As usual, I'm looking forward to May with its splashy spring flowers, butterflies, sunny days, and prom dresses.

It is next to the last night of April. April has been quirkier and more fickle than ever this year and isn't quite finished with us.

Although temperatures ranged in the mid-eighties last week, tonight's forecast that calls for temperatures plunging to the mid-30s with patchy frost nags at me. The bulbs have died down and been replaced by brightly colored perennials in every corner. The rambling rose on the fence is loaded with buds and tiny impatients dot the ground. Almost a dozen seedling tomatoes, sprouted from last year's seed, appear forlorn and vulnerable in the cold night air.

Earlier this evening, I threw a beach towel over two huge potted Christmas cacti on the patio and crossed my fingers. One, the coral one, belonged to my mother and is over 20 years old.

Silently, I plea to the natures of April, "If you're listening…please don't ruin things." It is the second such plea this month.

There has been a string of birthdays in my family and among special friends, one after the other.

The biggest surprise was learning 'The Little Colonel' Shirley Temple Black celebrated her 80th birthday last week. Now how could that be?

The dimpled darling was my childhood heroine. I delighted in every Temple movie and secretly longed to look, dance, and sing like Shirley…that is, when I wasn't imitating the little girl on the Sunbeam bread wrapper. I so admired her upswept curls tied with a big ribbon that I spent hours in front of a mirror trying to style my unmanageable red hair to match her Sunbeam 'do'.

But, back to April. Even the birds, like the weather, are behaving quirkily. Last week I watched a robin explore the willow oak tree for hours, hopping from branch to branch in search of a nesting place, but finding none, she finally moved on. Why didn't she know that the willow oak, filled with forked branches and loaded with privacy, would have been perfect?

I've seen at least two pairs of birds checking out the Rock City condos hanging on a high leafy branch near the woods, but still no takers.

Speaking of nature, a few days ago I caught a rare and precious scene at the fly-thru bird feeder. Five baby chickadees arrived at the feeder and began kicking around in the seed. You wouldn't believe the racket those little fledglings made as they stood in seed up to their little knees and screeched and squawked and flapped their wings. When Mama arrived and began pecking hungrily at the seed, their screeches reached a deafening crescendo.

With just a little imagination, anyone could hear Mama sigh and chirp that 'being a mama isn't easy, especially when you have five spoiled little brats,’ as she stopped eating and fed seed to her babies instead.

I'll never forget the five little chickadees. I was privy to one of the sweetest quirks of nature.

How quirky and special is that?


Copyright 2008 Patricia Paris
Contact: PatriciaParis@gmail.com
Member: Tennessee Mountain Writers, Int'l Women Writers Association, Tennessee Writers Alliance, Chattanooga Writers Guild