Another Day in the Country
Unexpected gifts
Contributing writer
My apple tree was covered in bright, red cardinals Monday morning when I looked out the back door. It was like this beautiful, unexpected work of art right in my own back yard.
There were fat, red birds with their fawn-colored wives in orange lipstick — like bright Christmas ornaments dripping from the branches.
“Delightful,” I squealed. “Finally, the birds have decided that they need the bird feeder, again!”
There were other birds there, too. A starling or two flew from the feeder to the stream of water still running down over rocks toward a frozen pond. Gold finches descended in bunches, a fat dove was picking up stray morning glory seeds off the ground.
I was going to burn those old dried morning glory vines because they are way too prolific and in the spring — let’s try all summer — I fight them as fiercely as I do bind weed. But now that I see the birds eating those seeds, I’ve relented. I’ll let them be, for a while. Free birdseed!
Counting and listing is in my nature. I just have to keep track of the birds. There are rosie finches, black-capped chickadees, song sparrows, a nuthatch, and some kind of woodpecker that I couldn’t identify. I have to stop typing and go look again.
Not a single bird in sight!
Aha! Marshmallow, my yellow and white cat, had decided to leave the warm confines of the back porch and terrorize the birds. Silly cat. The birds were evidently his early morning, unexpected gift, too. I took the lull as an opportunity to fill up the feeder. And I found Marshmallow contentedly snoozing in a winter shaft of sunshine on another porch. Even the sight of him — sans feathers in his mouth — innocently sleeping in a warm spot on a cold day is an unexpected gift.
It’s fun to watch for unexpected gifts, especially at Christmas time with its rituals of regular giving.
When I drove into town a week or so ago after having been in California again, it was a delightfully unexpected gift to see the Christmas decorating that Jessica Gilbert and others had been doing on the main street.
The little town of Hope, our near neighbor, has new street lamp decorations and they graciously offered us five of their old Christmas decorations. What an unexpected gift and they look marvelous in Downtown Ramona.
This fall, we took three of our old iron beds and made them into flowerbeds in Tony Meyer’s yard. One encompasses a pre-existing peony patch. The other two are new and we filled them with tulips and daffodil bulbs — for starters. Art and Jeannie, long-time members of the city council, cut down scrub cedar trees to decorate our main drag and two of them came to reside between the flowerbeds. Jess wound each bed with different colored lights and put multi-colors on those trees — she was so anxious for me to see them in their Christmas glory.
It was midnight when we got back from the airport — my first sighting of Ramona’s Christmas Spirit — and someone had tinkered with the lights. They weren’t on in several places. Jess dropped me off at my house. We said “Good night.” I was home.
A few minutes later, Jess was at my door.
“Come take a ride,” she beamed. “I’ve got all the lights back on and you’ve got to see them.”
We drove around town, came down the main street.
“Oh, how lovely.”
There’s nothing quite like Christmas lights to dazzle us on a dark country night. They are an unexpected gift and our little town is full of them.
You are my unexpected gift, too. I’m grateful for all of you who read Another Day in the Country, especially if you put up lights and feed birds! Merry Christmas and may you receive many unexpected gifts this season.