Though my chuckle bucket, due to masses of email, near runneth over, it is not too often that we get a chance to first-hand experience a good chuckle, but it happened just recently here at Westwind Farms.
Though I will be pointing no fingers, other than to mention a mishmash of mangled thoughts spewed verbally from one of my flock of readers who obviously mistrusts while lacking the ability to do her homework, the story so goes roughly this way:
Most of you longtime readers know that I love birds. I raise birds for a hobby; I have done so ever since I was seven at the suggestion of my father who wisely stated that it is a poor hobby that does not pay for itself. Sorry, golfers, there is no need for a 19th hole to bury thoughts of money ill spent in my birdhouse.
Having lost my Little Lady over five years ago, the carrot that my son dangled (who, incidentally, just turned 50 on the day of this writing), to have me move north with his family, occurred while we were standing in the rubble of the just past tornado.
He said, “We are going to build the new barn over there, where the equipment shed has tumbled, and we can build special housing for your birds where the old barn once stood. The waterline is still there underground.”
Now, fast forward, a beautiful building evolved, with extra-width walls for greater insulation, with cross lighting, double pane sliding windows, and roof vents for good air circulation.
I had just checked my 60 or more young canaries, some still featherless, huddled in the nest with their parents, and turned the assortment of eggs in the incubator for the second time that day, noting that a half-dozen bantam eggs had chipped ready for the following hatching day. Then off to my room I tottered to have my usual noon snooze.
I had just stretched out in preparation for slumber when my son called up the stairs, “Dad, there is someone here to see you.” I was not surprised when I saw out front a vehicle brazenly splashed with the insignia of the Ontario SPCA. My readers all know that I find new homes for birds that can no longer be kept by their owners, and the neighbours around us have that picture. I expected another opportunity to work hand in hand.
But not so this time. The smile that greeted me was faintly familiar, as we had occasionally crossed paths at the Keady Livestock Market.
“I have a complaint,” she said. “I am here to check on birds kept under stuffy conditions.”
“So you have heard,” I countered, “from the woman who I emailed to tell her that the canary she had brought me had died?”
“You know I can’t divulge that,” she stated as her smile broadened.
Let me tell you, folks, I have not recently had a more pleasant half hour. It was nice to chat with a person knowledgeable about the welfare and care of animals. When she met Beta the macaw, and Frank the cockatoo, caged each day side by side outside on the porch, they knowingly put on a show second to none, and she mentioned she need look no farther. It was obvious she knew birds in good condition when she saw them.
I gave her the grand tour anyway, from there to the peacocks, and to the Boer goats, which we have hopes of filling the new barn with and to pasture peacefully, when properly fenced, in the surrounding hillside fields.
When we mention this incident to visiting neighbours, we hear nothing but a typical belly laugh, indigenous to most farming communities.
So blow the breezes at Westwind Farms.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105