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Raven

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Raven, the cat, lives in the bird seed store where I buy seeds, suet, bird feeders and other supplies for my back yard feeding station for the wildlife in the neighborhood. When he first came to live there, he was a young, feisty kitty. He’d spar with me and snoop in my purse. Gradually he settled in. Most days when I arrive, he is napping in his cat bed on the counter or just sitting near the counter waiting for a pat on he head. He’s a fixture and a favorite of customers. You can buy Raven cups or t-shirts.

Recently, I came in and Raven strode up to me, sniffed me all over, then strode off into the storeroom like he was on some kind of patrol. “What’s with Raven?” I asked, “Normally he’s napping and too sleepy to greet me.” “We have a mouse,” said the woman working that day. I watched as Raven marched around the store and the storeroom while I shopped. He was on full alert.

A mouse in a bird seed store is a catastrophe. Mice will nibble holes in every bag of seeds. They will pilfer seeds and stash them in their nest. Mice don’t just live alone. If you see one mouse, it’s very likely there many more. They live in colonies or family groups.

Raven had a mission. He was needed. He had a purpose.

It occurred to me that we all need to have a purpose in our lives. My wish for all of you for 2026 is to be like Raven. Find a purpose and pursue it with all the vigor and joy of Raven hunting for that mouse.

Baby Squirrels

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I work in my kitchen on a counter that spans a bay window overlooking my back yard. I live in the city of Minneapolis, so there are houses behind me, but my gardens are visible. I had landscapers install a feeding area for bird feeders, bird baths and flat, irregular-shaped, slate stones set into the ground.

From that window, I watch the wildlife. There are cardinals, bluejays, gold finches, house finches, robins, mourning doves and a myriad of other birds. Sometimes a flock of turkeys visit. When there is heavy rain we get ducks, who eat the corn I throw to them. Some of the feeders are on the ground for the ground-feeding birds. Bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks and an occasional opossum appear at the feeders. That’s okay. There’s plenty for all. We’ve taken so much of their habitat, we owe it to them to share.

This fall I’ve watched two baby squirrels playing in the ornamental apple tree just outside the window. They chase each other up and down, around the trunk, and through the branches, having so much fun. They are a joy to watch. Once in a while, they’ll pluck a dried apple from the branches to eat. They’re so cute when they go to eat seeds near the feeders, their tiny bodies sitting all hunched up eating the food I’ve put out.

I heard a fuss outside and looked up. A hawk was pursuing one of the baby squirrels, chasing it around the trunk of the tree. The squirrel escaped into a hedge of honeysuckle shrubs near the tree. The hawk pursued it. It lost sight of the squirrel, so it flew to the top of one of the poles holding the bird feeders, and perched. All the birds and squirrels were hiding. The hawk waited, watching for movement in the honeysuckle shrubs, and was prepared to strike.

I know hawks need to eat and mice, chipmunks, baby squirrels, and baby bunnies are their food source. But, these were my baby squirrels, darn it. I just couldn’t bear to think of having to watch the one left alone, playing all by itself, after its sibling was taken by the hawk. So I put on my shoes, went out onto the deck, down the stairs and into the yard. When the hawk saw me there, he he flew off to hunt in an area where no people interrupted him. I thought, ” Go and eat a baby squirrel from someone else’s yard. These little squirrels are mine.”

Yellow Raspberries

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I love raspberries. Decades ago, I was deciding what kind of raspberry bushes to plant in my garden. I talked to my Uncle, Ed Mickelson, and he said yellow raspberries had the best flavor for eating fresh. He told me he couldn’t grow them in their Cambridge, Minnesota, garden because it was just a little too far north. My garden is in the City of Minneapolis where we have the advantage of a heat-island, and they do grow here. I took his advice and now I have a patch of yellow raspberries that yield their delicious berries up until the first frost.

Ed wasn’t technically my uncle. He was married to Wilma Wilkins. Wilma was my father’s double cousin. Her mother, Annie Otten, and my father’s mother, Jennie Otten, were twin sisters. They were married to brothers, Wilma’s father, Walter Wilkins, and my father’s father, John Wilkins. Annie died very young leaving Walter with four young children. In those days, there were no day care centers for single parents who needed to work. So Walter asked for help from relatives and my grandparents took Wilma and raised her along with my father, William, and his brother, Gerrit.

As a child, I was aware of this arrangement. When I was older, I told Wilma that I was confused about our relationship. I knew she was Dad’s cousin, but she was also his sister. I was never sure whether she was my cousin or aunt. Wilma responded, “I’m your aunt.” And that was that.

Wilma had her two brothers in John and Jenny’s home. She had a brother and two sisters from Walter and Annie’s family. Years later when Walter remarried, Wilma told me of visiting another sister because Walter’s wife, Margaret, had a daughter. When she married Ed Mickelson, he became my uncle. And that’s the story of how I got those yellow raspberries.

My Writing Life

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When I left my last position, I did not retire. I determined to pursue my lifelong interest in writing. My B.A. degree was in Communications and Labor Studies. I started out as a journalism major and ended up writing my own degree program.

I received the Human Resources Professional certification at one point, and I began a blog “Working in the 21st Century” in which I gave career advice, commented on current employment issues, and listed resources for job seekers. I wrote columns like “How to Make $100,000+ Without a College Degree” and “Bad, Bad Boss.” I took courses at The Loft Literary Center and began writing creatively in earnest. The more I worked on my creative writing, the less I was interested in giving career advice. I ended that blog.

In 2015, I got my first piece of work, fiction, published in Work Literary Magazine. It was based on a down-sizing and restructuring experience at a former empoyer and titled “Passed Over.”

An essay was published in The Commonline Journal, “I Didn’t Speak Up,” about a bullying incident on a city bus. http://www.thecommonlinejournal.com/2015/09/i-didnt-speak-up-by-bonnie-wilkins.html?m=1

Since then, I’ve had many essays published in various online literary journals.

My current project is a book. It’s about District 32, a school district in Milo Township, Mille Lacs County, Minnesota. I attended the one-room country school from 1st through 5th grades. District 32 was more than a school district, it was a community. In a world where community seems to be disappearing, documented in books like Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam, I wanted to document what that community meant to me and my family. My mother wrote a newspaper column, “District 32,” for the Mille Lacs County Times newspaper for many years documenting the lives of the people in District 32. The people of this farming community had rich social and civic lives. I watched the women of District 32 finding them to be strong role models, who lived life on their terms, and helped shape the world around them.