By Editor Kym Byrnes
You’ve probably seen those Progressive insurance commercials featuring “Dr. Rick” working to help people avoid becoming their parents. I have always laughed out loud at those ads, and I find myself doing things that might fit into the storyline more and more.
Over the last few years, I have become a bird watcher. I don’t mean hiking out into the wilderness with binoculars and a guidebook; I mean creating a bird mecca outside my large bay window and enticing all those birds to come to me. I look forward to the weekend when I can fill my birdfeeders, make my cup of coffee and sit on my perfectly situated couch while watching birds in my front yard.
It started with the COVID-19 pandemic when I was working from home. I littered my flower bed with up to eight different feeders. I used an app that told me all the bird varieties that were coming to eat, and I spent hours every day watching them — cardinals, finches, tufted titmice and some beautiful red-bellied woodpeckers, birds of all colors and sizes. This hobby didn’t come without its challenges. The birds perched on my vehicles as they came and went, which resulted in my car seeing a lot of bird droppings. At the same time, I was constantly battling some very crafty squirrels who were intent on hogging all the food and destroying my feeders.
I found that a garden owl, a plastic owl statue that I bought for less than $20 on Amazon, kept the birds off my car. For a year, every time I got out of my car, I put a plastic owl on top and had to remove it before driving off again. I also added squirrel feeders and different foods to entice them to stay on the ground in their own areas.
My mom loved her birds and feeders; some of my last memories of her include taking my daughter, who was then 3 years old, around her yard as they filled all her bird feeders with various types of food and talked about the different birds they attracted. But honestly, I’m not sure even my mom was as consumed by the bird-squirrel environment in her yard as I was during the pandemic. Of course, the world lurched back toward normalcy, and I returned to the office. Now, I have two or three feeders and spend a little time on the weekends watching my flying friends. My dogs do a good job of letting the squirrels know their place.
As we trudge through the tail end of winter and look toward spring, I hope you are finding joy in the little things, even if they are reminiscent of what your parents do or did — finishing a crossword puzzle, taking a special kind of pride in the state of your lawn or marking the win if you get home before dark because somehow driving in the dark has become a burden. Here’s to warmer weather and longer days and embracing the parts of us that are turning into our parents.
Cheers!
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