I need a crowbar to open my frozen bird feeder

So it comes to this.

It's down to me...and the bird.

I despise birds.

I will admit to some softening after we witnessed our cockatiel, Percy's loud grieving following the passing of his longtime roommate, Al.

Percy then began the determined, but ultimately unsuccessful, development of a relationship with our resistant dachshund. And now, with our household population reduced to an uneasy trinity: The bird, Brad, and me, my attention must reluctantly turn to Percy. The bird, of course, is equally thrilled. 

Our house seems cold and quietly cavernous these days. In preparation of our workday absences, Brad adjusts the temperature for the ideal cockatiel climate while I am in charge of enrichment. Our daughters are flabbergasted. "The bird has his own TV channel?" Sydney repeated, incredulous. "199 shows a calm cabin scene," I explained. "It includes a babbling brook, bird song, and occasional animal appearances."  Sydney immediately called her sister, concerned. "Yeah. I know," Savannah sighed before sharing further, "Mom has also been socializing him by forcing him to ride around on her shoulder for ten minutes a day." "Poor Percy!" Sydney exclaimed. "They're worried he's lonely," Savannah said. "I'm worried that they've gone coo-coo," her sister replied. Savannah's silence implied consent.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to help me adjust and, idealistically (and unrealistically) encourage me to LIKE my new classroom, Brad bought me a bird feeder for outside my window. "But I don't like birds," I told him graciously, throwing my present to the side in disgust and searching for the chocolate that he MUST have bought me. No way would he have just bought me a stupid bird feeder. 

I pretended to forget about my gift until Savannah and Lisa arrived at my classroom to "help me" install it. Great. Now I was committed.

The little scavengers descended like locusts. They were distracting...annoying...and, for the kids,...utterly delightful. 

"Mrs. Mosiman, the bird feeder is empty," my worried whippersnappers reported. 

So? I was not in the business of providing government hand-outs for my fully-functioning feathered fiends. I was doing them no favors by making them bird-feeder-dependent. I would not be the LBJ of the winged world.

"Mrs. Mosiman...it's cold out there," my 4th graders pleaded. Small birds lined my windowsill, cupping their eyes with weathered wings to peer in. I swear one gave a tentative knock. Charles Dickins would have been proud. 

So it comes to this.

Slogging through knee-deep snow, I wrestled the bird feeder down to re-fill it...the tree branches filled with overly-dramatic aviators, impatiently awaiting breakfast. "I don't know why I have to do this," I huffed, sending frozen clouds their way. "According to Matthew, God will feed you." I don't think they heard me in their haste to re-take the trough. 

Brad reminded me later that, as "a special agent of Christ" (Ephesians 1), I am commissioned to feed the Lord's lambs (John 21). I chose not to argue the semantics here. I did not seek out these warbler relationships but here I am, anyway, getting fleeced.