By Alkali Springs Correspondent
It is a sure sign that spring is here even though there has been snow day after day in the beautiful Bear Paw Mountains of Montana.
One lady up Sucker Creek states that blue birds have been back for at least a couple of weeks and most bird books say that when blue birds get back into their summer nesting locality, spring has sprung so to speak.
Not only that, but the blue birds this lady sees might not be husband and wife too much longer as they seem to be fighting over their summer home location.
One bird, the male, will sit on top of a blue bird nesting box patiently and look at his wife who sits on a fence post a few yards away and just scolds and scolds. Then they will flit to another box and the same thing happens. The lady up Sucker Creek is thinking of putting another blue bird nesting box up just to give some more choice to the critical wife and patient blue bird husband.
And roses to whoever is going up and down Sucker Creek repairing the old blue bird houses that Chuck Howard placed out there years ago. Some were in disrepair. Those have been rebuilt and all have been cleaned and are just awaiting a new host of residents for this year.
Because of the efforts of folks like Chuck Howard and Ken Myers and lots of ranchers and cabin owners, there is a large resident blue bird population in the Bear Paws that years ago was not there at all.
There is an old wives tale that if you see a blue bird, you will have luck all the rest of the day. If that is the case, there are certainly plenty of people who are having a lot of luck these days because there are hundreds of blue birds to see every day in the mountains during the summer. And those numbers are growing with each new season.
This is Holy Week. It is a time that is very special in the lives of plenty of people all over the world. But out here in this part of Montana, it is even more special due to our climate. Not counting this winter, which has been more winter all of March and so far in April than all of winter itself, after most winters which are as a rule long, cold and hard in this neck of the woods. Well, coming off of one of those barn burner winters, when the first pussy willows come out in the meadows around Baldy, when the first buttercups spring up in the meadows all over the beautiful mountains, and when those wonderful crocuses turn whole hillsides lavender blue, why there is no doubt in anyone's mind what rebirth and renewal is all about.
It seems to us that nature tells the story of the Holy Week as well as any minister and any church can and when told on the wings of a gentle zephyr and heralded by bewildered butterflies singing their spring songs amidst gurgling brooks cascading down tiny coulees that in just a few weeks will be so lush and green, that they must be patterned after heaven itself.
Robert Frost wrote that one could do worse than be a swinger of birches. Well, gentle readers, one could do worse than be a singer of God's glories seen in the rocks and rills of our old mountains.
Happy Easter to you and yours.
