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6 rms, rIv vu

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We have two, 50 ft. tall spruce trees in our front yard that are full of birds and their nests. The Collared Doves begin the nesting season, followed by robins, then sparrows, finches, and Warbling Vireos. Chickadees and wrens make their presence known. We feed the birds sunflower seeds in the back yard, but not in summer. Still, our trees are full of birds all year. I wonder how they choose our trees and yard? There are tall trees all around, yet we have lots of birds. I suppose the grapes, hazelnuts, raspberries, strawberries, and currants in the yard are a draw.

I was in a rather fanciful mood the other day and imagined a bird real estate agent trying to sell bird condos in our trees. What would they say?

High rise living with ample food supply in the cold weather. Luxury summer garden worms. Indoor cat brushed outside, leaving fur for nesting. All the comforts of home. Good opportunities for subletting. No squirrels allowed.

The blog title, by the way, is from a Broadway play from the 1970’s. I have no idea why it came to mind.

How would a bird real estate agent list your yard? What are your experiences buying property?

40 thoughts on “6 rms, rIv vu”

  1. Large nicely wooded area available for a motel! We do not have a great deal of birds nesting but we do have hundreds of Robins passing thru and stopping overnight in February in their trip north. We have a little party in my bedroom because that is the room with the best view!

    Bring property is fun! My husband was a teacher and I am a nurse so we have no problem picking up and moving on short notice . Years ago we were living in Pa. and we went on a cross country skiing vacation in Vermont, we had been there several times biking in the summer and skiing in the winter! This particular time we skied past a lovely cottage and when we got back to the inn we called a realtor and bought the property the next day and moved at the end of the school year. Canoeing on the lake in the summer and ice skating in the winter, we lived there about 10 years.

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  3. I’m going to need my imagination to sell my “yard” to bird clients. Maybe ten feet by fifteen, with similar sized terrace above. Liable to be infested with cats at any moment, day or night. The dogs are less of a problem, as long as we keep the back doors shut, and they can’t jump as high anyway. Perhaps Mr Storytelr can help me with my sales pitch.

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        1. My sister has you beat. She currently had 12 cats of her own plus six foster kittens

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        2. Sherrilee, damn, we had 12 till Pepi suddenly got sick and left us. Jane has three dogs, and we feed up to six street cats across the road, and up to ten at the Font d’Asis at the bottom of the hill.

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        3. Thanks to Barbara, PJ and Steve, who’ve pointed me in the right direction, I’m now achedemically studying the glossary.
          I can tell all y’all that we own eleven head of cats, feed up to sixteen head of street cats, and Jane has a brace and a half of dogs.

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  4. Rise and Shine with the Birds, Baboons,

    Luxury nests!
    Celebrity sightings!
    Egg hatching guaranteed!

    Build your new home in a luxury setting frequented by Woody Woodpecker. Renters’ rebate! Dog fur available to line your nest. Plenty of safespace for flying lessons while those teen birds learn to steer.

    YOU WILL NEVER BE SORRY FOR YOUR RELO HERE.

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  5. I’ve been involved with four property purchases in my happy go lucky life. Not sure if my name was on the deeds of all of them. I think I’m legal co- owner of this one. Maybe I should ask. Maybe I signed something, I don’t remember.
    It wasn’t on the deeds of the house I thought I was buying from my sister, another Jane. She was involved for many years with a guy who didn’t really have her best interests at heart. They were in business together, but he was supposed to be taking care of the mortgage payments on the house. Which he didn’t do. It started to appear they were in trouble, which the business wasn’t doing well enough to cover. Thanks to Mike’s determination to bungle anything he touched. Jane (now my wife) and I were looking for a place to set up together. My sister and Mike were in sych a financial mess that they said, take over the mortgage and you can have the house. A good opportunity. My sister, my brother Neil, who came in on the deal, and myself, had to go to the local branch office and be lectured like children, on the big responsibility of having a mortgage, and ooooh, the things that could happen if we weren’t good boys and paid every month. Oh we would, we said. And we did! Every single month. We rented out rooms. I thought, this is ingenious, we let all these rooms and the mortgage is paid, and we can live here for nothing! Why isn’t everyone doing this, we’re so clever! And one day it’ll be ours, and we won’t have paid anything, because all these people are paying it for us!

    I’m not too good at being right wing though. We had to endure the horrors of, yes, Steve Golding painted his room black, and then left. People really do paint their room black. Takes some covering. Neil somebody, his name’s on the tip of my tongue. Not even going to talk about him. Then someone would say, I’m going away for two weeks, I don’t have to pay for that, right? I’m not good in business. I don’t like having to sound like the bad guy because I don’t have another tenant to rent someone’s room out because I need that two weeks money.
    But we kept paying the mortgage OK.

    Then Jane and I were away, and a guy from head office at the mortgage company came round and asked to speak to my sister, Neil (brother) said, well we live here now, what’s it about? Transpired you can’t sign over a mortgage to someone else. The guy in the local office was putting our money in his pocket, and head office still wanted a lot of money from my sister. I don’t remember how it all came out. We didn’t get a free house, and I suppose that’s when my sister sold the house. Any money she gained, and she probably didn’t, Mike would have spent. Neil can be funny sometimes. I cannot do business with people. He has to help. But he wouldn’t chase up the money we’d given that guy. And after all, if we signed anything, and I suppose we did, we signed it together, and had to act together. He did have his reasons, and actually, we weren’t out of pocket. So we never did get that house we didn’t really earn.

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        2. PJ, your comment does highlight what my whole life must look like. I’d already noticed myself. And I I suppose that story pretty much illustrates what my life HAS been. But I maintain, happy go lucky, not feckless. That’s Raoul next door. I can see the difference.

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  6. The robins are frustrated with us, as the topsoil we used to cover the newspaper weed barrier looks damp and worm-laden. They search, but there are no worms.

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    1. OT: I gather thete is a glossary, but can’t find it. That’s not in for me. But I thought, maybe OT stands for Other Topics. Because, by the way, Renee, I tried to get a story out of my dogsitting job. But there just wasn’t one. The two I was warned are “a bit bitey,” well, I didn’t turn my back on them. And pretty much nothing happened for three days. Oh, Saturday I spoke to my sister Jane for an hour. That was nice. That’s about it. No hospitals. No emergency vets. Sorry, everyone.

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      2. Close – OT is “Off Topic” , and WOT is “Way Off Topic”.
        When I scroll to the top here (actually, any time at the top of my page) at the right there are 3 items:
        FAQ THE BABOON CONGRESS GLOSSARY

        The FAQ was written by our former leader, and explains how we got started, I think.

        Baboon Congress has thumbnail sketches of some of the current, and former, “baboons”.

        Jacque and I compiled the first Glossary after we realized we were creating new words like Erstwife… I’ve added to it over the years, and it’s now pretty unwieldy. Acronyms are at the end of the glossary.

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  7. There’s an old family story about how my Great Grandfather Eggler threw everything in the ditch when my Grandmother got married and that’s why she doesn’t have any antiques.
    Turns out there’s more to the story, of course. (Well, clarification from my mom. No one really knows of course).
    The ‘Eggler’s’ were very well off in the Mormon Coulee region of Lacrosse, WI. The ‘Betz’s’ were poorer and renters, and it was quite the scandal (we assume) when Grandpa Victor Eggler wanted to marry Lillie Betz. On the day they married, G.Grandmother Eggler died. And then G.Grandpa was told to leave the farm they were renting. Whether he threw everything in the ditch out of spite, or just was in a huff, or he simply was cleaning up.

    Then G & G moved up here, near some cousins who had farm land. Turns out G&G were told they couldn’t buy the farm until their son was 21. We don’t know why that was, but “Aunt Alvina” was a nice lady and wouldn’t have thrown them off, but, for whatever reason, all the sisters had a voice in selling the farm. G&G didn’t get to own the farm long after son turned 21, then he got married and G&G moved to town.

    There are so many stories of farmers who won’t sell to their kids or don’t want to give it up. It’s pretty unfortunate, estate planning is a big deal.
    I was pretty lucky. Mom and dad split off the building site and sold it to Kelly and I when we got married. They lived off our payments. The rest of the farm is in 5 separate parcels and they ‘gifted’ them to us over the years. Capital Gains taxes may be an issue some day…I may have to turn Republican!

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    2. I’m confused (I know, so what else is new?). You said that the Egglers were quite well off, and that the Betz family were poorer and renters. From that I inferred that the Egglers owned their farm. Then, when your grandparents got married, G Grandma Eggler died, and that G Grandpa Eggler was told to move from the farm (that they were renting). Also, I’m not sure who G&G are? Your Grandma and Grandpa? The son you’re talking about turning 21, who is he? Your mother’s brother? I’m not trying to be difficult, here, but I’m not sure I understand the sequence of events correctly. Can you help?

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      1. PJ, I really appreciate that you actually follow my random stories! It would be easy to just dismiss it, so I appreciate your quest for clarity!

        I was trying not to get too long winded so I left out some relevant information.

        But what really messed up the clarity for you was I made a mistake and mixed up names; it was my grandmother Lillie’s mother, a Betz, that died on Lillie’s wedding day and then her dad, a Betz, that was asked to leave. So he’s the one that threw everything in a ditch.
        G&G is easier to type than Grandma and Grandpa and I just hoped everyone would keep up with me.

        Yes, The son was my moms, brother, uncle Stanley Egger.
        Unfortunately he was killed when a tractor tipped over on him in 1984. He was 53 yrs old.

        You know, some of this, I’m still trying to keep it straight in my head, so I’m figuring it out as I write.
        I know there’s a ‘double cousin’ in the family somewhere… I haven’t sat down with the family tree enough to figure that out again.

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        1. Yes, that about the names, it does make more sense now. But why was your Great Grandfather asked to leave? Was it your Great Grandmother who had the tenancy?

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        2. I think this is interesting stuff, so naturally I try to fit the pieces together in my mind, but these just kept swirling around. Now it makes more sense, so thanks for taking the time to clarify.

          I share your confusion when it comes to keeping my various ancestors straight. Sometimes I have to draw a diagram on a piece of paper in order to do that, that usually helps.

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  8. “Share the alley with cardinals, purple martins, mourning doves, chickadees, and more! Upper branches of lovely Hackberry available, One neighborhood cat out only during evenings. Fair-sized vegetable garden to plunder nearby, also raspberries and aronia bush.”

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        2. Barbara, if you’d stopped to make a copy, it might have given you time to think. As previously noted, I of course, always make a copy.

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  13. Early Bird

    Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird
    And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.
    If you’re a bird, be an early early bird–
    But if you’re a worm, sleep late.

    – Shel Silverstein

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