Sunday, March 29, 2009

Animals & Pets

I have always had to have animals around me. When I lived in apartments and couldn't have a dog, I had a canary, or a pet rat (don't say 'ewwww'). In fact, when I first rented a house, I had 2 canaries, 2 dogs and 2 rats! In recent years I've had Siamese fighting fish, several gold fish, Mr C (my canary) and of course the dogs.

The appeal of the aquarium has waned and so I had decided to shut it down slowly by not replacing fish as they passed on. The two remaining are quite healthy and so my plan is taking longer than I had thought, although goldfish actually do have some funny characteristics and they sure are pretty, so I don't mind all that much. My 13 year old canary is also hanging on, but the loss of the dogs has been difficult and although we've been talking to a breeder, it'll be several months before the adoption can take place.

In the mean time, I've been feeding the crows. I know many people hate crows and think they're too noisy, but I don't. I grew up in an area rich with animals and crows are just a part of life, like spiders and squirrels(although I'm not too fond of the latter). We recently purchased a small bird feeder and some wild finch seed and had some success with the little birds. Then last Monday the hummingbird arrived and so Jp came home with 3 feeders for them - success! We're visited several times a day by two kinds - Anna's Hummingbird and the Rufous! It's so much fun to watch.

Jp also bought a tube feeder which we filled with seeds for chickadees, finches and nuthatches and a pole to mount it on in the yard. Since then, there has been a chorus of song birds in our garden and sometimes every perch on the feeders have some little bird eating - even in the steady rain yesterday. It's been a joy seeing all these birds eating to their hearts content and all the songs they are singing to thank us. The squirrel (he's not welcome, and he's slowly getting the message) feeds on the dropped sunflower seeds and this morning there were 8 crows eating the dropped seeds and nuts as well.

Jp suggested that we were like those old retired couples - you know, the ones that are thrilled to sit and watch the birds, having nothing else left to talk about except the weather and the birds. Oh boy, I hope that's not what just happened.... we're too young for that! We still have so much more to say and do!

The moment a little boy is concerned
with which is a jay and which is a sparrow,
he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing
-Eric Berne

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.
- Chinese Proverb

1 comment:

Endako Jo said...

No way! you're not old! you are maturing. The love of life and beauty will keep you young forever.
Spring is super slow in arriving here (still tons of snow...yeesh), but the birds are starting to arrive. It's most unfortunate, though, that the dog(s) and cats have gotten in the way of this being a haven for birds (gotta find a way to correct that). Our first hummers arrive on May 1, but I'm going to put my feeders out in the next couple of days. They're all ready to go. I want to entice any newcomers/early arrivals to stick around rather than move on to the neighbours'.