Somewhere, A Bird Is Homeless

Hurricane Helene came a-knocking last week, then spent most of her time knocking down trees and power poles. I got off easy with lashing winds and walls of water that hardly lasted an hour.

Cleaning up my backyard took most of a day, carrying armloads of sticks, twigs, branches and other tree debris out to the curb. Plus a bird nest.

Let’s leave that bird nest and the storm damage aside for a few paragraphs so we can catch up on neighborhood weather commentary. Unlike Ukiah and most other places, people in my tiny speck of North Carolina generally don’t much talk about the weather. I think it’s because weather here is just so amiable and cuddly.

Complain? What’s there to complain about?

There are four distinct seasons here, but they’re all muted and blended and fuzzy around the edges. Hot, but not very, a lot of rain but plenty of it comes during days when it’s 75 or 80 degrees, like a morning shower wearing wet jeans. Snow doesn’t happen but it’ll get cold so maybe snow will come next year. Humidity makes its presence known but everyone is so used to it that it doesn’t generate much more conversation than the clouds and the grass.

But when people can’t talk about the weather they still have a yearning to find some other subject. I must have been gone when the decision was made (and maybe voted on) that neighbors would instead talk about traffic.

And boy do they.

IN ESSENCE: “Those doggone cars are just too loud and they drive ‘em too darn fast!”

That’s everything you need to know, which means you are now invited to exit your home and join my neighbors on the sidewalk. Welcome to the chorus of grumblers hoping to place a curse upon Mustangs, Camaros and Dodge Chargers.

I agree the cars are loud, get driven too fast, and that the majority are late-model Mustangs, Camaros and Chargers. But if a dozen people are in agreement on just about anything, I’ve got a little voice inside that begs to differ.

And boy do I.

Just can’t help it. Someone has to offer a contrary opinion just to make things interesting. So when we hear the unbridled roar of a V-12 muffler-free rocket fueled Noisemobile from three blocks away, I cock my head to the side and say:

“Whoo! Cool! That’s gotta be a rare Hemi GT with double cam overbearings! Probably got triple dipsticks and an over-diffed slipperential! Those things are so amazing!” And I wave at the moron driving whatever the hell it is, give him a thumbs-up, and check to see how many of my neighbors think the way I do.

It doesn’t take long to add them up. (Mimic my social skills and you won’t need to send out many Christmas cards over the holidays.)

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THAT BIRD NEST

The hurricane that swung through the Carolinas last week destroyed much, but south of Charlotte caught only the tail end. Compared to what Asheville endured my problems were zero.

As mentioned above, winds and rains toppled trees, broke branches and left a bird’s nest upside down in the middle of the yard. I kept the nest, although I’d happily return it to its rightful owner if I knew how.

Ever spent time looking at a bird nest? It might be among the simplest, crudest, most primitive housing structures the world has ever known, but I’ll bet you couldn’t build one. Seriously.

If you and I sat down at a table with all the necessary ingredients, plus a Youtube video and a garage full of tools, we would be unable to build a nest half as nice, solid and well-built as whichever li’l birdie built this one. Given twice the time we still couldn’t do it.

Every bird gets evicted from a nest, and without training has to know how to build its own. So s/he goes off and fetches back teeny sticks, bit of mud, grass and some more little twigs and brings ‘em back. In what order? Where does she store other components while the sticks are being installed?

Your nest would look like a a muddy ball of grass byproducts you jammed a fist into to make a concave place to rest your weary wings.

Your nest would not look much better than a third grader’s nest, yet vastly inferior to a nest built by a robin.