Anne Jwaszko thinks nothing of climbing up and down a ladder to clean some of the 84 birdhouses located in her backyard.
That may not be that unusual except that Jwaszko turned 80 at the end of March. She doesn’t just climb up and down ladders for the birds. She feeds them, she builds and paints new houses for them and, if need be, she chases away the egg-sucking squirrels and the seed-eating mice.
“One time the squirrel was getting up at the nests and I took my mop out and chased him. What gets me about the birds is they may be dumb little critters, but when I’ve got my mop they seem to know I’m protecting them and they never fly away from me,” she said.
For now, the mouse gets to stay. Jwaszko expects he’ll move on later in the spring, once she cuts back on the bird food.
“There’s a mouse living right in the feeder and I’ve taken to protecting him too. For him, living in that feeder like that, he probably thinks he’s at a Club Med resort,” Jwaszko said.
Jwaszko got two new birdhouses as birthday gifts and soon she’ll climb up and reach high over her own head, so she can screw them into the space above the garage door.
The houses pose a bit of a problem because she’s running out of room on the garage and on the back of her own house, where many of the little abodes are located. She likes to keep the houses close by, so she can watch them, but with at least 30 of them attached to the garage, there isn’t much room left.
There’s lots of room on the six-foot tall back fence, which is bare, but Jwaszko jokes that she has plans for that space.
“I’m saving the back fence for when I get into my ’90s,” she said. “I figure I may not be able to climb up so far on the ladder by then so the fence will be handier.”
As yet another wet storm splashed the little houses with snow last week, Jwaszko stood and searched for returning spring nesters.
The dreary weather and grey skies seemed to discourage the birds, but Jwaszko’s humour was enough to warm the heart. She likes to personify the birds’ personalities and often the creatures serve as a kind of prop that allows her to dispense both jokes and wisdom.
“My grandma said that every time you laugh you’ll cry. She was right. I’ve buried a husband and I’ve buried a daughter. Laughing at the world is my coping mechanism. You get the same problems in life whether you laugh or you cry so you might as well laugh,” she said.
She believes that laughing with others helps everyone.
“I use humour when I hurt. I don’t want other people to get under that layer of hurt,” she said.
Jwaszko had to retire to find time to notice the birds in the backyard of the home where she has lived for 47 years.
“Life was too busy. Or maybe they were just too smart and I didn’t see them,” she said, adding, that her agility and ability to climb ladders likely stems from her three-kilometre morning walks and her Aquasize routines.
“I retired at age 63, and I thought at the time that all I needed was three boring days. I’m still waiting for those three days.”
Sometime in her ’60s friends and family started giving her birdhouses as gifts. Jwaszko, who is artistic and has a number of her own paintings in her house, started decorating the birdhouses too. Each dwelling got a painted sign and a joke to make the birds happy as well as neighbours and even passersby.
“Sometimes people drive up in my driveway and ask if they can look at the houses,” she said.
The biggest house is for “Stan the Man and Anne the Fan” which pays tribute to the life she shared with her late husband. Nearby there are houses named in honour of each of her four daughters as well as sons-in-law and grandchildren. There’s a Larry, Curly and Moe house as well as Willy’s Truck Stop. Just for fun, Jwaszko painted a Church of Sparrows and a Church of Holy Chirpers.
Where she ran out of space for the printed jokes and the words seemed to spill over the edge of the houses, there’s the occasional misspelling.
“It’s OK. Birds don’t spell,” said Jwaszko.
Every spring Jwaszko plants a big vegetable garden, but even then she’s mindful of the birds.
“I don’t plant peas. I’ve learned the birds eat them all. I grow vegetables to give away to people who help me now and then, but no peas,” she said.
Jwaszko is waiting until a few more birds show up before she starts clipping her dog’s hair because the birds grab it for their nests.
“Everything helps everything. If I cut the dog’s hair, the birds dash to get it, so everything has a use,” she said.
Most of the nesters are sparrows and Jwaszko has noticed that most have just two babies. She likes to sit on the swing by her back door so she can watch the little birds’ heads poking out of the houses.
Jwaszko turned observances about nesting habits into yet another riddle and a joke.
“I saw a sparrow carrying a piece of plastic to his house.”
“Do you know why?”
“Bed wetters.”
While most people wouldn’t have the room or even the inclination to put up 84 birdhouses, Jwaszko explained that the ability to bird-watch has given her many hours of peace.
“I find them interesting and fascinating and also, it’s soothing to watch nature. If you put up birdhouses and watch them, there’s no way you won’t be enthralled,” Jwaszko said.
