Blue Bird families have enjoyed our hospitality every year since we placed a bird house on a post near our backdoor nearly twenty years ago. They are very territorial and seem willing to eat bugs and gorge themselves at our nearby feeder as well. They are constantly sharing the burden of raising their babies and scaring off other birds who want to enjoy our feeder. Photo by Joe Kitchens.

Spring is finally making a halting appearance in the north Georgia foothills and Covid may soon be winding down (we hope). It is a season of mixed feelings. As eager gardeners, Karen and I could not have chosen worse soil or a less promising site for our our new home in 2000. We jokingly refer to it as “Rocky Comfort.” It is home, indeed, and every direction in the yard is up hill. Where it exists, between the rocks, all the soil is unadulterated red clay. But we have come to love the yard and committed a lot of effort into cultivating it.

Located in the woods near a stream, “Rocky Comfort” is home to many birds -including a family of Red Shouldered Hawks whose cries signal they are teaching their most recent fledgling how to hunt. Pileated Woodpeckers are currently creating a mating racket every morning with their “laughing calls.” At our backdoor birdhouse, Blue Birds have established a regular home, raising two or three broods of baby birds every year. Despite their cheerful colors, they wear a constant scowl, perhaps to to intimidate competitors. They are within ten feet of a bird feeder and a water supply. We are easy pickings.

All is peaceful in our little kingdom. With the arrival of our new Labrador Retriever pup, Emily, even the pesky squirrel population is in check. Our old lab, “Peachie” chased squirrels, but never caught them. Emily is fast and stealthy. She catches and eats them. Still, they taunt her, sitting around on our fence and making little noises to let Emily know they are watching her. Squirrels must have a death wish-they dance in the tree tops and taunt their enemies.

Covid has imposed a certain quietness around us. And, after many years, we have seen young deer crossing the road in front of our house again. They are building a new subdivision down the road that required destroying every trace of vegetation over an area of perhaps 200 acres. I suppose that will have a detrimental impact on our wildlife and increase traffic around us. It seems to be a rather high price to pay, but this could mean finally having a grocery store within ten miles of our house.

It was finally time to take down the ancient Red Oak near our house. It was making sounds and one of its sisters collapsed nearby a few days earlier. Photo by Joe Kitchens

That great old Red Oak in our backyard finally had to be taken down for the sake of our neighbor’s garden shed and our wooden fencing. She was making cracking sounds and growing mushrooms on the larger limbs, said to be a sign of rot. It was sick and dropping huge limbs. Ted Kennedy came and took it down the old fashioned way. He climbed the tree and took it down from the top (starting about seventy feet up). It was an amazing display of skill and -at least to my thinking-of courage as well. Ted was taught his skills by his grandfather while growing up in Albany, New York.

The big Red Oak measured 42 inches in diameter at the base. Today was windy with tornado watches in place across the southeast and in a gust this afternoon, a Red Oak of similar size blew down across the street from our house. Somehow, that partly soothed my disappointment at cancelling our Paris Holiday in order to pay the tree surgeon. Just kidding, of course. Paris is not in our future. That is, unless my next book proposal finds a taker.

Mighty Emily watched the Red Oak come down with calm. I am pretty certain she was thinking that this would make for one less sanctuary from which the squirrels issue their taunting barks and prance around in plain sight to Emily’s exasperation.. Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” theory of evolution is favoring Emily at the moment. Photo by Joe Kitchens.