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Books About Life on a Farm Written Especially for People Who Like to Read! "Highly recommended reading." The Midwest Book Review Reviews & Readers' Comments |
LeAnn R. Ralph Rural Route 2 Author E6689 970th Ave. Colfax, WI 54730 (715) 308-6336 |
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by LeAnn R. Ralph As my husband and I moved into our house in rural west central Wisconsin, I noticed them right away. Two dozen adult barn swallows, flying in and out of our pole barn. Soaring over the field. A chattering, cacophononous flock of swallows. "Do you think we have enough swallows?" I asked my husband. "Probably more than enough," Randy replied. "But that's okay. They'll eat their weight in flies and mosquitoes." For the rest of the summer, the chattering barn swallows swooped and soared overhead while we built a fence and fixed the barn. Soon we were ready to move our two horses from the southern part of the state. And then one day as autumn approached, we brought the horses home. At about the same time, the swallows left. They had raised their offspring, and it was time for them to fly south. Without all the twittering and chattering, the barn turned into a quiet shell, hushed and still. The following spring, I waited and waited for the barn swallows to return. And finally one May afternoon, the swallows came back, chattering and twittering while they checked to see how their nests had fared over winter. As the sun began to set, the swallows settled into the barn for the night, roosting on the rafters. They reproached me with an animated, melodious scolding when I walked into the barn to feed the horses. "Hey," I told them, "this is MY barn. I can be here if I want." The swallows sat in the rafters then, watching me, and discussing among themselves - it seemed - the activities of the humans and the horses. Commenting, I think, on how different the barn was now from the previous five or six years when it was unoccupied by anyone but themselves. I've always thought barn swallows are handsome birds - such a striking cobalt blue. A rosy-orange tinge to their breasts. The long forked tails. When I was a kid growing up on our family farm only a half mile from where I live now, nesting barn swallows were a special event. Many farmers, I know, think of barn swallows as noisy, messy intruders who must be chased away. The farmers knock down the nests over and over until the swallows become so frustrated they go elsewhere. But not my father. He liked the swallows, and he always allowed them to build nests over the light fixtures in our dairy barn. I was usually in the barn with Dad at milking time, so I experienced many opportunities to observe the barn swallows. At first when a female swallow was incubating her eggs, all I could see was her head as she hunkered down in the nest, day after day. Then when the eggs hatched, I watched her fly busily in and out of the barn as she gathered food for her babies. "Watch this," Dad said one evening after the mother swallow had flown out of the barn. He pulled out his pocket pliers and stretched as far as his five-foot-ten-inch frame allowed, holding the plier handle over the nest. The baby swallows, who were invisible prior to this, didn't know the difference between their mother and the plier handle. In an instant, what had appeared to be an empty nest was filled with frantic hatchlings, obediently stretching their necks and opening their beaks, anticipating a morsel of food. When Dad pulled the plier handle away, they disappeared back into the nest again. After that, any time I asked him to, Dad would reach up with pliers so I could see the young swallows. Gradually the baby swallows grew bigger until they were packed tightly into their nest, a row of sleek heads with bright black eyes. Dad didn't have to hold up the pliers anymore so we could see the babies. "They'll fly pretty soon now," Dad said. "We'll have to keep an eye on them so we don't miss it." And not just once but many times while I was growing up, Dad and I were fortunate enough to watch baby swallows as they took their first flight. It was amazing. The youngsters would pop out of the nest and fly - as if they'd been doing it all along. Small-scale versions of the adults, growing quickly day by day, soaring back and forth over the barnyard until - in a few weeks - it became impossible to tell the children from their parents. Unfortunately, the rafters in our pole barn are much too high for me to reach with a pliers so I can see the babies open their beaks but I am able to observe the adult swallows feeding their young. Watching the youngsters take their first flight isn't so easy, either. In the morning when I feed the horses, the flight-ready babies are still in the nest. By evening, they are gone... My father died in 1992, but he'd be pleased - I think - to know I still watch the barn swallows and that I welcome them in my barn just as he did so many years ago. |
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