Colonoscopies, and other epic game show ideas

Alex, I would like to buy a bowel"

Me and two of my old work buds from a job twenty years ago got re-connected by social media recently.  We sent messages of good will to each other, with the promise of a future lunch together to get caught up.  I will refer to them anonymously as “Dave” and “Charles”, but will not reveal their true identities since my Character Defamation Legal Fund is still tapped out from the last time I failed to use fake names.  We agreed on a day, time and place for lunch.  I was looking forward to it and blocked out time for a long leisurely meal.  I thought about what exaggerations I could tell to enhance my career accomplishments, or what excuses I could conjure up for the lack there of.

A couple of days before our lunch, I got a text from the one I will call “Charles”,  who said “Dave’s” colonoscopy procedure got changed to the day we were to have lunch.  We’d have to re-schedule.  Well, not one to follow polite decorum, I wrote back and said we could re-schedule, or better yet, we bring sack lunches to the event and watch.  That did not get the expected enthusiastic response from either fellow, so we re-scheduled.

But it did get me to thinking.  I know you, the reader, believe that it could be a dangerous thing, but sometimes I do think.  I was thinking there should be a way for friends and family to participle in an event like a colonoscopy, and perhaps treat it like a game show.  They have TV monitors in the operating room so that the physician can see what is in there when he is snaking the camera up his patient’s bowels, so why not televise it for the attendees?  One idea I had was to turn it into a drinking game. 

In my mind, I am thinking that there would be an announcer for this drinking game and he would speak in a hushed voice, like he was broadcasting a golf tournament.  He’d give us the play by play, like:  “Now the probe is past the first hole, ready to make the turn ….  There is a hazard on the right to be avoided……”  Every time the Dr. finds a benign polyp, the announcer would inform the viewing audience.  We would cheer, and take a gulp of beer. If the polyp looked more than benign, we would, in sympathy to the patient, chug the entire adult beverage.  It would be a fun event for everyone.  Well, maybe not for the patient.  But he is on anesthesia, and that is a whole other type of fun.

I have allowed the concept of this drinking game to fester in my imagination.  I took the liberty of contacted Dr. Phil, of TV fame, and pitched the idea. He said he’d lend his name to the show. He was sure we could get it on the Oprah Network, since it is starved for programing.  For the right amount of cash, he’d endorse it.  My skeptical friends, who do not share my enthusiasm for this endeavor, said Dr. Phil could not endorse a medical procedure based game because he was not a real Doctor.  “Not real?” I gasped.  “How do you know that”?  “Because he does not have a last name.  No one could get a diploma that said only:  “Dr. Phil, …. Dr. of something”.   Good point.  I may have to find another quack.

A drinking game may be fine for buddies, stay at home moms, or those who should be incarcerated, but there is real money in producing game shows for television.  And it apparently is dirt cheap to do so.  If I could just hack into the television feed of a dozen or so Colonoscopies, I could make a fortune selling this game show using the videos.  One game concept that I thought of could be named:   “He Said, She Said, while under sedation!”    Here is the basic premise for this game:  The patient does not know what he or she may have said to the attending physicians or nurses when coming out from anesthesia.  This game is to see how much money can be coerced from the patient in order for the spouse NOT to hear what was said. 

The game would have the attending nurses standing behind individual podiums on one side of the stage.  Facing them is the spouse of the patient, who is wearing sound proof ear muffs.  The patient is next to the spouse, facing the nurses.  The game show host would be an ebullient smart ass, whose job it is to make the patient look pathetic.  The goal of the game is to goad the patient into spending hush money to keep his groggy post procedure comments from being revealed to the spouse. 

I think the banter would go something like this:  Game show host:  “Tell us, nurses, while “Dave” was under sedation did he say to one of you, that are half his age, I might add,  A. “I think I love you, Dolores”.  B.” My mother was a saint” or C. “I love cats”.   The camera would zoom in on the panel of nurses.  The patient, “Dave”, would have the goal of offering hush money so that the attending nurses would not reveal any incriminating comments to his wife.   “Dave” would bid $100, $200, $300 and so on until one of the nurses would finally cave, hit the buzzer, and agree to take the money in exchange for eliminating the answer the patient did not want revealed to his spouse.   This would be GREAT TV.

The excitement of how much the patient would pay to avoid any incriminating statement would be stoked by pausing for advertisements from divorce lawyers, Lie detector services, and one room apartment complexes.  Who could resist NOT staying tuned in to this scintillating television?  Jerry Springer will be taking notes.

But, as you can imagine, without the real Dr. Phil, or an actual doctor’s endorsement, this new kind of programming will have to wait until networks are further enlightened.  It may be a while before a game like this comes to broadcast TV.  I can only hope that “Dave” has a few more colonoscopies in his future so we can at least play the drinking game at his expense.  It would give new meaning to the term “bottoms up.”  

My inheritance

My inheritance

Sixteen years ago, in the middle of a typical sweltering Texas summer, we buried my dad.  It was, no doubt, one of the worst days of my life.  I was recalling that day while having lunch with my mom earlier in the week.  We’ve never talked about that day.  I still cannot bear to.  I would rather remember his life.

My dad grew up in Ohio.  A typical kid, but apparently very intellectually gifted.  When I was a boy we’d take family trips to see his parents who still lived in the house he was raised in.  I loved rummaging thru his old stuff.  He had a collection of Boys Life magazines from the 1940’s that I pored over.   His parents still had some of his old toys around for me to play with.  During one of my attic dives at Grandpa’s, I found his high school yearbook.  I read in it that his nickname was “Quiz Kid”.  (In a vivid contrast to him, if I’d had a high school nickname it might have been “Quiz? What quiz?”)

He graduated early from high school to join the Navy. (This was smack dab in the middle of WW II). He was able to take advantage of College scholarships and Navy benefits and earned a Chemistry degree from Harvard University and Applied Sciences from Brown University. 

Dad was recruited by Shell Oil Co., in Texas, so after the war, he packed up and moved south.  He was eager to get away from the Northern winters.  He fell in love, got married to my mom and they started their life together.  When the Korean War started he was called back into service.  I don’t know much of what he did during that time, but there’s a photo of him in Greenland, standing in the snow, next to a dog team.  (So much for getting away from winter weather). 

In the 1950’s he designed a house and had it built in one of Houston’s new suburbs.   I was born in 1955 and had an older sister and later a younger one.  We were your normal family, as far as I could tell.  In 1960 he bought 50 acres of newly cleared land which was an hour’s drive north of Houston.  It had a one acre lake and was a mix of open pasture and woods.  This was going to be his cattle ranch. By now he had fully embraced the Texan lifestyle.  He always wore western boots and a Stetson hat.

In 1962, when I was seven, he bought an old caboose from Southern Pacific Railroad and had it set up as a camp house for us.  We gave it a fresh coat of paint on the inside and slept in it when we’d spend weekends at the farm.  About this same time he bought a salvaged steel building and hired a contractor to erect the framework.  This was to be the barn.  Eventually, Dad and I added the steel panels for roof and siding.

His career at Shell blossomed.  He went from being a Chemist to eventually being the Mgr. of the Dept. that controlled the movement of all products that the Refinery made.  He was still in the Naval Reserves and went to meetings and training weekends. And he continued his college education.  He earned a Master’s Degree and later took all the course work for a doctorate in History.  His goal was to be a college professor when he retired from Shell. I cannot imagine how he did all that and still had time to sleep. 

Life was changing in the U.S. Our neighborhood and the schools were deteriorating.  The 1960’s ushered in race riots and Viet Nam War protests.  The unrest at many colleges soured Dad on the idea of being a Professor. He decided to move us to a safe, quiet community south of Houston.  This was an additional hour’s drive to his country property, but in typical fashion, Dad chose a better life for his family over being close to his farm.  He built a much larger house this time, located in an ideal setting of large oaks on a dead end street. Here we escaped the problems of big city suburbia. 

He didn’t let a little thing like driving two hours keep him from going to his property.  When I was in my early teens, we started building a modest weekend house at the ranch.  It was like a beach house, perched up on recycled treated wooden poles.  He figured it would stay cooler and have fewer bugs in it if it was 10 ft. off of the ground.  We spent many weekends and holidays working on that house.  The truth is that he did most of the work since I was also busy with sports and school.  Had I known I would one day be living in that same house, I would have paid more attention to the details.  My mom and sisters helped too, but their enthusiasm for the project was understandably low.

Time marched on.  I finished college after squeezing 4 years of education into 5 years.  I changed my major more times than some people change underwear.  I failed freshman chemistry and was on Academic probation my first semester of school (how is that for a glorious start?).  I somehow managed to pass chemistry the next semester, with a “D” and was happy to get it.  These results were from the son of the “Quiz Kid”, but Dad never said a word about my poor performance.  He let me figure out, on my own, how to succeed.

I got a job in the Energy Industry.  Soon married the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler, and stayed in the Houston area.  We often visited Mom and Dad. When it was time to buy a house, Dad was there to help with the down payment.  When we had kids of our own and it was time to enlarge the house, Dad was there to finance the addition.  He was always there to support me. 

In 1999 my dad was diagnosed with cancer.  I had no clue it was so serious.  He was purposefully vague to me about what the doctors were saying. I assumed he’d be cured and live forever.   Even as I watched him deteriorate from the chemotherapy, it still never occurred to me that he would not eventually get better.  Whenever I would come visit during that time, his face beamed when I would walk thru the door. 

We were sitting on the back porch on one of those days, enjoying the early summer breeze, when he told me there would be an inheritance.  I did not know what to say.  I did not understand why he said that out of the blue.  What I wish I had said to him was, “Dad, you already gave me an inheritance.  You gave me your life as a guide.  You gave me everything I need to be a success.”  But I was too dumb to tell him. I just said “OK”.

As I write this, I am sitting in the house that my father built, next to his lake, on his farm, with his tractor in his barn.  I live in and among the things my father touched; what he built.  I am one of the things he built.   

Yes, there indeed was an inheritance.  My entire life.  Thanks, Dad.

the HOWs and WHYs of life

How do dogs know, before they first ever jump up on a couch, that it is a comfortable place for them to sleep, while you are not looking?

How is it possible to have No-Fat Half and Half for your coffee?  Doesn’t the No Fat half cancel out half of the Half and Half?  If this was gasoline, would you be buying half gas and half nothing?  Am I missing a genius marketing idea, or am I just an example of customer naiveté?

Why don’t we sneeze in our sleep?

Why is it that on weekend nights or times when I don’ have any pressing issues in the morning are the night when I have no trouble sleeping.

How is it that the gas tank is always empty on the days you don’t have time to stop and fill it?

Why do dogs lay right in the middle of the hall, or the kitchen or in the doorway of the bedroom and force everyone to step over them, rather than lay in a nice, quiet corner or in the doggie bed they were provided?  I have not once had a bird, or a squirrel, or a deer lay down in the traffic area of our house and take a nap.  

Why does it feel so good to sleep in a 72 degree room during the summer, but the same 72 degrees feel like you are sleeping in a deep freezer in the winter?

Why is it that when you make sure and carry a book into a Doctor’s waiting rooms that the wait time is always much shorter than the days when you forget to bring in reading material?

How do dogs know when we are eating?  They always seem to know when to beg for food.  I never see a dog beg for food when I put socks in the drawer or put mail in the mailbox.  But they somehow know when I put food into my mouth.

Why do science fiction movies show humans wearing spandex?  Have movie costume designers not noticed that we are all fatter now that 30 years ago?  I hate to think how we will look in that spandex in another 30 years.  It will be a crew of Pillsbury Dough Boys. 

Why is it that you will put off making a Dr. appointment for an ache or a pain, but when you finally do make the appointment, you immediately begin to feel better, even though you have not seen the Dr. yet?

How do pets know to come in to your room during the night one at a time to tell you they want water or want out?  How do they know to wait until you’ve just fallen back asleep from dealing with the first pet before they start to pester you?

Why do some people keep magazines near their toilet?  Why would anyone consider that particular location to be conducive to leisure reading?  The chair is not comfortable; your trousers are wrapped around your ankles and if you are successful in the presumed primary mission you are probably not experiencing the highest air quality.  Seems to me this is one job and one household fixture that you’d NOT care to dwell on.

Why was it when I was a younger man I eschewed playing golf since it offered no physical exercise, but now that I am older it is too strenuous to play?

Why is it that I can hardly keep my eyes open when watching TV in the easy chair but have a difficult time sleeping in bed?

How can we be intelligent enough to put men on the moon and return them safely home but not be able to invent a personal pronoun for a person when the sex of the person is unknown?  You can’t use “She” or “He” since you don’t know male or female.  “It”   Does not seem to suffice.  How about combining all three:   “SHeit”?

Rain

Got muck?

When I was a kid, I remember watching a “Little Lu-Lu” cartoon where Little Lu-Lu was lamenting the fact that it kept raining and she could not go out and play.  She wished it would never rain again.  Well, she magically got her wish.  The rest of the cartoon was devoted to showing her what happened to the land when there was no rain.  The ground cracked and turned to desert.  The trees withered and died.  The flowers had their tongues out, panting and begging for water.  Not a pretty picture.  That cartoon has stuck with me all these years.  It was an effective brain washing tool from Hollywood, I suppose, because even to this day, I cannot complain about too much rain without having a guilty conscience.

But enough is enough!  It has been raining here for months! I write this on May 20.  We have had 10” of rain so far this month which is double the average amount for a full month.  We are all sick of it.  Even our last remaining pet duck was spotted hiding under the truck to get out of the rain.  It is so wet and humid here that the mildew has mildewed.  The mildew has growth rings on it, like a tree.  In fact, I took a core sample and counted the mildew layers.  They dated it all the way back to the Eisenhower administration.

The sandy soil on our property is so saturated with water that it is like quicksand.  I was walking in one of the ravines the other day, after another downpour, where the rain water drains into the creek.  I was wearing tall rain boots, wading in calf deep water when I suddenly sunk up to my knees in the mushy sand.  I instantly had a vision of being in a Tarzan movie and trapped in quicksand.  And, as fate would have it, I had no Cheetah to throw me a handy vine.  Lucky for you, my avid readers that I was able to extricate myself from the quicksand or you would not be reading this.  OK, so you are not the lucky ones since you are reading this.  But I digress.

Our property has a quarter-mile long dirt road from the paved street down to our house.  A couple of years ago I had some crushed concrete spread in front of the house and barns as a driveway. But for most of our road it is just dirt.  In dry weather it is just fine.  But due to all this rain, it has become a quagmire.    

I fired up my big Case International tractor and angled the box blade on the rear to scoop a shallow trench on one side of the mud road.  I made a few passes with the box blade and the trench was starting to get deep enough to drain the accumulated water from the road.  But with every pass the tractor kept getting bogged down more and more.  The mud was like cake batter.  At the end of our dirt road is our entry gate.  I was dragging the muck to a low area on one side of the gate.  As I turned the tractor around for another pass it suddenly sank up to its axle in the loose mud.  My efforts to get the tractor unstuck just buried the rear wheels even deeper. 

I spent hours trying to dig the mud from under the tractor but it was just too mushy to scoop out.  As I pulled out a shovel full, more slush would fill in the spot.  I was soon exhausted and had nothing to show for my work except a tractor buried up to its rear axle in mud.  I was hoping none of my neighbors would drive by and see that the dumbass city boy got his tractor stuck.  Luckily I was spared that indignation.

We were leaving the next day for a week out of town, so I had to leave the tractor there until when we returned.  I feared that any of the good old boys in the area would be skilled enough to get my tractor out of the mud then take off with it.  But then… I thought that it might be easier to fill out a police report for a stolen tractor than it would be to dig that damn thing out of the sludge.  But no such luck. The tractor was still there when we got back, tilted and frozen in position, like it was emerging from the primordial ooze.   

I started again on trying to extricate the tractor.  I have been told by a wiser person than me (as if that person was hard to find) that the first thing you should do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.  Well, I debated with myself as to whether it would be easier, at this point, to keep digging, or just bury it completely.  I decided to keep digging.  I disconnected the box blade and dragged it out of the way from the tractor with my truck.  The mud was more solid now and easier to dig.  I shoveled it out from under the tractor body and then dug a trench for each of the rear wheels. 

Where the tractor was stuck was within ten feet of Cherished Neighbor Liz’s property line.  One of her large pine trees was nearby.  I wrapped a chain around the tree and connected a Come-along, (a manual winch) to the back end of the tractor. I slowly cranked the handle of the winch.  My wife, the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler, who had joined in the fun to help me dig, expressed concern that the tree would be pulled over before the tractor moved.  I said if her tree did fall on our property I would have to charge Liz with littering or trespassing.  Fortunately for Liz, the tree held, the winch worked and the tractor became unstuck.  Free at last.

I figure I spent at least 8 hours total trying to get that damn machine out of the mud.   The good news is that the trench I created before the tractor got stuck, was draining the water off of the road.  That was fortunate because it has continued to rain almost daily, ever since.  I am sick of it.  I am tempted to find that old cartoon and see what Little Lu-Lu said or did to get it to stop raining.    What’s a few dying trees or panting flowers compared to a mildew-less life?

Backlash - follow up to "Death on the Farm"

If it was only this simple to fix.

Wheeuu!  Did I ever get blow-back from the article I wrote about the unfortunate destruction of some wild bird eggs on our property!  (See previous post, if you must).  I heard from friends, relatives, and strangers about how badly they felt after reading it. (I actually was shocked that some of my friends could read).  After the story came out I was lambasted for entangling my wife, the Fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler, with these sordid details.  (I heard that from the Fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler).  

I went to sleep last night with all this on my mind, and had a terrible nightmare about it.  I woke up in a pool of sweat, choking and struggling to breathe. (OK, this could have been because the cat was sleeping on my face).  But the dream seemed very real.  This is part of what I remember:

In my dream, Al Sharpton was conducting a news event saying he was representing the estate of Humpty Dumpty.  Sharpton said my mis-treatment of the eggs was the continuation of a pattern of mis-treatment that white men have been doing to eggs for hundreds of years.  And he was here to collect reparations.

Then, the Easter Bunny drew a red line around our property and banned us for life from ever getting to dye Easter eggs again.  So, of course if we don’t have boiled eggs to dye this meant that deviled eggs were out of the question.  And apparently the Easter Bunny was also indignant about my preference to bite the ears off of chocolate bunnies.  But that should have been part of another dream.  In a related story, it was announced that I have been banned for life from attending any more White House Easter Egg Rolls.  

Our favorite Chinese food restaurant informed me I can no longer order egg rolls.  “Only fo goo customer”, I was told.

Local villagers stormed the gate of our property carrying pitchforks and Tiki torches (on sale at the Dollar store for .99) in a menacing manner, until another rain storm put out the torch’s flames.  Soggy villagers without their lighted torches, are not nearly as menacing, so they quietly disbursed without incident. 

The Soup Nazi from the old Seinfeld TV show appeared in my dream and knocked me on the forehead with his ladle and said “No Egg Drop Soup for you!”

Woody Woodpecker showed up and pecked the words Baby Killer in the wooden siding of our house. 

A herd of domesticated hogs marched in unison (they seemed to be goose stepping), carrying frying pans like weapons.  They were chanting something about I get no more bacon since I mistreat eggs.  I had no idea there was solidarity there.

You know how PETA protests the wearing of real furs by sending beautiful naked models an event wearing fake furs?  Well that didn’t happen in my dream.  They sent, instead, a naked Rosanne Barr, covered with powdered eggs.  She dared to jump in the lake and rinse off to punish me further.  That would have just been too much.

Then, the Iron Chef stormed into our kitchen with a camera crew, shooting a live TV broadcast.  He immediately berated my culinary skills, and took away our egg whisk.

My nightmare continued when I saw a giant yellowish slimy omelet oozing its way slowly thru my house, like the horror movie, the Blob, absorbing everything it touched.  I escaped only by luring the omelet blob to a nearby IHOP and changing the breakfast special to omelets.

Near the end of the dream, disgraced NBC newsreader Brian Williams appeared.  It was his first broadcast after his suspension for his exaggerated claims while reporting in the Middle East. He said “I have never heard such a horrendous story”, referring to my post.  He went on to say that “it was a shame and tragedy for those eggs to have been wasted”.  He continued with “back when I was inventing the Polio Vaccine I used eggs to propagate the vaccine”. 

And the worst indignation was when the Fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler told me “this is why I don’t have your blogsite linked to my blogsite.  I never know what you are going to write and I don’t want ANYONE to know there is a connection between us!”

Lost in all the focus on the wild bird eggs that were destroyed was any concern for the poor fishing worm.  No one seemed to care about his plight.  But the worm had no comment.  After his encounter with the largemouth Bass, he still did not have a head.

Death on the farm.

Death on the farm.

It has been a wet winter and spring this year in South East Texas.  The Farmer’s Almanac nailed it again with their weather forecast.  I don’t know how they do it, but they always seem to get long term weather forecasts right. They say the upcoming summer will be a dry one here.  We shall see.  I believe what they print. If the Farmer’s Almanac ever writes that Global climate change is man caused, then I might finally get on board with that theory. 

Anyway, the small lake on our property has been full to over-flowing for months now from all of the rain we’ve been getting.  It is nice to sit with my wife, the Fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler, on the small dock that I built and absorb the simple beauty of the water and surroundings.  She and I have spent many evenings sitting on the dock, chatting about life.

One evening, as she and I were out there, I was casually tossing a lure into the water with my fishing rod.  I never catch anything worth keeping and said so.  She commented that in the nearly six years that we’ve lived at the farm, that she has never fished. I never really thought about that before, but I did not recall her ever doing it. That would not stand.

The very next day I went to the store and bought a tiny package of night crawlers for her to use as bait.  I figured her kind of fishing would be to cast and watch the bobber type of fishing so I rigged up a hook and float for her. I baited the hook with the worm, but that little fellow squirmed around so much that I almost could not do it.  His body was so pliable that I could hardly hold it tight enough to force the barb into it without mashing him flat.  And as soon as the worm realized that it is about to be skewered on to a pointed metal shaft it started thrashing about like it was being electrocuted.  I don’t blame the little fellow. 

My wife and I often anthropomorphize animal behavior by giving human traits to the wild creatures that we live with. We did the same to the night crawler.  We were imagining what it would be like to be that worm.  One minute you are comfortably buried in a lovely moist tub of compost in a tidy Styrofoam home.  Suddenly the roof is pried off, and these giant fingers appear out of nowhere and begin to re-arrange your living room furnishings.  You are rudely grabbed by the belly and jerked right off your couch.  Suddenly you are in the harsh open air and blinding light.  You are being squeezed by those monstrous fleshy fingers.  You vainly thrash about, hoping that somehow you will win your freedom. 

The monster fingers force a hideous spiked object right thru your guts!  What did you do to deserve this?  You were just minding your own business, at home, reading the Worm Street Journal, when your earthworm world was turned upside down.  Ouch!  You would scream for help but don’t have vocal chords.  You’d fight back but don’t have hands, feet or teeth.  How unfair is this fight, anyway?   Even with the giant barbed spike thrust right thru your body you continue to valiantly struggle.  The hook is tethered to a string that is connected to some kind of flexible stick.  What is this, some medieval torture device?  Suddenly you are flung out into space, like being on an amusement park ride.  But you are not amused.  You and the barbed torture mechanism abruptly hit water.  You can’t breathe!  And you can’t get off the hook.  You wonder to yourself can it get any worse than this? ....just as a largemouth bass bites off your head. 

Worms are not the only creatures that have had deadly human encounters because of us recently.  And it is not that my wife and I are bloodthirsty.  Quite the contrary. To paraphrase the worm’s situation, compost happens.  

We’ve tried to encourage more variety of wildlife to visit our property, so last year I built a duck nesting box.  We wanted Wood Ducks to build a nest in it.  I mounted the nesting box on a galvanized pole in about two feet of water on the edge of the lake.  I used the exact specifications provided by Texas Parks and Wildlife for the box. I made it from cedar so it would not rot, and put wire mesh inside it so the baby chicks could crawl out and drop down to the lake water right below the box.

I was checking on the duck box a few weeks ago, and noticed nesting material falling out of the bottom of the box.  That did not make any sense.  I got closer and realized that the bottom board of the cedar box had curled up and popped loose.  All the nesting material was falling out.  Worse yet, I saw eggs floating in the chilly water just below the box.  I counted a dozen eggs that were ruined.  I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that we had been getting a lot of rain lately so it appears that the cedar wood curled up from the moisture, and pulled the trim nails out that I used to build the box with. My poor choice of using too small of nails, meant I was responsible for the death of a dozen baby Wood Ducks.  Damn.  I slowly walked back to the house, dreading giving the news to my wife.

Fast forward to a day ago.  The fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler asked me to help her deal with a dead tree that was rotten and was starting to lean over the road near our barn.  It was about the size of a small telephone pole.  It was only being held upright by the branch of another tree.   She figured it would fall right in the road and block her from being able to drive out.  The “tree” was just a dead stump, about 20 ft. tall.  It had no branches since they long ago rotted off.  It was riddled with holes made by birds and other critters who like the high rise lifestyle.  This was the same tree that she spotted a small Screech Owl in last year.

I asked her if the owl was still living in the tree stump.  She said she hadn’t seen him for months.  We started pushing on one side of the tree, when suddenly a large bird flew from the top of it.  It was brown, and I could tell it was a raptor, but since I am not a bird guy I could not accurately identify it. We figured it was probably was the owl.  But now we had made the tree even weaker, so we had no choice but to finish the job. We pushed the tree over and it hit the ground with a big thump.  The stump broke upon impact and the rotten wood burst apart.  In the debris we spotted three small broken bird eggs.  The owl must have built a nest in the tree after all.

So the death toll for birds in the past few weeks is twelve that were my fault and three for the wife.  Both events were unplanned and unwanted.  But both were preventable.  It saddens me to know that we killed a generation of Wood Duck and Screech owls by our ignorance.  Bad humans.  Bad.

I hope the wild life here on the farm does not blame us for these tragic events.  We want to make a good environment for them to prosper.  That goes for the all the critters here; the mammals and birds, all the way down to the lowly worms.  In fact, I would have liked to hear the comments from our friend the night crawler about all of this.  But sadly, he cannot comment because he does not have a head.