In Memory of Trees

A constant theme in my formative years was climbing trees.  I loved to climb trees, especially when they were in full leafage.  Hidden among the branches of the bing cherry trees that grew in the orchard next to our dead-end road, we felt shut off from the world.  It was like a magic place where no one could see you or hear you.  You could plot all your most diabolical undertakings in absolute secrecy.

We actually had a favorite among these cherry trees and being the creative geniuses we were, we called it "Favorite Tree".   It was dead-center of where our road would have gone if it hadn't dead-ended, and it seemed proud of that.  It grew a lot wider and a little taller than the rest of the trees, and there were enough high branches for whoever in the neighborhood wanted to join us.  From the camouflaged turrets of this fortress, we would often call out barbs and raspberries to anyone happening to ride their bike near the end of our road, believing that they would never know where the taunts were coming from, nor recognize our voices if they did.  Amazingly, they did not seem to care  much.  

One adventure we had one late spring day taught us a natural lesson we never forgot.  It was just Peevis and I that morning (AKA Steve Christiansen, my across-the-street neighbor...we will get into nick-names another time).  We had reached about the second tier of branches when we heard next to us really loud CHEEPING.  There right in front of our faces was nest full of baby birds...probably five or six.  We found later they were baby robins (from the color of egg-shell remnants), but right then and there, all we knew is they were NOISY.  We figured they must be hungry, and their mother seemed to have abandoned them.  The only humane thing to do was to take them "under our wing", so to speak, nest and all, and find them some food.  

So we took the nest full of cheeping birds (I never knew anything could open its mouth so wide as these nestlings were able) to the north side of Peevis's house and set out to find some food.  Easier said than done.  We knew birds like bugs, and the most readily available supply of those were pill bugs (we called them potato bugs) that were everywhere grass met concrete.  All we had to do was pull back the grass growing near the foundation of the house, and we had all the pill bugs these birds could consume.

Unfortunately, we had not factored in that these birds were too young for pill bugs.  We would place a bug inside each gaping mouth, and it would crawl around and around until it finally found its way out...and the CHEEPING went on unabated.

We decided maybe we needed to find some worms and smush them up.  Worms were not nearly as provident...we found a few with the pill bugs, and dug for a few more...the birds seemed to be able to handle these better, but as soon as we would put some in an open mouth, it would close for a nano-second, then open wide again, CHEEPING as before.  

Well this was our first taste of parenthood, and we were failing miserably.  We were in a near panic when Peevis's Mom found us.  She was surprised, but it did not take long for her to assess the situation. She agreed that we would not be able to keep up with the voracious demands of five baby birds.  She suggested we take the nest back and place it as carefully as we could exactly where we found it.  She told us it was a real possibility that the mother bird would not take the babies back and said we should never take a baby animal of any kind out of the wild.

We did as she recommended, and watched the nest for perhaps 30 minutes.  We were grateful, and our guilt assuaged, when we saw an adult robin return to the nest again and again with food for the hungry babies.

This was one of our first forays into the mysteries of nature and life, but it would not be our last...