“PUMPKINVILLE”

By

Gerry Niskern

Do you live in Pumpkinville or is this your first visit? That’s right, Pumpkinville, as Phoenix was called in the early days of our town. Actually, the little town known as Pumpkinville has grown from the first settlers of around 100 families to the 1,625,000 metropolis that is it today.
You see, Phoenix was called Pumpkinville way back around l867 because of all the pumpkins growing along the canals. Who planted them, you might wonder? Well, Jack Swilling planted them. And who was Jack Swilling? Many historians call Jack Swilling the Father of Phoenix.
If the pioneer children of Pumpkinville had wanted to dress up on Halloween, they couldn’t have picked a more notorious character to imitate. Just about every story about early Phoenix starts with Jack Swilling.
Jack Swilling arrived in the Salt River Valley in 1867. He’s been described as a deserter from the Confederate army, visionary, Indian fighter, entrepreneur, scam artist, dope addict, and reported murderer. Some stories circulated that he had killed at least ten people in his lifetime.
He was fascinated with the ancient Hohokam ruins, especially the extensive network of canals the ancient Indians had dug to irrigate their fields. Hohokam, is a name that comes from the Pima word for “people who have gone before”, The Hohokam discovered 2,300 years ago that the miracle of water in the desert can be augmented by human hands.
The Hohokam diverted water from the Salt River through an intricate series of hand-dug canals. Using only the most rudimentary tools, Hohokam builders were able to maintain true grades within their canals. The largest engineering complex located about twenty miles from Phoenix, led from the south bank of the Salt River toward what is now Chandler. The canals along the Salt River are best interpreted at the Pueblo Grande Museum. They cultivated cotton, corn and beans in the irrigated fields, establishing more than 300 miles of canals.
Swilling returned to view the canals several times until one day he realized the farmers could use them. Shortly afterwards, he and his partners began clearing and rebuilding the long-abandoned irrigation canals of the Hohokam. He raised capitol and started Swilling irrigation and Canal Company to bring Salt River water to the valley. Within a short time, the Swilling and Duppa team had water flowing in the canals. Jack Swilling planted pumpkins everywhere he worked. These actions led to the birth of Pumpkinville in 1870. Nowadays the Salt River Project traces its origins to Swilling’s efforts.
The army at Fort McDowell had irrigated an experimental farm using a reconstructed Hohokam canal a year earlier. Later four officers from the fort staked out a water claim on the Salt River. Swilling’s area, known as Pumpkinville of over 100 pioneer homes had been built by this time.
The town may have remained Pumpkinville, but around that time Darrell Duppa, Swilling’s partner in the canal business, suggested the name of Phoenix. The early settlers like the idea of their new city rising from the ashes of the ancient Hohokam ruins, just as the mythical phoenix rose from its own ashes.
Jack Swilling died in Yuma Territorial Prison of natural causes, accused of a stagecoach robbery and murder he didn’t commit.
Due to the efforts of Swilling and Duppa, there were around 100 pioneer families growing wheat and barley in the valley. The pumpkins that grew all along the irrigation canals provided a great supply of Jack-o-Lanterns. If Halloween was celebrated it was most likely to have been a social event involving the whole family.
The goal of most social events was geared to the courting of singles. You could hear the twang of strings and the sound of fiddles sawing coming from parlors around town. Everyone joined in the dancing. Waltzes, Schotisches and muzurkas. If there were any Irish families present, you could count on some scary ghost stories to fit the occasion.
However, most children of the west were far removed from goblins, trolls and spirits from European ghost tales. Who cared about gnomes when real wildcats padded nearby? Fear of Halloween witches gave way to real life encounters with small bands of renegade Apache Indians, as children tried to manage their fright.
Arizona children, according to historian Elliot West, waited until dark to play “all the tigers are gone”, in which the tiger-child would slip off among the boulders while the others spread out through the dark, squealing, “all the tigers are gone”. The tiger, also fearful of the dark, would skulk along close to the others, selecting a victim to pounce upon and tag. Games, like frontier life, called for vigilance.
Today, Phoenix is still a work in progress. Historians are quick to point that never in the world’s history has a metropolis grown from “nothing” to attain the status of Phoenix in a relatively short time
“Pumpkinville” is after all, the world’s largest small town. Every year, in October, the vacant lots around Phoenix are stacked with huge mounds of pumpkins from which the children choose their perfect Jack-o-Lantern.
Pumpkinville has come a long way from the little settlement of 100 rugged families along the Salt River back in the 1800’s.

“Have you been to a Real Football game Lately?”

By

Gerry Niskern

The quarterback on these teams doesn’t make 20 million a year and the halfback on the team didn’t receive a huge signing bonus when he joined. They are required to sign on for workout during the summer. That’s a Valley of the Sun summer of 110 degrees, not a couple of weeks in cool Flagstaff.
.Down on the turf at the high school near us the jerseys were wet with sweat every evening. The slap of pads hitting pads and grunts when spikes hit skin filled the air. One young player said “the wind sprints at the end of practice are the worst”. Then it’s hit the showers and homework time. That’s the scene at every high school in the valley. They might be thinking of the pros, but mostly, those kids just love the game.
One of my earliest memories as kid back East was sitting between my parents at the high school games with the snow piling up on our blanket. And I remember my mother screaming, “They’re piling on our boys!” Of course, after we moved to Arizona, she did that every year at Phoenix Union, too.
The big game in Phoenix was always on Thanksgiving Day between the Phoenix Union Coyotes and their rivals the Mustangs of North High. The red and black against the red and blue was the best game of the year.
Think about taking your family to one of the playoff games at your neighborhood high school. The Vikings are great. So are the Cardinals, the Panthers, Eagles, Knights, Cobras Rockets, Demons, and you name it. The list goes on.
Most games start around 7 on Friday night and are over early. The tickets are reasonable. Maybe you can show your kids the plays you used to make or their mother can teach them her old high school cheers. And as you walk along the side lines, you might feel the tension of the parents who have taxied their sons to their practices year after year, starting with Pop Warner They’ll be the ones secretly praying, “Don’t pile on our boy”.
When the band marches onto the field you’ll find yourself joining in the school song and believe me, you will see a real football game!

They Carried
By
Gerry Niskern
When our family moved to Phoenix in 1942, we stayed in an auto court on West Van Buren while searching for a house. Mom sent my sister and me to the little Chinese grocery down the street every day to buy some items for dinner. The two teenage sons waited on us and what I remember most was how the young guys joked with us. They kept us entertained in our new town. The crackling of the paper bags blended in with our giggles as they sacked up our groceries.
Actually we soon learned that there were several Chinese grocery stores in little neighborhoods in Phoenix. They employed local kids for deliveries, sweeping and stocking. My husband worked for one down on West Lincoln and 19th Avenue. Turned out, my new best friend’s dad owned one of those grocery stores. Their’s was on West Madison and the family lived in the back.
Immigrants to this country have always found that starting a little grocery was a way to start earning a living. My mother used to tell about the Greek man, Mr.Darwishe, who came to town with a sack on his back selling small house hold items to the homemakers. Later on he had a good size grocery on the main street in town. As a child, my mother was sent to the store often. My grandmother refused to buy anything from the “Company Store”, with their bug infested food items, even though Grandpa’s pay was part vouchers for the company store.
When she was only six or seven years old, my mom would gather her items on the counter, climb up a ladder and take down the small receipt book with her family’s name and write down everything she was taking. Mr. Darwishe trusted her completely. Then when payday rolled around on Saturday her dad would go in and settle up with Darwishe.
Every year during the strike (the coal miners “went out” every year) Mr. Darwishe “carried “them, sometimes for three or four months. This was common practice in all the different ethnic grocery stores during those years around this country.
Years later, I remember as a new bride complaining when my young husband swung by Henry’s Chinese store to pick up some items. I wanted to do all our shopping at the big Safeway supermarket. Bult my spouse carefully explained, “Henry “carried” my folks when we first came to Phoenix and once during the Building strike. That’s why we should always come by Henry’s to pick up a few things.”
With the major strikes taking place right now in our country, I’m reminded of those many small grocers of all nationalities of years past. When asked, they almost always answered, “Yes, we carry.”

How Great is That?
By
Gerry Niskern
I sensed someone was watching me as I slept. I opened my eyes to see an excited little face peering down at me. “Hey Grandma Gerry, do you remember that game?” It was 5 A.M! My three-year-old grandson was referring to the game I had introduced him to the night before. Hi Ho Cherries. I think it’s safe to say that was the beginning of the long tradition of playing board games in our family.
I watched the adults play lots of card games when I was a kid, but I was introduced to my first board game, Monopoly, when I was around eight. It belonged to a friend. I loved it. My sister and I asked for that game for Christmas many times. It is still the most popular board game “world wide”. Years later, my youngest grandson loved it too, but I’m sorry to say that if he didn’t get to buy Boardwalk, the board, dice, markers and properties were launched into space!
As time went by we added many other games like Taboo, Scrabble, Gestures, etc. If our kids, grandkids or eventually great-grandkids brought a friend on a holiday and they liked to play games, that was good. We had a lively game called “spoons” and if a new girlfriend lost a fingernail and continued to play, well, she was a “keeper.”
Games were always a wonderful way for family members of all ages to connect. Ages eight to eighty sharpened their social skills and learned to get along together. Games lost favor for a long time, although not with our family. Everyone played on birthday celebrations, and every holiday. Then in the l990’s board games were discovered and became popular with the public again.
Of course, as our family grew and changed, new games were added, but games became less frequent. Covid was a major roadblock for get togethers but I still looked forward to a game or two on the big holidays.
A few weeks ago my great-granddaughter called. “Hey Grandma, we’d like to come over some Sunday and have a game day with you.” She and her older brother, (the off spring of the munchkin who woke me up to play Cherry-O’s all those years ago) and their significant others came over and we played game after game after game.
Those twenty-somethings included a part time Plastic Surgeon Tech, part time ambulance driver currently sending out applications to Med school, a Landscaper, an office administrator and a Physical Therapy student. They want to do it again soon.
How great is that?

“The Face of Labor has Changed”

By

Gerry Niskern

This previous column bears repeating!

Did you have any help preparing for the coming holiday that celebrates the working people in America? You probably had a lot more help from unseen workers than you realize. We all tend to take other peoples labor for granted, just like we take our country’s holidays for granted.
Our country’s unique national holiday came about because back in the late 1880’s around 10,000 workers in the garment industry walked off the job and staged a notorious strike in New York City. They demanded that common laborers in the United States have a day of recognition for their efforts.
Look around this Labor Day. Do you notice anything different? There is a lot of white hair out there. A fast growing number of the unseen workers are seniors. These older workers show up everyday, sometimes regardless of poor health. They see what needs done and they do it.
The people who hire seniors can’t say enough good things about them. They know they’re on time, with no call-in excuses of “the car broke down or the sitter didn’t show up.”

Do you know any of these people personally? Probably not, since they just melt into the blur of people who serve your needs as quickly as possible and get you on your way. When you do spot a senior on the job, remember that they are probably someone’s mom or dad, grandma or grandpa.
Most seniors didn’t expect to be working in what has always been described as their “golden years”. They’re working for various reasons. Many just plain need the extra income. Social Security doesn’t go far in this day and age. Others are stranded with no pension from life long jobs. Some were just unskilled or unlucky. As one fellow said to me, “By the time you can make ends meet, they’ve moved the ends!”
I recently attended a swim suit sale at one of our large department stores. The snowy hair on the sales lady was getting whiter by the minute as she tried to take care of the whole department by herself. When I overheard her say, “I’m getting too old for this!” I inquired about her age. She was 88.
Another friend of mine, retired from the phone company a few years ago and is now a hostess at one of our local restaurants. “I ‘m working part time now in order to have money for traveling.
She went on to say, “I find that I have more patience because of my life experiences. In the restaurant business, you have to learn to not take things personally. You’re there to serve the public”
An older friend retired from a large company and drives a van for the guests at a resort. He gets along with the young guys just fine. That is, after he let them know they were not to refer to him as “the old man.”
Several Seniors mentioned the fact that they were better able to relate to their grandkids because of working with the younger set.
I knew a distinguished gentleman by the name of Sam who was a Utility Person at AJ’s Preveyor of Fine Foods in Central Phoenix. He was 77. Sam raised ten children, had nineteen grandchildren and five greats. He’s retired from forty years with the U.S. Post Office; he always said, “I’m a people person and I love this job.”
Every year when I asked him if he would be there on Labor Day, he answered cheerfully, “If it’s on Monday, I’ll be right here.”

Welcome Home!
By
Gerry Niskern
What is home? Home might be where you grew up. It might be a friendly neighborhood or a familiar town. It’s a place where you are never alone; where you know someone is right beside you all the time.
More importantly home is a place where you find help, companionship, and laughter; where you can feel safe, relaxed and comfortable.
I attended a welcome home/ birthday celebration the other evening. My great-grandson was home after seven years studying to become an Internal Medicine Specialist. His parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, nephews and friends met at a local Pizza place to welcome him home and sing him Happy Birthday too !
There were warm hugs and kisses of greetings all evening thru the loud music and shouts of kids. This young doctor was a little taller and at least twenty pounds heavier. He also had the quiet confidence that came with his years of intensive training with people from all walks of life.
He huddled with grandmothers who wanted to know when he was going to quit shaving his head. (Answer, never.) One wanted know what kind of car he was going to get now that his 2006 was gasping its last breath? Girl friend of brother wanted pointers on how he made his sourdough bread which he perfected all thru medical training. (at a luncheon with silly awards fellow grads voted him “the one most likely to bake you a loaf of bread as an apology for hacking your computer”!)
He was locked in serious conversation with little sister who is following in his footsteps and is currently sending out applications to Med schools.
When his cake came out and we all joined in singing happy birthday, there were a few tears. He had been alone on seven birthdays, but wasn’t anymore.
Everyone wanted to know why his little daughter wasn’t there. (answer: She is in Kindergarten in another town.) That brings us to the theme of today’s blog. You see, she was born after he started his long journey. As a divorced dad he has had limited contact and wants to make up for lost time.
He is now home to Arizona with a position in an Arizona hospital. He wants to create a second home, a “daddy home” for his little girl. He wants to spend special days reading, coloring, playing games, teaching her skills. This dad will take her on lots of hikes, grocery shopping, cooking, and discussing whatever comes their way.
In other words, our guy enjoyed the warmth of family’s arms the other night and he wants his child to be able to count on the peace, joy, and love where she knows she is always welcome in her “daddy home”.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she isn’t learning to put a little loaf of sour dough to rise this weekend!

Pulchritudinous Barbie
By
Gerry Niskern
Pulchritudinous, (a person of breathtaking, heartwarming beauty)
That’s how the little girls who received first Barbies felt. Here was a beautiful doll that they could dress up like a grownup and their dreams had no bounds with Barbie. Their mothers liked Barbie, and grandma’s loved her too. Who do you think was buying all those cute outfits?
Evidently those first edition Barbies are very rare. The collectors will pay up to $ 27,000 for Barbie in “pristine” condition. A doll in “played with” condition will even bring up to $ 8,000.
The first Barbie that lived in our home didn’t stand a chance. My daughter received her for Christmas in l959 when she was seven. The iconic fashion doll had a black and white striped bathing suit, long blonde hair caught in a pony tail and of course, high heels. She had some outfits, but the best was the red satin lined fur coat that a loving aunt sewed for her. She also crocheted Barbie a red bathing suit and a sweater to wear with a red quilted circular skirt.
Then, one day, disaster struck! While she was at school, her little brother, a precocious, almost three-year-old decided he would paint Babbie’s finger nails. He explained it this way, “ I got a little bit on her hand, so I painted her hand. Then I got a little bit on her arm so I painted her arm, but I got a little bit on her neck, so I painted everywhere and then I got a little on her face, so……….”
Trouble was, when I used nail polish to remove the bright red paint from my distraught daughter’s doll, it removed all her original painted on facial features. She was a bland albino. Sister got a new Barbie, this time a redhead with a bubble hair style. Creative little brother suffered garnishment of his weekly allowance until new Barbie was paid for. His weekly trip to 7-Eleven for candy was profoundly missed.
Looking back decades ago, I remember playing paper dolls with a character I cut out of the Sunday comics every week who was an early Barbie type. Her name was Fritz Ritz and she had cute figure and high fashion clothes too. I drew and colored a new wardrobe for her every week. Ruth Handler, the inventor of Barbie said she got the idea for Barbie while watching her daughter play with paper dolls. She designed Barbie along the lines of a popular risqué German fashion doll.
Women who are grandmothers, and even some great-grandmothers today, were the first little girls to love Barbie. But if you remember, a lot of the little boys liked to play with her too. A friend told me about buying her little nephew a Barbie when he was around four and had begged for the doll. He had lots of outfits for Barbie and kept all her matching little heels in a plastic Ziploc bag. He insisted that she have a new outfit for Thanksgiving that year. She also remembers several months later seeing Barbie hanging by one leg from the ceiling fan, totally naked. That was the last time she saw her.
My daughter enjoyed her Barbies for many years and then one day when she was around thirteen she walked in with the bag full of dolls and clothes and said, “Here, throw these away.” I took them and just put them quietly away for safe keeping. I offered them to her later after she was married. She was glad to get them, but her creative, youngest son, around four or five was really happy. He loved playing with his mom’s Barbies.
But the problem was that when his best friend came to the door, (like a lot of little boys who loved Barbie,) he had to quickly shove all of the Barbies under his bed!

“Rolling On”
by
Gerry Niskern

School’s starting everywhere and it couldn’t start without the bus drivers. Some are new at the job this year, and some are old timers. Here is the experience of just one.
‘I wrote this little story as suggested to me by my younger brother-in-law. He had worked at Cox Toys as a model train designer and later at the Centura Rocket company designing rockets. He started driving after he retired.’

Keith crushed the pink slip of paper in his fist as he strode from the office. His heart was pounding. The numbers on the driver’s lockers were a blur. He yanked the metal door open and started throwing his personal things into a box.
“What kind of a joke is that? Saying I can’t drive my bus anymore. I don’t care what their new rules say about age limits; after years of hauling kids!”
He sat down abruptly and took a few deep breaths. He remembered his blood pressure and told himself to calm down.
“You have the blood pressure under control and passed the physical one more year, don’t blow it now.”
After a few minutes, he picked up his compass and studied it. He chuckled as he remembered the first morning he drove the huge yellow vehicle. “Man, was I nervous…afraid I’d forget the route, get myself lost, or leave some kid stranded. I was scared that I couldn’t make friends with the children. He tossed the compass into the box and pulled out a sweat stained cap. “I remember I was drenched in nervous sweat when I finally stopped for that last pickup that day.”
A little girl was clinging to her mother when he pulled up. The first grader climbed the high steps, one at a time, sniffling and blinking back the tears. She said something to him; he couldn’t hear her at first. He leaned down to hear her timid voice. “Hi, Bus.”All the first day’s tension disappeared with his laughter.
He pulled his gloves from the locker shelf and thought back to the first winter of driving…November, December when the snow came. He used to stand on the bumper in the pre dawn darkness scraping thick frost from the windshield as icicles formed on his mustache.
He prayed on those icy mornings as he made his way slowly from one huddled group to another, white curls of breath disappearing above their heads as they scrambled aboard.
He learned how to spot the troublemakers fast. When he wrote up a student and they lost their riding privileges for a week, he knew which driver of the nearest route to notify, so the culprit couldn’t sneak on with another crowd.
Keith chuckled when he thought how he had gotten so he could predict the day, usually at the end of the first week, when five or six kids would jump out the back emergency exit. He would be standing there ready to herd them back on the bus.
Sure, times had changed a lot over the years. Kids had changed. First, the district installed the surveillance cameras, then came the CB radio. “Code Red” to the office meant he was pulling off the road, doors locked, send the police. He sighed, tossing his first aid kit into the box. There was one time he wasn’t likely to forget.
One day he wrote up an eight year old boy, an automatic “no ride” for a week. The next morning, at the boy’s stop, a massive body hurled through the bus door towards him. Hands of steel dragged him down to the ground. A large woman pounded him while small feet kicked him in the head.
He drove the next day , taped ribs and all. He wouldn’t let the vice of fear gripping his stomach show as he joked with the kids at the young kickers stop.
So it went…Now he had reached “that age” and been relegated to a van, a mini van at that! He’d be picking up pre-schoolers for a special education program. Forget it…not for him! He made a vow to himself, “I’ll stay one week, one week only, until they find a replacement. Not a minute longer.”
On Monday morning, he reluctantly pulled the yellow mini van out of the district yard. He was glad the other drivers had already gone. It was down right embarrassing. Six seats. Six pitiful seats! No way, thank you very much.
Later that morning, he eased the van to the curb on the last pickup. A little girl slowly climbed aboard. Her chin trembled and he saw eyes bright with unshed tears. She waved a brave good bye to her mother. Then as she turned toward him, she placed a small trembling hand on his arm and said softly, “Hi, bus.”

“Don’t worry, the rain is coming”

By

Gerry Niskern

(This column from the Arizona Republic seems appropriate again!)

It’s late this year, and worrisome. We usually have a first big storm by the Fourth of July. But, relax, it’s coming, and it always comes with a bang! Here are some memories of past wet summers. Enjoy.
One day, years ago it was raining so hard I could hardly see them out on the sidewalk. One toddler ran by, laughing, the feet of his soggy sleepers slapping the pavement. Baby brother came into sight; his drenched diaper, laden with rainwater, dragging behind. Big sister in pink pajamas led the parade of upturned, wet faces squealing with the joy at the rain that had finally come after a long period of despair.
That year, in the late l950s’, the residents here in the valley had waited months for relief from the drought. On the days my children ran outside barefooted the pavement was scalding. The dry grass stubble was prickly and so were tempers. Respite came, as always, sometime in July.
We have had years of drought and years of unbelievable rains. That summer, before the rains came, the huge dust storms, the weathermen now call them Haboobs, left an inch layer of dirt on the bottom of everyone’s pool. The kids begged to swim, so I became an expert at pool vacuuming…every single morning!
The thunderstorms that sometimes come tearing thru the valley create havoc, but just manage to give everyone’s grass a good soaking. It’s hard to believe, but sometimes we do get too much precipitation.
Years ago, in the l940’s when I was a kid, the rain finally came and drenched the parched ground, but didn’t stop. The Cave Creek Dam finally broke. The railroad tracks along Nineteenth Ave dammed the water. The residential area around the Arizona State Capitol building had heavy flooding. We kids, in the blissful ignorance of childhood, just enjoyed riding our bikes through the knee high water flowing curb to curb in the streets. We didn’t realize that most of the businesses were sandbagged and the Capitol basement had flooded.
We were even treated to our first look at an U. S. Army amphibious vehicle. The Seventeenth Avenue underpass was flooded too and the kids all watched in awe as a group of soldiers came down the street and drove right through the deep water.
I’ll never forget my dad returning from hiking alone on South Mountain. He was caught in a downpour so hard that he said, “I couldn’t see or breathe. I was really beginning to panic!”
I remember a neighbor at that time telling my folks, “Back in l938, the Salt River really overflowed its banks. The Central Avenue Bridge was holding the water back and all of central Phoenix was in danger of being flooded. Just as they were ready to light the fuse to dynamite the bridge, the water started to subside.”
One other summer, when my kids were in their teens, around 1970, we lived in a different neighborhood and the rains were again unrelenting. The ground was saturated and one Saturday morning police drove through the area shouting on loud speakers, “Attention, Prepare to evacuate!” Arizona Canal just North a few blocks of us was starting to overflow its banks
The rains this summer won’t end the drought, only heavy winter snows do that; but as always, they will surely nourish our spirits.
Meanwhile, the scent of wet creosote bushes on the mountain above me, mixed with the pungent smell of desert grass below will be like heaven as I watch the rabbits and quail scurrying for shelter from the rain that is sure to come soon.

Accidental Birder
By
Gerry Niskern
“A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song”…..Maya Angelou

I woke up the other morning to find my rock covered back yard totally darkened with tiny, Finch- sized black birds. The massive flock was a sea of black bobbing heads as they feasted on something deep among the rocks. The back fence was lined with more of the small birds waiting their turn at this breakfast buffet. I have no idea what the attraction was; nothing like that feeding frenzy had ever happened before. My grandson suggested it might have been ants.
My number 1 son has often pointed out some interesting birds in his neighborhood and now I had a story to tell him!
I’ve never been a bird watcher, but I started recalling some special memories of birds that I have seen here in Arizona.
Once on a drive with my dad when I was a kid we rounded a sharp curve on a dusty desert road just as a hawk with a snake in it’s beak flew up out of some bushes and over the hood of our car. The startled hawk dropped his reptile lunch on the hood of our car. The lucky snake got a reprieve and we had a great story to tell our friends.
Another precious memory is of being able to look down from our balcony into a tiny hummingbird nest in a tall Hibiscus bush below. I was able to watch those tiny blue eggs in their nests every year without disturbing the mama birds.
Living at the base of the North Phoenix Mountains, I sometimes had the thrill of seeing the shadow of the huge wings of an owl overhead at dusk as it swooped down on a prey while I was sitting out on our balcony.
Because of our very wet winter here in our Sonoran desert, nature has provided the birds with a bountiful supply of food. Just in my yard alone the Saguaro and it’s cousin the Organ Pipe have outdone themselves. The Saguaro had creamy, white blossoms, even on it’s one tiny arm. The birds love the nectar and of course, the bats visit and pollinate at night.
The Organ Pipe stands at highest arm about l2 feet, with many branches. Starting in May and all of June it was a something to behold. Each morning I opened my front blinds to a unique gathering of birds feasting on the red fruit that the Organ Pipe produced. Everyone seemed to have a “seat at the table”. Both small and large friends were perched up and down the cactus branches. White-winged doves, Cactus wrens, even pigeons came to the banquet. No one could be bothered to stop eating and chase a newcomer away!
I’ve never paid a lot of attention to our bird population, but once I stopped and actually looked at the many species this spring, I’ve become fascinated. Most fly, but some travel only on the ground like the quail and roadrunners. I wonder if they even know that they are missing the “Pitaya Dulce”(sweet cactus). It’s been said to be better than watermelon.
When I go out front to sit in the evening (not right now!) I hear beautiful bird songs; and a few a little screechy. I wonder sometimes if the tiny mama bird that peers down at me from her nest in the hole in the Saguaro agrees with me.
There is estimated to be around 47 million official birders in the United States.
Actually, there is 47 million and one!