Resilience
All
summer long barn swallows carry mud from
the creek to fashion nests built high in
the
peak of my barn. Once their eggs hatch
they
burst onto the scene, tumbling out the
spirit
holes cut in its gables with the
death-defying
bravado of star performers in a circus
high wire
act. They sail back and forth, dip down
and rise
up, turn beak over swallow tail. I marvel
at
their impossible acrobatics as they go
about
the vital business of raising their
young.
These fine, fall mornings they congregate
in long
lines on the utility wires that run
parallel to the
county line road that fronts my house.
They chatter
away, discussing whether it’s time
for them to go,
each passing its consensus on to the
next. Once
all agree, they fly off and regroup only
to lapse into
long, meaningful silences. This happens
just before
the purple field asters and goldenrod
burst into bloom
each September, as if their leave-taking
anticipates
the flowers’ annual appearance.
A year ago, I though I’d lost them.
The same week
their young fledged, a tornado flattened
my barn,
scooping up both fledglings and parents,
and hurling
them into a merciless, black void. But I
rebuilt and
by next spring the farmers’ trusted
bellwether had
returned to take up residence under my
new pine
eaves. So small, so fragile, how had they
survived?
Where had the storm blown them? What
force drew
them back? With astounding resilience
life’s smallest
had stepped in to fill a need.
—After two decades of college
teaching and bicoastal, urban living, W.
N. Richardson, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania,
retired his Ph.D., reclaimed lost rural
roots, and moved to Pennsylvania.Fatherhood
While out cutting hay, I mowed into a
wild turkey
nest. I’d seen the hen, moving
silently through the
timothy. Taking flight, she spooked the
horses. By
the time I got my team settled down,
they’d dragged
the tines over the eggs. The six that
didn’t break, I
took along with me to home.
Ever since our white
leghorn broody got eaten by a
fox, we’ve put all unclaimed eggs
under an old
guinea hen. Because guineas are used to
nesting on
the ground, they can survive where a
chicken can’t.
They will drive off snakes and foil
hungry dogs. I’ve
even seen them take on the occasional
raccoon.
Since a turkey egg is
ten times larger than what a
guinea lays, no matter how the little hen
fluffed and
rutched, her sitter could cover only half
of the nest.
Which is where the male came in. Seeing
his spouse
in such an unsettled state, He spread his
wings,
hopped onto the nest, and sat beside her.
Together, they managed
to turn and hatch all six eggs.
It was a strange sight to see turkey
chicks follow those
guinea fowl around. In two weeks the
peeps were taller
than the foster parents. Stranger still,
the whole flock
of guineas accepted the ganglys. After
roaming all day,
they followed the guineas to their
nightly roost.
Like turkeys, guinea
chicks can’t fly right off. So for
the first month, the hen broods her
chicks on the
ground, where dangers lies—foxes,
skunks, coons,
dogs, weasels, and snakes. That’s
why the hen count
in a flock of guineas gets low. So when
Momma
vanished, like her little orphans, we
were not surprised.
We thought that would
be the end of the turkeys,
but, lo and behold, guess what happened?
The male
guinea took over the job of raising the
six. Day in and
day out, he never left them. Until the
chicks could fly
up to the safety of the trees, he sat
with them, night
after night, there on the ground.
—W. N. Richardson
|
