Death news

Death news

Well, what did you expect? It’s autumn. Death is going all around us. At the top of the Chippewa/Mt. Blueberry trail which I climbed yesterday, death looks quite becoming. A carpet of russet and gold and orange showing off all over the surrounding mountains and valleys. If you’re gonna a go, that’s the way to go, like a multi-colored nova. The leaves know what’s up. Here at home the garden’s slowly giving in to the season, with green still being the main color of its pallette. Earlier in the week, we harvested the acorn and butternut squash. The pole beans are still going strong as are the carrots, broccoli, celery, and kale. Even the tomatoes are giving death a good run for its money.

To be “of the season” Sofia just killed a chipmunk who for about a day now has been squeaking from its various hiding places beneath our kitchen cabinets, in the old wooden ice box we use to store newspapers to start our wood stove, and the utility room. One of the cats had brought it in, probably Sofia who’s the most feral of our cats, the huntress, a Vermont veteran who survived an entire winter outside when she was just a kitten. Over the years, she’s gifted us with all shapes and sizes of voles, moles, mice, a red-winged blackbird, countless grasshoppers, and a couple of chipmunks. I’m not particularly fond of chipmunks. I still have memories of their tent raids when I was a boy scout, ransacking any snacks I may have had in my pack. They especially were dexterous at unwrapping the plastic around my Kraft caramels. But this guy (or gal) I liked. He had pluck. We had tried to trap him overnight with a “have a heart” trap we placed in the kitchen, corralling the cats away in our guest room. No luck. We woke to an empty cage. Then we had kept the back door open and the rest of the house shut off for it to find its way back outside. Sofia, though, was outside roaming and when she returned she found the varmint. There ensued a wild squeaky dash and pursuit which I tried to break-up, but Sofia was not to be deterred. She caught it and trotted off with it in her mouth, a low snarly growl saying “It’s mine, mine!” By the time I loosened her jaw, it was glassy eyed, still. I shut the back door to Sofia’s wild keens and let the chipmunk lay there, sort of hoping he/she was playing possum. No such luck. Rats! Once more a lesson that really, we have no control over it.

And while we’re on the subject of things being “done in”, we’ve finally decided to whittle our goose family – 8 as we speak, 3 geese and 5 ganders - down to just Shmuel and Mary Ann for the winter. They’re devoted to one another AND will produce the best line of eggs next spring. We had debated keeping one of their daughters, but Richard chimed in that inbreeding brought some birth defects in the goslings like beak overbite that he hadn’t seen before and which he would expect would crop up again this year. It’s tough, though, contemplating getting rid of them. They’re a handful, yes, and it’s completely impractical. We feed them and keep them around simply for them. Watching them swim in formation on the pond is like a floating meditation. Every morning I smile walking up to their pen to let them out, hearing their low gossip crescendo to excited chatter and cries as they bump into each other, jockeying for the best position to get out. I also love arriving home and hearing their chorus of honks when we pull into the driveway – some stentorian and clear, some having an hysteric quality to them, and one a demanding and decidedly disagreeable tone as if he’s shouting “Where have you been?! Feed me! Now!!” The idea of “harvesting” or “processing” them is so difficult. I don’t go through this at all when chickens are the victims, but geese … it’s tough. We’re going to try our best to sell them, but even then we don’t know what will happen once they’re gone. It’s a dilemma of the heart. A little bit silly, I guess, but there you are. I’m a silly goose.

There are a couple roosters out back that have been pegged for processing. Death row. Well rolling death pen, actually. They’ve been in their separate enclosure for quite a while now, solitary confinement. Richard set up this arrangement because he said when they first got there, they would hump any hen in sight, and, sure enough, one day they made a break, these bad boys, these white trash birds, and they had their way with the whole flock, maybe twice, three times, before we were able to round them up and put them back in stir. I’d seen them facing off in the pen right outside the main coop earlier that day, working off excess energy, showing off, playing chicken (of course). I thought Richard had let them out for some reason, but no, they’d worked at a weak piece of fencing in their cage and forced themselves out to freedom. Like I said, we rounded them up – at gun point – and put them back into their refortified compound. They are something. Raspy, breathy crows in the morning. Real tough guys, challenging the air. We treat them humanely, moving their cage to fresh grass every day. They were “gifts” from our contractor who was really just wanting to get rid of them. Richard even kept them out several nights as fox food, but even the fox didn’t want them. They probably cornered the fox and roughed him up. It’s a jungle out there. Well, actually it’s a forest, but you know what I mean. We’re fattening the 2 of them up and soon they’ll be residing in freezer camp (Richard coined that phrase.)

Sofia’s on my lap now, stretched out sensuously on my flannel pj bottoms, making friends again as she grooms herself. “Forget about that chipmunk. Forget about death and autumn,” she purrs, pulling me into her worldview. “Focus on me. I’m alive. Be here now”