Birdhouses and a cowboy

Simple birdhouse made from a hollowed log. Margaret Madsen photo

There's no better tonic for a cold, blustery day than to cuddle inside with a seed catalogue or gardening magazine and dream of summer gardens. It seems that birdhouses are the current decorative item of choice in all the gardens featured in magazines. There are birdhouses that look like churches or log cabins or alpine lodges or miniature versions of the gardener's home. They come in all shapes and sizes and every color of the rainbow to coordinate or contrast with the flowers growing near. In fact, it's like birdhouses have become the toss cushions in the garden "room".

Don't get me wrong. I love birdhouses regardless of their shape or color. As long as they actually welcome birds - like the one in today's photo. It was taken 15-20 years ago while I was still working for a newspaper - you can tell by the bark on the Ponderosa pine that it was in BC.

I'd gone to interview an old cowboy who in his late-70s was retiring as head herdsman on a local ranch, a job he'd had for more than 50 years. He looked exactly like one would expect an old cowboy to look - whip lean, leathery as an old boot, slightly bow-legged. He was soft-spoken and rather shy, so I was grateful his wife was there to prod him along and fill in the blanks.

They told me about the glory days of the 1950s when the herd he looked after was the most celebrated in Canada, sweeping top honors at the biggest Canadian cattle show, the Toronto Royal Winter Fair.

So how did you get cattle from the central Okanagan all the way across the country to Toronto in the days before Rogers Pass or the Trans-Canada highway or the mega cattle-hauling trucks of today? By rail, that's how. This was still a journey of four or five days which meant the cattle couldn't travel on their own; someone had to feed and water them - Harold and another ranch worker. And their wives.

They arranged for a boxcar to be spotted at the siding well in advance of departure date. This allowed them to have stalls built to keep the animals sorted, the hay and other feed and supplies safe. Above the stalls, they built a platform for the human caregivers to sleep, cook, eat and while away the miles. And as they told their story, it sounded like a great adventure, not a horrendous hardship.

As I was getting ready to leave, I noticed the rustic birdhouses in their yard. Harold explained that he made them from hollow logs he picked up in the bush when checking cattle. Small diameter logs like the one here, which was home to a tree swallow that year, were given small openings and closed top and bottom with pieces of recycled wood. Larger logs made homes for bigger birds. He'd put one of these big ones up back in the bush where he'd originally found the log and it had attracted a nesting owl.