Don’t call it August

Pay no attention to the calendar. It’s just a grid we slap on our lives to make it easy to remember dentist appointments. You can call it August if you like. For me, it’s Sweet Corn and Needy Birds time.

Yes, it’s good corn season. It’s true Minnesota sweet corn, unlike all the dull cob-nodules we’ve had. We export a lot — we’re the country’s fourth-biggest exporter of delicious corn to a grateful world. Bonus fun fact: The Minnesota corn industry group notes that it’s “used in over 4,000 consumer products such as batteries, crayons, makeup, carpet and tennis shoes.”

If it’s Minnesota corn that goes into sneakers, those would be the most tender, flavorful shoes in the world. You could even floss with the laces.

The Needy Birds are the scrawny little robin chicks in our gazebo. It’s the second year we’ve had a nest up there in late summer. The sparrows also built a nest — big, messy, no aesthetics whatsoever, the sort of thing that says “Don’t care if we don’t get the deposit back.” They raised a brood and skedaddled without a word of thanks.

Mr. and Mrs. Robin, whose nest is much tidier and more compact, are busy feeding the incessantly squeaking babies, flying in with fresh worms. My wife worries when the babies are alone and raise their hideous heads, beaks wide: They’re hungry!

“I should call Domino’s,” I suggest. “Ask them what they want on their half.”

She worries that our sitting in the gazebo will keep the parents from returning with food. I remind her that this is our place. The signature on the mortgage paper does not have a crude imprint of a clawed foot. They’ll be fine.

Because she is a compassionate soul, she worries about them falling out of the nest. If the robins lived in the woods, a chick might fall onto grass or soft ground, and maybe bounce right back into the nest. Ta-da!

Here it’s hard brick, which is like leaving home to go to college and walking right in front of a freight train. Last year one went out on his first proud flight and swooped right in front of Birch the dog, who suddenly thought, “Amazing: Treats are now being delivered by drones.” And that was that. We do not want to repeat this.

What happens if we find a chick on the patio, dazed, eyes crossed, little cartoon stars circling his head, I don’t know. I’m sure I would google it and get 1,636 videos about nursing stunned preflight chicks back to health, each of which was preceded by an ad for an insurance company, which does not offer policies for robins because they would only pay in twigs.

Even if they did, they’d send around a claims agent who would note that the nest was not chick-proofed — no guardrails, no warning signs, substandard nest foundation. Claim denied.

It’s possible that this year’s robins are the ones who hatched last year, survived and came back to this place of peril because they are literally bird-brained. I’m glad they did. I’ll be sad when the nest is empty. At least we’ll still have corn.

The good corn! After it’s gone, it’s back to buttered batteries and salted carpet.