Shop Hop is a monthly column that shines a spotlight on small local retail businesses in and around Nashville.
Working from home isn't all bad. You have the freedom to set up your space however you'd like, you can wear whatever is comfortable and you don't have to listen to coworkers sing Toto songs at the top of their lungs while you're trying to write on deadline (love you, Steven Hale!). But ultimately, a home office can be isolating. Plus, it's a breeding ground for unhealthy workhorse habits. It's hard to remember to take a break or call it a day and rest your brain when you live in the same space where you work.
Something that has saved my brain from burnout is, surprisingly to me, birds. I've had a suet cage hanging in my back yard for a couple years now, but it wasn't until I started working from home during the day that I really got to know my backyard buddies. There are so many! I have two different kinds of woodpeckers (red-bellied and downy), Northern cardinals, mourning doves and these little round brown puffs I like to call The Roly-Poly Gang but are actually (I think) Carolina wrens. There's also a black bird or dark blue bird who is kind of a dick. (Editor's note: It's probably a European starling. Very rude birds.)
Some birds have been at the feeder all winter, but as the temperature has started to climb, I've noticed more action at the feeder. Now I have to replenish the suet once a week, sometimes more, which means weekly trips to The Wood Thrush in Belle Mead.
I had no idea I could get so excited about a bird store! First, the suet selection pulled me in. I thought suet was just, like, seed and fat. But no! There is nut suet and berry suet and orange suet and peanut butter suet and even spicy pepper suet if you want the squirrels to stay away. (According to a Wood Thrush employee, birds can't really taste food so the spice doesn't phase them, but squirrels hate it!)
They have 28-ounce buckets of dried meal worms (that's 28,000 meal worms!) and stacks of five-pound bags of raw peanuts, eight-pound bags of safflower seeds and 20-pound bags of hulled sunflower seeds. Not sure what to buy? The Wood Thrush staffers will make a custom mix depending on what kind of critters you're trying to feed.
The shop has dozens of styles of hummingbird feeders — hummers eat sugar water! — and squirrel-proof seed feeders. There are bird baths and fountains, adorable wooden bird houses and nesting material you can leave out so birds can have soft, cozy nests. (Last spring I found a bird's nest in a bush that was, like, 40 percent dog hair, so I think that means my dog is a bird dad now?) They have pretty much everything you need to turn your yard into your own private bird sanctuary.
All this bird business is pretty new to me, but The Wood Thrush has been at it for 35 years. Admittedly, the first visit can be a little intimidating, but the bird-loving employees want our feathered friends to be healthy, so ask questions! When I asked how long the shop had been around, the clerk said, "Fifteen years! And before that we were over on Davidson Road for 20 years. We just don't know when to stop."
And for that I — and Nashville's birds and squirrels — are thankful.
The Wood Thrush
6029 Highway 100
Nashville, TN 37205
Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
