The Bird Lady

I know this is a blog about cooking failures, and don’t worry, there are plenty more cooking failures for you all but today can we just talk about birds and birdfeeders? It’s a bit of a success story if you read until the end.

My mom is one of those crazy bird ladies, in addition to being a crazy cat lady, she has probably at least 7 to 9 birdfeeders in her yard. She has them all hooked up to little pulley systems where she can lower them down to fill it, and then use a pulley to string it back up and hook it with little carabiner clips. It’s really a very complicated system and I don’t even know how she did it. Maybe she’s a secret scientist. Or an inventor. She’s been like this for I don’t know how many years. Every time I go over there, I just think of how much work it is and how much money she spends on birdseed. Never had my heart leapt for joy at the sight of a bird.

She’s the type of bird person who gets so excited when she sees a (insert your favorite bird here) that you would think she had won the lottery! She has a little app on her phone that recognizes bird calls and last time she visited, she came in from my deck and said, “Oh my goodness! I just heard 38 different kinds of birds in your backyard,” like it was the greatest thing to ever happen in history. (Eye roll) Don’t get me wrong, birds are cute and all but they don’t do it for me. They all sort of look the same. I know, I know, all the real birders are gasping in astonishment and disapproval. I can’t help it, I like what I like. And it’s not birds. I will stop and oooh and ahhh at every dog that passes but birds…. They have never made me stop in my tracks.

BUT THEN I turned 50.

Four days before my 50th birthday i was sitting on my couch reading and then I glanced out the window and saw a bird hanging out in my tree. Just an average bird but I immediately stopped what I was doing to stare at the bird. What an incredible creature, I thought. Look at those tiny feet! I had never seen anything cuter! And how soft do those feathers look? If I was a bird I would happily just snuggle with myself and not need this silly stuffed Snoopy I sleep with every night.

Then, with a desire that I can’t even remember the last time I felt, I NEEDED a bird feeder. Needed one. Like my life depended on it. I hopped on Amazon right away.

So I ordered a bird feeder. I could hardly wait for it to come. I checked Amazon every 5 minutes it seemed to see when it would be delivered. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve! I could hardly sleep from the excitement of it all. I was going to be a bird lady! A real bird lady! Should I add that to my resume?

Finally, my bird feeder came. I ripped open the box and admired my beautiful new birdfeeder. I pictured all the little birds with full bellies after hanging out at my birdfeeder. I pictured them telling all their friends and then I would have the best yard ever for birdfeeder parties. Well, other than my mother’s, but she lives 350 miles away. I rushed outside to hang up my new birdfeeder!

And then I realize that I have no birdseed. Of course, I know you need birdseed to fill your birdfeeder, but I was so wrapped up in the joy of being a bird lady that I forgot to buy birdseed! Where can I get birdseed? Do they have a birdseed store? After some research, I found out they have birdseed at my local Food Lion so I ran out to buy some. And that 10 pound bag lasted about five hours. How in the heck does that much birdseed disappear so quickly? Aren’t birds little? How can they eat 10 pounds of birdseed in five hours? So I ran out to buy some more. And now I just order it with every grocery order. And sometimes I order it on Amazon in between grocery shops.

But geez, those birds love my cooking! They swarm around my birdfeeder. There are these big black guys who hog all the food and there are tiny little birds standing off to the side, waiting patiently for their turn. So then I decided, well, of course I need another bird feeder for those little birds. I will just very politely tell the big birds and that pesky squirrel that this new birdfeeder is not for them. So I ordered another birdfeeder. And then I ordered another birdfeeder. I absolutely did not need another birdfeeder, but I couldn’t even control my fingers when I went to Amazon and started scrolling bird feeders. Do you know that they have solar ones and at night they light up all cute and pretty so that the birds can find their way to their food when it’s dark outside? Do you know they have stained glass birdfeeders? Who ever thought a birdfeeder could be pretty? It was Like this compulsion, I just couldn’t control my fingers. I did show some self-control, though, and stopped at three birdfeeders. For now.

Who knew I would have to take a third job to feed all the neighborhood birds? Kidding! Kind of. But it’s totally worth it because as I mentioned in the beginning, this is a blog about cooking and these neighborhood birds love my cooking. They just love my cooking! They eat it all and then they’re just waiting every morning for more of my cooking. Maybe I should’ve been a bird mom. Or maybe I should try feeding my kids birdseed.