From my window I watched a magpie go in and out of a lilac bush in the yard.  The bird was busy, and obviously had a project and a purpose.  When I checked, it was as I suspected:  I found the beginning of a nest.  The magpie was going to build a nest in my back yard in that thick bush where it wouldn't be seen.

But I had noticed, and I didn't want a big, messy magpie nest in my bush.  Some years earlier I had noticed a nearly-completed magpie nest in an apple tree where I didn't want one, either.  Magpie nests are big and bulky and cleverly constructed.  A magpie nest even has a roof.  The mama magpie in her nest is safe, secure, and concealed.  I was impressed with the amount of work the magpie had put into building that previous nest.  I took it apart stick by stick, and counted their number.  I'd have to go back to my journals to get the exact number, but that magpie had brought about 1,200 sticks, and had woven them into her nest.  She had also made many additional trips bringing mouthfuls of mud which were placed in the bottom of the nest, that when dry, would make a suitable platform on which her eggs would rest, and upon which she would sit.

I removed the few sticks from the current nest in the lilac bush, and inserted a small cardboard box in the space to let the magpie know that it must go elsewhere to build its nest.  A magpie had built a nest in that exact spot outside my bedroom window several years earlier, and I hadn't even known it was there until the babies had fledged and were leaving the nest.  I considered magpies to be obnoxious  birds, so I put our cat, Aspen, up in the bush thinking that she'd be excited to find easy prey.

She wouldn't even look at the young birds scattered among the branches.  They'd have been easy to catch.  Why was she disinterested?  Do magpies put up a big fight?  Do they taste bad?  Aspen readily tries to catch any other bird, but she wouldn't so much as look at those magpies.

On other occasions I have observed magpies land several feet behind Aspen and taunt her.  They hop up to three or four feet from her, and call her names.  They're ready to fly if Aspen should make any motion toward them, but she ignores them.  Being as quick as she is, I'm certain that she could turn and snag the offensive bird if she wanted to, but Aspen doesn't even acknowledge the bird's existence.

Why?  I can't answer that question.

I've always considered magpies nasty.  Wherever there is a dead cow, it is surrounded by every magpie in the area.  I used to sleep on the back porch in the summertime.  I kept my .22 rifle by my bed.  I'd be awakened in the mornings by the raucous voices of magpies working on the bones in the yard that had been thrown there for the dog.  I'd rise up in my bed and shoot the birds.  Once I got two with one shot.

Such was my attitude about magpies.  Imagine my consternation when Marjorie's niece, visiting here from New Mexico, looked out our window and asked with excitement, "What on earth is that beautiful bird!?

"Do you mean that magpie!?" I asked incredulously.  I was dumbfounded.  I looked again.  I looked at the bird through Debbie's eyes.  This time I saw a striking-looking black and white bird with long, graceful tail feathers.  The black feathers were iridescent, with flashes of green, red, and rainbow colors.  The bird I had spent a lifetime viewing as ugly and despicable was actually a very handsome, and intelligent, bird.

Debbie changed my perspective.

The same thing happened with dandelions.  Dandelions are a much-maligned yard weed.  People go to great lengths to dig out, poison, and destroy the dandelions in their lawns.  To give my children something to do their great aunt even paid them a penny apiece for every dandelion bloom they'd pick.  It was a lucrative job, but after picking 100 dandelions, they'd earned a dollar, and quickly lost interest.

But dandelions are beautiful.  Just ask any child.  Every adult has been proudly presented with the first dandelion of spring by a child.  Perhaps the adult was even given a bouquet.  The blooms are beautiful.  It's the unsightly seed pod that the blossom turns into that adults find offensive.

My daughter took her children to a plant nursery to purchase flowers to transplant into her yard.  She told her children that they could each pick out a flower that they could plant, and which they could care for, and that would be their very own.  Her three-year-old went to the man in the greenhouse and asked, "Do you have any dandelions?"

"Why, yes, I do," the kind man answered, "but they're outside."

Three-year-old Ethan probably didn't know the name of any other flower, but he knew the one that pleased him most.  If we'd look at dandelions through the eyes of a three-year-old we'd see a magnificent, yellow harbinger of spring.

And then there was Audrae.  She was the magpie or dandelion of humankind.  She couldn't get along with her neighbors.  They all avoided her.  No one ever visited her, and she only went to town when she had business to do.  I shared a half-mile fence line with her.  For 37 years I worked hard to be her friend.  Then she discovered that that fence line was so far off line that I had extra acres that belonged to her.  She called me down to her place, and attacked.  She read her Bible, and it said, "Thou shalt not steal!"  I had stolen her ground.

Never mind that the fence had been in that exact position since before I was born.  I had stolen her land, she had paid taxes on it all these years, and she wanted the ground back right now!

As I examined the situation I found that I did, indeed, have four extra acres.  I told Audrae that those four acres were mine by right of adverse possession, but that she could have them back if she would put the fence in its proper place.

She thought that unfair.  I had stolen the land, so I should build the fence.  If I didn't do it, she would sue.

She hired an attorney.  The attorney asked me to meet with them.  I did so, and explained my position.  He turned to Audrea and said, "I think he's making you a good offer.  You'd better take it."

Her position was weak, so she took the offer, built the fence, and hated me for it.  When we'd pass on the road I would wave, and she would look straight ahead unable to even see me or to acknowledge my existence.  I was like Aspen with the magpie.  She even bought her own bull, and never again asked to borrow one of mine.

This went on for three years.  I continued to wave in a friendly manner whenever I saw her, and she continued to ignore me.  One day I must have caught her off guard, and she returned my wave in a manner that looked like she was throwing something at me.  From then on she returned my waves.

Then came the day that her bull got into my field, and she and her husband were unable to get him back.  She called and asked if I could help them.  I said, "Sure," and hurried down and did the job myself.

From then on Audrae began depending upon me.  She and her husband were getting older, and were having trouble doing some things.  I became her go-to man whenever they needed help.  Eventually they couldn't take care of their little herd of cows.  Could I feed them?

No problem.  I would have done it for free, but knew that wouldn't have set well, so I let them pay me.  I cared for their cows and their place for several years.

And then came the morning when Audrae awoke and found the front door open, and her husband gone.  He used a walker, had dementia, and often hallucinated about people attacking their house.

Audrae called me, her former enemy, and now best friend, for help.  I tracked her husband in the light snow that had fallen.  He had gone in his walker up over a brush pile, out the gate, down the road, had nearly fallen into the ditch, had dropped the screwdriver that was his weapon against the demons he was pursuing, and ended up in the freezing water of the ditch beside the road.  He was dead.

Audrae asked me, her former enemy, to arrange and handle the graveside service for her husband.

Audrae was really a very nice and interesting person when you got to know her.  She had been valedictorian of her little, graduating class. She loved poetry, and even wrote some herself.  I genuinely liked Audrae, and have always considered my friendship with her one of my life's greatest accomplishments.

It is productive to take the unlovely things in our lives, to turn them around, and to look at them through other, less-jaundiced eyes.  It's likely that we'll discover a thing of beauty in place of the unlovely thing that's been annoying us.

Magpies, dandelions, and Audrae.  They're all actually very lovely.  I can admire and love them now.