Tales from the Bark Side

By Keith Ross | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, November 10, 2007

Welcome back to the bark side of life here in frigid Ottertail where the ice on the dog’s water pails has found a home for at least a few more months. The heated pails are ready to go into action very soon, but until that time I’ll rely on the solar heat that comes from that flaming spheroid that rises in the east every morning. I do believe winter is finally upon us.

I was out to dinner the other night and the conversation turned to past winters and the rigors we all suffer here in rural Minnesota. This week’s tale takes place BEFORE there was a bark side of life here at Rosswood. Sit back with a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage and I’ll tell you a story about two of the most unlikely companions that winter brings together.

Ethyl and herb

I was convalescing from back surgery the winter of 2002 and consequently, I spent a lot of time in my recliner next to the front room window either reading or watching the birds and squirrels doing their thing. My stepson, Jake, was upstairs doing some remarkably good remodeling when he called down to look out the window and observe a game bird near the pump house. Sure enough, it was a female pheasant and she was furtively moving about the pine trees just a scant 30 feet east of my window.

We enjoyed her antics and her covert ways of moving about. Her head would pop up and she’d stop; being statue still. There was no sign of a cock pheasant about so we assumed she was on her own and maybe escaped from a nearby farm. We didn’t see her for a while so yours truly threw out some cracked corn hoping this would entice her to come closer to the house.

There was a good snow storm shortly after that and I threw more corn out on the freshly packed snow and thought nothing more of it. First it was the female pheasant that arrived, then about 15 minutes later; a male Mourning Dove showed up and joined her in the scratching and pecking for food.

The next day, both of them showed up together and they seemed to communicate between themselves. Since I haven’t been blessed with the ability to speak bird (or fowl language), I had no idea what they were up to. This clandestine meeting went on for a very long time. Sometimes Ethyl (a name that seemed to fit her) would arrive first then Herb (he just looked like a Herb to me) started to show up early.

Maybe the early bird (no pun intended…ok it’s intended) got the corn and that’s why one would show up before the other. When they started to show up together, I knew something was going on for sure. They seemed to give each other knowing looks; like the lyrics from Bonnie Raitt’s “Let’s give em something to talk about”. Were they dating outside their specie? I know in one instance that a spike deer and a black cat named Pepper had an attraction for each other. That tale was published in another periodical and maybe I should include it in this column in the near future. That relationship was never fully understood either.

It reached 30 below that winter at least several times and they stopped coming to feed on the cracked corn. Did they both succumb to the will of Mother Nature’s wrath, or did they find another location in which to make their rendezvous? In the animal kingdom, there are a lot of unexplained phenomenon that go forth unrecognized for what it was. We still have a lot to learn about the habits of a lot of creatures.

Herb was quite a bit smaller than his paramour but that didn’t stop him from being close to her. Ethyl was quite discerning about everything. She never did anything without surveying the situation carefully with a scrutinizing glare. This made for an odd couple that rivaled Felix and Oscar. Seriously, I don’t know if they were together as a married couple. I do know that wherever Ethyl was, Herb wasn’t far away.

We all need a friend to help us get through the trials and tribulations of a wicked winter. One winter before there was a Rosswood Choir, there was a duet that cooed and trilled their way into our hearts.

Keith Alan Ross writes from his home in New York Mills.