Reflections on the Fifth Week of Winter – Flutterings

Incoming Tufted Titmouse

If a black-capped chickadee could shriek yikes, this one would have. Three times.

After a month of roller-coaster flights to the deck and flutterings by the sliding glass door, the chickadee finally found the sunflower seed feeder.

I’d worried the bird would give up and frequent some other feeder, but my husband didn’t.

“Birds have plenty to eat in the fields. They’re fine.” Spence waited for the first ground-covering snow―when any lingering black bear would crawl into his den and hibernate. On December 4^th, Spence attached the feeder to the sliding glass door.

The chickadee spotted the seeds the next morning, called Hey Sweetie to its feeding group, and perched on the edge of the seed tray. Tilting its head to spear a seed, the chickadee spotted two cats snoozing inside on the floor by the door―the first yikes. The chickadee darted to the deck railing and cocked its head. Right. Left. Up. Down.

The cats didn’t move.

The chickadee zipped in, grabbed a sunflower seed, and zoomed out. Safe on the railing, it cracked the seed then surveyed the cats. No movement. The chickadee made another trip to the feeder.

A tufted titmouse came next. It peered into the great room, fluffed and flattened its tuft, then snatched a seed.

Bird-feeder-viewing season had opened.

Black-capped Chickadee

Later, as if coordinated in a bird ballet, the chickadee and titmouse landed on the feeder together with a thud.

The feeder swooshed down the glass, and the birds―the second yikes―darted to the deck railing.

Crash. The feeder hit the deck, the titmouse flew to the white pine stand, and the chickadee cocked its head.

A moment later, the chickadee fluttered to the door where the feeder had been, gawked, and flew back to the railing. The bird stared at the door, lit on a flower pot, then dropped to the deck. After two hops, the chickadee pecked a pile of frozen potting soil. No sunflower seeds. The chickadee flew to the white willow tree, bounced on a branch, and stared at the sliding glass door.

The titmouse repeated the chickadee’s investigations.

“Why can’t they find the seeds, Spence?” I straightened my back in the Adirondack chair to see over the bottom door frame. “There are plenty scattered on the deck.”

Spence set his coffee cup on the table and got off the sofa. “They have small brains. Stop worrying.” He opened the sliding glass door just when the chickadee returned―the third yikes.

The chickadee zoomed across the south garden and disappeared into the woods.

Spence adjusted the suction cups and pressed. The feeder slipped.

A gathering of chickadees and titmice watched Spence from the willow and white pine stand.

Adjust-press-slip. Adjust-press-slip. Adjust-press-slip. He squirted dish detergent onto the suction cups and pushed them against the glass. The feeder stayed. Spence left the deck.

The birds zoomed in.

Two chickadees and a titmouse landed together―a chickadee on each side and the titmouse on top. The feeder slid two inches. The birds clamped their feet and fluttered their wings.

The seal of the suction cups loosened, the dish detergent acted as a lubricant, and feeder slid halfway to the deck before it stopped.

Flutterings stopped.

Pecking resumed.

Dark-eyed juncos  joined the group. These two-toned birds―black on top, white on the bottom―didn’t jockey for perch space. They hop-hop-skittered in the snow and pecked at the sunflower seeds that chickadees and titmice had broadcast onto the deck. Spence cheered them on. “Eat all of it. I don’t want to attract mice.”

Temperatures dropped from the forties to the thirties to the twenties.

Every time Spence or I pulled out the bottom of the feeder to add seeds, the suction cup seal broke, and the feeder top crashed onto the deck. Growling, Spence fussed over sticking the cups to the glass. “Don’t reach out,” he said when I slid the door open one morning. “Walk around from the porch. Pull the feeder straight out. It’s less likely to fall.”

I walked around from the porch, pushed the top against the glass with one hand, and eased the bottom out with the other. The suction held. Phew. I poured in sunflower seeds and eased the bottom back in place.

A pair of northern cardinals flew to the deck. With one foot in the snow and one foot tucked under his feathers, the colorful male perched on the railing. He stretched his neck making himself an inch taller, flicked his tuft, then flew to feeder. The smaller birds scattered. He scrunched his shoulders to fit between perch and top then selected several seeds.

His tan mate, after bouncing off the glass door a few times, contented herself with scavenging seeds among the four or five juncos under the feeder.

Temperatures dropped from the twenties to the teens to single digits.

American Goldfinch

Three American goldfinches, the bullies in this saga, found the feeder last. As if changing costumes for their shady role, their feathers had turned from dazzling summer gold to muted yellowish-brown. Unlike the chickadees and titmice which flew in, grabbed a seed, and flew out, the goldfinches sat and ate seed after seed after seed. Chickadees and titmice fluttered next to the perched goldfinches―bird body language for surrender your perch, seed pecked or not. The goldfinches ignored these flutterings, kept their perches, and gobbled as if in a hibernating-prep eating frenzy. Only the male cardinal could force a goldfinch to leave.

When his absence resulted in a traffic jam, the elementary-school teacher in me surfaced. I left my Adirondack chair by the wood stove fire to tap a that’s-enough protest on the window. Much bigger than the male cardinal, my approach sent the goldfinches fluttering in retreat.

Through the month of December, into January, and during last weekend’s fifteen-inch snow dump, the antics of the winter bird show continued. Mid afternoon last Sunday, Spence shoveled the deck, filled the feeder, and headed for his tractor.

The tractor rumbled, and Spence plowed snow.

On the deck railing or on white willow and white pine branches, birds cued for perch position. While two chickadees pecked, the three goldfinches zoomed to the feeder and landed with a thud.

Crash. The feeder hit the deck.

The goldfinches zoomed across the south garden.

The birds perched on the railing cocked their heads then dove. No learning curve needed to find seeds on the deck this time.

When Spence slipped out of his boots and stood by the wood stove fire, I gave him the bad news. “The feeder crashed again.”

He turned his head, sighed from the bottom of his cold, wet feet, and glared at the empty window. “I see.”

He ventured into the frigid air to hang the feeder―again.

A ten minute slapstick comedy―adjust-press-drop, adjust-press-drop, adjust-press-drop―ensued. Not amused, Spence applied dish detergent then mineral oil. Scowling, he brought the feeder back inside and gave me a report. “Only one suction cup works.” He set the empty feeder on the kitchen counter. “That’s not enough to hold the feeder.”

“We can buy another feeder at Home Depot.”

“No. They aren’t in stock. I’ll try new suction cups.”

He bought a package containing two suction cups―one broken and the other couldn’t be mounted on the feeder. Spence shook his head, cleaned the lubricants off the feeder’s original cups, and trudged across the porch to the deck.

The feeder stuck to the window.

He marched back. “The cups had warmed inside. They worked.” He raised his arms in victory.

This Sunday, with fat snow flakes drifting to the deck and one cat sleeping by the sliding glass door, chickadees, titmice, juncos, cardinals, and goldfinches keep the old feeder as busy as the Pittsburgh airport.

Ready for an air traffic controller job when the male cardinal took a break, I sat in my chair and enjoyed the fluttering show.

Female Northern Cardinal

Reflections on the Fourth Week of Winter – Haunted Quilters

Pleasantview

When I walked into the sewing room Friday morning at 8:00, quilters, looking comfortable in nightgowns and bathrobes, waved from behind their machines. Pat, the unofficial boss of our Country Charms guild, shouted, “How’s the driving?”

Everyone stopped sewing and looked up.

“Back roads are slippery, but Route 173 is clear.”

They nodded, and the hum of sewing machines resumed.

The quilt retreat at Pleasantview, a former Mennonite nursing home turned into an event center, spanned four and a half days. I could only manage one. I arranged my gear on a twelve by four foot table next to the sewing room door. Against the inside wall, eleven more tables made a line from me to the kitchen at the far end. Across the room, ten tables stood by picture windows that had a great view of the parking lot and a snowy field.

While listening to women gossip about Pat’s sister hoarding material and getting thrown out of a quilt shop for being a nuisance, I attached a light tan strips, the tenth of seventeen pieces in my log cabin blocks. By the time I’d measured, sewn, overcasted, cut threads, and ironed twenty six blocks, I had stiff knees and shoulders. I needed a break.

I pulled three dollars out of my wallet and shoved the wallet back into my purse. Leaving my name tag on my table and the purse on my chair, I turned and stepped on a pile of plastic reward cards that must have slipped out of the wallet. I scooped them up, put them back in the wallet, and shoved the wallet into my purse. Satisfied all were put away, I headed out to study items on the Chinese auction table in the hallway that led to the bedrooms. A pin cushion shaped like a bird, mountains of patterns and quilt books, a cute ceramic bunny . . .

“Janet!”

My eyes jerked from auction items to the door of the sewing room.

A quilter, from the Oil City guild, pointed to the floor by my sewing table. “You dropped your credit cards on the floor.”

“But―”

“You’ll want to put them back in your purse,” she said in a scolding voice as if I’d dragged her quilt through the mud.

“Thanks.” I walked back to the sewing room and picked up the pile of reward cards. Had they fallen out of my wallet when I shoved the others back in? Puzzled, I put the cards away, surveyed the floor, then went back to the auction table. I bought a dozen tickets to benefit Precious Paws Animal Rescue, wrote my name on the back of the tickets, and dropped four into the bag for the ceramic bunny.

“Janet!” Holding the maroon striped pillow case she’d sewn for her granddaughter, Karen stood in the sewing room doorway. “You dropped your credit cards on the floor.” Cards littered the floor by her feet.

My forehead wrinkled, and I rushed back to Karen. “This is the third time!” While I picked up the cards, I explained the first two episodes. “It’s as if a ghost were playing tricks.”

We giggled.

Joy, a quilter as delightful as her name, ambled by balancing with her cane. “Pleasantview has a ghost. My grandmother stayed here when it was a nursing home. One of the residents who died here haunts the building.”

Karen and I stared at each other. Our eyes widened and our mouths tightened.

“This time, I’m going to zip my purse shut.” I put the cards in my wallet, stuffed the wallet into my purse, and zipped it shut. To be extra sure, I set the purse inside a tote bag. After distributing the rest of my tickets in the hall, I tiptoed back. No cards lay on the floor. Zipping worked.

While I sewed a tan strip onto my log cabin blocks, quilters swapped stories about grandchildren.

“I let mine have a Popsicle for breakfast. It’s as nutritious as the juices they have for kids these days.”

“I thought you would have embroidered diapers for your grandbaby by now, Pat―the way you’ve been sewing gifts for her.”

Mixed with the conversation came the sounds of Big Ben chimes. I looked up from my machine. “Is that someone’s cell phone?”

Karen hoisted a pair of scissors overhead toward a clock with Roman numerals on the face. “It’s the clock on the wall.”

Nancy, the guild president, said, “Last night when everyone was in bed, I slept out here.” Waving purple fabric, she motioned to a recliner in the corner. “In the dark, the clock chimed sixteen times.”

“Sixteen o’clock would be four in the afternoon,” I said.

Nancy shook her head. “It was the middle of the night, and I was here all alone.” She put her fabric on the ironing table beside the recliner and picked up the hot iron. “It was real spooky, I can tell you.”

My lower back ached as if someone had slammed it with a dozen cold irons. I stood, stretched in a yoga back bend, and wondered if Nancy had counted the melody notes for the hour. That had sixteen notes, but they sounded like a song, not chimes. Hmmm.

I moseyed over to Pat’s table to ooh and aah at her baby projects―a carrier cover, a wall hanging, a receiving blanket, and burping cloths. All in pink and gray. All with elephants.

Pat threw her arms wide. “Look at all I made, and the baby’s not even born yet.” She belly laughed so hard she dropped her ruler. “The baby’s room will be decorated in pink, gray, and elephants. Can you tell?”

While I attached dark green strips to my log cabin blocks, conversation changed to the anticipated weekend snow.

“Maybe I should leave tonight before the snow starts,” someone a third of the way down the aisle said.

“We might as well stay here and sew while the roads are yucky,” Pat called from her pink, gray, and elephant table. “We can leave Sunday after the storm.”

Sue, the guild member who creates fabric landscapes in her hangings and purses, played the weather forecast on her smart phone. “The forecast hasn’t changed.” She turned the program off. “Hey! My car started in the parking lot!” She slammed her fists onto her hips. “How’d that happen? My keys are in my purse under the sewing table.”

Sitting across from Sue, Karen shrugged her shoulders and packed the maroon pillow case in a tote bag. “Maybe I kicked your purse?”

Sue ducked under the table and got her keys. “Unlikely.”

Pat belly laughed again. “It’s the ghosts. This used to be a nursing home. There must be a gang of ghosts here.”

Sue headed for the door. “As long as the car’s on, I’ll let it run awhile then check the battery.” She left to brush snow off her car.

My bottom had numbed from sitting. For another break, I stood, picked up one of my log cabin blocks, and hunted down Cheryl, a professional quilter. I asked her for advice. “What pattern would you use on log cabin blocks in a finished quilt?”

Cheryl fetched a piece of freezer paper, what quilters use to draw quilt patterns on, then sketched curves and random squiggles. “With the angular pattern of your blocks, you want to complement it with a simple loopy pattern. Several quilters stopped to look while she drew five variations.

Later that evening, I sewed gold fabric strips to my blocks, and the women transitioned from discussing weather to husbands.

“Mine will be outside with his shovel. He has a snow blower, but he says the shovel gets the walks cleaner. Can you imagine?”

“While I’m gone, mine rinses the dishes and puts them on top of the dish washer. Why couldn’t he put the dishes inside?”

“That’s nothing. My friend’s husband is hard of hearing. She told him, ‘I love you, Dan,’ and he answered, ‘What’s wrong with your feet?’”

Led by Pat’s belly laughs, the sewing room erupted with cackles, snickers, and guffaws.

Despite aching shoulders, back, hips, bottom, and hands, I laughed with the women. I’d planned to stay another hour, but I couldn’t imagine sewing another stitch. I wanted to go home to my not-to laugh-about husband, show him the ceramic bunny I won in the auction, and explain the progress I’d made on the log cabin blocks.

With my gear packed, I headed home on slippery roads through the country dark. I’d enjoyed the entertaining day with the quilters. And if a ghost played any more tricks―fine with me. I could hear about it at the next guild meeting.

My Sewing Station