Summer of Birds

We have had birds this year. First there were the grackles, unruly invaders of our kitchen via the fan vent. That was an episode I would rather forget. Then there were the wrens. They made a nest outside our kitchen window, and we were able to watch them come and go and feed their young. There were perhaps one or two chicks in the nest, and I was amazed at the steady stream of food that the parents had to go out and get. If our boys had eaten like that, we might have pushed them out of the nest!

Well today came the third episode of the year. (Does that mean we’re done now, since such things come in threes?)

I went in to the office this morning, preparing for the new school year. When I got home a note on the floor greeted me: There is a bird in the house.

Oh good! There’s a bird somewhere in our house, and I know that means nothing else happens until we persuade it to leave.

Now, if I were Saint Francis I would go to the bird and talk to it, take it gently from the plant in the basement where it was hiding and soothe its trembling fears. Together we would walk outside and I would release it into the freedom for which it longed.

I am not Saint Francis.

Lois does much of the killing of insects and such things. Spiders, ants—whatever needs dispatching she takes care of. She has even had to get rid of baby mice. But birds are another kettle of fish (so to speak). Sometimes we do not work well together; our minds run in different channels, and cooperation on projects can be difficult. (Such as our back fence, which we built with wood and many words—but that’s another story.)

But this time we would have to work together to help this bird leave our basement. How did it get in? We think that the door to the garage was open a bit too long, and it flew in and down and found itself trapped. In any case, we had to get it out.

We established that we had to make sure it would not fly to the basement windows, which allowed no escape. So we built a wall of sheets between the bird and the rest of the basement. Then Lois went upstairs and held another sheet beside the stairs to guide it towards the front door, while I tried to make it fly. Failure.

Then we turned off the lights so that it would stop hiding on the dry bar in a plant under a light. I probed with a yardstick to persuade the bird to leave. Finally it left its perch and fly to the bottom of the stairs. And stopped there, sitting on the floor. I held a big black barrier between it and its erstwhile abode and tried to get it to fly upwards. Instead it flew towards me, seeking the safety of its corner. I jumped up and down with my barrier, making myself as big as I could. Next thing the bird flew up and out of the house. I heard a cry from Lois, “Praise the Lord!” And then the sound of a door slamming shut.

Now Lois is cleaning up the evidence of the bird’s fear, left where it hid behind the plant, while I type this brief story.

We both like animals. And birds. But we are not Saint Francis.

Mice on the Brain

I said that we have had an invasion of mice. We have repelled the invasion. I think. I hope. But now we have mice on the brain. 

As I said, Larry caught our baby mouse last Sunday, but baby mice don’t come singly, or in pairs. The internet is a wonderful source of information. So Wikipedia: “The gestation period is about 19–21 days, and they give birth to a litter of 3–14 young (average six to eight).” So having caught one baby, the second that we caught on the sticky paper was no surprise. The next day we caught four more babies on the sticky paper. Six—a normal litter; and we haven’t seen any since, so we hope we got them all. 
 

We have identified how the mice got in, and the hole is now closed—from the garage into the floor-ceiling through a small gap where the baseboard was not quite tight. We have as close to positive proof of the entry point as we could ask for. They probably entered while we were gone Christmas, which gave them a couple of weeks to settle in and explore. So with adults running free and having babies, we have to clean the closets and floor and kitchen cupboards/drawers and on and on. Or Lois has to. I help as I can, but I am not as thorough as she is. This is a job for a real thorough cleaning.
 

The pictures give an idea. You can see the baby mouse sitting in the middle of the floor, oblivious to the danger. You see also the kitchen and dining room in a state of disarray. Spring cleaning in January. Our consolation is that, when we’re done, the house will be truly clean. 

Meanwhile we still have mice on the brain. Still thinking about that collective noun for mice: A fever of mice?

Winter!

Calgary has jumped the gun on the rest of Canada, starting its winter with a bang: somewhere around 30 cm. of snow in the first week of September. The newspapers called it a summer snow, but prairie people know better. It’s a foretaste of winter in Canada. 

When we moved to Manitoba 17 years ago, we were warned to expect the worst. The previous winter had been brutal, blizzard after blizzard so that people were piling up mountains of snow on either side of their driveways. (For many of us in Manitoba, the only mountains we ever see.) There had been weeks at a time of minus 30 temperatures. (Minus 22 for my American friends who speak Fahrenheit.) That winter led to the great flood of the Red River (which became for a time the Red Sea south of Winnipeg) in May 1997. Then we moved here, and the next five winters were mild. 

We had decided to enjoy winter. Instead of the dirty slushy mess that we had experienced in Indiana and Pennsylvania we found clean white snow. Winter weather is far too cold for the snow to get slushy or stick to the road, so driving conditions were good. The air is amazingly crisp—dry enough to let you get properly warm if you’re dressed warm enough. Unlike winters in the States, where the dampness meant you were always cold. 

Best of all is the sunshine. Winters on the prairies are bright and dazzling, with more days of clear sunshine than any other part of Canada. Bright sunshine on snow makes dark glasses required wearing for the duration of winter. For the most part, we have loved it! 

Then came last winter. We had more days of minus 30 than usual. We had more snow than usual, and it kept coming after Spring should have arrived. Spring was late. Summer was late. Long-time Manitobans, well accustomed to severe winter weather began muttering in their coffee mugs, looking around for relief. I have to wonder how many more visitors went to Phoenix or Florida last winter than usual. They needed it!

 

So our summer was shorter than usual, and snow in Calgary is not welcome news. We would gladly grant our Albertan cousins another month of warmth and sunshine, provided they share it with us. Instead, they got a foot of snow. Ouch! 

Oh well, autumn is a lovely season, and we’ll pray that real winter does not descend too quickly or too heavily on us. Whatever comes we will enjoy as much as we can. It’s the only weather we’ve got.

The Attack of the Dragonflies!

This has been the summer of the mosquito. We joke (at least I hope it's meant as a joke) that the mosquito is our provincial bird. This year they have been bigger, badder, more numerous than I can ever remember. I drive to school, and tens of them greet me with little cries of joy (and immediately start biting) as I get out of the car. We burn things in the back yard trying to keep them away: It doesn't work. We slather stuff on our arms and legs for protection: Not nice!

Then last week we tried sitting on our patio for dessert with some friends who had joined us for supper. As we sat there, a squadron of dragonflies appeared over the rooftop. Soon we saw dragonflies everywhere! We have seen them since several times -- bigger than any other year, and full of mosquitoes.

It was like watching the cavalry arrive. We cheered them on, and I say "thank you" as I see one bouncing off our window waiting for mosquitoes. The Smithsonian tells us that dragonflies can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes a day. Go dragonflies! I wonder where they all came from, last Tuesday as we ate our dessert on the patio?

Nkosi lamandla!

Banya

This afternoon I went to a Russian sauna, or banya. One of my colleagues has extensive experience in Russia and has taken advantage of Manitoba's similarity to the Russian winter to build himself a banya in his backyard.

He found a supply of cedarwood and built a shed with a small outer room. I entered the outer room and stripped off my clothes, hanging them on a hook. Glasses came off immediately: too much steam to see with them on anyway. A swimsuit (too much of a new comer to this sort of thing to consider au naturel), and I was ready to go further in and much hotter. My friend only makes the banya about 70 Celsius (about 160 Fahrenheit). We're not setting any records, but it feels warm in the early Manitoba winter.

Soon sweat drips from my face and body and every pore. I can't see well without my glasses in any case, and with sweat flowing freely down my face I spend most of the time with my hands wiping my eyes. Three other men are there. They all sit on the top seat (we have three levels in the small sauna). John pours water into a container on the woodstove, and steam fills the air.

After about 10 minutes one of the others leads the way out; he's the closest to a newcomer besides me. I sit on the bottom seat, where the heat is lowest. And I follow him out without hesitation. The four of us cool off outside. The snow just covers the ground, so no rolling around in the snow today. The two who are most experienced take cold water from a tap and pour it over themselves. I just cool off, grateful to be able to see again.

Then back inside. John adds oil with some peppermint to the water this time, and scent mingled with steam fills the air. Soon I am holding my hands over my eyes again. Another 10 minutes and my first banya of the year is over. I cool off outside, put my clothes back on, and head for home.

It's a good experience. Physically it helps to bring out anything inside the body that needs to be purged. The four of us found that the steam and heat and cold also greases conversation and friendship. Perhaps holding one's hands over one's eyes helps men to speak more easily ....

The banya over, I walked back to the main campus building with one of the others. The two stalwarts remained in the banya for another half hour. I fingered my glasses, waiting for the frames to shrink enough for my to reinsert the right lens. A hot metal frame combined with a cool plastic-glass lens makes for loss of lens: unanticipated consequences of the banya. Next time I'll leave my glasses outside the hut entirely.