Critters and Humans

Birds and animals interact with humans when there is something they need. I’ve got stories on this blog about some of these critters and will refer to them in this piece.

My grandpa had a quarter section of land in the desert just west of San Simon, Arizona. There was a tiny house, just a couple of rooms there, and he would sometimes spend the night.  Grandpa saw a roadrunner near the house a few times, so he would throw table scraps into the yard for the bird. As he spent more time at the house, he saw more of the roadrunner, so he bought a sack of bird feed and began putting some out every morning just after dawn. The roadrunner began to expect the feed at the same time every day. If Grandpa was late getting up, the roadrunner would hop up onto the window ledge to wake him. Smart bird!

We have seen the crows do things to get our attention, too. Once, Lame Foot pecked on the screen door to let us know it was chow time. The crows sometimes do a  fly-by. They fly below the height of the windows so they can look in and see us, and we can see them as well.  Most of the time, they just walk around on the driveway and squawk.

Our cat, Isabella, used a non-verbal way of letting me know it was bedtime. About 8:30 PM, she would go to the place where the hall entered the living room. She would sit back on her haunches and stare at me until I acknowledged her. Then, she would head down the hall to our home office which was her bedroom and lay down. I followed her in, scratched her forehead and ears and rubbed the bridge of her nose and then I told her goodnight.

My cousin, Vivian, had a box tortoise that showed up every morning and parked itself in the same spot by her door. She saw it eating out of a cat food can she had put out, so she bought some small cans of food for it. The tortoise was large enough to reach over the side of the can and take a bite, so it worked out fine.

Pat and I were babysitting a parrot named “Highpockets” for some friends who were on a vacation. Some parrots have a lot to say, and Highpockets was one of them. One evening, we were eating some grapes, and Pat said, “I wonder if Highpockets wants a grape?” I said, “I don’t know if parrots eat grapes.” Highpockets said, “I like grapes!” Another time, I got up at about 5:30 AM and went downstairs. Highpockets’ cage was covered, and I tried to slip past without waking him. I just wanted a cup of coffee with no hassle. As I tiptoed past, a voice from the cage asked, “Is anybody there???”

It’s time for fun!!

Let’s have a good time! Turn to your Amazon Dot device and say, “Alexa, play Boot Scootin Boogie by Brooks and Dunn!”

Dave Thomas

11/29/2025

Updates to Our Crow Friends

A neighbor came over to discuss the crow situation. I didn’t know we had a crow situation, but he filled me in. He said that one of his neighbors had a new baby and that the crows showing up right after 6:00 am were waking the baby.  He said that he and his wife were soon to have their own new baby, and they were afraid the noisy crows would be waking her as well. I thought this was a bogus call on his part as babies can get used to a railroad track running past the house. I didn’t say so because the guy was apologetic and well-mannered. I commiserated with him and said we didn’t want to cause trouble in the neighborhood, so we’d do whatever it took. After he left, I told Pat about it. She was quite upset. She had earned the trust of the crows and made friends with them. They recognized her, answered her calls by flying in, followed her car when she left the house, and even came down and visited with her on social calls with no food involved. They also recognized our daughter, Terri, and her car as well. Pat didn’t want to do anything that would upset her relationship with the crows.

A few days later, the neighbor came back and brought his wife and daughter with him. We invited them in and had a nice talk about the “situation.” They suggested that Pat feed the crows later in the day at 3:00 pm, and she agreed to give it a try, but she later decided she would feed them at 2:00 PM instead of 3:00 so she could maintain some since of control of the “situation.”  It took a few days, but they adapted to the new time.

The season and the weather changed, and it must have become harder for the crows to find food. Now, we sometimes have as many as 30 of them showing up at mealtimes.

Our granddaughter, who also lives in the neighborhood, needed to find a house that would suit her family better, so she called a local realtor. The realtor, who turned out to be our neighbor guy, went to our granddaughter’s home. “So you already live in the neighborhood,” he says. “Yes,” she says. “Do you know the crow lady,” he asks. “Yes,” she says. “She is my grandma.” It’s a small world.

Lame Foot and Bouncer are still showing up on a regular basis. Lame Foot doesn’t seem to be doing as well as before. He has always hopped on one leg, just using his bad leg for balance when he stopped. Now, he seems to run out of energy and falls over frequently. We don’t know if he is just older or if he is sick. His feathers don’t look as shiny as they should. Hope he’s okay.

Dave Thomas

11/20/2025

I don’t have a current story, so I will try to find something in memory that will interest you. After school was out in our junior year (1953) and senior year (1954) of high school, John Luding and I spent 2 or weeks baling hay. The end of May and early June was the time the alfalfa crops had grown high enough for the first cutting of the summer. John and I hired out to Paul Slagle, a contract baler, to get that first cutting taken care of. The alfalfa was cut or mowed by a mowing machine pulled by a tractor. Paul Slagle’s job was normally to cut, rake, bale, and stack the hay. If the farmer had the time and the implements, he might do the cutting and raking himself. After that initial work was done, Slagle would use his tractor and baling machine to bale the hay. If I recall correctly, Slagle had a Massey-Harris tractor and a New Holland (string-tie) baler.

To digress for a moment, baling machines originally used baling wire, but were later converted to string rather than wire.

After the alfalfa had been cut, it was then raked into a line as long as the field so it could be picked up by the baling machine. The tractor was continually moving forward so the bales of alfalfa were dropped several yards apart. Next, a tractor pulling a 4-wheel trailer came along and the bales were loaded aboard it.

Johnny and I were the guys that picked up the bales and loaded them onto the trailer. One of us would drive the tractor while the other walked alongside the trailer. When you came to a bale, you would reach down and snag it with your hay hook and pitch it aboard the trailer. When the floor of the trailer got crowded, the driver would stop the tractor, and both guys would neatly stack the bales to where they were 4 or 5 high (I forget which).

When the trailer was fully loaded, we would drive to the place where the farmer wanted the haystack, or we would take it and put it in the hay loft or barn.

If the hay was to be put in the loft, we pulled the trailer up close to the barn. One guy would get on the trailer, and the other would get in the doorway of the loft. The guy on the trailer would use his hay-hook to snag a bale and would raise it up as high as he could. The guy in the loft would reach down with his hay-hook and snag the bale and jerk it up onto the floor of the loft. Yes, this was work! When the floor of the loft got crowded, both guys would stack the hay until it was up to the rafters.

This was real work, but we gloried in it.

To be standing in a field just after dawn, with the sun coming up, the sky turning blue, a light summer breeze blowing, and the wonderful smell of that fresh cut alfalfa was heaven. Sweating and then feeling your muscles responding to every command made you feel alive. I loved it, and, to this day, I can smell the aroma of that newly cut alfalfa.

Dave Thomas

11/13/2025

Some cooks go nuts if you try to add salt and pepper or any kind of seasoning to the dishes they have prepared. These cooks think of themselves as artists and don’t believe we earthlings are qualified to mess with the dishes they have prepared. My mom had a more common-sense approach to this problem. She said to us and any newcomers to the table, “I have prepared a well-balanced meal that will maintain your good health. If you think that modifying the seasoning will give you greater pleasure, then that’s what you should do. The only thing of importance is that you eat the food.” She always had salt, pepper, butter, garlic powder, chili powder, relish, mayo, horse radish, Worcestershire sauce, and catsup available for those who wanted it.

I’ve noticed that some people are real snobs when it comes to catsup. Mom always had a bottle of catsup on the table and encouraged us to use it. We certainly did. For those of you not lucky enough to be raised in a catsup-household, I’ll list a few items that can benefit from that wonderful red stuff. If you start the day with bacon and eggs and hash browns, give those potatoes a big dollop, and if some slops over onto the eggs, it will jazz them up as well. Hamburgers, French fries, hot dogs, hash, roast beef, beef Stroganoff, chicken and noodles, navy beans, vegetable soup, chili, potato cakes and liver all taste better with catsup. My mom loved liver and insisted that we eat it to prevent anemia. Just looking at the stuff made me gag, but I learned that smothering it in catsup made it bearable.

Be creative and enjoy every meal.

Dave Thomas

11/6/2025

My Forty Years of Playing Defense

I spent forty years commuting on San Diego freeways. Most of the time, it was a humdrum existence. My time on the road was just spent driving and listening to the news or country music. Once in a while, though, things got tough, and I had to get serious real quick. The problems came from folks who really should have been classified as “opponents.” Most were just drivers who weren’t paying attention. The others were usually construction guys or people who were moving.

The movers were people who were moving to a new home or those who had just purchased furniture with no truck and so they had to use their car to transport their new item. I frequently saw chairs, dressers, and rugs on the freeway. Once in a while, there would be a family that had just purchased a new mattress and tried lashing it to the roof of the car. That didn’t ordinarily go too well. I once had to dodge a washing machine that had escaped from its source of transportation.

The construction guys were the worst. I have dodged ladders, buckets, sawhorses, bags of cement, hoses, and a lot of other stuff. It’s quite exciting when a white cloud appears in front of you, indicating that someone has just struck a bag of cement. My worst moment was when a Bobcat came off the back of a truck. A Bobcat is a small tractor used in construction work. Fortunately, the Bobcat broke off into the right lane, and I was able to dart into the left lane.

As you can see, commuting can be very exciting, and, fortunately, I never peed my pants.

Dave Thomas

10/30/2025

Streisand

We watched Barbra Streisand on PBS the other night. She is still the best and the most interesting singer we have ever had. When she goes after a note, you don’t know where she’s heading, but when she gets there, it is right and pure.

Dave Thomas

10/23/2025

I just finished listening to a fascinating book on CD. The book, Flags of Our Fathers, was written by James Bradley and Ron Powers. After his dad died in 1995, Bradley wanted to know what his dad had done in the battle of Iwo Jima. The Battle of Iwo Jima cost the lives of 6,821 Americans and 21,900 Japanese. The book tells of the battle and the photograph of the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi. The profile of the senior Bradley is the only recognizable face in the picture of the flag raising. The surprise is that the famous picture is actually of the second flag raising on the extinct volcano.

In the past, I had read about Ira Hayes, the Pima Indian in the picture, and of Joe Rosenthal, the photographer. It was interesting to learn about the other men.

If you are a young person and weren’t around in 1945 for the Battle of Iwo Jima, there are a couple of names that will help you get connected with the battle story. Lee Marvin, the actor, was a 17-year-old Marine who was wounded at Iwo Jima. He ended up with (no pun intended) shrapnel in his butt. Another participating Marine was Bob Keeshan, later known as “Captain Kangaroo.”  Lee Marvin was quoted as saying “Bob Keeshan was the bravest man I ever met.”

Iwo Jima is in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Guam and Japan. In 1959, VP-48, my seaplane squadron, was deployed to Japan. Our pilot and navigator filed a flight plan that flew us over Iwo Jima. It was exciting to finally get to see it, but if not for its strategic value, it’s nothing to shout about. It’s 8 square miles of island with an ugly extinct volcano on it.

Several people died in the Battle of Iwo Jima. It’s quite a story. Give it a shot!

Dave Thomas

9/11/2025

I’ve been sitting here while listening to Ronnie Milsap and Charlie Rich. I miss the country-western singers from the 1960’s through the 1990’s. There were a lot of them, and they were good. Besides the music, there were some colorful characters, too. It was fun. We just lost Kris, and that only leaves people like Dolly and Willie.

Dave Thomas

9/11/2025

It’s hard to believe! All three of our kids are now retired, and it’s left us in a quandary. I guess we should refer to them as “Senior Citizens” rather than “curtain climbers” or “rug rats.”

Dave Thomas

9/4/2025

Negative Stuff

-We are using up our trees and other natural resources and turning them into trash so fast that we may have to consider using the Grand Canyon as our next landfill.

-The Fourth of July holiday was created to celebrate the founding of America, our Constitution, and our democracy. If we are converting to an authoritarian regime, there is no longer a need for the 4^th of July holiday.

-They said they are following the Rule of Law, but, most likely, they are following the rule of the outlaws.

Dave Thomas

8/21/2025