STARLINGS

Surviving a heart attack at 38 and a quintuple CABG on my 39th birthday altered my life in many ways. Things that had once seemed so important suddenly weren't so important anymore. Simply being alive was now something not to be taken for granted. I can't claim I've lived every day since as though it might be my last, but I do count each new day I'm given as a blessing.

I've adopted a live and let live approach to many things--not to liberals, gun-grabbers and Democrats, mind you. But if something isn't impinging directly on my life, I tend to let it go.

Living in the country has also reinforced that approach. Things are just different out here and you soon learn to drop your suburban ways. We get more weeds, more bugs--more critters of all kinds. And I'm fine with that now, except when they try to get in the house. There I draw the line.

Last summer I found a groundhog trying to get under the deck, which is a definite no-no. They want to live way out in the back or in the ditch, fine, have a ball. But you are not going to tunnel under the deck and the house.

So I sic'ed the dog on it, but she didn't see it until it was already on the move and it ran under the diesel tank behind the barn. The dog couldn't get in and it couldn't get out, which would have been fine, except that this dog is more a Labrador terrier than a Labrador retriever. She wouldn't walk away and let it be, she parked herself at one side of the tank and guarded it, which meant it wouldn't leave on its own. It squatted there hissing and spitting.

By now it was clear this Mexican standoff wasn't going to end well for one of us and I surely wasn't going to let it attack me or the dog. So I went in the house and got the wife's little .17 HMR revolver and shot it in the head.

I wasn't necessarily happy about the result, but I think the conclusion was more or less pre-ordained once I'd seen it under the deck. The dog wasn't happy with the result either. She sniffed the carcass and guarded it briefly, but she wasn't terribly interested in something that didn't run.

Which brings me to starlings. I hate starlings. They're ugly, non-native birds that always come in big flocks and drive my songbirds away from the feeders. There was a time when I'd have gotten the BB gun out to drive them off.

The starlings were here today, but I didn't bother them. There were only a handful, instead of the usual horde, so they weren't the nuisance they generally are. They were hanging on the suet feeders for a long time, but there weren't enough of them to decimate the food.

So today was a live and let live day and I'm glad it was. Starlings don't hurt me in any way and everybody has to eat, so I went on about my business and they went on about theirs. Most of the time that's the way it should be.