Let the young lead us, like pheasants

Among my mother’s paintings is one that hangs on a wall across from where I spend most of my time. It hangs above a photo of my late wife, so all I need do is glance upward and be reminded of the two most important people in my life. The painting was completed by Mom when she was 11 or 12, taking art lessons at Jane Addams Hull-House in Chicago. It’s a scene of a Bavarian village, where her father was born in 1890. She must have painted it based on a photograph, as she didn’t travel to Germany until 1973. She wanted to be a world traveler, but my father was more of a “let’s go fishing in northern Minnesota” kind of guy. I expect this phenomenon is common. It’s too bad. Anyway, it’s a beautiful piece of art, worth nothing on the marketplace, and worth everything to this old heart.

Wild creatures continue to delight and annoy out here. Last week, two adult pheasants followed three offspring across the field in front of my house, picking their way through the short grass, crossing the lane, before disappearing into tall grass north of the hollow. Normally, the young follow their parents, so this seemed unusual. I look around our world and think perhaps a bit of leadership from the young might finally be in order. The elderly have been in charge entirely too long. But I digress. I wonder if pheasants are aware of their beauty, their extraordinary metallic coloring, and I wonder if a hunter notices it when he picks one up and places it in a cooler.

Anyway, a concrete step leading into the house has slowly been settling over the past quarter of a century, pulling a few inches away from the house foundation … creating just enough room for a large bull snake to squeeze in and rest on these hot days. At least I hope it’s a bull snake, as I’m told timber rattlesnakes are similarly colored. Markings on snakes are really quite beautiful, but their mere presence causes a slightly panicky entrance and exit from my house each day.

It’s the season for newborn fawns, and there is one little group in particular that treats the field I mow in front of the house like it’s a state park made just for them. Mom stands off to the side while her twin spotted fawns frolic and chase about on their spindly legs, clearly enjoying themselves, living in a perfect world of motherly love and young madness, something my high mileage soul misses.

I can see all of this activity out front from my favorite chair, and I can also see a hand-forged hook on a wall created for me by a blacksmith friend. The hook is just beneath my mother’s early painting, and hanging from it is a gold charm bracelet. Given to my wife by her father a long time ago, there are four gold charms representing the levels of education she easily reached. Her father was so proud of her that, in his later years, when he became an inveterate walker of shopping malls, one of the first things he said to a new walking acquaintance was, “My daughter’s a judge.” My wife used to laugh in slight embarrassment when she heard of these encounters, but I’ve no doubt it was better than gold. Some day, when I find her again out there in the soft time that is to come, I’ll ask her about it.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald has published a 60-page magazine of Kurt’s columns. The magazine can be purchased here.