Went to Google to see if I had missed anything important in the
unfortunate "silliness" thread (a practice triggered by a wholesale
blocking here, to be sure I haven't made a mistake and to correct if I
have).

I saw some discussion on the topic of "why", which comes up at SLHOTP
every now and again--often right after one of us has come home with two
bales of alfalfa hay, two salt blocks, four treat blocks, 50# each of
white millet seed, safflower seed, cracked corn, peanuts-in-the-shell,
"bushy tail mix", dried corn on the cob, peanut pieces, nyger seed, and
black oil sunflower seed. And a selection of blocks of suet,
commercially prepared.

Why?! (Why do those trips always coincide with the arrival of the
statements from our retirement funds?)

Why? Because I always have.

When I was little, and my parents had some real problems making ends
meet, there was always some celery and carrot pieces to walk over to the
Griffith Park Zoo (a dreadful place I now think--didn't know that then).

Mom sometimes started some unpleasantness because the monkeys,
elephants, and so on would flock to us because they were really tired of
the peanuts everybody else was offering. That really annoyed other
people who thought we were cheating.

And we probably did some bad things, but it didn't seem like it at the
time.

The little monkeys spotted us eating "Cinnamon Redhots" and who raise a
clamor, so we would toss them some.

Which they would put into their mouths for a few seconds, and then take
them out and stare at them, then try again.

Then they would go to the water dish and wash the candy, testing and
washing until the candy was gone.

Then they would come back to us for more.

Meanwhile, one of the big monkeys would drink from the water, then come
over a swat one of the little ones on the back side.

Or we would take a bag of Spanish peanuts to the mountains and feed the
chipmunks. And the Jays.

When we went camping there was always bread heels and such to throw out.

When in their later years my parents owned a home, the roof of the car
port was at the same level as the main part of the house. On it they
kept a big bowl of water threw leftovers and threw out cracked corn and
I don't remember what all.

From the kitchen table they watched the quail with the plumes bobbing
(the little ones are sooooo cuuuuute!), the raccoons washing stale angel
food cake (for a while--they learn) and myriad birds for the free lunch.

They never "fed" Hummingbirds, but they came for water, and they made it
clear whose turf was whose. Whatever they were (I didn't learn to care
until it was pretty much too late to learn from my mother but a small
fraction of what I could have).

There was stuff left where the Jackrabbits and cotton tails could find
it (I don't think they cared for it). And there were coyotes and deer.

But why?

Certainly not because they couldn't take care of them selves, for the
most part.

Because we enjoyed watching them....pretty much for the same reason
humans came to our house to eat, or we to theirs.

Since I have gotten old and there is not much else to do, I have really
put a big think on this why business.

It is clear that we are a stop on route.

Different folks at different times--mice, voles, opossums, raccoons (and
our old cat after the mice and voles--I suspect owls after the lot) at
night.

At first light Hummingbirds if they are in town, LBBs and some of the
Cardinals.

A little later (depending on season) the various woodpeckers in shifts,
Turkeys, LBBs, Mourning Doves and the rest.

Then the traffic drops to near zero.

The the mid-day bunch. And so on in shifts and teams until night fall.

If I am absent or lazy and the stuff doesn't get restocked? What then?

Panic? Consternation? Critters dieing left and right?

No. They just take us off the route and go on with life. "Checkers"
come and look, and if we have restocked, the traffic will build--but it
may take a day or two to get back to "normal

The closest I have seen to dependence was the with the Jays at the back
door where Mom would stand with an apron pocket full of peanuts. She
would hold on in each hand and tap one peanut with the other and call to
the Scrub Jays who would come land on her hand and take a peanut, except
when she would hold on to it and play tug-of-war for a bit.

The saddest thing among many sad things when she died was sitting at
that same table and seeing a Jay tap on the window screen to summon her,
but she was never going to answer that summons again.

But my guess is the Jays got over their grief quicker than I got over mine.

Why do we feed the critters? Because we enjoy it. Because they enjoy
it. Because we have a need to share. Because we have a debt.

I dunno.

One of those.