Thursday, December 21, 2023: My Favorite Things #12

Bird Feeder!

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.

Daily Diary, Day 1206:

First of all, Happy Winter Solstice! I am looking forward to the gradual lengthening of the days!

I started out to make my favorite thing be presents, but that wasn’t really an honest representation of how I feel. First of all, I am generally terrible at coming up with presents, beyond practical ones. I suspect that was because most of my presents that I remember for birthdays and xmas were generally practical (new nightgown, new sweater, new underwear, etc.) or be one new board game, one new doll, and always books, because I am sure that my parents discovered that was the one thing they could count on me loving. I did remember that for a number of years my father would take me to local department store to get a “fancy dress,” which I assume became that year’s go to church dress. None of this was because we were poor, but because my parents were also not extravagant, and worked hard to live within my father’s income. They were very much the children of the depression era.

My husband and I have lived in a similar fashion, and by-in-large we see the “gift” we can give each other to be the one who says to the other when they express a desire for something, “Oh yes, do buy that for yourself.”

However, my husband discovered that getting me shawls was pretty much a sure-fire winner for me, which is why I made this one of last year’s Favorite Things. Unfortunately, I haven’t been as successful at finding a sure-fire winner for my husband.

Same with my daughter. Now that she is an adult, asking her what she would like for us to buy (or give her the money to buy.) Because our grandsons live 2 states away, we are also pretty dependent on our her to let us know what they want for presents, although I also just started the ritual of sending them a gift card, figuring now that they are teens, having the fun of choosing for themselves presents (not filtered through a parent) might be appreciated.

On the other-hand, I have always envied people who are good at figuring out what presents to give, often something the person themselves didn’t know they wanted, and also seem to enjoy the whole process. And this does seem like a skill that my daughter is developing. So, I am going to talk briefly about some of those recent presents, but mostly I am going to talk about how last year’s present, of a bird feeder is the best present ever!

First, here are a couple of my favorites. The first is a lighted tree that sits year round in a nook in the wall unit that holds CDs, vinyl records, and a lot of the bric a brac I talked about in my last post. But I especially appreciate it this time of year, when every evening I turn it on as dusk approaches, and then when I started walking at twilight, I make sure it is on before I leave for my walk, so that it sparks through the front window when I return. (oh and I pull out some of my little xmas ornaments to sit under the tree.

Next is a piece of sand art, which when you turn it, the sand swirls and builds mountains and clouds, and never looks identical.

Finally, this lovely tree made of gemstones, was a present from last year that is just lovely, especially when the sun hits it. I am showing both sides of it here.

And then there is the bird feeder, which is absolutely my Favorite Thing this year!

I have already written extensively about the birds (and other critters) who come to tis feeder in this post, but I wanted to just talk about how much the feeder has enriched my life this year, since we got it as a present from my daughter.

First of all, we had bird feeders decades in the past, in the backyard, and we had to stop filling them because they attracted so many squirrels (which we actually loved) that the neighbors started to put down poison. So when we first opened the present, we hesitated. In addition, I think what attracted our daughter was that it had a camera in it, so theoretically you could see the bird up close. But we couldn’t figure out how to make this work.

But then, I had the idea put the feeder on a fence outside the dining room window. The hope was that this would keep squirrels away since this was not near the hillside at the back of the yard (and we hadn’t seen many squirrels in decades. This placement turned out to work well because it was easy to refill (which my husband does every day - which is a lovely present to me) and because I can see the birds from my place on the couch where I sit and work on my laptop.

And it has attracted so many birds (which is why it needs to be refilled daily) and it has recently attracted opossums at night, which absolutely tickles me. Not only have their visits apparently scared away the couple of squirrels and a rat that were showing up in the day and spilled all the see out), but they are adorable when we get a glimpse of them when we peer through the window.

I keep saying they because we have seen at least one adult, and one smaller one that we assume is a juvenile, although I guess it could be a large male and a smaller female.

However, what has been fascinating recently is that when I look at the feeder before going to bed, if there isn’t actually an oppossum sitting on the fence about six inches from my face, then there are signs that one has been there because all the seed that was left over (not much) has been scraped out behind the plastic and piled high in the tray. Then in the morning, all the seed will be gone.

The story in my head is that mother opossum comes, and piles up the seed (which requires a bit of acrobatics to do so) in order to make it easier for the juvenile to eat it later!

I have no idea if this is correct, but it gives me such pleasure each morning when I come and open the blinds and see the empty feeder!

Right now, as I write this post, I am looking out and I can see five of the spice finches (the imports from Asia) all sitting on the tray getting the last of the seed before nightfall.

So, do you have a story about a favorite present you’ve gotten recently that continues to bring you pleasure?

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