Soapbox By Kay

I’m looking at the double shepherd’s crook out my home office window. On one side is the seed feeder that I just refilled. It has been empty for several days, so I may not see any birds as I’m sitting here, but I know the chickadees will be back by tomorrow morning. On the other side hangs a tray feeder holding a handful of peanuts that have been languishing there for over a week, since the last time I filled the seed hopper.

In my Florida backyard, I had blue jays, cardinals, woodpeckers, and tufted titmice all vying for the peanuts I put out every couple of days, along with a bevy of Carolina chickadees and the occasional young crow or two or three. As the squirrel baffle attached to the shepherd’s hook was quite successful in baffling the squirrels, my Florida backyard also had a platform feeder tall enough to baffle the dogs, but give the squirrels a chance at a few peanuts, too. I hope the new owners (whomever they might turn out to be) appreciate the big picture window (the only thing I truly miss about Florida) and the platform feeder too firmly planted in the ground to move with us to Texas.

I have seen nary a blue jay at the feeders since our move to our new home in a small, rural Texas town, nor a mockingbird, and only a few cardinals. There are some very wary crows who frequent the yard for acorns, but they are shyer and much more skittish than their suburban Florida counterparts, and do not approach the feeders at all. I’m still scoping out areas in the yard for the hummingbird feeder, which won’t go back out until March, and the bird bath that is still waiting patiently with the potted plants pulled from our Florida landscape, now wintering over in the sheltered space of the garage.

*This brief essay is a result of the first writing prompt in Natalie Goldberg’s “Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir”