Journal: It's Cold... And It's Getting Colder!

Last week, after seeing my pictures of this starling, some friends remarked that these were the plague of the city, where they grew up.

And a whole of other places, besides.  It’s not called ‘the most hated bird in the Americas’ for nothing.  And to think that it all started in 1890 when a German immigrant named Eugene Schieffelin decided it would be a great idea to introduce as many of Shakespeare’s birds as possible to North America.

One cold winter’s day he released 60 starlings into New York’s Central Park in the hope they would start breeding.

They did.

The United States is now home to an estimated 200 million European starlings.  They run native birds out of their territories, they eat so much grain that cattle wind up with a deficient diet if the farmers aren’t vigilant, and their bodies are so dense, and they fly in such big flocks, they can put down an aircraft.

Thickset and pugnacious, starlings are the bruisers of the avian world.  They are now such a nuisance they are one of the few bird species unprotected by law.

“Starlings are lean and mean.  In the industry they’re often called feathered bullets,” says Michael Begier, National Coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Airports Wildlife Hazards Program.  “They’re a particular problem at airports because they flock in very large numbers, and compared to other birds their bodies are very dense.  They are about 27% more dense than a herring gull which is a much larger bird.”

In 1960 they caused the deadliest bird strike in U.S. aviation history.  The birds flew into the engines of a plane as it took off from Boston’s Logan Airport, causing it to crash into the harbor, killing 62 people on board.

Starlings cost U.S. agriculture an estimated one billion dollars a year in damage to crops, particularly fruit trees.  They can cause milk production to drop at dairy farms, because they steal the grain being fed to cows.

“What makes the starlings particularly insidious is that they pick out the finest quality grain, which causes a reduction in dairy output because the cows aren’t getting the nutrition they need,” says George Linz, a research wildlife biologist at the USDA National Wildlife Research Center.  “Very often farmers don’t realize what’s happening.”

Eugene Schieffelin was a member of the American Acclimatization Society, which aimed to introduce plants and birds from the old world of Europe to create comfort and familiarity in the new nation of America.

“Most of the introductions that were made by these societies failed miserably,” says Kevin McGowan of the Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University.  “But some of them stuck and were very successful – the most obvious being the house sparrow and the European starling.”

Starlings nest in holes, which offer one of the safest environments to lay eggs because they are generally inaccessible to predators.

“But there aren’t that many holes out there, so the competition is intense,” says McGowan. “And European starlings are really good competitors.  They’re smallish birds, about half the size of a fist.  But they weigh half as much again relative to other birds, and it seems to be all muscle.  So they are well able to out-compete all the native hole-nesters.”

Scientists say there’s a correlation between the increased numbers of starlings and a decline in native species such as the redheaded woodpecker, the purple martin, and the bluebird.

In 2012 – the latest figures available – the USDA killed almost 1.5 million starlings by shooting and trapping – with zero effect on the overall population.

So does anybody other than Shakespeare and misguided 19^th-century bird lovers have any liking of starlings?

Starlings are beautiful iridescent creatures with purple and green across the chest and throat.  Their feathers look as though the tips have been dipped in molten gold, and their flight and tail feathers are outlined in gold.  They can mimic other birds and a myriad number of sounds.”

Wolfgang Mozart had a pet starling which he purchased in 1784 and reportedly buried with great ceremony three years later.

So at least somebody was sad to see one go.

There, aren’t you glad you asked?  (You did ask, didn’t you??)

Dorcas recently posted some pictures of Trevor with their new baby goats.  “Which kid is cuter?” she wrote.  😀  Here's one of the kids, with its mother checking to make sure all is well:

Baby Eva was five months old Saturday.  She gets prettier every time we see her.

Tuesday afternoon, I dropped off some food for Loren, then went to Pet Care Specialists to get Teensy’s medicine for hyperthyroidism.  Finally, after nearly a year, they are allowing people to walk into the office.  Whataya bet the employees revolted at having to keep scurrying outside with medications, or to get people’s pets from vehicles, in these subarctic temperatures and all the snow we’ve been getting?

The lady who gave me the bottle of pills gestured me into one of the offices, as she needed to print a receipt.

She sat down at a computer and asked, glancing at my thick, wooly mittens, and with her mask somewhat obscuring her words, “Pain today?”

I looked at the mittens, too.  Then, “Excuse me?”

“Pain today?”

Actually, my thumb did hurt; but how did she know?

“Pain?” I queried, wondering if she was going to offer me a shot of Synovan, or maybe send me home with a bottle of Rimadyl chews, and if they would make me bark.

She turned toward me and tried harder to enunciate:  “Are you payin’ today?”

Oh!  “Payin’”!  How could I have not understood that.  😅

After supper that evening, Larry took a short nap in his recliner with a fleece blanket over him and Teensy atop that, planning to go work on a vehicle in Genoa when his alarm beeped in a few minutes.  

I went back upstairs to my office, and continued scanning photos.  If I didn’t fizzle, I thought I just might get that album done that night.  Hmmm... There were eight more pages.  16, if you count the front and the back separately.  Each page holds multiple pictures, and most need at least a little bit of editing.

I fizzled after only five pages, leaving a couple for the next day.  But I did pass the ten-thousand-photo mark.  “Tomorrow is another day,” quoth Scarlett O’Hara.

Here’s a photo of our family in September of 1987.  Keith was 7, Hannah 6, Dorcas 5, Teddy 4, and Joseph 2 ½.  Larry and I were not quite 27.

The halo oranges Loren ordered from Harry & David arrived Wednesday.  He didn’t want me to bring any food that afternoon (he’s usually had a late breakfast of eggs and toast when that happens), so we gave him the box of oranges after church that night.  I told him not to eat the whole works all at once.  He laughed and assured me he doesn’t do that, but in years gone by he has eaten too many oranges – especially the little ones such as mandarins or cuties – in one sitting, and then not had the faintest clue why he had a raging stomachache in the middle of the night.

He’d ordered the oranges right around Christmas time.  Harry & David ship them the moment they are picked and boxed.  Their oranges are always picked ripe, never green.  They’re packed in shaped Styrofoam, so they are never bruised.  Pricey fruit, it is, but always extra good.  Loren loves them.

By the next day when I took him some supper, he was quite sure he needed to pay me for the oranges, and glad (and surprised) when I told him I’d already paid for them with his Discover card back when I ordered them around Christmas time – and the Discover card is all paid up.  He asked if I had tried some of those oranges before giving him the box the previous night – not because he would begrudge me having some, but more likely because he’d eaten more than he thought he had, and was wondering where they all went.  If they gave him a stomachache, he wasn’t admitting it.

On the way home, I stopped at our mailbox – and discovered some cute Garfield and Odie fabric in my mailbox.  A quilting friend had sent it, because I’d given her the new cartridge of ink that I had purchased for my old printer just before it went kaput.  I’d told her she didn’t need to give me anything in return!  😊  But it will be just the ticket for some of the quilts I plan to make for my grandchildren as soon as I’m done scanning photos.

Here’s our pickup, small box trailer with topper, and tent at Chief Hosa campground in Colorado, August of 1996:

Friday morning, I awoke abruptly about ten minutes before my alarm went off, smack-dab in the middle of an exciting, riveting dream.  This is aggravating on two fronts:  1) I didn’t get to find out The Rest of the Story, and 2) I could’ve had ten more minutes of sleep.  There’s just no getting around it:  waking up makes me tired.

Most of my dreams start to fade and vanish the instant I awaken.  The harder I try to remember them, the mistier they get, though I am left with only a vague feeling...  There are those rare ones that stick with me.  My dreams are never very sensible.  They’re in color, and they ramble all over the world, and well into the stratosphere.  They are often violent and wild and totally outrageous.  A dream psychologist would either have a heyday, or wind up needing a psychiatrist himself, if he tried analyzing my dreams.

I like to listen to KTIC rural radio (840 West Point, Nebraska) in the mornings and through the noon news.  That morning, they were announcing upcoming farm and ranch seminars.  Here’s a good one:  “Minding Your Manure Manners.”  They read stuff like that so... somberly.

That day when I took Loren his supper (orange chicken with rice and vegetables, California blend vegetables, strawberry yogurt, peaches in peach jello, a meat stick, and V8 cocktail juice), I saw about a dozen swans in a field near Lost Creek.  Far overhead, a bald eagle flew strongly in the direction of the trees on the north edge of town.  I described all this to Loren when I arrived at his house, and he was pleased to know the swans are here again.  I told him how a group of three came soaring in to join the others already on the ground, in perfect V formation, even though there were only three.  They wheeled into an easy spiral, came down quickly, and landed with utter grace and magnificence.  

Loren likes the birds as well as I do.  I think the Creator enjoyed Himself immensely, making the birds and the butterflies!

I took Loren the clothes I’d washed for him the previous day, and for once remembered to ask him for a handful of hangers.  It takes him a bit to understand why I would need his hangers. 

I explained, “You see, I take your shirts home – without hangers.  I wash them, dry them, and hang them up – on my hangers.  I give the shirts and hangers to you... and a week or so later, I take more of your shirts home – without hangers.  I wash them, dry them, and hang them up – on my hangers.  I give the shirts and hangers to you... and a week or so later, I take more of your shirts home --------”

By then he was laughing, so I let the sentence peter out.  He rummaged up half a dozen hangers for me.  If I remember to ask for another handful when I get his laundry next time, all should be well.  I used to have heaps and mounds of hangers, but when the children married and moved out, each of them took their share.  After that, I still had oodles and caboodles, so I gave several boxes full of hangers to the Goodwill.  It seems, perhaps, I gave them too many.  

For supper that night, I fixed butterfly deer steaks, baked with potatoes, carrots, and onions.  Yummy, those little deer steaks are sooo good.  I baked extra so I could give some to Loren the next day, along with grape juice, peaches, and cottage cheese. 

He told me that he didn’t know where the girl went who had stayed there all night.  He thought she was one of Norma’s granddaughters, but he didn’t know her name.  And she’d gotten mad at him about something, but wouldn’t say a word to him. 

“Nada,” he said, making zeros with both index fingers and thumbs.

“Hmmm,” I said intelligently.  (One should always say things intelligently, never mind what the words actually are.)

I nattered on about snow and cold weather and a 40-vehicle pile-up on I80 in Iowa that had happened the previous afternoon, and he forgot all about ill-tempered, imaginary granddaughters who won’t talk.

After leaving Loren’s house, I went to Hy-Vee to pick up groceries.  Home again, I got the groceries put away and started a Marie Calendar frozen peach pie baking.  It wasn’t long before the whole house smelled scrumptious.

 Sunday morning when it was time to head out the door to church, the temperature was 1°, with a wind chill of -14°.  Snow was coming down and would continue for a while, adding two or three inches to what we already had (about 3” Saturday, on top of the 8” from days earlier that hadn’t melted yet).  All the little birds looked like puffballs and butterballs, with their feathers all puffed out into down coats.

Teensy paced from door to door, begging to go outside.  He was pretty sure it would be springtime on the other side of one of those doors.  We had the pet door open to the garage, but the outer doors were all shut, so he couldn’t get into the Great White Outdoors.  He wanted out into the Great White Outdoors.

We had dinner at Kurt and Victoria’s house that afternoon.  It was roast beef, baked potatoes, carrots, and onions.  Victoria had made enough food for Loren, so Larry took him a big bowlful, with a banana for dessert, before we ate, while Kurt and Victoria were setting the table and putting the food on.  We had frozen fruit for dessert, with coconut sugar sprinkled on top, and coconut milk drizzled over the works.

When we drove home at about 2:30, the snow had nearly stopped, and the temperature had gotten all the way up to 6°.

A couple of hours later, I went out to refill the bird feeders – at least, the two that are still intact; squirrels demolished the opaque plastic in the best feeder.  It had started snowing again, and the temperature had dropped. 

I ordered some new bird feeders last week, but they haven’t come yet.

That got me started on a Buying Binge, and I proceeded to buy groceries from Wal-Mart, Hy-Vee, Amazon, and Schwan’s, then coffee from Christopher Bean and J.L. Hufford, the latter just because if it has a yummy-sounding name, I gotta try it.  Plus, the price was right.

I get email ads from Eight O’Clock coffees (and other companies) with ‘one-time-only offers, such prices never seen before in the history of mankind, ending at midnight tonight, no exceptions!’ – and then, the following day, the very same offer, with a Subject Line reading, ‘Last Chance for These Savings!’ 

Last chance until tomorrow, I presume.

Bird feeders and food didn’t quite assuage the buying compulsion, and then it occurred to me that Larry needed some warm long johns and long-sleeved undershirts, so I happily trotted my fingers to Hanes.com.  I found the ones I wanted – and not only were they on sale, but I tracked down a coupon that gave me another 20% off, and I got free shipping, too, into the bargain.

I like to keep still about new clothes I get for Larry, and just quietly tuck them into his drawers when he isn’t around.  He’s always pleased when he finds them in the mornings.

This morning, a lady from Schwan’s called to ‘verify my address’.  This is odd, since I’ve purchased food from them since we moved out here in 2003 (and many years before that, too), and since the truck stopped coming out here, I have twice ordered things without issue.  I inquired, and she told me that they were ‘updating their system’, and had to confirm addresses.

That usually means, ‘We had a massive crash, and lost all our data,’ but... how then did she have my phone number?  Mysterious.

Today it is three of our grandchildren’s birthdays:  Emma is 15, her brother Grant is 8, and their cousin Justin is 9.  Justin, Joseph and Jocelyn’s boy, lives in Omaha; we wished him a happy birthday and promised to take him his gift as soon as we go to Omaha, perhaps next week.

Teensy wants me to pet him.  Now.  Every time I put my hands on my keyboard to type, he pokes his head under one (or both, if he can manage it) of my forearms and lifts up, hard.  ‘Pet me!!!’

Here he is, watching out the front door as I take pictures of the frozen fog crystals on the lilac leaves that never fell from the bush, and of the Boston ivy vine.

Teensy is sweet and cuddly, and he’s old, and I always, always pet him when he asks.  Okay, now he’s on my lap purring and bumping his cute little head into my chin.

On Sundays just before the church services, he never (well, hardly ever) tries to get on my lap, knowing I have good clothes on and don’t want him to.  How does he know?  Maybe he correlates ‘don’t get on my lap’ with all the getting-ready-bustle?  If he ever even thinks about it, I hold up a hand like a traffic cop and say, “No!  Stay down!”

Maybe he remembers the time, years ago, when he decided to simply overleap my hand and land in my lap anyway.  I caught him in midair, gave him a bit of a shake (not enough to jar his brains loose, mind you; I like cats with intact brains best) and said in my best preacher’s daughter’s voice, “THAT WAS BAD!!!”

He went and sat in the corner with his back to me for a while, after that.  I felt like the Wicked Witch of the West.

A few days ago, I scheduled an appointment online for a serviceman to look at our Maytag washing machine, which has made odd clunks and bangs ever since I washed that humongous Jewel Box Log Cabin quilt in it two or three months after we got it. 

The machine went on working all right, though, and I’ve never been totally sure there’s anything wrong with it.  Maybe I was just worried about it, and only heard the clunks afterwards, even though they’ve been there all along?  I decided I should find out.

Today I searched through papers in the bill box, taking the opportunity to sort everything, hunting for the warranty on the washing machine.  I couldn’t find it.  I pulled the manual from the laundry-room cupboard... but the warranty and invoice were not with it.

I picked up the phone to call Nebraska Furniture Mart and request a copy – and the phone rang in my hand.  It was a lady from Clarkson TV & Repair (in Columbus, and not Clarkson like I had thought) calling to acknowledge my request for service to the washer, and asking about the warranty.  The Maytag warranty is only good for a year.  My service request was sent February 5 – and we purchased the washer on the 6^th.  So, just in case, she wanted to know if we had an extended warranty, and what company provides it.

I called Nebraska Furniture Mart... got put on hold after a longwinded dialogue about ‘increased volume of calls due to Covid-19’ (because ‘Covid-19 patients like to use the phone’, or something like that)... so I decided to use their Chat function instead.

Same line, second verse – ‘increased volume’, blah blah.

But I was fifth in line, so I stayed in the queue.

The chat window soon informed me, “Hang in there!  You are now 4^th in line.”  I hung in there.  And then 3^rd... 2^nd... and there I was then, chatting with a robot who, no matter how I phrased and rephrased my question, responded, “I do not have an answer for that question.”

I scrolled down, spotted a button that said, “Talk to a technician”, and clicked on it with enthusiasm and vigor, and possibly a bit of vehemence thrown in.

“Hang in there!” the chat window admonished me, “You are 4^th in line!”

I hung in there.

Finally I was chatting with a real, live person (theoretically).  He or she soon proved to be competent at the game, for no more than ten seconds after I requested the invoice and the warranty and gave him or her my vital statistics, the necessary papers were in my Inbox.

I called Clarkson TV & Repair, gave the lady the information, and rescheduled the appointment for Thursday instead of tomorrow.

Then I hurried off to wrap gifts for Emma and Grant before calling Loren.

Since I was running late after all that, I heated Campbell’s sirloin steak soup for Loren, and added crackers, Chobani yogurt, rice pudding, peach pie, and orange juice.

It was 3° when I took the food to Loren, and the wind chill was -13°.  I told him to stay warm, and not to go outside in bare feet.  That made him laugh, and he promised he wouldn’t.

I was writing to a friend, and mentioned a dog she used to have by the name of ‘JJ’. 

My computer is set to throw in ‘Joseph and Jocelyn’ anytime I type ‘JJ’ – fortunately, I was looking at the screen as I typed.  Sometimes I’m not looking, and then, in a rush and [mis]trusting to my most excellent typing [and my well-configured and added-to {tens of thousands of words and phrases! – started in 1999 and brought forward through all my subsequent ‘puters} autocorrect dictionary], I hit ‘Send’ without proofreading.  I wonder what in the world people think when, where my post should say ‘mac’, as in ‘computer operating system’, it instead says ‘macaroni and cheese’?

Speaking of grammar, look at this comment I found under a friend’s blog, written by one ‘Anonymous’ (no indication if that’s a first name or a surname:

 

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In order to more efficiently scam folks, he really needs to take a work-from-home grammar course.

My parents had a weight scale in their bathroom that looked like the scales in doctors’ offices – one of those with weights that you slide on bars until they are balanced.  Once when Joseph was about 3, he came out of the bathroom, trotted into the kitchen, took my hand, and asked, “Can you come see how much I cost?”

He meant, ‘weigh’, not ‘cost’.  His Grandpa and Grandma Swiney laughed and laughed over that.

Larry has been in Genoa painting steel racks and bars for the truck he drives for Walkers.  He drove the Jeep there this morning, because his pickup wouldn’t start.  He dragged a cord from the house waaay down to the south end of our property, and plugged the pickup in.

Remember when Spike, Snoopy’s brother, dragged a cord all the way from the desert where he lived into Needles, California, to plug in his Christmas tree (which was actually a saguaro cactus)?

When he brought the Jeep back (Larry, that is, not Spike) (I hadn’t even known it was gone), he cleared the front walk (a little late; the FedEx man had already come through all the snow twice with three big boxes, and the mail lady had come to the door and asked if there was a strong man here who could bring a heavy box in.  There wasn’t, so she dropped it at the end of the sidewalk where it meets the driveway.  Wonder why she even bothered to ask?  Maybe she tried, those other times when we found a box on the drive, and I had my head under the faucet?  But the other boxes were fairly light, and the sidewalk was clear.  Maybe she left the box at the neighbors’ house by mistake, and they put it there?  I should’ve asked her.  Instead, I just apologized for the unscooped walk.

This evening, I took Emma and Grant their gifts.  Imagine, Emma will be learning to drive!

 It kept getting smokier and smokier here in the kitchen, so I went to see what was happening with the wood-burning stove.  Turns out, it had shut off (probably after trying to keep going for a while), because the wood pellets were all stacked up against the sides, and weren’t tumbling down into the hopper the way they’re supposed to.  The whole basement was smoky.

Ugh.  That made my nose, eyes, and throat burn, and my head hurt.

I’ve been working hard to catch my tail today.  Now, having done caught it, I shall take a drive through... hmmmm... let’s try the Italian Alps.  A drive via YouTube, that is.

Ooooo, WeatherBug just chirped, warning of the cold:  it’s now -14°, with a wind chill of -26°.  Brrrrrrr...

Larry started up the wood-burning stove again, and the furnace is on, too, along with a medium-sized infrared heater in the living room.  So the house is warm.

And with that, having included approximately all significant infos, or at least a great written lot of ’em, I looking to sign off.

 

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,

 

P.S.:  And in the time it took me to reread this letter, the temperature has dropped to -17°.