My room is outdoors, in a sense, and when I go there all my
secrets come with. Fortunately, it’s a
comfortable room, standing on posts six feet above the patio, with stairs off
the back side from a landing. I built it
myself, and was pleased to discover that many of the lessons I had thought did
not set in, as my father continually remodeled his house for fifteen years while
his family expanded to seven kids, did.
Having two brothers whose carpentry skills greatly exceeded mine was a
bonus.
I built it right, too, with a good ledger board well
anchored to the wall, and the right kind of concrete supports under the main
beams spaced appropriately, so it feels solid, even after fourteen years. I just replaced the stair treads down to the
patio this year after the sun got to them.
The Deckmaster stainless brackets and screws are hidden under the deck
boards, which gives it a smooth finish that needs little maintenance. My brother taught me that one, after he built
a similar deck on his house. Of course,
he made his floor out of teak, but he’s just that way, always looking for
perfection.
Our deck has an excessively pleasant view, looking out
through the five Douglas firs in our back yard to what is now a permanent green
belt to the east behind us and our neighbors, crowded with cedars, hemlocks,
Doug firs, cottonwood, alders, and the undergrowth featuring a trackless tangle
of Himalayan blackberries and Salal, Oregon Grape, ferns and Indian Plum, among
others. There is a trail through there
that is kept open by the pounding feet of the Lindbergh Eagles, whose every
passage is accompanied by a baying chorus of dogs from all the back yards. Our yard is filled with impressive green and
growing plants, as my wife slowly achieves her gardening vision upon
retirement, heavily weighted towards plants that are also edible, as well as
enhancing the view.
Among her many interests are the birds that flock to the fuchsia
baskets suspended under the rain gutter, not to mention the seed feeder hanging
from an ornamental bit of ironwork around the corner where the Doug fir next to
the chimney dominates a shady haven created by fencing designed to keep the
dogs out. Hanging from both ends in the
center are two hummingbird feeders, which you may remember having heard about
in the past. Nothing to report on that
front, but the research continues, and hope dies hard in the faithful breast. We see flickers, downy woodpeckers, hummingbirds,
nuthatches, chickadees, wrens, finches and grosbeaks, and jays, who clamor for
peanuts, which she tosses up on the translucent roof over the deck.
Hanging from the extended main roof support beam on the
north end is a dragonfly welded out of nuts, bolts and wire by one of her
co-workers many years ago, large enough to carry in its arms (feet?) a wire
mesh suet cake holder to complete the smorgasbord of attractions for the avian
visitors in our back yard.
When I am reclined in one of the Adirondack chairs we got
from the kids in the Wood Shop program at Lindbergh, with her shabby chic table
finished with a leftover piece of tile from her bathroom project holding up a
good microbrew in a glass at my elbow, gazing out over the panorama, a feeling
of ineffable peace washes over me. One
of the cottonwoods off in the distance even had a couple of branches that
somehow formed a heart shape against the background of the sky last year, which
I took to be an omen of sorts. The noise
of the invisible highway is a murmur in the background, as eagles, crows and hawks
match the more distant jets in size as they pass overhead. The clouds paint pictures on my retinae.
So one day, I’m sitting out on the deck, idly watching the
birds peck away at the suet cake while waiting for the hummingbird to strike, and
I notice a small bird, a nuthatch, hanging from the bottom of the suet cake
basket by his left foot. His right leg
was broken somehow, and projected off to the side. The poor little guy could barely reach up
from his upside-down perch on the bottom of the basket, hanging on for dear
life with one foot while he desperately sought another beak full of the concentrated
suet/seed mix that was his only hope.
When he fluttered away, I was sure he was a goner. Mother Nature doesn’t take prisoners.
But, to my surprise, he made it through the night, and was
back the next day. This went on for
several weeks, and I began to look forward to the first sighting of the day, as
the fledgling somehow continued to gain weight and strength, no doubt largely
because of the food supply we provided.
The broken leg bothered him less over time, as the left side got
stronger to make up for the loss.
Now, in the middle of the season, he seems to have made it
to adulthood. We’ve started to root for
him as a symbol of can-do, our mascot of the underdogs, and hope he makes it
through the coming winter.
So, too, he becomes a metaphor for our own struggles against
problems large and small, health issues, money problems, accidents, and
injuries, with a simple message that says, “Don’t give up! Keep flying as high as you can, and eat lots
of suet cake!” I’m sure we humans can
substitute donuts for the suet cake, if we wish, but the thought remains the same. :-{)}
