By Alkali Springs Correspondent
When we are out in the beautiful Bear Paws we have taken to spending much time just staring at the birds. Not only that but we have a cold. Think of that. Just sitting and staring out the window at birds hour after hour and sneezing. That is what our life has turned into since football is over for another year and this was such a glorious season of football that football withdrawal is all the worse.
And there is the Monday night plot. We used to feel that folks called Monday night meetings just so we would have to miss Monday Night Football. We are convinced that is true because since football is over, no one has called about any Monday night meetings at all.
Not only that but Monday night football being over has affected our dieting as well. It used to be that we would bring home a huge pizza each Monday night because you know we did not have time to cook before football. Well, now there is plenty of time to cook and judging from our Levis, we should not be eating anyway, but still when Monday night rolls around, goodness we are hungry for that large pizza.
So here we are missing football and looking out of the window at the birds.
We had a friend, long since gone to her great reward, who used to say in a profound way as we all were looking out of her large dining room window,"What do we look at when we look out of the window all the time?"
Well, we know what we are looking at once we focus into looking at anything at all (still that football thing, you know). We are looking these days at 10 or 12 pheasants skulking around our feeders. They are so amazing to watch and skulking is about the best way to describe them. They nest in the aspens on a hillside above the cabin. When they come down several times a day to eat of the quail cake we set out, it is on tiny little paths through the snow. Each day and each time of the day, the paths stay the same, and down come the pheasants. In the morning first thing, all the males come skulking down. After they leave and in a more or less constant procession through the middle of the day, the females come making their way down a score of paths to eat the quail cake as well. And in the afternoon, back are the males once again for a second daily treat. With leaves gone and grasses given way to snow, those colorful and huge birds really stand out and do you know gentle readers, after watching them for a while, we don't feel nearly as badly about football as we did before.
Not only that but we have managed to attract a huge bunch of birds we never have had at our feeders before. That was by putting out a thistle feeder that we got for Christmas. All of a sudden our feeding area is just full of some bird watchers call small nondescript brown birds. Someone told us they are pine siskins but we don't know that for sure. It is enough that for the last four years we have seen only chickadees, woodpeckers and pheasants and suddenly the place is alive with totally different birds. Kind of neat and once again a good defense against the lack of football doldrums.
You know what gentle readers, as we sit and look and think, why the beautiful Bear Paws themselves. They are the best of all guards against any kind of doldrums, football or whatever.
