A Note From Tom: February 17th, 2012
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome day! Because it’s awesome out there! If you can get off a little early, it’d be an amazing day for anything you’d want to do! Go for a walk by the lake, hit some golf balls, eat some peanut butter, sing your special song, fly around...
“Huh?”
Oh. Sorry. Those last three suggestions were for these birds we’ve been feeding for the last few months! They love these squares of peanut buttery bird stuff we get at Home Depot! They’re made by the fine folks at C&D Suets of Fort Dodge, Iowa and come in a bunch of flavors! The ads say, “Ingredients vary from peanuts to papaya, hot pepper to almond, berry to cherry, and raisin to insect...Start with a suet that is most appealing to you!”
We figured if we were going to pick a “flavor most appealing to us”, “peanut butter” beats “insect” almost every time!
And they go crazy for it!
It’s an extra trip to HD and it costs a little, but I’m finding out I love those feathery, fluttery friends! The more we take care of them, the more I care about them!
We get little downy woodpeckers (or the picoides pubescens) They are awesome! They have black and white striped backs but their wings are checkered! Their heads have a big white stripe with a red dot! “They know how to drink sap from holes made by Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers!”
Wow!
We have Carolina chickadees, too! You might know them as Poecile carolinensis. “...black cap, black bib, and white cheeks...” Can’t miss ‘em! They stay paired up for years (that’s sweet!) and they can remember where they hid thousands of things they wanna eat weeks later!
White-throated sparrows love peanut butter too! They’re gonna leave in mid-May. Headin’ back to Alaska. And I’m gonna miss them! They’re kinda chubby right now ‘cause they have 40% more feathers on their bodies in winter (2500, mas o menos) than in summer (‘bout 1500 each)!
The website tnwatchablewildlife.org says their song is two loud tweets followed by triplet notes. They say it sounds like “Oh sweet Canada Canada Canada” or “Old Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody”. That’s a pretty random interpretation to me. I listened to it and it sounded more like “I looove tooo waaatch Teeee Veeee” or “four threeee threeee threeeee twooo threeeee.”
Anyway, I’m loving our birds! I’m not sure but I think it’s because I’m starting to care for them. It makes me care about them! We’ve never had “suet” of the grocery list ‘til now. But I need to make sure my friends are gonna be OK! Where would they be...without me?
Sometimes I’ve wondered if I’m a pest or a bother to my Lord! I always need stuff! I need Him to help me all the time! I churp and cheep at Him all day! But I’m learning from birds that He loves to care for me!
And I know He loves my song!! It’s a long cheep and five short churpy notes, It goes like this...”pleeeease help me thru my daaaay...pleeease help me thru my daaaay...” He Himself told us, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them!” He even feeds them peanut butter stuff! And He adds, “Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6)
And I’m learning this. The more you care for someone, the more you care about them! The more we care for chickadees and sparrows, the more I care about them! He couldn’t love us any more than He already does! He can’t love you more than He does, ‘cause He already loves you infinitely! But as you chirp for your Father’s help, if He could...He would!
“Oh sweet Canada Canada Canada...”
Sorry, folks! Gotta go!