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!
