Walk, Discover, Write, Repeat

Close Up of Tracks

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Lately, my husband and I have been alternating taking walks on our quiet road with walks through our empty pasture.  We once had sheep in that pasture, but now it is a place for us to let our dogs run as we hike around and through the field. Along the one edge of the field, we have a few bluebird boxes mounted on fence posts.  It's so wonderful to see the bluebirds flitting around in summer, and on Wednesday, I noticed the tracks at the base of this post.

Bluebird Box on Post

Photo by Amy LV

Mark-my-husband-the-science-teacher-and-naturalist told me that these are mouse tracks leading right up to the post, that mice have clearly scampered up the post and into the hole to live for winter.

Here's a close up of the bluebird box.  Can you see how a mouse might skitter right up that rough back, holding on with his or her toenails, and into the hole or the place where the box is coming apart?

Close Up of Bluebird Box

Photo by Amy LV

And here, just a few fence posts away, is another box with no tracks at the base at all. I wonder if that's because this box is not coming apart?

Empty Winter Home

Photo by Amy LV

When I learned that mice sometimes spend their winters in bluebird summer homes, I became so excited and happy and ran to the house to get my camera to take these pictures.  I thought, "Oh, this would be an adorable picture book."  I had lots of fun beginning to imagine the pages in my mind, planning what I would write.

But.

But then I did a bit of research here at Sialis, "a resource for people interested in helping bluebirds and other native cavity-nesters survive and thrive."  And as I read, I learned.  I learned that it is not healthy for mice to winter in bluebird houses.  Mice carry a disease that can be harmful to bluebirds, and it is also not a good idea to get mice used to living in a bluebird house.  One wouldn't want to have a bluebird and a mouse competing for the same house or to have a bluebird reject a house because mice were already there.

So that was the end of my picture book idea.  And I was a little bit sad.  But I was a little bit happy too, because I learned that we can clean out our bluebird boxes, take off the roofs next winter, and help those birds even more.  But a part of me wants to build small mouse houses too!

You can see some pictures of mice inside of bluebird houses HERE.  For even though I wanted to open ours up to check on who's inside, I did not want to disturb the mice.

Here are the writing lessons from this whole story:

• Go for walks - we can find all kinds of interesting curiosities on walks.
• When you make interesting discoveries, take pictures so that you can think about them later.
• Research.
• Be willing to let go of ideas you like if you learn they are somehow unsound or could cause confusion.  There is a saying in writing - "Kill your darlings."  This means that a writer needs to let go of favorite bits sometimes.  It's hard to do it, but it will often make our writing stronger.  Writers need to be brave.
• Add mystery to a poem.  In my first draft, I indicated that the tracks were "mouse footprints" right away.  But in a later draft, I changed it so that the reader be surprised at the end. This was what I call revision to add mystery!

Writing is always here to teach us.  We may not like what we learn at first, and we may not learn what we expect, but that's why I keep coming back.

Over at Sharing Our Notebooks, I'm thrilled to start 2016 by welcoming wonderful science writer Melissa Stewart and her notebooks.  Please mosey on over and take a peek behind the scenes at her wonderful writing.  And if you're curious about who won the wonderful giveaway from Tanny McGregor, don't miss that announcement.

It's Poetry Friday, and this week's roundup is beautifully held by Tabatha over at The Opposite of Indifference.  Over at her place, you can read today's beautiful poem, explore a fabulous blog, and you can also find links to all kinds of poetry goodness going on this week.

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