News / Life / Clark County Life

Check It Out: Bunny, yes, but also a cow, squirrel, sheep …

By Jan Johnston

Published: April 1, 2018, 6:00am

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Happy Easter and April Fools’ Day! Here’s an interesting bit of trivia: The last time Easter fell on April 1 was in 1956 — that’s 62 years! If you decide to celebrate both occasions today, please take it easy on the Easter eggs. Most people will take eggsception to eggsperiencing egg pranks. Trust me.

I don’t know if this will come as a surprise to you, but I have a very active imagination. When I was deciding what to write about for today’s column — Easter bunnies or practical jokes — I started thinking about turkeys. Yes, that’s right, turkeys. Do turkeys celebrate Easter? Are they just happy it’s not Thanksgiving? Which leads me to this question: What does make a turkey happy? In fact, what makes a cow, a sheep, a squirrel and a crow happy? Give me an hour, and I’ll act out a whole scene of farmyard contentedness. I sense a question forming in your mind. Is this librarian a little nutty? Well, if you consider anthropomorphizing the local fauna a strange pastime, well, now you know something else about me. But in my defense, all of the animals listed above are my neighbors (or full-time tenants), so they’re on my mind a lot.

Now back to the theme of today’s column. It’s a little bit Easter, a little bit April Fool-ish, and a whole lotta talking animals. Some days I feel like a nut, some days I don’t.

• “Bartholomew Quill: A Crow’s Quest to Know Who’s Who,” by Thor Hanson. Crows aren’t everybody’s favorite birds, but I find them fascinating. Apparently our yard is crow-friendly, because these black-plumaged flyers are frequent guests. If crows could talk to humans, I’m convinced, we would be staggered by their intellect and wit. Bartholomew Quill is a smart crow, but because he’s the very first crow, he doesn’t know who he is. Follow him on a journey that will teach him about the world and himself.

• “The Cow Who Climbed a Tree,” by Gemma Merino. If bunnies want to be bigger (see below), cows want to climb. My neighbor’s cows like to stare at us through the wire fence, and I can tell by the way they stare that they really want to climb over the fence. Cows are tricky that way, just like Tina in “The Cow Who Climbed a Tree,” Well, she’s not really tricky, but she has big ideas, and all she has to do is convince her skeptical sisters that she really climbed a tree and met a dragon.

• “How to Be a Bigger Bunny,” by Florence Friedmann Minor. As I watch my yard bunnies dash across the grass, I wonder what a bunny wishes for. Not to get eaten, I’m sure, but bunnies have dreams, too, so what would they be? To be bigger is the wish of little Tickles in “How to Be a Bigger Bunny” because if she was bigger, she could go on adventures with her older siblings. Now I’m trying to imagine what my yard would look like with sheep-sized bunnies. Baa, baa, baaa-ny.

• “One Little Goat,” by Ursula Dubosarsky. My closest goat neighbors are about a mile away which means I don’t get to enjoy their antics on a regular basis or hear their funny bleats. So, instead I imagine that they’re always up to something, like the little goat in this fun picture book. If the animal world handed out comedy awards, goats would win every time.

• “The Secret Life of Squirrels: A Love Story,” by Nancy Rose. You already know I’m weird, so I’m just going to tell you this: I talk to squirrels. I kind of wish I was a squirrel-whisperer because these bushy-tailed rodents sure do fuss a lot. I try to have friendly conversations with them, asking about their families, commenting on their dexterity in the evergreens, but every answer I get sounds like, “Hey, lady, bring us more nuts, then go back inside where you belong!” Why, oh why, can’t they act like the squirrels in Nancy Rose’s over-the-top cute “The Secret Life of Squirrels”? After all, her squirrels are as real as mine. Pout. Well, forgive me if I daydream about having better personal relationships with my squirrels. I guess I’ll just have to keep reading this adorable picture book.

• “Sneaky Sheep,” by Chris Monroe. Living next door to farm animals has been an absolute hoot for me. Observing their habits (I do believe they’re more routine-oriented than my cats) and listening to their interspecies conversations delight me to no end. Take the sheep, for example. I didn’t realize just how loud they can be (BAAAA!), or how soothing their low murmuring is during a quiet evening. Sometimes I catch them staring at me through the fence (did they learn that from the cows?), but they’re sneaky about it — which is why “Sneaky Sheep” tickles my imagination. Let your little ones find out why Blossom and Rocky keep trying to sneak away from the rest of the flock.

• “Stranger in the Woods: A Photographic Fantasy,” by Carl R. Sams. Throughout the year we have deer visiting our yard. I frequently see them during spring and summer, usually a doe with her fawns, occasionally a buck, but during wintertime the only way I know they’re still around is by the hoof prints in our bark beds, or tracks after a snow. I like to think that our yard with its stand of fruit trees and plenty of room to run is a little piece of heaven for these beautiful creatures. “Stranger in the Woods,” an award-winning picture book, is one of my favorites because it celebrates not only the wonder of nature but the joy of imagination as well.

• “Turkey Tot,” by George Shannon. The turkey in this story likes blackberries. As it so happens, blackberry bushes grow along one side of my yard, and as it also happens, two turkeys live on the other side of those bushes. While I’ve never witnessed Tom or Tina eating blackberries — they would have to develop quite a scheme to get to the bushes — I’m sure they think about it. A lot. Like Turkey Tot and his blackberry-loving friends. How do they eventually get the berries? Check out “Turkey Tot” to find out. By the way, I don’t know if my neighbor’s gobblers are named “Tom” and “Tina.” I imagine their true turkey names are much more distinguished.

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