The Wild, Wild…North? (Dateline June 2006)

Life in Northern Michigan is always exciting. You just never know what is going to happen next. Like when the dryer stopped heating in January and we had to string a clothes line across the dining room (any idea how long it takes kids jeans to dry?) Or when the furnace stopped working on a Friday evening in February because the oil tank got so low that the furnace was sucking air.

I had visions of camping around the propane stove in the kitchen during that one. The longer I live here the more great new life skills I acquire - like unstoppering the kitchen sink in under half hour, or working the toilet plunger like a pro when one of the kids toys goes mysteriously missing.

But life in Northern Michigan isn’t all excitement and glamour. Besides the everyday chaotic rhythms of my home life, there are the more natural rhythms of the local wild life to admire. Let me clarify…not my wild life, the natural wildlife. You know…critters. The only wild life I get is on Tuesday evening after the kids go to bed for the 10th time and I get to watch NCIS uninterrupted. My dad, bless his heart, keeps asking me what Dave and I do socially. Let me think…clean house, mow the grass, pick up toys, occasionally throw 50 lbs of toys into a bag and rush to the local Good Will donation center before the kids find out, dishes, laundry, vacuum, dishes, clean up cat hair balls, and did I say laundry? A onetime party girl confession – I can’t remember the last time I had alcohol in any shape or form other than the alcohol I put in the kids ears to get the goo out.

My oldest daughter has just been taught the evils of social vices like smoking, drinking and illegal drugs, and she is just full of questions. I keep telling her I don’t have time to drink, smoke or do drugs…I have one kid on the potty, one kid crossing his legs for the last time, dishes in the sink, counter, dining room, bedroom, laundry room…. you get the idea. I just don’t have time for vices anymore (not that I ever smoked…)

So I get my kicks where I can and one of them is the view from my kitchen window. It’s soothing to watch the local wildlife enjoying themselves in relative peace and quiet. We have a winter visitor every year – a great snowy owl. This past winter I knew he had arrived when I spotted the world’s largest tern (like a sea gull only sideways) flying away from my car and over a nearby field. It took me a few minutes to realize we don’t see the terns in the winter much less terns with 4-foot wingspans. When I got home that evening my husband mentioned the snowy owl had visited us for most of the day, keeping watch on our barn roof. Probably has something to do with the five tons of birdseed I put out every winter for the local bird population.

We do get quite a few birds at our place. In the winter we host the Northern Michigan Local Small Bird Convention and Poop-a-Thon whose members include sparrows, chickadees, mourning doves, starlings, ring-necked pheasants (escapees from the local pheasant farm), and hawks. In the summer we get pileated woodpeckers knocking holes in the trees and nuthatches hanging upside down sucking down bugs. We have the usual gang of suspects as well - red wing blackbirds, robins, yellow finches, yellow martins, barn swallows, bats and, of course, wild turkeys. In the fall we see the Canadian Geese going south and if we are lucky they overnight in the fields behind our house.

We also have a nice selection of ground animals. Our yard is mine fielded with holes made by the chipmunks, gophers and ground squirrels. In the summer it’s a lesson in urban warfare watching them run from hole to hole as they make their way to the piles of birdseed under the trees. We also occasionally get a regular tree squirrel wintering over with us. They are usually gone by spring, up the road to the cemetery to find a mate.

Deer come visiting occasionally as well. I remember the first winter we were here the pickings for deer was so slim I found evidence that a few had licked the bird seed down to the icy ground several times. In the winter they leave hoof marks behind in the snow to show their passing. In the fall they can be spotted high tailing across the local fields into the woods to escape the hunters. In the summer they run across the road in front of my car in groups of three to six, playing chicken.

The local mice population deserves an honorable mention too. Most of the time the mice stay in the basement and leave us alone. But occasionally one will venture through the heating ducts and we’ll hear them scratching around between floors. Woe be it to the mouse who makes it into the main living area. Our cats will sit endlessly at the heater vents listening and watching, waiting to see if any of the critters dare come into their space to play. When that happens the cats launch a reenactment of the D-Day invasion - seventy-five pounds of cat fur whirl around the house chasing, cornering, holding, and generally traumatizing the mouse until I intervene (for the sake of my hardwood floors, if nothing else). It’s not so humanitarian as it appears - deworming a cat is not something I like to dwell on. If the mouse gets lucky I put him in a jar and transport it across the street to the farmers field. In the winter I dump them in the garage (right next to the 150 lb of bird seed I keep there). If they don’t make it, it’s not for lack of food.

Of course there’s always the neighborhood cat population coming over at 3 a.m. to say hi to my gang of five. We’ve also seen foxes, raccoons and coyotes using our yard like the Indy 500 Speedway enroute to more interesting garbage cans. I once spotted a badger sitting in our back yard (picture a thirty pound squirrel sitting up with it’s paws on his tummy). I have seen an osprey in our apple tree, turkey vultures circling the fieldsin front of our house, possums, beavers, and even a baby black bear trying to cross the road.

So when life gets me down and the dishes appear out of nowhere, dirty undies are hanging from the banister and life feels like one endless round of cleaning, I just look outside, watch a desperate hawk tear apart a mourning dove for a February dinner and feel that life is ok after all. (Maybe Garrison Keilor is right – I just need ketchup.)

As always, love from Buckley,
Where the kids have wet pants,
The oil furnace says, “Feed me”
And my husband refuses to come out of the closet on days the kids are home from
school…