The bluebird made it official ~ May 3, 2003

David Heiller 

Tree swallows were weaving a net over us last Saturday morning. They seemed to perch on every Al Jensen bluebird house in sight.

Bluebird

Tree swallow

I have nothing against tree swallows. They are confident and beautiful, and they eat a lot of mosquitoes. All great traits in a bird.

But we needed a bluebird. They are on the top of my list in the bird world. They always remind me of my Grandma Schnick, for some reason, of the good old days. Their red breast and soft blue color almost take my breath away.

I had staked a claim on the bench in the backyard, with muffins, coffee, and a banjo. Cindy joined me. That’s when we started looking for bluebirds.

“We usually see them by your Mom,” I said. Lorely’s ashes are buried on a little knoll next to the pond.

“And there it is,” Cindy said. I’m not making this up. The bluebird appeared as if on cue, on the bird house where we always see it.

The little knoll by the pond, a favorite
 bluebird nesting spot at our house.

Heaven has a lot of definitions, but that spot, that sight, and that moment was one of them.

Spring got officially underway then too. The calendar said it had happened six weeks earlier, but that warm moment was when it kicked in.

A hint of it came a few days earlier, on May 1, when I practically jumped out of bed at 5:45. It happens every year like clockwork, a feeling that I can’t lay in bed, that life is too short and the day is too perfect. Is it something in the light? Something in my genes? I don’t know. I only wish it would last all year. If I could bottle up that enthusiasm, I would be rich.

A lot of little things lead up to spring. Melting snow, maple syrup, frogs. Mud, grass fires, rain. The Minnesota Twins!

Bluebird babies in one of
our nesting boxes.

Then all of a sudden, it’s here. That’s what hit last Saturday morning, when that bluebird flew into the spotlight.

I was worried that I might miss it this year.

Things have been hectic. But I had enough sense to slow down last Saturday and soak it in a bit.

My thoughts had a bid of sadness with them too. We are going to be moving this fall, and in all likelihood, this will be our last spring on this property. The land, the garden, the birds, they all seem as familiar and comfortable as a favorite pair of jeans. I looked at it all last Saturday and thought, “Man I’m going to miss this.” You get attached to a back yard after 22 years!

The garden with its endless battles and blessings. The pond with its skating and swimming. The campfire, where we visited with friends. The sauna. Heck; even the outhouse brings a wry smile.

So many memories. I’ll have the rest of my life to remember them. It’s too soon to dwell on them here.

So I’ll just count my blessings for another wonderful spring—and that includes a big thank you for the glorious rain we got on Monday and Tuesday of this week. I hope you are enjoying your spring, and your bluebirds, equally as much.

Thanks to the rain ~ May 19, 1994

by David Heiller

It rained all day Saturday, a light mist of a rain. Some people probably cussed at it. But from the garden it made me glad. That’s where I spent most of the day, shoveling, raking, tilling. My T-shirt stuck to my back like, well, like a wet T-shirt. My gloves got coated with mud. So did my boots, and the rake and fork and tiller. We were all one soggy mess.

But the rain felt good, all six-tenths of an inch.

Kids love the rain.

We weren’t exactly in a drought. It had snowed eight inches just 17 days earlier. But the potatoes and lettuce and peas needed a drink. So did the corn and alfalfa. So did the roadsides along Highway 23, where train sparks have sent firemen a-scurrying and trees a-dying.

So did the perennials that Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson gave me last fall, forget-me-nots and delphiniums, primrose and daisies, and a bunch of others that I can’t even identify. Their leaves sprinted out of the ground with the rain.

We heard it start in the middle of the night. Cindy woke me up at 4:30 a.m. to say, “Listen, it’s raining.” There’s nothing better than lying in bed next to your lover and listening to a gentle rain fall on the roof over your head.

The rain didn’t stop our children. Noah was out on the driveway with his trucks and cars, wearing my rain coat and making grader noises and explosions for when he blew up the graders and trucks.

Malika came out onto the deck and skipped rope. “I did 23 backwards,” she called out to me in the garden.

“Great!” I answered.

They played with determination. Noah rode his bike over to Malika and said something, probably about guns and dirt bikes. Mollie lifted her chin and skipped on. Nothing beats skipping rope to an eight-year-old girl.

Rain doesn’t stop anything. The leaves on the trees seem to grow before your eyes, a bright and delicate green. The peas that you barely saw poking out of the dusty garden inch upward out of now-black earth. The farm fields that have just been seeded look ready to spring to life.

Oh rain! Oh joy!

Birds swoop and sing in the rain, feasting on mosquitoes, which in turn are feasting on me. Unfortunately, the rain brings bugs to life too. Orioles and hummingbirds politely take turns at their sugar water bar, while goldfinches and rose breasted grosbeaks gobble down sunflower seeds at theirs.

My thoughts turned to the Boundary Waters, how pretty that is in the rain, the pine trees and moss on the rocks and gray water full of rain drops and life. I’m heading that way with three friends this week, for the seventh straight year.

The rain made me think of those three friends, and of fishing for northerns in the Kawishiwi River. I thought of that big one Dave had on three years ago, how Jim missed it with the net when it made a pass at the canoe. Then it spit out the hook in Dave’s face like a guy that just hit a three run homer.

The rain makes me think of people like Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson, how nice they were to share their garden plants and their knowledge with me.

The sun came out on Sunday. My rainy day thoughts came to an end. I was glad for the sunshine. But it’s nice to give thanks for the rain too.

The call of the garden ~ April 16, 1992

 David Heiller

The sun was shining, the birds singing, the bees buzzing. You name the spring cliché, and it was there last Thursday morning.

Oh gardens!
Little Claire lends a helping hand later in the season

And the garden was the biggest magnet of them all. I could feel its pull even as I knotted my tie, grabbed my briefcase, and headed out the door for work.

I almost made it too. But the garden looked so inviting. I walked to it. A week of unseasonable weather had dried out the raised beds. I grabbed a clump of some nameless weed. It pulled out easily. I shook the dirt and earthworms from the roots, and tossed it on the grass.

I was hooked.

Back in the house, I slipped a pair of coveralls over my dress clothes. Tie and all. I grabbed the garden fork, and went back to the garden.

Loosen the soil, pull up the weed, shake off the dirt, toss the weed aside. Repeat. Repeat. Again. Again.

Malika helps to plant.

I found a carrot that had been passed over last fall. I wiped the dirt off with my hands, and ate it. It tasted as sweet and crisp as the ones last fall.

At first my movements felt stiff and awkward. I felt the damp soil soak through the coveralls, through my slacks, hitting my knees. My left knee groaned as I got up and down. It has pulled in one too many gallons of sap this spring. My back popped a few times, like plucked strings on a banjo.

My mind whirred: What am I doing. I should be selling ads, taking pictures, writing stories. I moved to a new bed, raked back the newspaper and straw mulch. The grass underneath was brown and dead, so I dug it up, widening the bed by half a foot, shaking out the rhizomes, tossing them aside.

Then there is the joy of the harvest.
Shelling peas with Noah.

My thoughts turned to Binti, our dog who died last fall. She should be here, I thought, sniffing in the dead grass, looking for mice. She always hung out at the garden when I worked there, keeping me company, and vice versa. This will be our first garden without her in 13 years.

My movements became more sure, more mechanical. I’m not sure why, but it always takes about half an hour of a job before I really feel sure of what I’m doing. The crick left my knee. My lower back muscles quit snapping. My mind lost its doubt. Work can wait a bit. The ads will get sold, the photos taken, the stories written.

A few honey bees buzzed past my ear. No worry about getting stung. They have other things on their minds. Hello, it’s spring, and I’m hungry. Praise the Lord and pass the flowers!

Collin helps plant peas.
 Everybody's got to get into the act!

The sun felt warm. A steady west wind blew over the garden, bringing the moist smell of fresh soil and manure. I started sweating, cool and damp, like spring soil.

Two hours, that’s all I needed of this. The garden looked fresh and new. I felt that way too. Then the coveralls got hung. I straightened my tie, and the ads got sold, the photos taken, the stories written. At least this one did.

The next day, it snowed six inches. Only in Minnesota. I took my coveralls from their hook, folded them, and put them in the closet a bit sadly. Thursday seemed like a dream. The garden looked like it did last November.

But deep down, I know better, and I bet a lot of you do too. It’s there, waiting, like a magnet. Soon it will be pulling us again.

Remembering a few good teachers ~ April 13, 1989

David Heiller

What makes a good teacher? I found myself asking that question this week, for a couple reasons.

One reason was Rocky Kroon’s letter to the editor, which appears on this page. Rocky doesn’t write letters to the editor every week, or every year. His words are sincere, as he tells about one good teacher, good in the classroom and in the community. Please read it.

The other reason started with an incident last week at Askov Deep Rock. A group of people were standing at the counter, passing time. George Frederiksen told Pat Mee some fire department news.

“You’d better write it down and put it in your pocket,” I joked to Pat. Pat is the kind of guy who has a pocketful of notes to help him remember. His coverall pockets sometimes bulge like a file cabinet, filled with his notes.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Pat said, as he took his pen and wrote his reminder on the back of his hand.

The school and school-yard in Brownsville 
where Mrs. Sauer taught young 
Mr. Heiller the do's and the don't-s.

“Don’t write on your hands,” I said.

“Why not?” Pat asked, looking a little surprised.

I couldn’t answer for a second. Then I remembered Mrs. Sauer. “Because you’re not supposed to. People’s hands aren’t for writing.”

I felt a little embarrassed, telling a man like Pat Mee not to write on his hands. But Mrs. Sauer’s words just came out on their own.

“I had this seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Sauer,” I explained to Pat and George and Maureen Seibert. “She taught us never to write on our hands.” I can still remember her scolding Lynn Rohrer, an eighth grader, for writing on her hands. ‘Your body is a temple. Don’t abuse it,’ Mrs. Sauer had said, or something like that. ‘You weren’t born with ink on your skin, or holding a ball point pen.’

“And she taught us that whenever a woman drops something, a man should always pick it up for her,” I went on, not caring if Pat or George or Maureen really wanted me to. “She used to stand at the front of the class and drop her pen, and all the boys would dive for it to give it to her.”

Maureen looked at me. “She really made an impression on you, didn’t she?” Maureen asked.

“Yeah, she really did,” I answered. Funny, I hadn’t thought of Mrs. Sauer in years, but just like that, on a Tuesday morning some 22 years and 250 miles later, I remembered her. Good teachers will do that, the kind Rocky Kroon writes about.

I could write a book about Mrs. Sauer. She was about 50 then, and had grown-up daughters. We used to joke that one was named Dinah. We wanted to ask what it was like to have a “Dinah Sauer” for a daughter, but we never dared. Mrs. Sauer had sharp features, a hawk-like nose, reddish hair, piercing eyes. She moved quickly, and with complete confidence.

She thought quickly too, and wouldn’t hesitate to tell you things like: ‘Don’t write on your hands.’ And we listened.

One of David's
Brownsville school photos.

Mrs. Sauer would read books to us, a chapter a day from one of her favorites, like Little House on the Prairie. She made us read too, and everybody read, everybody checked out books from the library. Mrs. Sauer inspired us, and I can’t think of one student who didn’t respect her and obey her. She was that once-in-a-lifetime teacher.

But not all of Mrs. Sauer’s lessons came in the classroom. I remember one spring day that school year. The seventh and eighth grade classes had walked to Germania Hall to rehearse the graduation ceremony. On the way back, Mrs. Sauer pulled up beside me. She asked me what I wanted to do with my life.

“I want to be a truck driver,” I answered quickly.

She put her hand on my shoulder. “You’re not meant to be a truck driver, David,” she said. “You’re going to go to college. You’ve got some special gifts, and you should use them.”

It was a clear day, and life was still fresh for a 13-year-old boy in rural Minnesota. That’s what she said. At least I think it is. It’s what I remember anyway, and that’s what good teachers are all about.’

Even if I sometimes wish I were a truck driver.

Old Man River has his way ~ April 26, 2001

David Heiller

Cindy and I stood on the observation platform of Lock and Dam Number 10 last Wednesday, April 18.

Locks and dams on the upper Mississippi.

The Mississippi River was high. It was almost flowing over the top of the lock. A lock is like a long cement chute with a gate on either end. The locks are used to move boats past the dams. In normal weather they tower over the boats, except for towboats. But the river had swallowed up the locks.

We talked about the houses we had just seen upstream in Guttenburg, Iowa. Dozens of them were flooded. The road ran between them had been replaced by the main channel of the river. It was a strange sight.

I struck up a conversation with another guy on the platform. “Did you see those houses under water up there?” I asked.

“Yeah, we live in one of them,” he answered. He and his family had one of the few houses that wasn’t yet flooded on the island. He had come to town in a boat, going very slowly and carefully. You would not want a floating tree to catch you in that water. I thought it was kind of funny that after he came to town, he went to the dam to look at the river. Didn’t he see enough of it from his kitchen window? But the river in flood holds that kind of fascination for some people. I include myself in that category, although I like to think that I would not live on a low-lying island along the Mississippi.

The man’s wife said it was the third time since 1993 that their neighborhood had been flooded. The only other time before that was in 1965. That tells me that we must be doing something to help Old Man River with his spring tantrums.

Look at Brownsville, my wife, Cindy, said. In 1965, the water came up and over the banks of the river. It spread over many acres of bottoms and beach, all the way to the railroad tracks. They called it a 100-year-flood. Yeah, right.

But now there is a housing development at that spot, as well as huge sand dunes left by water Army Corps of Engineers dredging. The water can’t rest in Brownsville anymore, so it hustles downstream and finds another spot to flood, like Guttenburg.

I don’t have much sympathy for people that build in flood-prone areas. But then again, they aren’t looking for sympathy. The people that live there take floods in stride.

With David.

Cindy and I spent four days last week along the Mississippi. It was a vacation for us, although it sure wasn’t for the people who live there. We didn’t time the trip to coincide with the second worst flood ever. That was a grim and awesome bonus. The grim part was obvious. The fascination came with the magnitude of the flood.

On Friday evening my mom and I walked down to the first spillway of the Reno Bottoms, seven miles south of Brownsville. Normally there is no water over the spillway. It runs through a big culvert. But we watched as four feet of water rushed over it. One spot where many people fish was eight feet under.

“Think of the treasures that will wash up back there,” I told Mom. I could see the tip of a canoe protruding from a tangle of water and wood. Suffice it to say that Mom did not share my enthusiasm.

I told her I would be back in a couple weeks to find that canoe, and maybe some more goodies. It will take more than a couple weeks for the river to return to normal, she replied. She’s probably right. Then we can wait for the next 100-year flood, which will probably happen sooner than that.

A great trip, with a great ending ~ April 18, 2002

David Heiller

The best part of the trip came at the end, when “Dave” and I paddled down the Kettle River last Saturday morning.

(In case you don’t read Dear Abby, when a name is in quotations, it’s not their real name, although I’ve often wondered if people don’t put the person’s real name in the quotes, just to be funny.)

“Dave” took care of the logistics, as usual. “We’ll put the two canoes in your truck, and then drive my van to the bridge at 46,” he told me when I pulled into his driveway at 9:30. The idea was to then drive my truck to a spot up-stream, park the truck, paddle downstream about eight miles to County Road 46, then get in his van with his canoe and go back for the truck. I would pick up my canoe on the way home.

And that’s what happened, mostly.

The Kettle River had never looked finer to me than that morning. Cold, deep, and in a hurry. A river in flood is like a magnet to me.

We slipped the canoes over huge slabs of shore ice and into the water. It quickly whisked us downstream.

David and "Dave"

There were rapids almost non-stop. These aren’t dangerous rapids like you’ll find 25 miles to the south at Banning State Park. You probably wouldn’t drown if you capsized in these. But there is still a cheap thrill in bouncing over the waves and dodging rocks.

I learned the rock-dodging part the hard way. Not more than five minutes after we started, my 17-foot Aluma-craft and I were perched on top of a huge boulder. Normally that rock would be a foot above water, but on this day it was three inches under the surface.

Dave gave me a look of sympathy as he slid past. He is an excellent canoeist. I crawled to the front of the canoe and rocked the canoe back into the current.

We didn’t talk much. The roar of the rapids prevented that. Dave pointed out two otters in the water ahead of us. I couldn’t see them. My eyes are temporarily bad as I await a laser surgery. But I heard one come up and quickly go back under, about a foot from the front of my canoe.

Dave saw deer too, which he diligently pointed out to me and I diligently didn’t see. But in a way that didn’t matter. What mattered was being on the river, in the sun, moving, exploring, and feeling alive.

The trip had another challenge besides the rocks. A strong south wind was blowing up the valley, and if you didn’t slice it just right, it would grab the nose of the canoe and shove you toward shore. I’m saying “you,” but it was really “me.” It never happened to “Dave.” Did I mention what a good paddler he is? “We’re going this way,” he said once with good-natured sarcasm as the wind forced me to shore.

Another time the wind turned me completely around, so I drifted downstream backwards, and looked where I had been. Hey, that’s a good thing to do sometimes.

After we passed under the Highway 27 bridge, the shore looked familiar. Just six weeks earlier Dave and I had skied down this stretch. It was a good feeling, seeing some landmarks, and knowing that we were getting close to home.

That last stretch was wider and deeper, with fewer rapids. It wasn’t as exciting. But it held one remarkable scene of beauty, where a water-falls slid off a high, quartz-filled ledge. It was the kind of beauty that you don’t see every day, or every year. It made me sit up and gawk and smile.

We reached the bridge on County Road 46, where Dave’s van was parked. Several hours had passed. We were tired and ready to get on with our days.

That’s when Dave swore and said, “I forgot my keys.”

He had left them in the glove compartment of my truck!

We laughed—what else can you do—then Dave said “I guess I’ll have to walk and get a spare key.” His house was about three miles away. “Do you want to come with?”

“No, I think I’ll take a nap,” I replied. And that’s just what I did. It was a great end to a great canoe trip. For me at least.

You find many treasures in the spring ~ April 24, 1997

David Heiller

Spring has a way of uncovering lost treasures although sometimes you have to help her. Take my folding saw, for instance. Cindy bought it for me last Christmas. I had wanted one for a long time. I could use it to prune trees and to cut firewood on camping trips. A folding saw would be real handy, I figured.

I talked about the need for a folding saw for a couple years. Cindy finally got tired of that, so she bought me one. It was my favorite gift.

One of the functions of a spouse is to buy things like folding saws. That should be a marriage vow.

PASTOR: Do you promise to love, honor, and buy handy things for your husband?

BRIDE: I do!

I started using the folding saw right away, to cut branches and small trees on our snowshoe trails in the woods. It worked great. The teeth were razor sharp.

But it was a bit awkward to carry. I tried putting it in my pocket, but it was too big for that, so I put it in my fanny pack.

Then one day in the woods, in the middle of February, the saw fell out of my fanny pack. I looked and looked for it. I knew the general vicinity where it fell. But when you drop something in three feet of snow, it’s hard to find, and I couldn’t.

Losing that saw was hard. I had to tell Cindy that her great gift was gone. She was sad, not so much about the loss of the saw, but because she would have to put up with another two years of me saying, “Gee, I wish I wouldn’t have lost that saw. I really liked it. I could have used it for a lot of things. Sure could use a new one.”

Last week I took a walk in the woods to find the saw. The snow was pretty much gone. What a treat to be walking on bare ground again.

I walked over the trail once, and didn’t find it, so I doubled back, and then the saw just jumped out at me, plain as day, on the matted leaves of the forest floor.

Those first spring days outside,
you just never can tell what will turn up.

Wow, that’s a nice feeling. The prodigal saw had returned. The handle was weathered, and the blade had rust spots. But those were surface blemishes. That saw was as good as new.

When I got home, I casually mentioned to Cindy, “Oh by the way, I found my saw in the woods.” She could see through that smoke screen of nonchalance. She was happy for me, and for herself.

Another minor miracle occurred on Saturday. Cindy had lost a weeding tool last year. It was her favorite tool. I gave it to her, by the way. I took the same marriage vow she did, although; I don’t always live up to it.

She didn’t know what happened to it. That’s often the way people lose things. You set something down, you get distracted and walk away, you forget about it for a while, and then when you go to use it again, you wonder where the heck that darn tool is.

It is hard to imagine what kind of distraction
could cause a person to leave a tool behind...

“It’ll show up some day,” I told her. They always do. And sure enough, last Saturday Cindy was cleaning out a flower bed, and she saw a stick buried in the dirt, and pulled it up, and it was the handle of her prodigal weeder.

It made her day, and mine too, because now I don’t have to listen to her talk about that great weeder she had, the one that was just perfect, and did such a good job, and wouldn’t it be nice to get another one like it.

Other treasures are turning up these days. Some aren’t so pleasant, like dead squirrels and the calling cards of our two dogs. Three wagon loads of organic debris were taken to our woods on Saturday.

But under it were irises and anemones, hollyhocks and delphiniums, tulips and poppies, and many other flowers that are nameless and beautiful.

They are all green and growing. Is there a prettier sight than seeing a mass of green shoots coming from a flower bed?

Spring has many treasures that once were lost but now are found again.