Nature Vs. My Need to Nurture

Michael and I bought our house nearly five years ago when he got transferred to Houston, Texas. We live in a suburb thirty minutes from downtown, where he works. I had seen our house on the Internet back in Ohio while he was living with friends down in Houston and I was waiting for our house to sell back up north. He had clear blue skies and sunshine and we had snow, until May. So it goes with Cleveland weather. Being born and raised a mid western girl I was used to the weather bouncing back and forth between snow and sun until June arrived. Texas has spring as early as February and it lasts until the love bugs show up somewhere between late April and early May. Then it turns hot and humid. Love bugs are little black flying bugs that attach to one another and they show up declaring the humidity as natures way of saying, "Brace yourself!", in the spring and then again in the fall to let you know dry air is on the way.

Spring in Texas is the best season of the year. It's stunningly beautiful. If you have ever seen pictures of the wild flowers that bloom in spring here or been lucky enough to see them in person, you know what I am talking about. This is Texas' finest hour.
When we bought our house the landscaping was, well, in a diplomatic term, lacking. Houston doesn't have soil as much as it has sand. It was originally a swamp that was drained and the city was built on top. This makes growing things an adventure for someone from the north. Southerners know what to do and when to do it. They have that innate southern sensibility that guides them as they plant and grow what they need or want. Me, not so much. We have learned a great deal about plants thanks in part, to our very dear friend Randy who loves all things green. He has exotic plants from far away places and his back yard is nicknamed the jungle. We often go there to escape the city even though he lives smack dab in the middle of it. We are certain he bleeds green.

This year we are reaping the rewards of our planting, our diligence in nurturing and Randy's expertise. But the strangest thing started happening a few weeks ago.
I was sitting at the computer upstairs writing away when I kept hearing a thumping noise. The kids hadn't gotten up for school yet, so I assumed it was the cats. I tend to blame them for everything. If my car keys go missing, or the mail gets lost or I can't figure out what the devil that weird smell is, I blame the cats. They are old, petulant and aloof. They could care less about me until it's time to eat. I feel so used, so I use all my passive aggressive energy towards them.

I looked over at the sofa in our upstairs game room and saw that both of the bratty cats were fast asleep. The thumping continued. I got up and walked around the house trying to find the noise. I was annoyed that my ears were no longer able to pinpoint the noise and that I couldn't blame the bratty cats anymore. The noise seemed to be coming from outside as if someone were bouncing a ball off the side of our house. We have a large window in our foyer facing our front yard. Our foyer is 2 stories tall and this giant window illuminates both the game room and the downstairs den. The view from my computer is our loquat tree just outside this enormous window. The loquat, a Japanese tree that bears fruit every spring is in the kumquat family. The fruit is yellow, plump, sweet and delicious. Unable to determine the thumping I went back to my seat and gazed out the big window. Suddenly I saw a bird head straight for the window and hit it head on. THUMP! This startled me and it dawned on me it had made my thumping noise. I continued to watch the window in complete disbelief as a bird crashed into our window about every 5 minutes from the loquat tree. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP! Again and again birds continued to fly directly at the window hitting it and reeling back. I couldn't believe my eyes. The loquat tree now bent heavily laden with fruit had become the new bird hang out. Evidently drunk on fructose, they were unable to see that the window didn't provide them an escape. Baffled and somewhat appalled I called Mike. The retelling of the story had stopped several times to allow him to hear for himself the awful noise coming from the birds misguided flight.

This horrifying phenomenon went on for two solid weeks. Every morning the birds would be chirping happily on the branches of the loquat tree only to suddenly depart, crashing into the window. As far as we can tell there was only one casualty.

As I battle against roving squirrels in the garden and watch the butterflies gravitate to the bright orange and red bush that is their namesake, my mind wanders back to the bird episode. My only real revelation is that as much as I love nature and encourage it to surround our home, it has it's own demons to battle. I had tried in vain to control my environment in our yard only to have nature remind me that it is at it's core, completely out my control.

The fruit has fallen off the loquat tree now and the birds have moved on to greener pastures. We will be pruning the loquat tree branches down several feet so that the height is equal to our front door. My only hope for the birds is that they haven't heard the saying "when God closes a window, He opens a door." Otherwise, there could be another bird phenomenon next year.