The other day we had a swarm of people with saws and ladders buzzing around the home. The trees were getting some much needed pruning. One man hopped up on the biggest pecan in front and climbed it like a monkey. He had an unenviable job - to crawl out on the high limbs to prune the dead ends off.
A few minutes before I took this photo he was at the very end of the limb that's at about 11 o'clock from where he's standing. If you look carefully, it ends in two stubby cuts like a "Y". He was cutting the dead limbs that were attached to the arms of the "Y" when I noticed movement - a bird's tail sticking out of what looked like a small nest - a small fuzzy ball just below the bottom of the "Y" in the photo.
I said "Watch Out!" He looked down and smiled a bit. I could tell he meant "no comprendo" and moved the end of the pole saw closer to the nest. He couldn't see it from his angle.
When we were kids my brother and I read a fair amount of "war" comics. These were World War II comics books from England. Simple happy tales of English bravery and German stupidity. Most had two German phrases in them: "Ja" and "Achtung". And that was thus the extent of my German. When Vivian was little, Dora cartoons did the same for my Spanish.
I wanted to sing "Vamanos! Let's go!" And then clap my hands. But that wouldn't save the bird or her nest. Then I remembered another common Dora phrase: "Cuidado" ("warning") because shit was often about to hit the fan at any given moment in any given Dora episode. And then I reached into my pocket and from all the practice from trying to fathom Vivian's homework I had google translate open a second later and I spoke "bird's nest" into my phone and another second later I yelled "Senor - cuidado! Nido de pajaro!"
He stopped sawing. Looked around. Located the bird's nest. Moved cautiously away from it. And grinned down at me and gave me a thumb's up that almost made him loose his grip on the tree.
Gracias. De nada...
A few minutes before I took this photo he was at the very end of the limb that's at about 11 o'clock from where he's standing. If you look carefully, it ends in two stubby cuts like a "Y". He was cutting the dead limbs that were attached to the arms of the "Y" when I noticed movement - a bird's tail sticking out of what looked like a small nest - a small fuzzy ball just below the bottom of the "Y" in the photo.
I said "Watch Out!" He looked down and smiled a bit. I could tell he meant "no comprendo" and moved the end of the pole saw closer to the nest. He couldn't see it from his angle.
When we were kids my brother and I read a fair amount of "war" comics. These were World War II comics books from England. Simple happy tales of English bravery and German stupidity. Most had two German phrases in them: "Ja" and "Achtung". And that was thus the extent of my German. When Vivian was little, Dora cartoons did the same for my Spanish.
I wanted to sing "Vamanos! Let's go!" And then clap my hands. But that wouldn't save the bird or her nest. Then I remembered another common Dora phrase: "Cuidado" ("warning") because shit was often about to hit the fan at any given moment in any given Dora episode. And then I reached into my pocket and from all the practice from trying to fathom Vivian's homework I had google translate open a second later and I spoke "bird's nest" into my phone and another second later I yelled "Senor - cuidado! Nido de pajaro!"
He stopped sawing. Looked around. Located the bird's nest. Moved cautiously away from it. And grinned down at me and gave me a thumb's up that almost made him loose his grip on the tree.
Gracias. De nada...
No comments:
Post a Comment