Nature's alarm clock

I live in the country because I like to be gently awakened in the mornings by the dim light, followed by the sight of the yellow sunshine grazing the high spots on the hills, and the sounds of birds chirping outside my windows.

I abhor alarm clocks, and prefer not to be jolted out of sleep. I am jumpy enough without starting off the day that way. In fact, I am apt to be late for work in the winter when the sun doesn’t rise early enough to keep me on schedule.

Lately though, my peaceful mornings have been disrupted by the arrival of a crazy feathered enemy who seems to have taken up residence somewhere near the eaves of my house.

Before you get alarmed and call PETA to report that I hate birds, let me disclose that robins nest every spring in the white fir next to the front deck and it is enjoyable to watch them hatching two or three birdlets, even though they make a mess on the railing. We feed a mega-flock of hummingbirds that flit back and forth among the spruces and quakies. We tolerate a yellow bird that thinks his reflection in the window is trying to cut in on his territory. Actually we should put that one out of his misery because he attacks his own image over and over again.

But the pellet gun is sitting right by the bedside, and Mr. B., after he is shocked awake, hits the ground running on tiptoe while pumping the air rifle. It is quite the sight so see him crouching behind the front door in his underwear, the barrel waggling out of the opening as he tries to take aim on the critter who scatters every time he hears the click of the pump.

Our squatter is a wily woodpecker.

Okay, there is not a shortage of wood at my house. The roof is shingled with cedar shakes, the decks are redwood, there is some kind of wood siding, and there are trees of all kinds way too close by to please the fire department, but does the woodpecker choose to drill any of those wooden materials where there might actually be bugs hiding?

No, he disdains the name that bird lovers gave him and he hammers each morning on the aluminum downspout!

With its hollow round shape, the downspout is rather like the C-sharp-below-middle-C pipe of the Tabernacle organ. The pounding sound resonates up and down the pipe as it amplifies, echoes and pours right into the bedroom window which has to be open to catch the cool night breezes.

I read that woodpeckers hammer for two reasons. One is to find, secure and eat any bugs that it locates in the materials it pecks. The other is to communicate. He signals the possession of his territory to would-be rivals. Well, if that is what he is doing (I assume it is since there aren’t many bugs in the downspout) and just in case he didn’t notice, I was here first. There wasn’t a woodpecker to be heard when I moved here.

Mr. B.’s shoot-at-him concept of relocation is ineffectual since this bird is faster than a speeding bullet. If any of you bird-whisperers know how to get rid of an impudent woodpecker who is not playing by the rules, I would like to hear from you.

I also read that you can adopt a woodpecker at the Wildlife Action Center (“Take action to help wildlife.”) If you want to take action, my bird comes free and without paperwork.

In the event that there are no takers, my other idea is to apply Bertha logic which suggests that I go down to Basin Rental and borrow a jackhammer which I set up under the rain gutter and use to send the more aggressive territorial signal. Do I have to do that every morning, or is once enough?

I guess if I think about it, “Hammerhead” is winning this argument. Every morning when he signals “Hey you, this is my district, you can leave now,” I get right up, and soon I get in the car and leave.

How to waste not your zucchini

Well, we picked our first zucchini of the summer today—just the beginning of many more zucchinis to come, I am sure. I know there is a zucchini tradition—zucchini in summer is the counterpart of fruitcake at Christmas. And I will probably write about fruitcake in December if I haven’t already. But I am herewith climbing on the annual zucchini jokewagon in an effort to outdo all of the other zukesters.

Just so you know, my Mother tried to teach me not to waste anything. Along with a houseful of kids, she was the mother of recycling. My Mom was waste-free when waste-free wasn’t cool. And speaking of zucchini, we ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole month of August when I was growing up. Granted, there are a lot of ways to disguise zucchini. That is because they don’t really have any taste and can therefore be made to taste like anything—apple pie, spice cake, chicken casserole. If someone has a zucchini chocolate recipe, I would like to have it please.

I say that the most serious waste of all is unused zucchini. Having a seven-year supply of them squirreled away is no excuse for wasting the rabbit of the vegetable kingdom. Did I mix my metaphors again?

I looked it up—the word “zucchini” is diminutive of zucca squash. In other words, around here we grow the small variety. Aren’t you glad we don’t grow the large one?

So to help you be more green, (no pun intended), here is the Butterbean suggestion list of ways to use all that superfluous zucchini. Warning: this list is not mother-approved.

1. These are dog days. Use one for a doorstop.

2. Give them to your kids to make canoes to float in the bathtub. With a little imagination, they may be able to make other toys out of them.

3. Dry them and make kitchen witches. The color is perfect.

4. Use them for shoe trees. This will use up two at a time.

5. Let the kids play war with them. They make great grenades. My kids used to play a game called “bazoocchini.”

6. Slice the overgrown ones 3/4” thick and load them into your clay pigeon thrower.

7. Collect a representative sampling of them and take them to the county fair. You could “stuff the ballot box” by submitting courtesy entries for your friends and relatives. That one that tripled in size overnight could be entered into the largest vegetable contest. If it is a pumpkin contest, play dumb.

8. Box some up and send them to the IRS.

9. Try juggling some. They should substitute well for bowling pins. This method is most effective if you are a novice juggler. But novice or not, start out with several.

10. I think they might make good fish bait. Try a small one whole when fishing for bass.

11. Leave them lying around in the back yard. Maybe the dog will bury them.

12. Conduct scientific experiments with them. I should think that zucchini could be used to make something really useful like bio-fuel and with a little encouragement, which no one has been willing to give them before now, (no one fertilizes zucchini plants) could be made to out-produce corn as a crop. And unlike corn, if they disappeared from the food chain, no one would ever notice.

Whatever use you find for your extra zucchinis, remember two things: keep your car locked from now until first frost and never, never throw zucchini in the garbage, no matter what.

You could starve here

Don’t you just hate it when you are hungry and you try to open one of those cardboard packages of something that have the little perforated half-circle spot that says “press here”?

You do press here and nothing happens so you press a little harder, but the box stays closed. You increase the pressure, which is a step in the wrong direction, and the box stays closed.

“Try again.” This time you carefully line up the curve in your thumbnail, to the little “perforation” line. Again you press here and and tho whole box begins to twist.

“Okay, I am smarter than this box of junk, and I am not exactly a hundred pound weakling either. Get a tool. A spoon. Push on the little curved line with the front edge of the spoon.”

You do, and the box collapses completely so that now the curved dotted line is lying flat against the adjacent side of the box and you now have a hyperextended thumbnail and a bruised ego.

“Okay, a different tool.” You look around for a something like an industrial box ripper, or a jackhammer, but unless you are a construction worker, you will be stuck with ordinary hand tools.

Against your better judgment, but in desperation, you pick up the butcher knife with which you start to saw, on the mangled box corner. The box slips causing further injury to your poor thumb.

“Okay, I give. This box is stronger and smarter than I am, and I wasn’t hungry anyway.” By now you are jumping up and down with your thumb in your mouth, but on top of the box. You think about getting a band-aid, but, with an injury to one hand, it could be a little bit tricky to get it open.

“All right, I lied— I am too hungry, and I’ll show you. I’ll eat something else.” You find another package of food in the fridge. This one says “cut here.” Let’s see, do I need a pair of tin snips or a band saw?”

“Well, I’ll try the scissors. Hmm, they were right here yesterday. They aren’t today.”

You really give up and decide to eat out. But you realize that you might have to avoid meals that come with those little packages of condiments. They say “tear here” or “lift here.” If they will and you do, you will end up with a rash on your shirt anyway.

I never know how to open those hermetically-sealed-in-space-age-plastic electronic devices either. I think that any package that requires an imported or exotic tool, say a plumber’s helper or a Sawsall to get it open should come with the tool, don’t you?

By now you realize that you need either a tranquilizer or an antacid tablet. But that seems a little discouraging. The antacid comes in a package big enough to hold a fish tank, and the tranquilizer has to be pushed through the plastic film before you can get to it. If you get it pushed through in one piece, it will end up under the fridge anyway.

Well, I could learn from my grandkids. They can open anything. That is probably because they either can’t or won’t read the opening instructions and therefore don’t use them, or they don’t mind what they destroy during the process.

After they open a box of cereal, you have to keep the rest in a sandwich baggie, or throw it away. You may need special tools to repair the kitchen, too.

It’s the same with cookies, crackers, a gallon of milk, a bottle of ketchup, cheese, lunch meat, yogurt, a carton of cream. They can open them all. Can’t you just imagine it?

By the time they get the container open, it is no longer a container, but hey, they are not hungry, and they are happy.