The History of Things

The History of Things
Archeology of the Heart

Monday, June 7, 2010

Madonna Blue



Can there be anything prettier than a western bluebird nest with three madonna blue eggs inside the crevice? But wait...something's wrong with this picture...What's in that nest used as material for making a warm bed for the eggs, but a bit of plastic? Humanity has brought its ugliness and danger into the planet again. Once I saw a video of a shredded blue plastic tarp in a nest. (they shred in the sun quite easily from the heat.) It was wrapped around a baby bird's leg and as the bird grew, the tarp string grew tighter and tighter and the leg had to be amputated as it had grown gangrenous, all because some humans didn't fold up their tarps and put them away at the end of winter and let the sunshine into the pile of wood they were keepin' dry. The people didn't know about it until it was too late or they would have cut the tarp piece off sooner. I'm so embarrassed by the human race at times. It makes me bow my head in shame.

When both my sons were eight, they had the burning need to rebel and I had raised them to NOT litter. They are eight and a half years apart and ironically, both of them at eight, decided to rebel. We had a family policy of candy on Saturdays only and "no littering" and they both decided to break both policies. Then they looked at me, as if to say, "And what are you gonna do about that,huh, Mimi? So I sat down on the curb, which you could do back in the seventies and mid-eighties and said, 'Rest my dogs right here until you pick up the wrapper and then we'll walk on home' and they saw how serious I was, so they picked up their trash and we went home. It's a good story to remember cuz this way I can tell the grandkids when they come along.

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