Columns see more »

That is what my husband Pat heard but it is not exactly what I yelled to him the other morning as I stumbled about the kitchen having just awakened. What I really screamed, and I did scream, was “Pat, there’s a bird in the house!” This didn’t make any more sense had he heard it correctly than what he thought I had yelled. You see I scream just like my article of last week indicated, because I can and because I am a screamer. I was both startled, amused, and a bit afraid of what ‘said bird’ would leave behind as it flew through our house.

It is time for Pat to consider some new hearing aids as it is obvious to both of us that he is not hearing things right anymore and partly because he doesn’t hear it correctly and partly because I am apparently ‘mumbling’ more than usual as I age. Whatever the cause of his misunderstanding me, it could be huge. For instance had he come out from the bedroom loaded for bear, carrying a rifle when all he needed to dispatch the intruder was a butterfly net, I would have screamed again.

However, realizing it was a bird, things turned to laughter as we merrily chased the bird from room to room. We have transoms in our living room and hallway so the bird was flying hither and yon from transom to transom, thinking it was going outside. Instead of course it was running into glass walls and losing ground quickly and all at once it just sat there dizzy, catching its breath and Pat clambered up on a bench and caught it with his hands.

Knowing we had no open windows or doors the only reasonable place the bird could have gotten into the house was through the chimney. We do know birds had nested in the chimney because when we were hearing better we recognized the sounds the birds made but this was the first time (that we know of) that one had found its way out and flown down rather that up to get out. Now just today we had yet another bird come into the house but we think it will be the last.

It’s always something out here in the country, if it’s not a mouse in the car, a snake on the front door or even one here among the computer cables and wires in the guestroom, it’s a cow that beats us to the newspaper and chews it up if we sleep later than 8AM, and lately birds in the houses. We would not trade living here for anything but I do wish critters and creatures would remain in their habitat and not invade ours. Scorpions abound these days.

We just fenced in our parking shed. It is not an enclosed garage and don’t ask me why not it just isn’t, so now 25 years later we have had to put a fence around the parking area which is under roof but not enclosed. The reason for the new fence there is because the cows have decided each morning to come to the house to see what we are up to and if we aren’t warned by the dogs that they are here, they will go hang out under the shed and investigate and deal with what is there.

Sometimes they decide to lick the seat of the MULE, or chew on the wires to the riding lawn mower and twice they have chewed wires and knocked over and broken two perfectly good electrical grinders that Pat keeps out there. They lick his truck and my Toyota and leave swipes of gooey stuff that when the wind blows collects dust and decorates our vehicles. I am getting a new car soon and it just made sense to get it fenced away from the cows sooner rather than later.

We had a bird dog who once when he was making too much noise for a Saturday morning late sleeper, namely Pat Smith, I put him in our Ford Falcon station wagon which was parked out on the street. I put the windows down a bit so he wasn’t uncomfortable but Pete the dog was bored. If you are familiar with bird dogs, you don’t want a bored bird dog on your hands and you shouldn’t put one in a car.

I had been looking out periodically to see what the dog was doing and I noticed that he was rhythmically putting his head down below the window level and back up with something hanging out of his mouth. I ran out to see what it was and to my horror I discovered he had eaten most of the front seat out of the Falcon down to the springs!

Now the whole reason that I put the dog in the car was to keep him from waking Pat and making him grumble and now I had really done something to make him grumble, growl and holler, but at me not the dog. He excused the dog but what was my excuse?

The problem of Pat’s either hearing me wrong or not at all is one we will have to work out somehow. Maybe one of those alarm things wired from me to his hearing aids saying, “Help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Remember when a few years ago I stayed out by the pool reading a book and enjoying the weather on an old lounge chair that folded up on me and with me inside of it? I screamed for Pat to come and get me out as I was folded up in a way that I could not disengage myself from and I was bent into that lounge chair like a “U”! I screamed and hollered and all that answered my calling was our 10 cows, 8 calves and one bull and our two dogs who watched me from the porch and they began to howl.

I think it was the howling of the dogs that finally got Pat’s attention and he came to my rescue but said he had to go back in the house and call Tony’s Wrecker Service to come untangle and extricate me from my bondage. Have any of you ever wanted to both hug your husband’s neck and wring it! Please pray with us for an answer to the hearing problem we are having out here among the critters and creatures.