Groundhog Day comes every year and I don’t really recall ever hearing “Spring is JUST around the corner!!!” It’s always “Six More Weeks of Winter!!!” Right…so what else is new? It’s the first week of February. Of course there’s more winter! But I can pretty much guarantee you Spring will come a lot sooner in WV than it will for my Colorado family. Or for many of you, as well.
I woke up yesterday morning and snuggled in with Mr. FixIt for the morning news review on our phones. He looks up the weather and reports to me. I look up the most recent news flash and report to him. We check our schedules to see where we need to be or what chores must be accomplished. Then I pull up my “To Do List” and add things we think of…usually something we need at the store or a prescription to pick up. The most important “news” that starts our day is “How did you sleep?” Sleep reports are big news anymore! Finally, we check the blood sugar and decide what’s for breakfast.
I padded down the hall to the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea. If we don’t have anywhere to go, I’ll start breakfast. Mr. FixIt lets the cat out and starts the fire in the family room. We looked outside yesterday morning and the sun was shining. We knew that ol’ groundhog was full of it. We surely don’t have SIX more weeks of winter! It’s time to start scheduling some camping trips for the season that’ll be here before we know it.
Since it was such a sunshiny day, and since we had some errands that really needed doing in town, we bundled up and headed out in the 30° weather and hit the road. We got our usual breakfast sandwich at the Golden Arches, then made our stops throughout town…methodically planning each to keep us from zig-zagging and retracing our steps.
Our first stop was Harbor Freight. I’ve told y’all before…if this man wants to have his way with me, he takes me to a hardware store! I am NOT your typical frou-frou fancy chick. Not anymore, anyway. I threw my tiara out the window a long time ago. I set my sights on a piece of hardware I needed to replace. A lot of my important tools were stolen out of a storage unit in Colorado when I was selling my house ten years ago. Many of which, it turns out, Mr. FixIt has in that “hardware store” we call a building out back. This tool he did not have. It looked like Harbor Freight didn’t either, till the clerk checked in back and they just happened to receive a new shipment that hadn’t been put on the shelves yet. Mama was a happy camper…because…it was on sale for 25% off. Excellent!
After a quick stop at Sam’s, where spring was evident at every turn, we went to my other favorite store…Rural King. Our best dates end up at Rural King!!! Free popcorn and all things farm related. We needed more birdseed because these freeloaders are eating us out of house and home. We deferred replacing the broken feeder till next year. We have three big feeders, two suet baskets, a window feeder, and a finch sock out there…that will get them by. The big 40# bags of birdseed were sold out. We bought one 20# bag and stopped at Ollie’s Discount Store to see if they had some. They had little 5# bags for more than we paid for the 20# so that was a no go.
Our last stop took us to Walmart for the rest of the items on the list. They had 20# bags of birdseed there so we topped off what we needed. It turns out, buying birdseed has become a $4 Billion industry in this country. Feeding birds is big business. We feed them because we love them. We love watching them flit around the feeders and the ground below. It’s tranquil and therapeutic. It strikes a chord deep within each of us…food is love and feeding those we love soothes our souls.
Feeding our feathered friends has been a tradition in this country for over a hundred years. We all can remember the little back yard bird feeders at our grandma’s or auntie’s house. They might have purchased a small bag of seed and doled it out over the winter in order to catch a glimpse of a colorful bird like a cardinal or a bluejay or what have you. But when the pandemic hit, participation in the hobby of feeding birds exploded because we were stuck at home and needed a diversion.
We’ll keep feeding our birds as long as we can afford the seed. And maybe we don’t need to buy that extra feeder after all. We stop feeding in the spring. We do start in the fall, but it really doesn’t pick up to the “spendy” category till late winter or early spring. We don’t feed in summer because there’s plenty of natural forage and even if there’s food in the feeder, you rarely get a bird come in for that kind of seed when there’s a plethora of worms and grubs and bugs to nosh on.
We were back home by 4:00-ish. We missed the school bus traffic and the state highway people were finished with the major tree-trimming project they’re doing on our little two-lane blacktop. I have nothing scheduled till the 13th, so I can dig in and get some work done on this project. The learning curve seems to get steeper and steeper, but I am bound and determined to do this! I may go out to The Farm for a few days. No TV…no cooking and cleaning the kitchen. Just peace and quiet and faster internet, if you can believe that.
It was good to have a day out in the sunshine, getting some exercise, and hanging with my best fella. Some of you may have gotten a glimpse of Mr. FixIt Tuesday night when I inadvertently posted his birthday picture to this page instead of my personal page. It was only up for a few minutes till I discovered my error. If you did get to see him…you’re one of the few who have gazed upon his handsome visage! Lucky you!!!
?
“Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches.”
Psalm 104:12 ESV