tend to get distracted super easy. Like right now, for instance. We’re all excited we’ve got everything done for the paper, Laura is finishing up the layout and we’re pretty sure we’re going to print before noon today, but here I am trying to finish this little note to you and instead sit staring out my window at these amazing blue birds that have taken up residency in my yard.
These birds are the best color of Nevada sage blue – looking sort of the color if you mixed Union blue and Confederate grey in the Civil War uniforms. They’re just a hair bigger than a robin and built like a mockingbird – long tail and long beak. And they’re hilarious. They tease each other, flying in low to nip at their buddy’s tail and then hop off to the sunflower seeds.
Not above cheating to lure in the cast of avian players, I shamelessly have set out water dishes and strategically placed bird feeders all around my place. My laptop and I have taken residence on the little kitchen table that sits under the south-facing window where I can watch all the goings-on with these spectacular creatures.
Along with my Scrub Jays (which I was quickly set straight by a bird aficionado on the Nevada Birding Facebook page when I mistakenly called them Blue Jays) there are also these brilliant red-headed house finches, tiny little yellow birds I can’t figure out, common sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, fat robins, fatter quail, mourning dove, Asian dove, and even a mockingbird. Who knew we had those.
I also have a couple pesky starlings with their sparkling prom-dress feathers, and very early in the morning in the pre-dawn starlight when I can focus and pen my stories, I have at least three great-horned owls calling to each other, urging me just like my dad always does, to “write, Rachel, write.”
My children, who have all grown and left me now, laugh at my bird addiction and have declared me old. I was puzzled about that, but they assure me that when you start in with the bird feeders you have become an old woman.
I feel like I’m going to take that as a compliment – out here at my place on the edge of the desert, looking across the cottonwoods and the Russian Olives at my birds, getting ready to go feed the fancy bunnies with my very large dog, I feel crone-like. Maybe not fully wise yet, but settled and comfortable and confident. So while I continue to age in wisdom, experience, and judgment, I’ll be right here, with my menagerie…
…keeping you Posted.
Rach
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