Schnapps and A Gun
This is how we spend our summer evenings now. Jim pours a glass of clear schnapps, gets the pellet gun out and we sit vigil outside at dusk after dinner.
It's pleasant really. The air is cool and dry, the evening is soft and it's nice to be outdoors as the light fades.
While we were away for five days in Oklahoma, a flock of pigeons started roosting right over the vigas above our patio. When we got back we had a solid coating of bird poop and crap all over the stone patio and splattered on the furniture. It took a full morning to power wash and clean everything. It was so, so disgusting.
So now at dusk we watch the pigeon flocks fly overhead looking to roost and when they get near, Jim shoots off the gun. He doesn't put the pellets in, it's just a loud pop of air, but it scares them away.
The hummingbirds come to feed while we sit, and that's nice to watch. We don't want to scare them away. But the damn pigeons have got to be discouraged.
You are wondering why an avowed pacifist owns a gun. Jim is the original hippie peacenik from 50 years ago, a lifelong antiwar protester and gun control advocate. He was a Vietnam draftee who hated weapons. But he owns a vintage wooden-stock pellet gun.
It was a gift years ago from a neighbor in thanks for helping him with a broken water heater. It was an odd gift, and an expensive one. Paul died many years ago, and Jim remembers him well, and feels there is an honor to keeping the unusual gift in remembrance of a nice neighbor.
And it comes in handy. He used it to scare rabbits in our old garden. Now we sit on our lovely patio in the gloaming, checking the rooftop and drinking schnapps as we wait for the pigeons to settle at night. The gun pops, the pigeons don't even alight, and when more swoop in he pops off the gun again.
We have no idea what the neighbors hear or what they must think, but an old neighbor from long ago who gifted a pacifist a pellet gun is smiling somewhere I think.
It's pleasant really. The air is cool and dry, the evening is soft and it's nice to be outdoors as the light fades.
While we were away for five days in Oklahoma, a flock of pigeons started roosting right over the vigas above our patio. When we got back we had a solid coating of bird poop and crap all over the stone patio and splattered on the furniture. It took a full morning to power wash and clean everything. It was so, so disgusting.
So now at dusk we watch the pigeon flocks fly overhead looking to roost and when they get near, Jim shoots off the gun. He doesn't put the pellets in, it's just a loud pop of air, but it scares them away.
The hummingbirds come to feed while we sit, and that's nice to watch. We don't want to scare them away. But the damn pigeons have got to be discouraged.
You are wondering why an avowed pacifist owns a gun. Jim is the original hippie peacenik from 50 years ago, a lifelong antiwar protester and gun control advocate. He was a Vietnam draftee who hated weapons. But he owns a vintage wooden-stock pellet gun.
It was a gift years ago from a neighbor in thanks for helping him with a broken water heater. It was an odd gift, and an expensive one. Paul died many years ago, and Jim remembers him well, and feels there is an honor to keeping the unusual gift in remembrance of a nice neighbor.
And it comes in handy. He used it to scare rabbits in our old garden. Now we sit on our lovely patio in the gloaming, checking the rooftop and drinking schnapps as we wait for the pigeons to settle at night. The gun pops, the pigeons don't even alight, and when more swoop in he pops off the gun again.
We have no idea what the neighbors hear or what they must think, but an old neighbor from long ago who gifted a pacifist a pellet gun is smiling somewhere I think.
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