Originally posted on April 25, 2018

According to my friend, John, former President of NJ Audubon, bluebirds are in our neighborhood all year long. I’ve never seen them in the winter, but I would never mistrust John. Today, after weathering four Nor’easters in three weeks (the one on the first day of spring deposited 12 inches of snow in the woodlot) it was time to prepare out bluebird houses for a new season.

Bluebirds are fastidious, and they will not tolerate a dirty or untidy home, so I work on each house with a putty knife to scrape away last year’s debris. New Pup, Dingo, assisted by keeping marauding juncos at bay.

If only bluebirds occupied the house last year, there is a two-inch high nest at the bottom of the house usually constructed of pine needles and soft, downy material, with a few feathers. If house wrens took over the nest, it will be filled to the top with twigs cut to fit the interior dimensions of the house perfectly. Sometimes the wrens build their nest over a bluebird nest and smother a fledgling or two. I dislike that cleanup job.

Today, however, I had a novel experience. Opening bluebird nest number three, I saw the remains of a bluebird nest at the bottom covered by five or six inches of soft moss, light as a feather. I pried it all out with my putty knife and, as the stuff fell to the ground, discovered that I had a flying squirrel setting on my hand. As a nocturnal animal, it had large black eyes, which fixed me with a look of surprise and irritation. I was a mortified homewrecker; the pile of moss was beyond repair.

So, we looked at each other for a few moments, as I hoped for forgiveness and the squirrel, I guess, woke up fully and decided on its next move. Which was to hop onto an adjoining branch and look at me accusingly. Then its large eyes softened, and he crawled unhurriedly up the branch, watching me finish cleaning.

I moved on to the next nest, relieved that a nuthatch rested on the opening and flew away as I arrived. I guess I’m only good for wrecking one home a day.

For the past two weeks I’ve been recuperating from surgery that fused three vertebrae in my neck. The results were positive—numbing pain in my right arm disappeared, and more improvements are expected as time passes. However, this process is not for the faint-hearted. The surgeon approaches the spine through the front of the neck, causing great difficulty swallowing for about a week. But, I lost nine pounds in less than a week.

With a decreased activity level, I’ve been reflecting on a trip to Morocco my wife and I completed a few days before the surgery. Aside from the pleasure of visiting a new and exotic place, I also wanted to get a sense of a North African locale. I am currently outlining a new book that has a character who is a German soldier fighting in North Africa in 1942 who is captured and sent to an American POW camp

Morocco is a fascinating Arab country, one of few we’ve visited, with an abundant supply of camels, gregarious and ubiquitous beasts I had never thought much about, considering their rarity in New Jersey. I was immediately attracted to the camels suddenly in our midst. Their luminous eyes, friendly curiosity, and willingness to serve impressed me. It took a while to learn to ride one, but I finally settled in to the swaying gait.

Moroccan camels, like 96% of all camels, are dromedaries with a single hump. The two-humped camel, the Bactrian, lives in central Asia, far from North Africa. The dromedaries can reach seven feet high at the hump, weigh up to more than half a ton, can drink 53 gallons of water in three minutes, run 40 miles an hour, and provide transportation, milk, and meat—all in one package perfectly designed to survive in the hottest desert. In the 1850’s, the United States Army established the U.S. Camel Corps. Although the Corps was considered a success and the Secretary of War intended to order a thousand more camels, the outbreak of the American Civil War saw the end of the Camel Corps: Camels were used as war machines as early as 12000 BC.

So, here are some pictures of my new friends. In the Sahara Desert, On the beach in Essaquira. At work and hanging out.

As a bonus, I can’t resist the goats who eat tree leaves,

Rolf