Tag: Nature

Bert Pinkfoot
daily prompt · Nature · Writing

Bert Pinkfoot

Amy7 Comments

If I started a sports team, it would be racing pigeons, and their mascot would be Bert Pinkfoot.

Bert Pinkfoot was a racing pigeon who absconded a race and somehow ended up in my backyard. I knew he was a racing pigeon because he had green bands on both ankles. He was also rather tame. He arrived several Septembers ago, and I knew he wasn’t from around here, because we don’t have many pigeons where I live. That and the bands, as I mentioned. There are plenty of mourning doves, but no pigeons.

I immediately called the local bird sanctuary, and asked about this racing pigeon in my backyard, who had attracted a local flock of doves. As a matter of fact, all the female doves were quite impressed with Bert and tried to get his attention. Bert was a working man, he was a racing bird, and he was not interested in any female attention (this is when some doves cried).

The woman at the bird sanctuary told me that Bert likely left a race. My understanding is these birds race from point A to point B and back to point A, as pigeons are trained to do. She told me it was likely if I tried to return the bird to its owner, the owner would likely kill the bird because he absconded the race and lost the owner money. She also said that there had been a race about 300 miles north, and that he probably was from that race.

I wasn’t sure what to do with Bert. I had already been feeding and giving water to the “normal” birds, so he had a bit of an all-you- can eat buffet and sanctuary in my backyard. The woman also told me that he’d be likely to be eaten by hawks because he was raised to be a racing pigeon, and had no true exposure to the outside, natural world. At least not while he was trying to sleep.

Bert hung around for several weeks, though he never joined in with the doves. He tolerated his distant cousins, and maybe he found solace with them. We’ll never know why he left the race – whether he was seeking freedom or he got lost – but after about two weeks, Bert was no longer in my backyard. I didn’t see him again. I like to think he found his freedom and flew to a nearby city to be with his brethren city pigeons. I don’t think of the alternative.

Bert Pinkfoot

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I Was A Park Ranger
daily prompt · Nature

I Was A Park Ranger

Amy1 Comment

Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?

It was always my dream to be a park ranger. Ever since I was a small girl, I imagined myself out in the wilderness, wearing rugged boots and heavy clothing topped off with a nondescript brown hat. Flowers and trees and plants as far as the eye can see. I never knew if I would realize my dream. I worked hard toward it, but life interrupted.

That’s what I told my Acting 101 class as I pretended that I’ve always wanted to be a park ranger. While it’s true that I love plants and trees and the grass beneath my feet, mosquitoes have an unrequited love for me, and I do not like the smell of leaves, nor being cold at night. Sleeping in a tent? I’ll pass, thanks.

My performance earned me a round of applause. They believed me.

Autumn · Fall · Forests · I love trees · Nature · Oak trees · Trees · Uncategorized · Willow oak trees

William, the Majestic Oak

Amy2 Comments

There’s something about me you should know: I love trees. I believe the science that states trees communicate with each other through lengthy and entwined root systems deep underground, as well as through their branches and leaf canopies. Dying trees are fed sugar through their roots from other trees that know of their suffering. The forest is friendship and family.

But William, the towering Willow Oak adjacent to my home, does not live in a forest. Perhaps he started out in one, a hundred years ago, when he was a sapling – and before that, an acorn. But there’s no way to prove it.

As he is now, overseer of my home and its relatively small parcel of land, William has a few local friends. None are larger than he, but they are seemingly not intimated.

Oak trees are formidable, and they live long lives. William is an example of this – and yes, that’s his name, we have conferred. He asked for my name, of course. “It’s Amy,” I said.

Given his proximity to my dining room, health and sturdiness are important factors to know about William. “Great tree.” “Over one hundred years old. I’d love a tree like that on my property.” “Perfectly healthy.” Several tree specialists have said these exact words about my William. I imagine Wills puffing up and shaking his leaves in a show of bravado, but his leaves are eighty feet up and I can’t see what he’s doing with them.

And yes, I’ve decided William is a male. I’ve heard trees can be either/or, and William gives towering male protective vibes. He is over one hundred years old, after all. He’s a galant gentleman.

His trunk must measure fifteen to twenty feet in diameter (see photo above for William compared to the size of my foot). His visible root system grows just touching my house’s foundation – but before you become nervous about that, it just touches. The roots follow the line of the home in a parallel fashion, abutting, but never crossing. His well-established, strong roots running along the foundation of my home appears to be giving it a gentle but Herculean hug. He offers roots for when I feel rootless and ungrounded.

His rough bark reminds me that he is rough on the outside, but alive and doing important tree stuff on the inside. His green leaves of spring are a canopy of hope external (remembering that hope springs eternal), his brown leaves of fall are a yearly consternation to my home’s gutters, and are my shoes’ main nemesis. My welcome mat ignores the leaves completely, unfortunately. His acorns drop from up high, clanking the glass patio table. The acorns are large this year, which my mother always predicted meant a cold, snowy winter. We shall see. The squirrels have already begun to bury the acorns, and, if they remember the locations of burial, they will be well fed this winter.

When the invasive pest English Ivy threatened William’s trunk, I cut it away, furious. When it grew back and multiplied, I had it professionally removed. William seems pleased. He can show off his trunk again.

“It would take two hundred mile per hour winds to take down that tree,” a landscaper recently told me, staring up at William in awe. (He was the person who freed William of the ivy.) Fingers and limbs crossed that never happens. William is well-protected by my home in a sort of symbiotic relationship.

I woke this morning to see William in his usual place, with the sound of acorns dropping now and again. He seems peaceful and ready to get on with the cooler fall weather. He’s already preparing for spring. After visiting William, my mind and then my feet trailed to my front yard, where my surprise Eastern Redbud grows. Her name is Clementine, and she has a magnificent story to tell.

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