Judgments at the feeding station

Judgments at the feeding station

By Scott Schultz

The story about a little girl’s favorite songbirds is a parable told to me many times and which I’ve often repeated.

In it, an aging man and his young granddaughter are looking at the bird feeders outside of the little girl’s house.

“Which of those colorful birds are your favorites?” the grandfather asked.

“The sparrows,” answered the little girl.

“But the sparrows’ feathers are so drab,” the grandfather responded. “Don’t you think the orioles, cardinals, goldfinches, hummingbirds and blue jays are much prettier?”

“Yes, those birds are prettier,” the little girl said. “But those birds leave here when fall comes, and they don’t come back until spring. The sparrows always stay here for me.”

The sparrows always have been there with me, just as they always were for the girl in the story. They have been the Regular Joes of the songbirds’ society; those born to this earth without fanfare, and who live without fanfare and who leave without fanfare.

Those sparrows have been part of my life from the start, my earliest memories of them skittering around the gravel in front of our Veefkind farm’s two-story wooden granary. There, I watched them miserly pick each kernel of spilled oats from our driveway’s red-amber crushed granite.

I’ve watched sparrows use their make-do instincts no matter the rural environment, their subsisting everywhere from tamarack swamps to haymows, machine sheds and abandoned houses. They fill their stomachs from a long list of plants and surfaces, high and low. I’ve seen their nests in every rural nook and cranny.

Eaves with a loose board. Turns in gambrel barn-roofs’ rafters. Holes that woodpeckers hammered into trees. Old bluebird houses. The tell-tale dangling of nested hay, straw or long grass from those places and many more have told me stories about sparrows’ survival abilities.

Sparrows have reflected for me the best of what people can be in the countryside – that attitude of doing things efficiently and with little flair.

Even with all those anthropomorphic positives I can give to sparrows, however, they also reflect humans’ negatives.

I watch sparrows descend on the newly filled bird feeders; the wealth to them comparable to the bowels of my old Veefkind farm’s granary soon after our oats was harvested. There is plenty for all, giving them opportunities to sate their hunger on many seeds so carefully selected to attract songbirds of many shapes, sizes, colors and sounds.

It’s at the feeders that I see their worst human-like traits, crowding and shoving each other though the bounty is so plentiful.

It’s there that I watch them swish their beaks into the seeds, flicking to the ground piles of seeds they’d readily devour when food is scarce. In that bounty, their efficiency and social decency shifts to rudeness, selfishness, gluttony and waste.

Having plenty apparently tends to change otherwise-decent creatures that way, I suppose. Poor instincts often lie within the hearts of those that have such good instincts.

While I watch the sparrows’ bad sides exposed at the feeders, I notice a cardinal garnishing the grass beneath the feeder like a cherry tomato riding a lettuce salad’s lush green. Beside him are two mourning doves, all three seemingly happy to casually peck at what the sparrows wasted to the ground. The cardinal and doves eat in harmony and in silence, but for an occasional coo from one of doves.

An oriole rests cautiously on the edge of a tray, the bird’s neon orange glowing with each quick dip for a taste of the energy-giving jelly on the tray. The oriole departs after taking a couple bites, then leaves to be replaced by another, and then another – the orioles, though territorial, seeming to know detente in sharing their feeding habits.

Nearby, four lemon-yellow goldfinches perch on the thistle-seed feeder, seemingly unaware of each other as they quench their appetites.

The birds whose brightness has signaled distrust and lack of dependability act without selfishness.

The birds whose lack of brightness has signaled trust and dependability act with selfishness.
I’m somehow not surprised by seeing that. Songbirds, it turns out, are difficult to judge by their feathers and their circumstances.

Maybe that means I’m not meant to judge them, and instead accept them for what they are. I’ll give that a try and, along the way, pay attention to the good in all of them. I’ll see whether I can learn from that good to help make the countryside a better place to live.

There's no place like home

By Scott Schultz
Executive director

Home can mean a little something different to everyone, but you always know when you find it.

That sense of home – of place – sometimes is in more than one location. In my case, what I know as home always will be on the farmland at the place called Veefkind, in central Wisconsin. But I knew I also found home the moment I stepped into the old farm house at the Eimon Homestead in the Driftless Area’s northern reaches.

Since living in the old Eimon house, my wife Dee and I have learned much about its history of inspiring people to appreciate art, read, write and appreciate all the wonders presented by the area’s ridges and coulees.

Dee and I purchased the farm with the intent of sharing those wonders as part of the mission of The Heartbeat Center for Writing, Literacy and the Arts, which is the nonprofit educational organization we founded. We had visions of people from near and far arriving at the farm to allow those wonders to inspire them in writing and arts projects we presented here.

But, as with so many things in life, we allowed our dream for the farm to be sidetracked by other ideas and temptations placed before us. We tried to take The Heartbeat Center to places not fitting with its mission and to do things with it that drained us financially and emotionally.

People who understand the land’s powers will know what I mean when I write that the land has since talked with me. The land said we’ve been foolishly wasting our time and money on those other places when this is home.

The land reminded me how this farm – the one we purchased for The Heartbeat Center – always has been tread upon by generations of people who so valued all that we intend to do with The Heartbeat Center.

Home for us also means home for The Heartbeat Center. We’ve gotten the message.

There’s much that we need to get done with the farm’s facilities to make our home more usable for The Heartbeat Center projects, though. That’s why we decided to ask folks to use those new crowd-source funding projects to help raise money needed to make the needed improvements.

Earlier this summer I read about a fellow in Ohio who used a crowd-source funding program to ask people to donate a few dollars so he could learn to make a potato salad for his dinner. That request has raised more than $35,000 – most of which the fellow said he will donate to charity. I point that out because it reminded me how anything is possible when many people chip in a little something to help with a project.

In the meantime, the first writing and arts projects are getting under way here at the farm as we look forward to making those needed facilities improvements.

Please go to http://gofundme.com/clvquw and consider helping.

To find out more about our programs and who we are, visit our recently re-designed web page at http://theheartbeat.us

The Heartbeat Center has found its way home. Your help will assist many people in their quest for home – place – and, in many ways, will benefit our communities.

Putting the Pieces Together

Last night we started putting together the Key Ingredients kiosks. Good thing we had Randy and Amber Samens with us who had some sort of clue about what we were doing. Randy is incredible at reading pictures and determining which pieces go where. We'll wait for them to get back to the site tonight before we continue. I have to say, it was neat to see it coming together -- finally!

We are still looking for volunteers to help work at the site, and to help serve food at events. We're having a potluck in the high school's commons on Thursday evening (June 23) at 6:00. Feel free to join us to find out what's going on and to see how you can help.

Things are also coming together for the grand opening program on Friday evening. We're grateful to Al Ross, from Wisconsin Public Radio, who has agreed to emcee the event. We'll have musical numbers, entertainment, and we'll be honoring several local food "celebrities" who have helped put Osseo on the map. Of course we'll have FOOD too -- sponsored by the Osseo-Fairchild FFA (think ice cream). We hope to see you there!

KI Arrives from Brodhead TOMORROW!

Early tomorrow morning Scott will take a truck to pick up the KI exhibit in Brodhead, WI. We're nervous, excited and exhilarated all at the same time! We can't wait for it to arrive, but biding a bit more time before the grand opening next week wouldn't be too bad either!

The Key Ingredients exhibit will make its first "official" appearance in the Lake Martha Days parade on Sunday. We'll drive the truck and its precious cargo in the parade, while O-F grads will pass out basil-seed bookmarks to parade watchers. We hope the weather is nice and not too hot!

The official grand opening posters have been placed in businesses and windows all over in Whitehall, Pigeon Falls and Osseo; they're eye-catching and beautiful. We're pleased with the logo Chad (Triad Publications) created for us. We have two big banners that will hang on the truck in the parade and then at the school and in the park in Osseo. Scott will begin making the rounds on local television stations next week, and his radio interview with Spectrum West (WPR) airs tonight.

Next week we'll be extra-busy putting together the exhibition, conducting the docent training, and preparing for the grand opening along with our first international cuisine day on Sunday. Whew...we better be prepared for the six-week marathon, because it's getting ready to hit us full force!

Key Ingredients is Almost Here!

We are less than two weeks away from the grand opening of Key Ingredients in Osseo, and things are beginning to finally feel like they're coming together nicely. We have a full calendar of events from international taste-testings, important panel discussions, canning demonstrations to an awesome variety-show opening night. Of course FOOD will be involved as well! We're excited with the possibilities and hope it helps our community come together to celebrate what's GOOD in Osseo.

Local businesses have provided tremendous financial and supply support -- all of whom have helped to make this huge feat come together. We've been selling thermal/insulated bags that show-off our unique logo and people seem to like their novelty. Scott has been very busy passing out our basil-seed bookmarks everywhere he goes in order to promote Key Ingredients -- look for us at the Lake Martha Days parade to get yours!

I wish I could be as outgoing as Scott! Instead, I use my skills to work behind the scenes on updating the website with new information as it comes in, which is often two or three times a day. My tasks also include creating the paperwork that needs to be filed with The Humanities Council when all is said and done -- volunteer logs, mileage forms, a guest book, and a scrapbook. Thank goodness I'm out of school for the summer!

Look for more frequent updates as the grand opening approaches next Friday! Until then visit the website to determine which events you'll be adding to your calendar!

Key Ingredients, Website and Facebook Updates

SEVEN MONTHS AND COUNTING! That's how far away we are to the six week Key Ingredients exhibit coming to Osseo. That means we have a bunch to tackle between now and then. We've gotten a good handle on the ongoing activities we'd like to have during our six weeks -- taste testings, book clubs, contests, a farmer's market, movie nights,panel discussions, and musical/play productions. WOW, that's a bunch! I'm glad we narrowed things down!

We've updated our website too - check it out at www.theheartbeat.us and you can "like" us now on Facebook.

If you're interested in joining us for Harvest Time workshops, we'll have those in January, February and March where you can paint, draw, write, create music, etc. using farmers' stories as your inspiration.

We hope you'll plan on joining us soon! Our next Key Ingredients planning meeting will be held Thursday, January 6 at 7:00pm in OFHS room 202.

Embracing Your Second Calling (Bourke) Book Review

Embracing Your Second Calling by Dale Hanson Bourke provides opportunities for readers to consider what they want the second half of their lives to look like. It provides many opportunities for reflection. It encourages the readers to ask the questions "Who have I been, "Who am I now," and "Who do I want to become."

I determined that some of the exercises will have to wait until I don't have a child in high school, while even more will have to wait until I don't have a teaching job that forces me to go to work each day. But, it did give me many things to think about and to consider doing now.

This is a great read for spiritual groups or women's book clubs. It would be important for the people within the groups to know each other, because I'm not sure participants would feel comfortable doing some of the exercises with people they don't know very well.

Overall, it's a keeper and one I will refer to again and again. Special thank you to Thomas Nelson for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book.