 Tom Toolery Given the profanity of products to which westerners have access, it is no surprise that an unfamiliar yet useful item will once in a while sneak up on us from behind. Recently, and fortuitously as it turned out, I discovered such a product while carting trash to the local landfill site. The item sat forgotten and forlorn atop a heap; perhaps, however, this was the only way it could have come into my life as I had no need of it beforehand. On the surface it is nothing more than a five foot long, yellow plastic sled with raised sides and a matching yellow pull string. I foresaw no particular need of a sled when it first followed me home from the dump, so I hung it on a nail on the side of the house, and there it lingered. Little did I know that it would soon become a valuable tool. The driveway of my yard is a steeply sloped affair, so moving heavy objects to and from the car is always a challenge, and this is where the sled now earns its keep, sure-footed as any donkey. The sled performs admirably in all weather across snow, dirt, or dry grass. It hauls computers, monitors, and hundreds of kilos of magazines and books up and down the slippery slope. The other day, quite without thinking, I reached for the sled so I could plant a few spring seeds. I placed the sled on the back step, added some potting soil, and then filled the remaining space with small plastic pots. I watered the damp soil, stirred it into a moist mess and toweled soil into pots. When I was done planting the seeds, I returned the left over soil back to the bag, tilted the sled and washed it quickly with the remaining water. Working within a high-sided sled was akin to potting inside a lightweight sink, and a potentially messy job was finished in no time. Last Sunday a brisk wind blew and the sun brightly shone. I decided the time was ripe for a trip to the 101 Marsh in order to clean and repair old bird boxes, and install some new bird boxes. So, I disengaged my yellow sled from its nail on the outside wall, I filled the sled with 15 new bird boxes and some necessary tools then I trundled the whole works down to the car. At the marsh I reloaded the sled with all the equipment and started along the south fence. The first portion of the field was brown dry grass and despite being overloaded the sled followed smartly along behind. It required just one finger to urge it forward. Methodically I began installing and repairing boxes. To aid the removal of old nests from old boxes I used two particular instruments purchased from the Cedar Crest Thrift store. One tool was a pair of metal tongs. My cursory inspection of the boxes some weeks ago reminded me that removing some nest material needed to be done through the top - a situation that required a clutching tool. The metal tongs worked perfectly. Bird boxes built with side flaps require a different type of tool. So, I chose a kitchen implement used for cooking spaghetti. It has a long handle and the business end features a plastic doodad that looks like a cross between a back scratcher and a garden claw. Standing back a bit I reached into a box and planted downward-facing prongs into the nest material, and then gently pulled outward. In most cases the nest came out in one grungy clump, however, a few boxes required scraping to loosen the impacted material. Eventually the plastic end of the spaghetti tool snapped off, but not before I got the job done. It was well worth the 25 cents I spent on the gizmo. A male Harrier swooped and kited about while I walked along the middle of the south fence line. In some places the frozen pasture was thawed enough to present ankle deep water but my boots were up to the task, and the sled floated along through it all. At the back corner of the fenced area there was snow and of course a sled absolutely relishes skimming over the substance for which it was created. The appearance of three pair of Mountain Bluebirds reminded me that I was completing this task none too soon. I reached the south-west corner of the fence and realized the number of bird boxes on this side of the fence was now substantially increased. Would this be a problem? I thought not. Last years Tree Swallows constantly bickered over bird boxes whether they were in close proximity to each other, or not. The birds were quite capable of sorting themselves out, as evidenced by the boxes I cleaned. Every box had been inhabited except one and that contained a dead mature female Tree Swallow. The lack of nest material suggested she expired early and deterred any other use of the box. At the midpoint of the west fence, and halfway around the total enclosure, all 15 new boxes were hung. All that remained in the sled was my tools. It was now time to clean the old boxes. This was particularly challenging because my nest boxes were built with found material and were not mass-produced easy-to-clean boxes. Some had no clean out flaps and required roof removal. Nonetheless soon the job was done. The sun shone, the boxes were clean, and I was able to look the impatient Bluebirds square in the eye as I passed by. And so I dragged my bright yellow sled, like Franklin on his lost expedition, and headed car-ward. And though the sight of a man towing a bright yellow sled over brown grass might look silly to people rushing by in cars, I had employed the perfect transport mode for the job. There was nothing silly about what I was doing. Such thinking is probably at the core of most eccentricity. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
