In this Issue
July 2005

CITIZEN KANE
Brookfield's for the birds
By Tim Kane

Tim Kane

Baby robins nesting under the porch roof.

Four baby fly catchers fled this morning from a nest perfectly perched under the roof of our back porch. A few tiny gray feathers and an intricate bed of grass and sticks are all that remain. They’re not the first. A few weeks ago, two baby Robins nestled just 8 feet away under the same roof moved on. Both families temporarily delayed our screen installation plans. It’s the price that you pay for abutting Wolfe Swamp.

Lessons in nature abound in our modest, quaint, quiet retreat on Rice Corner Road. My wife, Danielle, calls it an aviary, but that’s only one small part of the wild kingdom that exists here. In the four years we have breathed Brookfield air, every season brings with it some wonderful surprise from Mother Nature, often challenging our thinking caps to deal with the situation.

This spring, we narrowly averted disaster when one of our two cats we serve somehow jumped 10 feet in the air to land under the roof line next to the robins’ nest. Luckily, I just happened to look up at the deck while mowing the yard and saw her eyeing our babies. “Cymbal,” I shouted with authority. She looked down at me, stuck her tongue out, and turned back toward the nest. My wife saved the day by caressing her down with comforting words of support. The robins left the nest a few hours later. You can’t blame them.

The incident reminded me of a time last summer when one of my cats came trotting up the front sidewalk with an offering for our whole family to enjoy. Thanks, Mama, what a beautiful, crumbled bunny rabbit you brought us. She dropped the varmint we named George at my feet and the poor little thing was still alive. I had to do something. So I wrapped the tiny bunny up in a face cloth and brought it inside. We sat together in our den for a few hours, talked politics, and the bunny sat on my chest staring at me like some helpless newborn child. I softly rubbed its nose to let her know there’s nothing to fear. I buried George later that night in the pet cemetery. It didn’t come back to life.

Then there was the snake in the mailbox incident the year before.

I would not have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own two eyes. It all started during a walk with Danielle after work. At its completion, we stopped by the old mailbox for the daily bills and our trusty newspaper. Danielle clamored to grab the mail since she is house CPA. But — and she has yet to thank me for it — I fetched both items. After I opened the well-closed lid to my mailbox, my wife let out one of those yelps only heard on the Africa Serengeti.

“Is that a snake,” Danielle yelped.

Sure enough, what we now know as “Steve” the snake was coiled up in the mailbox’s rear, with its beady little eyes staring back at us. So I reached inside it with my gloved hand, grabbed the snake’s tail, and attempted to release it. It was like pulling on a Titanic anchor. I then stepped back to evaluate the situation when much to my surprise the snake’s head appeared on the outside of the box while its bottom half remained inside.

Great. The snake will simply exit through the bottom of the mailbox. Perfect. End of story.

Not entirely.

About half the snake’s body was hung outside the mailbox exterior, so I tried to pull it back inside. It wasn’t budging. So I bravely confronted the poor little thing. Petting its little head while Steve hissed at me with his wide open-fanged mouth, I tried to pull it out from the exterior. It was like pulling on set concrete. This little critter was stuck. Steve was freed two hours later with vice grips and a totally dismantled mailbox out on my front sidewalk.

Oh, the things I do for flora and fauna. Now if our cats can only stop eating the darn chipmunks...