Nature Lovers

Somehow every single frog in the Blackhawk Forest neighborhood knew tonight was the perfect night to come out of hibernation. Last night - silence. Tonight - the endless croaking of Green Life celebrating spring. When we bought this house, which we have lived in for almost a year now, we were told that the people before us could not sleep with the windows open because the frogs were too noisy. Little Pete calls them "chatty." Luckily, my son had no problem leaving the noisy streets of the city and adapting to the noisy musings of the various animals living in the pond and woods behind our house. He still wakes up every morning, makes the journey down the stairs (a long one for him since he is determined to travel upright - without help) and runs to the window to check out the ducks. "Duck" was his first word. Smart, right? You might think so until I disclose that birds and squirrels are interchangeable. Why wouldn't every thing that sits on a tree branch be a bird? This is the test - not flying. You see, ducks fly. Also, anything that sits in the pond is a duck. Therefore, geese are ducks. The coyote that visited our pond this winter, well, that was not a duck, but a dog, of course. Moose, Antelope, Goats - they all fall in the deer category. His big cousin M would be very disappointed by this.

M (13) is the hunter in the family, along with his dad. He has been in the RKD Newsleader for killing a record-breaking size fish and "buck" - but not in the same year, so he still has something to strive for. The last time we went to visit, we did not see M for the entire day because he was out in the woods looking for "sheds." What are sheds, right? Well, if you are my good friend S (same friend as the one who was scared of me as a child) you would say, "sheds? You can't take sheds, don't they belong to someone?" Of course not! These are not the sheds in which you keep your lawn mower. "Sheds" are the horns that deer lose at this time of the year, and if you are an avid hunter and all around outdoorsman, you collect them. Maybe even hang them on your wall as if you did more than just walked through the woods searching for this hard-found treasure.

Most members of my family love to fish. We used to take a family vacation in the summer where those family members who did not spend the entire day laying in sun drinking beer (i.e, me) went fishing. I know I disclosed in a previous blog that I have gone fishing to win the approval of my father, but vacation fishing is fishing on an entirely different level - you cannot bring your crayons along and you certainly cannot make forts over the boat seats with your beach towels and then take a nap. There are no bathroom breaks, which is perfectly fine for those who can pee standing up. Also, you have to have a very high B.S. tolerance for these fishing trips. And you really cannot have an opinion because all room for difference of opinion is occupied by my father and brother-in-law, and very loudly at that. There is no room for another opinion - Peter has tried, now he just has another beer, and reluctantly goes along to the next "hot spot" that has been disclosed by the local at the Buck Snort Lodge. The last "hot spot" involved Peter tracking 2 miles through the brush to come upon a tiny pond. He spent all his time there attending to C (4 at the time) another nephew, who was denied a bathroom break before the journey and was left yelling out of the trees, "I'm done!" While my brother-in-law spent his time trying to recover his new six dollar lure, which flew off upon first cast - it involved taking his pants off. And my father, yelling over C, "Put the cover back on the worms! Don't let the worms dry out!" And B (16) pondering, "I bet the fishing is a lot better on the other side of the water. If we could only get to the other side of the water. How could we get to the other side of this water? Then we could get a Mounter." (The term for a fish, or any animal, actually, that is big enough to mount on a board and be displayed in some bar which inevitably ends up looking ridiculous in a party hat). I am sorry I missed that one.

My mother likes to fish, but she never baits the hook. She has always declared "someone has to keep their hands clean to serve lunch." As a child this seemed reasonable. More than twenty years later, I can't believe these words still come out of her mouth and my father still nods his head in understanding. Maybe he really doesn't want worm guts on his sandwich. My mother really is more of the music person. She knows exactly what music to bring on vacation to a cabin, on a lake in the middle of nowhere, with birds chirping, frogs singing and water splashing against the peaceful shores. Of course, if this your vacation destination, you would want someone along who thought enough to bring the "Ella Fitzgerald" song, the one that goes, "We fired our guns but the British kept acomin'" (I can't believe I do not know the name of that song), and of course, you would not want your music person to forget the "Sounds of Nature" CD. All this and Bob Marley too. As for me, I will just sleep with the windows open - covered with heavy blankets, of course. As much as I love this place, I am not cut out for this weather - a topic for the next entry.