I Have Eaten Worms!

Cherries have always been my favorite fruit...ever since I can remember. I'd rather have a cherry pie than a birthday cake. And I can eat all the Bing cherries I want in the summertime with no adverse affects. So, on a drive through the mountains one afternoon just above Tum Tum, near our house, I passed by a HUGE cherry tree. It must have been planted when the pioneers or the early Indians roamed the country. It was at least 40 feet tall...or as tall as the ceiling in our ward chapel. And most amazing of all, every branch was covered, laden and drooping with red cherries!

As I filled a grocery bag I wondered why no one else seemed to be interested in this tree. Oh well, all the more for me, as I grabbed handful after handful of the precious fruit and once in a while popped one into my mouth.

After washing the cherries it was a long and tedious task (since I don't have a cherry pitter) to cut the pit out of each and every one. Finally, when I had a big pot full, I added water and sugar and set it on the warm burner of the stove. As I waited for the mixture to warm up and start boiling, I started to see little white things floating in the warm water. As I watched, the water got warmer and warmer and the white things began to wiggle!

The lesson of this story is to never eat the fruit of a wild and uncared-for cherry tree. My sister Rosalin said that once a tree is invested like that the only solution is to chop it down. And she thinks that there may be more to the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.

Little Bird

I noticed a baby bird sitting on the grass while the sprinkler passed over it time and time again. It was searching for bugs and whatever else it could find in the wet grass. Once in a while it would take a few hops here and there, but it never strayed far from the spray of the sprinkler. I walked over to the wet little bird and amazingly it was not alarmed. But if I got too close it would hop just far enough to keep out of arms reach.

I knew that it was only a matter of time until my kitties discovered my new little friend. And sure enough, Buddy was first to spy it. He was making his way across the lawn when I ran to intercept him and carry him back to the house. Before I knew it Patsy was crouched and ready to go in for the kill. Again I ran across the lawn, swooping Patsy into my arms before she could reach the baby bird.

I hung on to Patsy, scratching and squirming, while I went to get the butterfly net. And then with the net in one hand and Patsy in the other I could be seen running all over the yard trying to net the little bird. We chased it to the edge of the lawn and it flew up into a tree. Surely it will be safe now, I thought.

A few minutes later out of the corner of my eye I saw Patsy in a crouched run across the grass. I took after her yelling as I went and watched in horror as she reached her victim and held it in her deadly grasp.

When I reached the scene Patsy let go of the bird and I could see it's defiant little stance; it stood with it's wings out-stretched and it's beak open wide, making the loudest noise it could. Patsy was taken-aback by this brave action and before she could regain her composure, I grabbed her, and was then ever so glad to see the little bird take off and fly away!

Fracas in the Night

The scariest thing that's happened to me in a long time happened the other night about 11 PM. Out of the bedroom window, which was open, I heard some sort of animal scream. I'm not sure to this day what kind of animal it was, but it was sort of high-pitched and in extreme distress. I quickly opened the bedroom door that leads outside to the back yard and to the forest beyond. Stepping out into the dark I could hear trampling in the underbrush and trees about 20 yards away. The trampling went on and on and around and around and it was accompanied by heavy breathing. I could tell by the breathing and the footsteps that it was a large animal, probably with hooves. After a couple of minutes the screaming stopped but the trampling and hard breathing continued. I ran and got the heavy-duty flashlight, but was unable to catch a glimpse of anything through the trees. I wish now that I had dared to step off the porch and creep a little closer. But I was terrified that whatever it was could come crashing down through the trees upon me. It was all I could do to aim the flashlight with one hand while still holding on to the doorknob to the house with the other hand.

The next day, in full sunlight, I walked up to the scene of crime and looked around for a few minutes. Because of the abundance of weeds, wildflowers and pine needles, it was hard to see any kind of track, only a few flattened weeds and scrapings in the soil. One thing I did see was the remains of a long-dead baby deer and a lot of old tufts of deer hair scattered around.

I'm wondering if this little clearing in the woods might have been the scene of other crimes and fracases in the night.

No Vacancy

I put up a really nice birdhouse last year in a the big Ponderosa Pine tree in back of the house. I can look up and see the little wood house out of the window when I'm in bed, so when I wake up in the morning one of the first things I do is check the birdhouse. I waited all summer last year for a little bird family to take up residence, but it remained vacant. This spring I had new hope that I'd get a renter and had almost given up hope. Then on the morning of June 15th I was awakened by a most unusual chirp. It was more like a full sentence-chirp...it went on and on. And I noticed that a little tiny bird kept popping in and out of the round door of the birdhouse. As I watched I could see that it was trying to get twigs, (some of them quite large) into the little round door. It reminded me of a pole vaulter holding a pole horizontally and trying to enter a small round door. Time after time the twig would fall and the bird would zoom down to retrieve it. Amazingly, progress was made and more and more twigs were making it into the birdhouse. Some of them were too big to fit all the way in, so they are sticking out a little bit.

I'm so excited to finally have a bird family to watch this summer. I can't wait to see little baby birds poking their heads out of the door and perched on the limb ready to try their wings. All I have to worry about now is keeping the cats away!

A Couple of Kitty Stories

It's bird season for my kitties. Living next to the woods, there are birds everywhere chirping, flying about and nesting. And it's not unusual for the kitties to catch a bird once in a while - that is their main occupation in the summertime. I hate it when they do this, but I have to remember that they are cats. I walked out of the garage one day and there on the ground before me was a little hill of gravel...like a little kitty paw would create - scraping up the gravel in all directions to form a hill. I gave the pile of gravel a little kick with my foot and underneath was a dead bird. I was glad someone decided to bury the little bird instead of eating it.


I was planting flowers in the backyard a few days ago and observed that Teddy was alerted to something in the trees up the hill. I saw him slowly and quietly creep out of sight toward his target as I continued my work. Before long I heard a scuffling in the underbrush and looked up to see Teddy running as fast as he could to the garage with something in his mouth. I also saw a bird flying just above Teddy's head, chasing him and chirping loudly. I dropped my shovel to go see if I could rescue the poor victim. As I rounded the corner of the house on the way to the garage I found a baby bird laying in the grass. I picked it up and could feel it's heart beating furiously and the poor little creature actually threw up in my hand. I can understand that...being carried in the teeth of a large running cat must be pretty upsetting. By some miracle the little bird was unharmed. While I had it in my hand I gave it a couple drops of water to help it revive and then I took it back up the hill near to where I heard the scuffling. The little bird wasn't the only one who was traumatized...after dropping it, Teddy narrowing escaped a very mad mother bird by running into the garage where he hid for a couple of hours.

Re-inventing the Wheel

The raspberry bushes that I planted a couple of years ago are finally big enough to need support to keep them from laying on the ground. Last year I bought t-posts and wire to do the job, but I put off doing the work, week after week, month after month.

I'd never built a fence or even put in a fence post before...I had never even watched anyone do it. That's probably why the procrastination...I just didn't know the proper way to do it. I could have asked someone or looked up the procedure online, but no, I had to re-invent the wheel.

My tools were a shovel, an axe (because I didn't have a sledge hammer), and a 30 lb. pry bar. The soil was way too hard and rocky for the shovel and the pry bar to work. So I hauled the hose over and filled up the small holes I had created with water. After a few minutes the water had softened the soil in the holes a little so I picked up the pry bar again. By applying pressure and twisting and turning the bar I was able to create a little round hole about four inches deep in the mud. I then lifted the pry bar as high as my arms could reach above my head and with all my energy drove it down into the hole. I was standing in the perfect position to then receive a mouthful of mud as well as mud in my eyes, hair, face, clothing and even down my neck. Taking a moment to recover from the shock and spit out some of the mud, I resumed my work and actually had some success. Believe it or not I put in SIX fence posts that way. I figured I was a muddy mess already so why not continue?

The next day I was telling my sister, Rosalin, about my fence post setting and she happened to mention a tool that Jack has called a "post driver." She suggested that I borrow it. I did, and was able to set the next six posts in about 20 minutes...no mud involved!

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

We were invited to dinner at my sister's house up on Saddle Mountain on Saturday. You can truly stretch your eyes and see for miles on that mountain, and after dinner we were enjoying the beauty of the evening as we gazed out of the south facing windows. There below us on a grassy slope was a doe and her three young offspring. The three little deer, triplets, must have been born last year but they were still small and a little bit frisky!

In all my observations of deer I've never seen them play or act frisky in any way before this. I usually just watch them grazing in the distance or catch them eating my flowers and bushes and then run away startled as I clap my hands and shout at them. I've seen seen them dash across the highway in front of me, nearly causing an accident, and sadly, I've seen many of them laying dead along the highways. Mostly deer have been a nuisance and a danger to me. But last Saturday I saw deer in a new light, in a way that I never imagined.

As we watched the little deer and their mother they began to run around in circles, chasing each other. Around and around they bounded like little ballerinas spreading their legs apart with each leap...and each one leaping over the same imaginary obstacles. At one point when one little deer caught up with another one I witnessed some play fighting! They reared up on their hind legs and pawed at each other with their front hoofs. It was an incredible scene! I had no idea that deer actually play.

Far too soon, play-time was over and the business of grazing was resumed as the four-some moved off into the shadows of the evening. I'm hoping to spend more evenings like that up on Saddle Mountain...up where the deer and the antelope play.