Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: January 21, 2010 - # 1003 - Title: Remembering Cherokee County’s snow day (842/3907)

Remember Cherokee County’s snow day? I do. It snowed two weeks ago today and it brought the county to a snow/ice covered slippery roads standstill. Joan and I watched as the snow flakes began to fall, slowly at first, but then they picked up intensity and soon the ground was covered. We were snow bound.

The county woke up Friday morning to a scene almost too beautiful to describe as the sun sparkled off the snow covered landscape. I opened the front door to see Eagle Watch Drive completely covered with snow, with no car tracks in sight. Our Eagle Watch sub-division had come to a complete standstill, along with the rest of Cherokee County. An hour passed, then two, and still no cars on the road. About 10 a.m. a few brave individuals ventured out hoping to reach work. But first they had to navigate the steep, very steep snow covered hill just to the right of our house. I watched the first car attempt to navigate the hill. It made it most of the way up the hill before it began to slide back down the hill. It tried again. Same results!

By 11 a.m. there were a dozen cars lined up in front of the house – each waiting their turn to climb that hill. The road in front of our house was the only road out of Eagle Watch because the hill on the other side of Eagle Watch Drive was steeper than the hill in front of our house. As the cars continued to try to navigate the hill their tires spun, melting the snow which quickly turned to ice (remember how cold it was), making the road a sheet of ice, and even more difficult to climb. Two neighbor boys, the Kellogg brothers, then spread two bags of salt melt on the hill. It melted the ice enough for the cars to be able to navigate the hill again. It was an interesting morning here in Eagle Watch.

This snow storm reminded me of a similar snow storm that locked down Cherokee County several years ago. During that snow storm we lost our mailbox to a car that didn’t make it up the hill and then slid back down into our mailbox. Another car lost control and slid across our neighbor’s yard coming to rest within a foot of our garage door. Then a pickup slid down the hill taking out a tree directly in front of our house, a tree that saved it from sliding into the deep ravine just beyond the tree.

But for kids this was a day for fun. Across the street kids, often followed by their parents, were lining up with fancy sleds, skis’, even card board boxes to slide down the golf course hills over and over again. Even 18 degrees couldn’t dampen the fun these kids were having on those snow covered hills.  

Joan and I then turned our attention to our backyard where we witnessed something neither of us had ever witnessed before: a robin commandeering our back yard. It was a rather strange thing to watch. Joan, realizing the cold weather was bringing more birds than usual to our birdfeeder, had tossed out extra bird feed on the ground. Smelling this extra seed most of the cardinals in the neighborhood headed to our back yard to feed off Joan’s generosity. The larger birds, the red-headed woodpeckers and thrashers, were feeding off the feeder, leaving the cardinals and other smaller birds, including a covey of doves, free to feed off the ground. It was truly a beautiful sight on a cold, very cold, bright beautiful January day.

But then, as if out of nowhere, this robin showed up and without warning literally attacked the cardinals and smaller birds, causing them to fly off to the safety of nearby trees. This robin was vicious, acting like a tyrant. It was as if this robin had declared our back yard its personal domain and it wasn’t going to share Joan’s bird seed with any of the other birds.

Then another interesting phenomenon began to unfold. The smaller birds, including the cardinals, began to fight back – using “guerilla warfare tactics.” These birds reminded me of the tactics George Washington used against the British to win the Revolutionary War – hit and run tactics. While the robin was overseeing his new domain the cardinals would sneak in, grab a seed or two, then back off or fly away. The robin then attacked, trying to intimidate them. But the cardinals and their fellow birds kept their distance while waiting for an opening, then dart in, grab a seed or two, then retreat and wait for a new opening. These smaller birds kept this attack up for an hour or so before the robin wearied and flew off, leaving the fresh ground seed for their pickings. They, like Washington, had won.

Joan and I were fascinated as we watched ‘the laws of nature’ in action. It truly added to the beauty of what was already a very beautiful, but very cold day in Cherokee County Georgia.