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Dalton
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In the ten plus years I have been writing this column I have not gotten the overwhelming reader response of last weeks column on Long John Cardinal and communication with animals. If people think I am wacky for saying I experienced understandings with Long John and a butterfly, all I have to say is I have plenty of wacky friends. I wish I had a whole page of the paper today to share all the fascinating stories people sent to me but I will settle for a great one from Sue Lasater. She wrote: “I was touched by your story this morning and decided to briefly tell you my bird story. My husband and I live in Flintstone on a few acres with a small lake. Every year for the past 6 or so years we have been host to a pair of geese (Mister and Girlie) who come to our lake to nest and hatch their eggs. Over the years they have had as few as 3 and as many as 7 babies. They show up each February for a scouting visit, stay a few hours and leave. This goes on a few times until they finally decide to leave in March. After they have been at the lake a few days, I can walk out my back door and call them and they will waddle up to my patio and eat bread out of my hand. Mister is more aloof; his job is obviously to be the lookout. He stays right by Girlie’s side and protects her. She is very friendly and lets me stroke her breast feathers a few times. I honestly think she is going to climb in my lap sometimes. This will go on for several weeks until Girlie gets down to business and makes her nest. After that, she becomes very serious in her role and rarely makes the trip to the patio. She comes off the nest in the evenings to swim around for a bit and bathe. I usually walk down to the lake and take her some bread. We feed our fish and she enjoys the fish food also. The truly remarkable thing is the truly remarkable thing occurs after the babies hatch. The babies appear as balls of yellow fluff and every year when they are one or two days old, the proud parents march them to the patio to show them to us. Shortly after, in a day or so, they leave. This cycle repeats itself every year without fail and every year I am like a new mother. I worry over Girlie and fret that she doesn’t eat enough. One year during the rainy season, her nest washed away. I was at home and was glued to the window, powerless to help. I watched, as the nest broke apart and floated away. She kept diving under as if to try and save her babies. I stood there at the window and cried. I know you have a heart for the feathered. I hope you enjoy my story as I enjoyed yours.” Indeed I did enjoy your Mister and Girlie story. I am certain my readers will love it, too. Sue told me one more story on the phone that made me wonder if cross-species communication is always a good thing. One year on Thanksgiving Day, a loud noise brought Sue and her family to the sliding glass door. A tom turkey was loudly pecking the door. When I develop the ability to transfer my thoughts to turkeys, I am going down to Flintstone to tell that tom he might choose a better time than Thanksgiving Day to seek admission to the Lasater home. He may end up as the center-of-the-table attraction for a big family feast. Now we know, boys and girls, why they are called turkeys.dOWNHOMEp
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