The Menagerie

Araucana Eggs

Since I can remember, we had birds in our back yard. In the midst of urban Dominguez, I helped Dad build our first chicken coop. It was an 8′ x 8′ x 8′ pin to keep our small brood of chickens in. He just planted it in the middle of the backyard lawn. Our first chicks were gotten from his Aunt Anna. A 6-pack of Araucana chicks. He loved them for their light blue-green eggs. After a while, he added a few “tumblers” and “rollers”, pigeons that would circle the coop and tumble backwards, or roll forwards several times before taking flight again. He built pigeon holes at the top of the chicken coop and a door at the top of it for them to come home to roost after setting to flight. The whole crew would take off, and in a wide circle, they would fly around the house. Round and round they went. Randomly one would swoop upwards, lock it wings and do a little arial performance. I was fascinated by their joy to dance for us. They always came back, which was a wonder to me. It was home and they would always return, but they loved giving a show when they were set free for an hour or so. We had our first sort of aviary.

When we moved into out 1/3 acre parcel in Rowland Heights, CA in 1976, Dad finally had a place to do with what he had know to do as a kid… raise a few animals. Mostly he wanted a place to have a menagerie of birds, but in time we also had a couple of horses and we even got a little lamb that was fond of apples. There was an apple tree in her pin that I would pick from to feed her with. One day, when she was full grown, in fact it was during a party at our home on the 4th of July, I found her on her back, dead. She had apparently been standing on her back legs,  trying to reach some apples by from a low-lying branch when she fell backwards and suffocated. This is why it is not good for a shepherd to be far from his sheep. I felt so bad for her. Being neglected because of the party going on, she was only trying to get her daily fix of apples. Dad came out, collected her up into the wheel borrow and put her in the back of his pickup. The next day, she was in the landfill.

Some of MY earliest memories are of me duck hunting with Dad. I would be sitting in front of him on a milk crate, waiting for sunrise, my favorite time of day. It is oft called the time-between-times. Not night, not day. It is there that the magic happens. The birds wake, the cock crows, the cows move into the pasture, and the satellites pass high over head like a faint star skipping over the darkness, catching the light of the rising sun. It was also there that I would ponder the stuff of life… sitting with Dad. I would ask questions that he would answer with a question. “Dad, how far does the sky go?” he would reply, “It is very far, but I wonder what is on the other side of THAT?”

I started duck hunting with him when I was only 6 or 7. He was a duck hunter since his early childhood as well. He would hunt pheasant and quail with his father, as well as ducks and geese. Grandpa Dave was not nearly the avid duck hunter that Dad became, but they did hunt. I only remember on one occasion that he joined us at the duck club.

Mount San Jacinto Peak

The duck blinds at the Wigeon Club were 48″ wide concrete sewer tubes that were sat along the shore of the ponds. In very cold days, we would have a Colman heater lit and glowing hot on the floor between my legs. It was sitting there, in the shadow of Mt San Jacinto with Dad, that I became a morning person – one who loves to rise before the stirring of the city. Even now, I love to get up very early, make a cup of tea or coffee and sit in the stillness of the living room. More often than not, Dad and I would pack his 1965 Chevy C10 pickup on Friday night and head to the Wigeon Club. Sometimes we would just get up at 4am and head down for the morning shoot. This was often a terrible idea because there was often very dense fog near the club and it was a difficult and dangerous journey.

We had a small Shasta camping trailer that he would just leave there all winter. Although I did not get my hunting license until I was 9, I tagged along with the gang nearly every weekend during duck season, which is from November until late January. Many mornings we would wake up and there was a thick layer of ice on the pond. If we were hunting on The Island, with chest waders on, we would walk across the pond and while breaking the ice with the butt of the shotgun to pass through. One particular day, it was so cold, I we could walk on top of the sheet of ice. One these cold mornings, the the ice melted away in a couple of hours as the heat of the sun shown on it. The ice would glisten, and I remember watching the ducks flying into the pond, unaware that it was still frozen over as they slid across the top of the ice for dozens of yards. Dad and I roared as we watched the duck come in so gracefully, but once they hit the ice, all of the grace was simply gone. Their legs and wings sprawled out and spinning before stopping on the ice, or hitting the end of the ice, ending up in the water.

More than the hunt, I enjoyed just “being.” Being with my father at the crack of dawn. Being under the stars. Being in the midst of creation in silence and solitude. Quiet enough to hear the voice of the creator in the scene that was before me. The “being” part of life is one of the most important and satisfying states to realize. So often I feel a sense of accomplishment in doing because of the work ethic I learnt from Dad. But it was also from him that I understood being.