to tell him all my critters are spayed and neutered. He didn’t stand a chance with my pretty little Holly.

And all that just goes to show that we don’t need to watch TV soap operas for a little entertainment. Just watch the critters. They are sure to get your attention.