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Big Bend Bird Habitat |
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(A NEW HOLE PERSPECTIVE) by Carolyn Ohl-Johnson When I built my home in the Big Bend region of West Texas many years ago, I naturally called the local power company and had electricity installed. Totally occupied with the gargantuan task of building a rock earth-sheltered home high into a mountainside, I gave little, actually, no, thought to where the transformer pole should be located. I trusted the utility company to put it where it needed to go. I mean, do you question where the nurse sticks you with a needle? No, you trust her/him. (Well, I do anyway.) After about fifteen years, it became obvious to me that I could no longer endure the unsightly pole looming over my courtyard, nor could I longer tolerate the noises the transformer made. It had to go! When I contacted the power company about this problem (to their credit they didn’t laugh as I had expected them to), they came and assessed the situation. Then they proceeded to inform me how costly the operation would be. Did I mention that my home is built into the side of one enormous rhyolite (granite) boulder? I vaguely remember broken drilling equipment when the pole was installed. But once the hope of moving it was rooted into my mind, I couldn’t let go. It would never become cheaper to do it, I rationalized. With a little juggling, cutting back, and dipping ever so lightly into my life or death emergency fund, I could afford it. After all, what good would all the money in the world be if I was miserable? It would enhance my life. That was close to a life or death emergency, I further rationalized. So, with the assurance that I would not be able to see the relocated transformer pole from my swing in the courtyard, I bade them proceed. Their engineers spent a great deal of time studying the view from my swing. I had to pay in advance. Months went by as I waited patiently for my turn on their list (people needing new service took priority), but finally one spring day equipment rumbled up the mountain and began drilling. It was nearly a month later before they succeeded in getting the new pole hole deep enough. The first rig couldn’t cut it (pun intended); the second bigger rig needed a new drill bit, or something of that order. As we had had to use dynamite to gouge out a niche for the house, that was understandable. Eventually one afternoon they put in the new pole while I sat in my swing ecstatic that I couldn’t see it ascend. It was down the hill just far enough that I could not even see the tip of it over the courtyard wall. Soon now the transformer would be upon it and the workers could remove the old pole. Near dusk that evening I sat in my swing happily visualizing the soon-to-be pristine view, when, horror of horrors, a tiny owl appeared out from the top of the old transformer pole. An Elf Owl! What choice did I have? The next day, I instructed the workmen to move the transformer but under no circumstances were they to remove the old pole. Again, to their credit, they didn’t laugh. Months later, after the owls had migrated south, I had my husband cut down the pole. We cut off the top portion and mounted it way down the hill on top of a pipe cemented into the ground. For good measure, we mounted an Elf Owl nesting box, built to specifications, on the side of the new transformer pole. Every year since, the world’s tiniest owls have nested in both of them. Many pleasant hours are spent listening to their puppy-like calls as they forage among the trees in the courtyard.
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