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Thousands of Blackbirds
 During the winter on the farm was always boring for me. Of
course I had to go to school every day. The weather was too
disagreeable for a lot of outside activities and it just boiled
down to doing my chores including feeding the live stock and
bringing in firewood every evening. In the process of feeding
the farm animals, grains of corn would wind up on the ground
around the back of the barn. I noticed that large swarms of
hungry black birds arrived several times a day to feast on the
leftovers. I decided to rig up a trap to see how many birds I
could capture.
On a Saturday morning, I set up a big flat fall trap using one
of my fathers slatted wagon side boards. I positioned it at
about a 45 degree angle and spread shelled corn on the ground
underneath. I tied it up with a rope so I could release it from
inside the barn. I waited for a while inside the barn out of the
wind for about half an hour and suddenly the whole barnyard was
covered with blackbirds. I could see through a knothole in the
wall. I tripped the trap and thought I would get a lot of birds.
Most of them escaped before the trap fell all the way down. I
wound up with about twenty birds. I hadn't counted on it killing
the birds but it did.
Remembering the nursery rhyme "Song of Sixpence"...I took the birds to the house and ask my mother if she would
make a blackbird pie. She told me that she would cook the pie,
if I would pluck and clean the birds. She showed me how to do
the task and then I went to work getting the birds ready... it
wasn't a pleasant job. I finished but I didn't have the "four
and twenty" as specified in the rhyme. She made the crust dough,
got the other fixings together and had a hot fire going in the
old cook stove. The pie was finished and ready for serving by
lunch time. I didn't know how little meat was on black bird and
also didn't know that their bones are very dark. I set down and
enjoyed the pie (well, sort of). No one else in the family ask
to share.
My appetite for blackbird pie was satisfied that day and I
haven't had an urge for it in the 70 years since. My family
always accused my mother of spoiling me. I suppose they were
right.
...When the pie was opened, They all began to sing.
Now, wasn't that a dainty dish, To set before the King?...
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