Life at Laurelledge with Chris

When Chris was quite young--two or three years old--he stayed with us for a while. He made life at Laurelledge quite interesting and sometimes--exciting.
We were planting onions on one occasion and Chris was patiently playing at the end of the rows. We had laid off straight rows and opened furrows into which we placed the onion sets. We covered the bublets and left nature to take its course in sprouting new plants.
Several days later I went to that plot of gadening to see how the new plants were progressing. There were several straight rows of healthy onions. At one end of those rows, where Chris had been so patiently playing while we planted, was a circle of onion plants. Chris had done some planting of his own--he had created "a circle of onions"!
We were adding a new living room to our domicile. The floor joists were in place and a "walk-way" was needed in order to get to the entrance door. I had put down a temporary path of plywood and purposely left the anchoring nails sticking up enought so I could pull them out when ready to lay the more permanent sub-floor. With his little hammer, Christ had very carefully and thoroughly hammered each of those nails solidly into the wood. I had a "dickens" of a time getting those nails out!
On another occasion, I was watching Chris and working on that new room, I had to be on the roof for awhile so I left young Chris on the ground where I could "watch" him while I worked on the roof. Turning away briefly, I looked back just in time to see that little tyke coming toward me over the edge of the roof. To my horror, he had climbed the ladder to "see what Grandee was doing". I was scared for his safety but he perfectly at ease.

Gardens versus Wildlife

We enjoyed gardening at Laurelledge--both vegetable and floral. Soon after viewing our first garden in production, we were given a sign which read, "Life began in a garden."
Most of the time our gardens flourished. Sometimes we had to irrigate during dryer seasons. We learned to mulch the soil around the plants and conserve moisture. We grew with our gardening and enjoyed the produce and the blossoms.
On several occasions we discovered that the deer also enjoyed the fruits of our labors. Apparently the gladiola blossoms were quite tasty because there were times when those blossoms were nibbled down to a nubbin by the deer. They also ate the buds of broccoli which we had hoped to enjoy at our table
One summer we had a particularly fine patch of beans. They were ready to be harvested and the day we went into the garden to pick those beans the deer had "picked" them. Not only were the pods gone; the deer had eaten all of the plants down to the bare ground.
There was nothing we could do except be philosophical about it all. After all, the deer were there long before we arrived to start our gardening and they are no doubt still there long after we have moved from Laurelledge.
We did enjoy seeing the deer from time to time but we wished they had been less consuming of the fruits of our labors.

A Sight Almost Unseen!

I had climbed half-way up the slight incline behind our storage cabin in the woods when I noticed something unusual on the ground in front of me. It appeared to be two eyes staring at me from the dried sticks and leaves that covered the open plot in the woods.

Not knowing what wild beast might be hiding in the brush, ready to pounce upon me, I cautiously approached the spot to investigate further. Upon closer examination I discovered that I was indeed seeing two eyes, the outline of a head, and a bird's bill—a quail was nesting in that spot on the ground.

She had such perfect protective coloration that her feathers and even her bill blended in with her environment. I had to look very carefully to see the outline of a bird sitting there in the brush.

Over the next number of days I visited the spot several times a day in order to see the young quail after they had hatched. The neighbors came to see the "invisible" bird. A friend from as far away as East Tennessee was thrilled and blest to have had the opportunity to view that scene.

On one of my visits, those eyes were no longer there. Instead, all I could see were the remains of the egg shells. The young quail had apparently hit the ground a-running. Neither they nor their mother were ever seen again—unless, of course, they were the covey I saw "dancing" in the soybean patch when the snow was on the ground.

The Dance of the Quails

One mid-morning winter day at Laurelledge I just happened to glance out across our garden plot—now barren except for a few soybean stalks still standing against the elements. A light snow had fallen. Into that scene fluttered a covey of quail, quite visible against the background of new fallen snowflakes..

As I watched those little birds I witnessed a strange sight. A quail would hop up into the air and then fall back to earth, followed by another bird going through the same dance step. I continued to view, spellbound, wondering what was going on.

Could this be some sort of weird ritual of the quail family? Was it a mating dance in mid-winter? Had this covey found a batch of sour-mash from some moonshiner’s cove? What could it be?

Finally I realized what was happening. Earlier in the summer when we harvested the soybeans we had left some of the not-fully-developed pods on the stalks. The hungry birds were jumping up into the air, plucking those pods from the plants and then falling back to the ground to eat the precious morsels.

This was no weird ritual or dance. It was no inebriated birds. Just a covey of God’s creatures enjoying a winter feast!