So yesterday evening I had everything under control. Chickens were chicked, problems were solved or at least dealt with, walkies were walked, dishes were washed, the firewood box was full and a fire was laid in the stove for the morning. I sat in my sitting and thinking chair with a cup of tea and Barbara Tuchman, the toothsome handful, when suddenly…
There was a metallic fluttering noise from the stovepipe. A sort of scritching, and then more fluttering as of a bird’s wings.
I sighed. Birds’ wings was exactly what it was, but this had never happened before in Autumn. Happens all the time in Spring. Sparrows get in there, can’t get back out, and their inevitable trajectory is down as they exhaust themselves. I banged on the pipe a few times hoping to startle the poor thing up and out if it wasn’t already too far gone. That failing, I opened up the stove in hope that it would find its way out. A few have before, but usually they get to the firebox and just stop. A little later, I went to bed.
Came the morning, and the incident was completely forgotten. Outside temp was in the thirties but not as cold as yesterday. Indoor temp barely in the fifties. There was a time when I would refuse to burn fuel on any temp in the fifties, but I cut a lot of firewood and intend to use it. So I lit the fire.
You know what’s coming, right?
This half-dead sparrow stayed quiet for quite a while, until the fire got going good and started to draw. Then there was a fluttering against the door of the firebox. I opened it, saw the sparrow, grabbed it by the tail intending to throw it outdoors where it could live or die as it liked…
And found myself with a few feathers between finger and thumb as it panicked and flung itself in exactly the wrong direction. There was a brief squeak, and no more. I’m sure I’ll find the remains later when I clean out the ashes.
It’s not the first time something like this has happened. Small animals faced with a choice of immediate deaths don’t seem equipped with any particular well of wisdom to help them choose the least-dangerous course. Good thing there’s lots of them, I suppose…
Oh dear… But yes, there are lots of them, and it doesn’t seem wise to preserve the stupid ones… Just as well it wasn’t a larger bird, however. That might have been nasty. Burning feathers are not my idea of nice, anyway.
Years ago, when a fireplace was the only heat in the house, we built our first late fall fire and wound up with a room full of smoke. Turned out that a big owl had built a nest right on top of the chimney, and it blocked the thing up pretty good. Thank goodness the young owls were long gone. We knew the owl roosted on the roof, but hadn’t paid attention to the chimney that year. An inspection of it became a yearly ritual thereafter.
We should be thankful that sparrows have never mastered the concept of fire. Otherwise us humans would probably have been extinct long before we figured out how to build fireproof houses.
I hate when that happens, but it happens regardless of what I think. Maybe now the smell of fresh fire in the chimney will keep others away. Shame those silly little things are too small to eat or you could have had some roast bird for lunch.
Per the link in this post: As the “W” who was present at the death and entombment of Jimmy the Rat (and who remembers all too vividly what those 82 bags of concrete did to our hands, especially yours), I share your sorrow and wonderment at the failure of little animals to make good choices.
But then, neither the poor birdie nor Jimmy really had a good choice, did they? That monster’s hand or the nice safe box I’ve been sheltering in all night??? That four-legged behemoth’s giant jaws or the wall that’s so far been so kind to me?
They’re sort of like humans choosing between fighting off hijackers or obeying government advice not to resist.
But I will never, ever forget the expression on poor Jimmy’s face as he gazed into Magnus’ toothy maw.
Claire suggests off-handedly that there’s a moral to be found here, and I’m sure that’s true.
Perhaps it has to do with brainless creatures who expect … nothing. Or our responsibility toward those hapless creatures who share our planet.
Or perhaps something about “when you need help, and someone tries to help you, but you’re too mollycoddled to recognize it ….” whatever.
Or perhaps it’s that God, who knows when every sparrow falls, just doesn’t think it’s that important in the grander scheme of things (but you care, which is why you wrote the story.)
Hmmmm .. no,
I think the “moral” is that “Shit Happens”.
“What’s ‘time’ to a hog? What’re rubbers to a duck – what’s the old cow think when you load her on the truck?”
That’s all I can recall offhand from an older song by the Dillards – else I’d do ya’ a couple verses! There’s probably a version on yootoob or such if you’re inclined…
I find myself regularly flummoxed by people who don’t recognise the perspective of non-human animals around them. Claire gets it – they don’t know that you consider yourself ‘not a monster’ – and they spend next to zero time considering that – I’d bet.
It’s not that I necessarily see any moral to this – other than maybe that spark arrestors are useful for more than just fire safety…
I’m reminded again of that DH Lawrence quote you’ve got on your sidebar, Joel – not that I can see any moral to that either. I do sometimes catch myself wondering if and what of significance there might be in that.
That DH Lawrence quote has significance for me, PNO, but I wouldn’t force it on anybody else. I’ve had a few occasions in my life where I’ve been tempted to sit down and cry about how unfair it all is. On those occasions when I gave in to the impulse, I did not prosper. During times when I just shut up and got on with it, I did. Now I live among the wild things, who don’t seem to spend a lot of time feeling sorry for themselves, and from birth to death they seem to get along just fine.
And no, I never imagined for a moment that the sparrow would consider me a savior – even though in a disinterested way I was trying to be – and I didn’t care. I just didn’t want it burning up in my furnace if I could help it.
Jerry the Geek — Very funny. And yep, “shit happens” makes as much sense as anything.
“Or perhaps it’s that God, who knows when every sparrow falls, just doesn’t think it’s that important in the grander scheme of things (but you care, which is why you wrote the story.)”
And I’m always baffled when my Christian friends tout the “sparrow falls” line as a GOOD thing about God. Yegads. The callousness of watching sparrows fall, dinosaurs get wiped out by meteors, puppies get kicked and used for bait, humans get killed en mass by every variety of gruesome accident, act of nature, disease, and tyranny … and doing nothing to alleviate the suffering … is beyond belief. There may be purpose to it, but no God with a heart could just stand by and WATCH it.
Joel, you may be a monster in the birdie’s eyes, but at least you’ve got a heart.
There’s a cap for that.
http://www.homesaver.com/content/tenquestions_caps.aspx
Joel – I ran across that quote a while before I noticed you’d put it on your sidebar and it was one that grabbed me as being of some significance at the time. From the sound of it – we both have similar takes on it. As an entertainment to myself more than anything else – I’ll roll around and poke at quotes and ideas sometimes on and off for years – seeing how they hold to scrutiny – I suppose. I observe with an eye to disprove DH’s assertion without success – and I see a lot of wildlife myself. It’s pretty much desert right up to the doorstep around here.
One quote I’ve enjoyed for a couple decades now (ymmv): “if it works, it’s obsolete” by Marshall McLuhan. I’m having a hard time disproving that one too!
Claire – if you’re still reading this old thread… I’ve been revisiting seasons one and two of a recent tv series – “Hannibal” and noticed that Dr. Lecter mentions that he keeps a running list of ‘church disasters’ – lightning strikes, roof collapses, etc.. Makes one wonder – if there were a continuum of sociopathology…