Sneaky Pie For President

Woodpeckers for More Bugs, Less Chemicals

The sun just cleared the horizon as Sneaky Pie, Tucker, Tally, and the C.O. loaded up the ATV with a chain saw, a chain, and heavy limb clippers.

As the four-wheel machine, built for farm chores and hunting, puttered to life, the C.O. slipped on heavy gloves, shifted out of neutral, into first, let out the clutch, and slowly rolled down the road between the barns as little rivulets ran below. Sneaky observed while riding in the front basket.

The dogs raced behind. They didn’t have far to run, because at the bottom of the hill, between two paddocks, a pine tree had fallen across the gouged-out driveway. Beyond that, the animals could see that the culvert under the little earthen bridge was jammed full of debris, water subsiding so it no longer rolled over the road.

“Bet the big bridge has branches and logs sticking all the way to the other end of that culvert,” Tucker surmised.

“That’s why she brought the chain.” Sneaky Pie moved to the backseat as the human pulled out the chain saw.

“This little thing can’t pull a tree trunk,” Tally noted, sniffing the ATV.

“Can pull out branches.” Tucker peered into the muddy waters racing under the small culvert, getting backed up on the upside bank. “That will get more water through the culvert, and some debris might get pushed out. We’ll see what it is when we get down there. Who knows what’s in the road?”

“We’ve got a mile and a half of dirt road.” Sneaky was good at calculating distances. “Lot of wind. Lot of water. The sun should help, but a little wind would, too. Not that it should blow as bad as last night, but anything to help dry up this mess.”

The C.O. started up the chain saw, pulling the cord. She began cutting through the tree trunk at an angle and up. One couldn’t falter in concentration for a second, which was one reason to cut up, not down. She had explained all of this to Sneaky, who usually enjoyed her human creature’s lectures on various topics, though now and again, when Mother was properly riled up, Sneaky actually wished she’d keep her opinions to herself. Sometimes the chain saw, heavier once the task is completed, fools the person using it and drops farther down than he realized, cutting through a thigh, usually. If one slices upward and at an angle, a nasty injury is often avoided. Being far out in the country, state roads possibly blocked, a chain-saw accident in these conditions would probably mean the human would bleed to death before help could arrive, plus the ambulance crew would have to clear the farm road to get in. Country humans knew these things. People moving to rural areas for the beauty often did not. With amusement, Sneaky had observed the C.O. trying to help newcomers, but so many of them, successful and important in the cities from which they’d fled, disregarded her friendly advice. Mother was what was known as a redneck. The result of ignoring her proffered counsel was overturned tractors, burned-out clutches in trucks, and new tires at too frequent intervals.

These days she kept her mouth shut, welcomed people, stayed friendly but offered not one word, of course. The animals, on the other hand, never kept their traps shut, lording their superior knowledge over the pampered pooches from the city.

The sound of the chain saw changed as it bit into the living tree trunk, the smell of its wood so different from that of a dead tree. It was a pleasant scent, but the chain saw’s grating roar was irksome, so the three animals decided to walk over to the Rockfish River and its formerly quiet pool. After last night’s storm, the river was raging.

Tucker had heard tell of the rockfish. “Think he’s down there in all that swirl?”

“I don’t know,” said Tally. “Bet he’s sheltered under a rock overhang or tree roots where lots of bank has washed away.” Tally thought of how a fish could hide from roiling waters.

“That rockfish is scrappy. He’ll survive,” called the Downy Woodpecker, not so high up in a walnut tree near the bank.

“Guess he will,” Tucker replied. “We all learn what we need to know.”

“Most of us do,” the Downy Woodpecker agreed, “though the ones who don’t learn never live to tell the tale. Where’s that fat gray cat?”

Sneaky laughed. “Pewter recognized her duty in time to avoid it.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s fat.” The sunlight caught the bright red part of the Downy Woodpecker’s head.

They all laughed.

“Seen any of the cowbirds lately?” Sneaky asked.

“Out and about,” replied the colorful winged creature. “They like to sit on the backs of Great Bess and Addie. They gossip around the clock, those birds.”

“Have you thought any more about supporting my bid for president?” Sneaky asked.

“As a matter of fact, I have,” replied the bird, a bit formally. “You’ve got my vote, but I don’t think you’ll get block support from us birds. It’s too controversial. Supporting a feline must be an individual choice for every bird. There’s too much history of cats killing songbirds. And of course the cowbirds hate your guts. The raptors will support you, but you all think more alike than different. They do what you do but from the air. The strategies are the same.” Clearly, the Downy Woodpecker had given all this a lot of thought.

Sneaky was grateful. “Thank you for telling me this. I appreciate your support.”

Tally called up to the bird. “Don’t you believe Sneaky should have a Jack Russell for her running mate?”

The woodpecker’s answer was forcefully delivered: “No.”

“Tally, give it up,” Tucker advised.

The lovely bird let out its distinctive call before saying “While I admire your motives and applaud your efforts, I still don’t think you can accomplish very much.”

“Might I know why you’d say such a thing?” Sneaky inquired. She thought it good policy to listen to her critics. Dialogue often yielded unexpected benefits.

“Well,” the woodpecker started, “even if you win, you have to work with what humans call vested interests. They are powerful, motivated by money or, in some cases, laziness. They will fight you tooth and nail. How can you buy them off?”

“I can’t,” the cat honestly replied. “I can only hope that enough sheer animal power allied with the humans will overwhelm them, and they have to work for the common good.”

“Never happen,” the bird squawked pessimistically. “Huge special interests are out only for themselves.”

“I agree,” said Tally, still upset not to be considered vice-presidential material. The Jack Russell actually did think about some things, contrary to popular opinion.

“You do what you have to do,” the midsize bird said, encouraging the cat, “but let me give you one little example from the world of woodpeckers. When we show up in large numbers in any location, it means the trees are infested. There are always bugs in trees, but when we woodpeckers gather among a farmer’s cultivated trees, that means the farmer will lose his crop. So what do they do? They spray. I see it all the time. This nasty poison hurts us, and it does them not a bit of good. By the time they identify the problem of bugs, the trees are already well on their way to dying.”

Sneaky wanted to clarify the woodpecker’s position. “You’re saying no chemicals?”

“Yes. Let the trees die. They will anyway. Cut them down. Use them for sawdust. Even if us woodpeckers get most all the bugs from the trees, the damage has been done. So core out the roots or pull up the stumps, let the land rest for a couple of years. After that, the humans can either turn it back into a pasture or try again with a different species of tree. All too often I see them replanting without enough thought. All they’re doing is creating more food for those same bugs years down the line.”

“Wouldn’t the solution be to kill the larvae?” Tucker couldn’t imagine eating bugs, but then the woodpecker couldn’t imagine rolling in decayed flesh.

“That’s not as easy as you would think,” said the bird. “The larvae survives when the tree is alive. Then it hatches and eats the tree. When the tree is dead, the bugs are done with it. Not every single kind of bug works that way, but most do. The thing I’m telling you, Madame Candidate, is that there are no short-term solutions to certain problems. Unless our forests are completely denuded, I personally will always have something to eat. The whole issue does raise the rather interesting question: What’s a good bug and what’s a bad bug?”

“A ladybug is a good bug.” Tally liked them. They were cute.

“Until there are far too many.” Tucker was catching on to the Downy’s drift. “No human wants to see too many ladybugs crawling across her screened windows.”

“Right,” agreed the bird. “We can all agree that Japanese beetles are bad. Boll weevils are bad, but any bug can break bad, if you know what I mean. Well, it’s the same with some animals. If you have an overpopulation, things go to hell in a hurry.”

“I understand.” Tucker did.

“So if we see swarms of you, problems,” Tally said.

“Listen for our calls,” said the bird. “During spring, you’ll hear all the different woodpeckers calling to one another. Then it quiets down, and mostly what you hear are territory claims, some fussing at a nest occasionally. The trees are fine. They live and die like we do. Some trees live for centuries—pines, thirty years. I mean, the loblollies—those kinds, the ones really susceptible to bugs—are short-lived. Hardwoods usually last longer than pines, and they will get some insects, not so many damaging ones. I usually eat ants on hardwoods; some butterflies and moths place their chrysalids on branches. I’ll eat those, too, but really, hardwoods are pretty safe. Humans should avoid all their sprays and potions. You can try and outsmart nature, but you won’t succeed.”

“Mom says once chestnuts were everywhere, then they got sick and died,” Sneaky recalled. “All of them.”

“Before my time.” The bird opened one wing while leaving the other at his side. It felt good to stretch.

“Turn of the last century,” the tiger cat informed him. “But you’re right, I’m sure. Bugs seem to prefer certain species.”

“Cultivated tastes.” The bird laughed at his pun.

The other animals did, too, then turned at the sound of the human’s ATV starting up. Always making a racket, the humans could be as noisy as any animal.

“She made short work of that.” The Downy Woodpecker admired hard labor. “The culvert, too.”

Tucker smiled. “She’s covered in mud.”

“I don’t think our human will ever make the cover of Vogue!” Tally smiled, too.

“Might make the cover of The Progressive Farmer.” Sneaky thought that would be just wonderful, especially if she was featured in the photo in the C.O.’s arms.

That would win the farm vote!