Night Walks

Just down from a chilly sit on the rise.  I was fooled by the “warm” weather for this time of year, in the 30’s by the thermometer, but the wind skidded the feel down to the 20’s.  Still I love sitting there at any season, looking out on the gentle roll of mountains, striated bands of ridges, opening and opening off into the distance.  I’m taking in as much as I can each day, letting it reside within so I can carry it with me.  When I leave for the holidays I don’t know when I’ll be back next, maybe not until April.  A bittersweet thought, so I’m letting it go, letting it loose. 

The pond is frozen solid now, a grey, opaque crust with powdered sugar snow sprinkled around its edges and dusting throughout.  I’m in the kitchen now, looking out across the road, a good fire creaking in the jodul stove, Christmas music on the stereo.  Richard’s gone until 3, so I’m alone to read, write, ponder, work on an upcoming play.  It’s hard not to want to sleep all day.  I guess that’s the body’s natural leaning this time of year, toward hibernation.  That’s fine with me.  Love naps, love dreams, love everything to do with that.  Sometime I’ll take my daily walk.

I’ve gotten in the habit of taking night walks down our road, 2 miles to North Road, 2 miles back.  There are things I miss from walking in the day – the vistas, being able to read a book as I walk if the mood moves me, my tryst with Robert and Lenice’s golden lab Anu when I pass their place.  She senses me coming and barks and barks making sure it’s me before she barrels toward me and at the last minute flips onto her back in an ecstasy of subservience; oh, she’s such a sweet, sweet dog.  The dark’s been calling me though.  I usually set out just after the last blast of incredible light from the sunset reflecta off the tall maples surrounding our orchards, the sun’s own brand of “Adieu, adieu, remember me.” I don my reflector vest, elastic strap a camp light to my forehead, and step out into the darkening landscape right around 4:30 (still so weird it getting dark at that time, my body feels off accepting that).  First, I walk the geese up to their house.  They go without a fuss, they know, they’re almost grateful for the shepherding.  “Show us the way.”  We go slowly, their pace, me whispering “thank yous” to them as they pad methodically along.  I love watching their pliable orange feet give and take with the earth, those marvelous, prehistoric looking triangles with claws, so quiet.  As they near their gate, they look down to measure the little hop they have to make over the 2 X 4, peering as if they’re in need of glasses.  I give them room.  Shmuel’s the last one in and then turns to give a ritual “don’t cross this line” gesture, sticking his neck out slightly.  To give the gesture a little oomph, he might shiver flutter his wings and nibble at the fencing across the gate after I snap the door shut, but that’s rare anymore.  We have an understanding now, between men, that that’s his place and outside’s mine.  The chickens may be ready to be shut up by then too, even though Richard has their “light” lengthened an hour before and an hour after the sun with a light bulb mounted on the ceiling near the door.  This keeps goings on in the coop a little more lively than normal.  2 birds are usually perched atop the door and I have to gently grab them by their feet and transfer them to a roosting bar before shutting the door.  At first this entailed a lot of fuss and feather flapping, but now we both are letting it be easy.  A “thank you” is in order for them too after the shift is made. 

Then I’m off.  Now it’s usually just the sound of the wind and the trudge of my muck boots in the sandy road.  An occasional passing car or truck, momentarily slowing when my reflectors or light bring me into view.  Yesterday, for the first part of the walk, I was taking words of a script off the page and speaking them to the surrounding woods, the words on the page illuminated by my head lamp.  The woodland creatures might’ve been wondering who this weirdo was.  It was fun, though.  And freeing.  The wind, the script’s words given new twists.  But most of the walk was just walking sounds.  It gets to be you can hardly make out anything.   I have a sense of where the road is going, and I have my little head lamp, whose ray at one point reminded me of the point in “It’s a Wonderful Life” when Clarence has jumped into the water to “save” Jimmy Stewart and the bridge watchman flips on a searchlight to fine the source of the frantic screams.  Anu saw the light coming down the road as I neared Robert and Lenice’s and began barking a good guard dog alert.  She didn’t recognize it as me, though, despite my calls to calm her down, trying to get her to come over.  She sounded a bit confused by it all, and was finally called in and I was alone again.

It’s cozy out in the dark, invigorating.  Without the distraction of views, the focus is completely on your thoughts.  Out in the elements with the headlamp acting as a kind of guide, illuminating what needs to be illuminated.  The houses look like ocean liners on a dark sea as you pass them.  A little bit of magic.  It’s all comforting.  So I suppose I’m taking the darkness in and letting it reside within me too, taking it with me wherever I go.  It seems fitting for this time of year.

Holiday shift

Taking a break from creating turkey leftover cuisine. Today, a big, thick turkey vegetable soup simmers on the stove top.  Christmas music is on in the living room, our favorite CD, St Martin's in the Field, something we picked up in London about 15 years ago.  We stick to the tradition of no Christmas anything until after Thanksgiving.  I hauled out a few things today since I'm here alone with the cats, Richard's off at a rehearsal. It feels good.  I feel slightly under the weather, probably just post Thanksgiving weariness.  Waiting for the local snowmobile club to come and put up their ropes and signs and reflectors on a piece of our upper property which the state snowmobile trail traverses.  We give our permission every year.  I'm still a bit on the fence about it.  Some riders used to disobey the signs and go all over our property, but lately all has been well.  And they keep the path well tended as it winds through our woods, so a year at a time, and this year, why not?    We had our first snowfall last night, just about an inch, but a nice coverlet for the trees, the tops of the grass still sticking through, like Walt Whitman's hair of graves.  It's a bittersweet sight, the snow.  The trees look like they're sleeping now, all tucked in.  We're definitely in for the long haul of winter weather (knock on wood.)  I went for a walk last night - well, it was barely 4:30 or 5, but already dark.  I refused to stay inside so early.  There was an inviting bite to the air, a few flakes dancing down, lovely.  So I donned my fleece, put on my reflector vest, my camping head lamp strapped loosely to my winter cap, and I trekked off into the wind and whoosh.  Not many cars or trucks, just me and the trees, watching over me, my friends.

Oh.  "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming" just came on, one of my favorite Christmas Carols.  It fits the day, my mood.  I'm a sucker for those carols with joy sung in a minor key.  It includes everything of life in it, sadness and joy right alongside one another always, always, always.

Chores done, soup on a low simmer, cats all decked out in slumber around the house.  I'll just carry some wood up from the cellar, stoke the fire, fill the woodpile, and then maybe take a little snooze.  Not bad, not bad at all.

Thanksgiving was fine this year, by the way.  A good group of friends filled with terrific conversation, substantial, hearty, talking of the challenges of our times and sussing out possible solutions and change, never dwelling on the problem, not fixed, never black and white, embracing all.  Very nourishing this Thanksgiving on all levels.  It was still hard taking some of our birds to the processor.  Rough.  My buddhist hair stylist cracked herself up wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving on Wednesday after a trim.  "Enjoy your murder," she said, guffawing.  "Sorry, I just couldn't help myself."  Buddhists!  You know I love 'em!

Flighty thoughts

Wednesday afternoon

Only 5 ducks on the pond now, 2 disappeared while I was in Nebraska over this past weekend. I didn’t realize how close I’d gotten to them until Richard shared the news with me in bed yesterday morning.  It makes me sad, they’re such comical figures.  Upon reflection, Richard said that he was sad too.  They’ve become a solid part of our place ever since they hatched early this spring.  We’ve watched them go from tiny little waddly survivors, scared to death of the prospect of even getting near our pond across the road to being full time residents there.  We smile each time they make their slightly mad laughing sounds that echo off the pond’s surface.  I’d like to think that they’re laughing with us, not at us, no judgment, but who knows, they may very well be commenting in a “what fools these mortals be” fashion, from their watery vantage point. Or it means nothing, it’s just the way they squawk talk.  Of course with the disappearance, the subject of a predator came up.  We lost a whole bevy of ducks last year in one fell swoop.  This time Richard prefers to believe a male and a female simply flew the coop, heading to warmer climes.  And there was no sign of struggle or violence.  I’d like to go with the migration explanation, but they’re vulnerability really affects me.  It brings up all these powerlessness issues.  I feel out of sync with the cycles of nature.  It’s a real task to let things be, to let them be what they are.  For instance, the 2 that are gone aside, we really have no idea how the rest of them are going to fare this winter, where they’re going to go when the pond ices over.  This doesn’t seem to bother Richard; why does it bother me?  Royce opines that they’ll stay as long as there’s a food source and then they’ll go.  How do they know where to go?  Being motherless ducks, do they depend on trial and error or is the knowledge lodged in their cells and feathers somewhere from bird generations immemorial?  A mixture of both?  I’m really riled up about all this.  Maybe it’s because I’m not good with death.  And it is the season of slaughter.  Hunters all around us, trucks parked alongside roads, camouflaged clad males everywhere.  Orange hats and vests, reflective gear a necessity.  Even my favorite dog Anu, Robert and Lenice’s dear yellow lab, has a bright orange kerchief around its neck whenever I pause to pet her on my Fuller Road walks.  It’s deer season.  There’s death everywhere.  Thank God for Anu’s running and tearing around, her licks, her gleeful embrace of life as a balancing agent.

We’re deciding which geese are going to go this year.  Richard’s already made up his mind.  The little bully gander that chases and bites his chickens has been marked for the stewpot.  Yesterday, Richard made up a little ditty and was singing it gleefully to the gander, dancing around him as he did.  The refrain was something along the line of  “You’re going to die!  You’re going to die!  Goodbye, goodbye!”  Richard’s an angel.  Also the goose with the deformed beak will probably go as well.  She’s just not able to get enough food and is getting pretty scrawny.  

I went over to Thunder Ridge Ranch in New Hampshire yesterday to pay down a deposit for our Thanksgiving turkey (this year we’ll be having a turkey and a goose from last year’s processing.)  They wanted to know which day I planned on picking it up – Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday – because they’ll plan on killing it the night before.   They also wanted to know the poundage of the bird I want and the highest pound bird I’d take.  They had been worried that they’re birds were going to be on the small size this year, but over the past few weeks they’d really been piling on the pounds.  I replied that we’d like a 20 pounder, but could go as high as 30.  “30 pounds is a pretty big bird,” the woman replied.  I didn’t know; I was just speculating on what would be helpful to them.  Who knew 30 pounds is considered a porker bird?

As often happens with hatching our own chickens, we’ve had an overabundance of roosters. You just never know what the hen/rooster ratio is going to be when hatching, it’s a craps shoot.  And there are many times when Richard, who has become pretty much a chicken expert, thinks that he’s raising some really good hens until they either face each other down in a kind of West Side Story knife fight stance or they start in to crow one morning, a raspy, muted attempt at maleness, when we were all but certain we had another egg layer.  2 weeks ago, we had 8 guys, and now we’re down to 4.  They’re all good birds - sweet, handsome fellows.  We try as best we can to assure they’re going to good homes, that they’ll be a sire among hens and will live a good life rather then immediately ending up in a stewpot.  One more free ad in Its Classified this week and then we’ll go from there.

Back from a quick walk around 3:30 and didn’t see any of the ducks on the pond.  An “oh no” grip in my stomach.  I quacked my best duck imitation.  Nothing.  Had they all gone?  I looked up the hill, our backyard.  Not a sign.  And then from out of the beige dried cattails swam the 5 remainers, cruising toward me with a “what’s up?  Got any corn for us?” nonchalance.  They looked so tiny with half their bodies below water.  So vulnerable.  I guess it’s like people, just love ‘em.  Love ‘em while they’re here.

Thursday morning.

Frigid this morning.  And when I looked out the window I saw that the entire pond had a thin, crinkly saran wrap layer of ice on it.  Where are the ducks, I wondered.  Richard, reading my mind, said, “There they are, walking on the surface.”  And sure enough, there they were, rolling with it.  I guess.  I’m concerned how they and the geese will take it.  As if this is going to be a big disappointment, they will be deprived of their connection with the water, the “who they are” really, for months.  I’ve been told I really need to make an effort to ground myself because there is very little earth in my … what … sign, chart, life?  I feel that, right now for instance, a bit untethered, affected by everything, tossed about by the winds of change, season change.  So what is the equivilent of “grounding” for water fowl?  Do they need to “water” themselves?  Does that connect them to the earth, to the essence of who they are?  Does it fortify and connect them?  Maybe.  Might be something to that.  I wish them well.

It's been a coon's age ...

... since I've posted this blog. How old does a coon get I wonder?

Standing and typing in the Manchester Airport, the New Hampshire version of Athena, the forecasted "nor'easter," outside the windows behind me.  It's a steady grey sog, traces of snow around the edges.  I drove into it from our place which is much colder and drier and snowless.  Post-election.  Maybe it's me, but everything and everyone seems a little bit spent, man and nature exhausted.  Recharge and renewal.  Talk of compromise, bi-partisanship, fiscal cliffs.   I'm just grateful that the television sets so noisy and ubiquitous and newsworthy in other airports are few and far between here.  A sense of quiet if you want it.


Home.  All the raised beds have been put to sleep, shredded brown leaves mixed in with a mixture of top soil and compost and covered over with a comforter layer of straw for the long winter snooze and reconstitution.  There's some new garlic planted, hearty big cloves from our first bountiful harvest this year.  What a stupendous plant garlic is.  It was the vegetable equivilant to daffodils this past spring, its curlycue stalks serpentining up through the straw and snow for a first showing of green.  The mint I experimented with had taken over and encroached under the herb hillside and through the hardware cloth at the bottom of the raised beds and up into the soil.  Tenacity thy name is spearmint.  Invasive tactics it picked up from bamboo.  I think I got it all; we'll see.  It brought back memories of my grandpa hacking away at it when I was little, trying vainly to prevent its Sherman's march through the southland of our side garden.   Its purple roots were everywhere, often bunched together in clumps with tiny, tiny tendrils feathering out like a miniature, landbound man-of-war.   They have been marginalized to far corners of the garden.

I harvested the last of our chard and lettuces last week before a steady frigid streak settled in.   Kale, parsley, and brussell sprouts are still going strong.  This is the first winter I'm going to try a mini-green house, a plastic pup tent over some kale and chard and an errant beet or 2.  I may even plop some more lettuce seeds down under.  So lovely the other day lifting up the plastic flap and feeling moist warmth inches away from 20 degree weather.  Wonderful.   A big pot of rosemary and a smaller one of thyme are inside where they'll test transplanting over the winter.  They seem to be enjoying the venture.   I moved our wood slatted compost pile about 4 feet down hill, tipping it over to reveal this miracle of rich new soil.   Humous, right?  Or is it still just plain ole compost?  I'm not quite sure.   I was just boning up on the do's and don't's of composting on line - the correct ratios of carbon and nitrogen, when to turn it, how much to aerate.  It seems I've been doing it all "wrong."  But nature has been a forgiving force.  She must appreciate the effort put forth, the aim toward sustainability.  It's incredible seeing how all our kitchen waste, leaves, egg shells, coffee grounds have been Cinderella-ed into this rich, rich friable brown substance from which next year's garden will grow.  It tickles me to no end.

Our birds.  Have I told you of our ducks?  There's 7 of them and they fill the air with ducky laughter throughout the day.  Everything's a great big yuck fest to them - our six geese, the chickens, our foibles, the concept of work.  "All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin."  Hilarious.  They are adorable.  Much more likeable than the geese.  The males have this rich dark green color that cover their heads and necks, very dapper those Beau Brummels.  They must have spent the family fortune on their duds because the womenfolk are pretty drab, beige, tan, white.  I love seeing them take flight which happens several times throughout the day, most of the times from our hill in back to the pond.  Some hidden signal goes off and they lift off like helicopters and fly in a straight line for a skid bottom landing on the pond's surface followed by laughter squawks.  You here them laughing in the middle of the night, someone cracked a joke at 3 in the morning last night.  They're a yucky bunch.  And always with a Buster Keaton mug.

Flock thinning will soon become the topic of discussion.  Richard and I put it off.  Some roosters and at least a couple geese seem destined for freezer camp.  It conjures up "Tale of Two Cities" scenes for me, the wagon creaking its way toward the guillotine.  Between now and Thanksgiving the axe will fall on many a bird.  Still on the fence about this taking of life.  Don't know if I'll ever be completely alright with it.

They have bid us gather at the gate so I'll send this off.  Have a great day everyone.  Be kind to your fine feathered friend - for a duck may be somebody's brother.  Be kind to your friend's in the swamp, where the weather is cold and damp.  Well you may think that this is the end ... well it is.

I wonder if Mitch Miller was a buddhist?

Pearl

Hear ye, Hear ye! For the month of September through mid October our short film "Pearl" starring Frannie Sternhagen and myself will be accessible on the New England online Film Festival (info below). It's been getting a lot of play at festivals and Richard and I are very proud of it. Richard produced it and I directed and adapted it from a Ted Kooser poem (US poet laureate 2204-2006 and Pulitzer Prize winner). Take a look see and pass on the good word.

By the way, Pearl, though set in Iowa, was shot a year ago this past April in Newbury, VT, and Piermont and Woodsville, NH.

The following from the head of the festival:

Now's the time to start telling your family, your friends, your co-workers, your Facebook fans, and your Twitter followers to check out http://www.newenglandfilm.com/festival, where they can watch your films from September 1 through October 15.

This year we are offering two awards in each of our festival's genre categories:
Audience Award: Given to the film in each category with the most views from Sept 1-30.
Jury Prize: Given to the film in each category selected by the NewEnglandFilm.com staff.

Between dusk and 10:30 thoughts on an early summer's evening

A storm is sneaking in outside, a light whisper of rain, so gentle. It was building up as the day’s light faded, but the darkening grey had no threat about it. Just a coverlet of clouds come to tuck us in for the night with a big slow drink of water for the parched grass, a good end to a full day.

Richard was right. It is a lost cause trying to save our mountain ash from the sapsuckers. And it breaks my heart. The bark is so acne scarred from past attacks, slathered over with black tree tar to no avail. The sapsuckers drill right into the black as if it’s a shooting range target. They first victimized the tree 3 years ago, the same autumn it was awash with brilliant orange berries, festooned like its very own Christmas celebration. That’s when they chose to swoop in. I fended them off, but even then Richard was a proponent to chop it down. “It’s no use,” he’d say. “You’re going to spend years trying to save it and in the end it will still die.” Then miraculously, it made a come back this year, against all odds. And we’d trimmed it, given it plenty of water and care, it leafed out turning impressively and healthfully green. Then the sapsuckers struck again, riddling the trees thin branches like machine gun fire. “It’s a lost cause,” Richard said from the porch the other day as I stood atop a wooden ladder, once more slathering loads of black tar on new wounds, wounds that dripped sap down its branches like blood in a triage unit. After the tar, I strung twine like garland from branch to branch then hung bits of aluminum foil to dissuade future attacks. I could feel myself getting all thin skinned and defensive at Richard’s remark and I tried to dredge up some snarky riposte, like some Camus quote I thought I'd heard years before, something about the only true causes to devote oneself to ARE lost causes.

“How much time did you spend on the tree yesterday?”

’20 minutes, a half hour tops,’ I said.

“Oh,” he gave in.

“And anyway, it’s my choice.” What a brilliant reply, so Camus-like, so existential. And now today, both this morning and this evening, new wounds. Out came the ladder, more tar, but it is a lost cause. I so love trees. It was very John Muir of me, but I patted the bark on the main trunk and commiserated with it, saying I was doing my best, but I didn’t think it was going to be good enough. It wasn’t exactly fatalistic in its reply. It was stoic, laconic. It was going to take things as they came. It would be fine no matter what happened.

The Canada Goose goslings are almost completely transformed. By tomorrow or the next day, they will look exactly like their folks. Then come the lead up to flying lessons. Quick flapping skirts across the surface of the pond, followed slowly, but surely by hikes up the rise behind our house where, following a trumpeting call from their parents like a starter’s gun, they take flight, airborne, coltish at first, a few clumsy landings, but then grace. It’s a thing to behold.

The garden’s in good shape now. After being downhearted about the devastation of certain plants by some unknown, unseen chomper, I read a piece in a gardening book, accompanied by pictures that looked very much like my riddled vegetables, that pests in certain cases were not such a bad thing. We shouldn’t be all too hasty to rid ourselves of them. And, as the pictures proved in before/after fashion, many plants bounce back admirably from such warfare and provide splendid, prolific harvests. Another lesson in faith. Still keeping my eye out for the Colorado potato beetle, however. Bright orange fellas and gals that lay lots of larvae on the underside of leaves that can devastate a potato patch in pretty short order. But I shall prevail. I shall be on the lookout and squash and squish any interlopers. My fingerling and purple potato plants are looking oh so swell. I’ve hoed them high with surrounding dirt hills and delicate purple blossoms have sprouted on several. I take that as thanks.

And because I invoked his name earlier, here's a swell Camus quote to wrap things up.

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to be so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

Not bad, Albert, not bad.

Sweet dreams everyone.

First Day of Summer!

Hello Solstice! Hello longest, brightest day of the year! And it's HOT. Sweaty, drippy hot, midwestern humidity hot, change your clothes a couple of times during the day cause they're soaked right through hot!. The geese are under our porch panting, nodding off hot, the chickens are in the garage soothing themselves on the cold concrete hot, the cats are konked out on rockers and chairs, the ducklings are no where to be seen, and the blackbirds give off that quavery, quiver to their songs as if they're trying to imitate cicadas, reminding me of the hot hot, baling hay hot in southern Indiana in my youth. And I am drinking coffee, hot coffee. A clerk at my dad's drugstore always told me that it was the best thing to drink on hot days, it cooled you off. Sounds a little off, but I don't care, I like my joe, hot or not. The pond is calling me from across the road "Take a dip! You know you want to. Carouse with the trout, mingle with the minnows. Shall I? I shall soon, to celebrate summer and sweat and slow, slow, brightly lit HOT days.

Happy SIMMER, Happy SUMMER!

Nature's Mini Stings

The rumor is that Irene brought up a whole new slew of mosquito, a tougher, more durable, more tenacious breed. I don’t know if this is true, but my 2 hour walk around 6 last night was teeming with skeeters. It had been a full day of sweaty work, so I’d done a quick wash off of grass and dirt before applying a coat of Skin So Soft which has proven to be a successful barrier against most insects. Not true last night. They swarmed like zeros honing in on Pearl Harbor. SLAP! SMASH! BLAM! CRUNCH! SPLAT! Take that you needle nosed, thread legged, buzzy-buzzy, blood sucking, hovering horde of EVIL!! And they smoosh so easily. A tangled heap of wreckage in amongst the arm hair. I kept thinking of the old boy scout ploy to wait until the mosquito has inserted its hypodermic and then you clench your fist and forearm thus trapping them with their suck pump engaged until they fill so full of your blood that they explode. I never actually tried or witnessed this, but the idea of it brings out the bloodlust in me. It’s like one’s own mini Tarentino movie. But I didn’t have the patience last night. Actually, I did. The mosquitos didn’t discourage me or turn me back; I just took them in stride and walked on, by turns taking in the scenery and sounds, birdsong, or reading the book I was carrying. I wonder if getting all pent up about insects sets off an aroma or vibration that actually attracts them? Hmmm.

It is so stunningly beautiful here. The green has embraced everything so thoroughly that I can’t imagine winter having been here. The long months of grey, beige, and brown help you appreciate the green so much more.

One less Canada goose gosling, but they too are taking nature’s whims in stride.

When did it become so GREEN!!

Amazing. Towering grass in the orchard, begging to be shorn. (And we’d better do it or we’ll need ghost scythers in there soon.) Pockets of violets and wildflowers and, yes, dandelions throughout the lawn. The trees are all in tender leaves. And our redbuds and crabapples are in full blossom for the first time I can remember. So gorgeous. And the sun, harbinger of 10 dry days ahead, is yelling for us to get outside and be a part of this fantasticness – so a few quick catch-ups before Richard and I – tend to our new stream bed, set about finishing up the last stage of our stone wall out front, saw up a maple that uprooted itself right by our pond dam and stack it on a new pile over in our meadow across the road (on palettes c/o Royce), and various gardening, grounds chores. By the by, it is forecoast to go to below freezing tonight, just to keep us honest.

Bird update. The Canada geese have 6 goslings, scruffy grey and yellow, with loads of pluck. They’re probably in the side yard right now, bobbing and chewing through some very tall dandelion stalks. There are also 4 other Canada geese adults hanging around. At first we thought they were trying to nest, but now we think they’re the offspring of last year’s family. We’ve introduced our hatched Pilgrim geese – 2 girls, 1 with a major underbite, and a scrawny gander – to Shmuel, Mary Ann, and Felicity and a new family has been born. They have taken to the pond, claimed goose island, and Shmuel is ruler of the roost around here, bossing all the Canada geese around, showing them whose boss. He’s a good papa, full of hiss and vinegar. We also have 8 small ducklings and 6 new chicks (Have I ever mentioned my husband is a hatch-addict? I believe I have.) So our roosts and coops and hearts are full and I’m going outside.

A pond situation

Over the past few days we’ve been, once again, wrestling with a pond situation, namely how to fashion a workable stand pipe to keep the level of our pond steady and not have it overflow its side and constantly over soak the soil in a grove of titanic pines as well as surrounding ash, birch, and maple. Our pond is about an acre. It’s beautiful, we love to look at it every morning. It’s home to many creatures during the span of the year, right now, as you’ve probably read, a pair of Canada geese and their soon-to-be-hatched goslings are the main inhabitants. Throughout the year herons, cormorants, owls, as well as beavers, weasels, mink, and moose pay frequent visits. The area used to be swampland until Royce’s dad dug the pond over 40 years ago. It’s 12’ at its deepest and there are 2 drain pipes that were put in at its inception. One of them is at the bottom of the deepest part of the pond, made of an odd compound, half rubber, half hardened tar paper. The pipe elbows up from the bottom, its location marked with a stick, and Royce himself had covered it with a board and a rock before the pond was first filled. The second pipe, closer to the surface, is an 8” culvert pipe that diagonals from a patch of cattails at one edge down through the dam to a site at its base. This had been designed as a run-off pipe, but its exact location had been lost for years and it too had been plugged, but with muck and gunk.

3 years ago our pond started draining. “What’s going on?” “Is there a drought?” The weather had been pretty dry, but “it couldn’t affect the pond like that, could it?” After fretting for about a week at the slowly sinking surface, Royce loped over one day to say “I wondered when that board was going to rot through.” All attempts to find his pipe before the pond drained ended turned futile - Richard was not at all happy about this - and I suggested we view the “draining” as an opportunity to clean the pond and deal with the pipe situation ourselves, up close and personal. First we plugged it, cinching some new pvc pipe onto the old, weird compound pipe. Then we tried 2 different stand pipe attachments. Neither worked, leading to one more draining of the pond. Richard = not too happy again. Finally, last autumn, we really thought we had it licked, a stand pipe in place, very proud of our ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness, but when the pond was almost completely refilled, something dislodged below and the top of the pipe listed up crazily breaking the surface. I kept waiting for the pond to drain a third time. That, amazingly, didn’t happen, but the listing pipe was frozen in place this past winter amid a crunch of ice, the sight of which drove Richard to distraction. I had no idea how bothered he was by that. Richard can keep things to himself. Even now, still waters run very deep. But I didn’t realize the dramatic depth of his detestation of the sight of said stand pipe until a few days ago when Richard let rip a monologue of his great pain on the shore of our pond which would have put King Lear to shame. Amazing. What really threw me about his “crack winds and blow” oration was that it had been triggered by a solution to the entire imbroglio, namely we had just discovered, uncovered, and unplugged Royce’s hidden surface pipe! Not only did it offer a more convenient and hidden among the bullrushes option for a stand pipe BUT its outflow would form a beautiful stream bed at its outlet near the base of the dam.

Well, some deep inner aquifer of my soul must have been moved by Richard’s outburst, because the next day I donned a neoprene top, bike pants, and flippers and waded out into the frigid drink to take care of the pipe ugliness once and for all. May I just say that the water temperature in a spring fed pond in Vermont in April IS COOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!
AM I CRAZY?!! YES!!
I took my time, pausing every few steps to acclimate myself to the temperature. Luckily Richard sat on shore shouting out supportive things like “Just go for it! Come on! Hop to Hopsing, daylight’s burning!” He’s a prince, and a prince should be king. I finaIly took the “plunge” and quickly assessed the job that lay ahead. My main concern was that last autumn we had put a series of ropes tied to stakes around the bottom of the pipe when we were trying to fix it in place and there was always the possibility of getting tangled up in them. One dive to the bottom, though, alleviated that concern. The ropes had been pulled out and were lying out of harm’s way in the silt. I unhooked the standpipe and it sunk to the bottom, out of sight, out of mind. Of course, now pur pond’s water was coursing out of the pipe. I surfaced and shouted for Richard to toss me a slghtly deflated blue ball we’d gotten to plug it up. It was a little tricky bringing it to the bottom and then, it didn’t hold. Next solution? An old board I found at the bottom. It sort of work, bu still, not a perfect fit. I surfaced once more and yelled for Richard to fashion a plug much like Royce had made for the original pipe - a 4” by 4” board, one side staple gunned with intertubing to cinch it close, with a 2” by 2” by 3” board nailed perpendicular to the tubing side of the board that would fit down the pipe. He raced to the house to cobble it together while I bobbed on the surface, teeth chattering, giving one of the best Leonardo DiCaprio imitations from “Titanic” you’ll ever see. I swear I was beginning to hear Celine Dion singing by the time Richard returned and tossed me the plug. I swam down, plugged the hole, and when I stepped to shore, Richard was singing and dancing “Ding, dong the witch is dead” up and down the shores of the pond in celebration, mind you, with the original “little person” choreography (it’s not too difficult, but very entertaining). We were feeling very victorious. Hoorah and halleluja! It took about 20 minutes for my teeth to stop their clattering.

Today I’d like to say that the pond situation is finito, a thing of the past BUT it’s a work in progress. We thought we had it. We’re very, very close, just a few more kinks to work out. Emotions have run high. It’s been very Captains Courageous on the high seas at times, but with all the unsolvable things swirling around these days, it’s good to deal with something that has a definite beginning, middle, end. Sort of. Back to the drawing board and welcome to a new streambed. I’m out to yank a few more cattails and willows.

The Septic Man Cometh

No Art Carney he. No loquacious talk meister. No, Bob was a soft-spoken fellow. I had to lean in to hear him when I was right next to him. His hand barely made an impression on mine when I shook it, and it was soft and cushy, not callused. But of course, as I soon learned, most of his work is done wearing gloves, rubber made. I think he was a little afraid of me. As my husband Richard loves to remind me in acted out stories, I can be a little much in the full blossum of my effusiveness. Stronger men than Bob have been sent into a balk or a slight shielding themselves, maybe even thinking of going for a weapon when I’ve charged up to them to ask directions or wish them a good morning. And morning is my electric time. Bob didn’t know what to make of me. He froze upon my enthusiastic approach, stock still like a rabbit. Bob doesn’t seem like a people person. First impression. And let’s face it, his line of work doesn’t lend itself to conversation, to a give and take, to people coming out wanting to stand beside you and gab, as you uncap the cement block of a receptacle of mostly human waste from the past 3 to 5 years. Not really the kind of thing that conjures up a nostalgic look back. “Oh, look, that must have been when ...” No, septic tank cleaning doesn’t really do that. It’s a solitary undertaking. And Bob went to the beat of a different drummer. A drum with a very muffled beat. But I was garrulous. I wanted to keep him company. And I was curious. I wanted to ask him some tricks of the trade. Incisive journalistic questions like:

‘About how many tanks do you drain a day?’

(Slight pause)

“5.”

(Every answer was given staring straight at me, still, expressionless.)

‘And do you have to drain your truck’s tank after each one?’

“Yes.”

(Pause. Slurping sounds. Bob puts a shovel with an extra-long handle to work.)

‘How big are these tanks?’

“4 feet.”

(Another pause. Lots of looking down. Then he asked me a question, I was overjoyed.)

“You’re talking about how deep?”

‘Yes.’

“4 feet.”

And so it went. And Bob had a job to do. He had places to go, people to meet. Well, tanks to empty.

He was about 60 years old, a worn cap from some country club, thick white sideburns curling around the sides of his face, glasses. A kind-of-smile on his face. Somewhere in between a smile and straight flat line of an expression.

His job finished, he methodically wound the hose, packed up his tools, and then sat in his truck cab with the door open and wrote up the bill. I replaced the dirt and sod back around the green plastic raised cover to the tank. He walked over to me with his clipboard.

“You want to mail this in or ... ?”

(I had to lean in to hear what he was saying and that may have been why he trailed off instead of finishing his sentence, but it seemed as if he stopped speaking because he was too shy to ask for outright payment, as if that would have been an affront.)

‘No thanks, I’ll mail it in later. ’

He slowly fingered through the receipt and ripped it from beneath a carbon. When was the last time I’d seen carbon paper. He handed me my receipt and a card saying the day’s date of cleaning, almost 4 years from the last time.

‘Well, thanks Bob, good job.’

(I shook his hand. He had a faint, faint smile on his face.)

‘Have a good day.’

“Thank you. You too.”

Some people gotta do the dirty work. And Bob walked over to his truck without looking back, got in, started his motor, and drove right out of my life.

Greening and s%#*

APRIL 18TH

We dipped down to 30 last night, a nice nip in the air to keep us honest. Heartened by the sun and the mid-60 degree weather, I planted sweet peas yesterday along with a little lettuce, spinach, and potatoes. I was jumping the gun a bit for Vermont, but the vegetables were all labeled “hardy” on the back of the High Mowing Seeds packets, “can withstand frost” “begin planting in early spring” so I felt protected, justified.. However, I did feel a bit sheepish later when I overheard a very emphatic Vermonter gardener up by the checkout counter with his wife in J & M’s landscaping yesterday.

“They just never learn. All these people who went and planted their gardens when we had that 80 degree weather in March.”

“mmm” (This was either the checkout counter person or his wife)

“You have to be patient, you have to wait.”

“That’s right.” (This was definitely his wife, very agreeable.)

“You have to wait until after Memorial Day if you really want to be safe. There’ve been times we’ve waited until the second week of June.”

“You just have to wait.”

“They’ll never learn.”

“Have a good day then.” (This the counter person to whom I confessed my planting craze earlier that day. She shrugged “it doesn’t matter.”)

A general sprucing up yesterday while planting: weeding the witchgrass out before laying a new layer of newspaper and straw down on the walkways between the raised beds. I may “chance it” and lay in some kale and beets today too. I love this rush of enthusiasm after a bout of spring fever reluctance. A reluctance to do anything having to do with growing things, feeling I’d be fooled by nature. But caution be damned. I can’t wait any longer, I won’t wait. I cracked open the Vermont Gardener’s bible in whose pages resided my sketchy plans for this year’s garden, taking into consideration rotations and what goes best with what, what matchings should be avoided, etcetera. Now to give me my due, I do have some transplants going inside so I haven’t been completely inactive. I think I drenched out one container, but they’re coming through despite my deluge, twiggy serpentines of broccoli and brussel sprouts, sprouty stretches of pumpkins and other winter squashes, apologetic delicate tomatoes. I can’t get over the miraculousness of seeds. Every year I feel a bit like a 4th grader planting my first seed in some school experiment and marveling how from this tiny nothing springs a huge, prolific plant. That renews faith in me. Faith in resilence and renewal, in nature, in life. It’s its own resurrection.

And man oh man, all the daffodils I planted last fall are blossoming, this incredible blast of yellow trumpets all over the place, along the bank in front of our stone wall, a little patch by the pond’s edge, as well as wherever I took a fancy to plant some more, in front of the house by the kitchen, dotted around our spruce. And this added to the slew of bulbs we planted the autumn before with our visiting friend Jean all along our side of the stone wall so we can admire them first thing in the morning from the kitchen. And this added still to the daffodils Royce’s mother planted ages ago in the far field by our birch and firs, their coming heralded by scores of multi-colored croci. Daffodils make me smile. They’re like hearing a chickadee song, this little chest of joy opens up inside me. I love it.

Green is coming through on everything. All the trees have tender little buds and the grass transforms incrementally everyday. It’s like a slow motion magic trick. The entire orchard carpet has changed. Not anywhere close to the show off green it’ll get soon, more a timid, stretching, waking up. The flute music I’m listening to right now on VPR is a perfect accompaniment. Inside we have blossoming buds on apple branches we brought in last week for our Easter feast. Oh, that’s 2 weeks already. Hmmm. And speaking of death and resurrection, I see outside that a goodly sized maple on our pond’s side has uprooted itself and toppled over, a bit of its top branches reaching out into the water, as if it were a dehydrated prospector reaching out its last gasp for a drink of pond water. Once we get our chain saw working again, that’ll cut up into some good firewood.

The pond is completely under the domain of our visiting Canada Goose “soon-to-be” family. And they are already impressive parents. The father is on constant pond watch, a decisive V trailing behind his patrols through the waters. The mother is on almost constant maternity duty, scrunched down over her nest so as not to be seen, blending in to the bare cover she has on “goose island.” Our geese, as expected, have been banned from the pond, so we’ve brought out their blue plastic kiddie pool and filled it for them out back and they are like little children, splashing around in it, flapping their wings, ducking under, shaking themselves silly, and using it as a general sprucing up about once an hour. I find myself frozen still watching them, marveling, again with a big goofey smile on my face, another chest of joy opened.

Goslings are due on Saturday so think of your shower gifts. Richard has 3 eggs in prime health, you can hear one of them cheaping from within their shell. He or she sounds very healthy. It’s broken into its little air sac at the end of the inner egg and sounds as if it’s more than ready to pip through soon. Also getting ready for birth are 6 duck eggs and 5 chicks. It’s a lively household.

That’s about it for today. Our septic tank guy should be by any moment to give our tank a once every 3 years or so drain. I’ll saunter on out and look “in charge” and see if it gets a laugh from any of our poultry. The septic tank guy is kin to what my dad used to call “honey dippers” when he was growing. They were the fellows who would come through the country and empty out the outhouses. Thus his expression of frustration “Well, I’ll be dipped!” when I was growing up. And speaking of septic and to end with a little Vermont lore (pardon me if I’m repeating myself), about 3 years back we had a “septic” problem which entailed digging up a long trough and then hole in our front yard. But we couldn’t really determine whether it was a “septic” problem or just a water leak. Well, Royce, our neighbor who grew up in our house, sauntered over one afternoon in the midst of this unearthing and overheard a discussion of our dilemma as I stood down in the trough digging, and he blithely bent over, dipped his finger into the moist dirt piled along the trough, then stood back up, touched it to his tongue, tasting it, and announced “It’s septic.”

Speak of the devil, the septic tank truck just rumbled up.

Bye.

April 14th - 100 Years Later

100 years later.

I still have my yellowed copy of the paperback of Walter Lord’s “A Night to Remember.” It has traveled with me more miles than the ship sailed, from Indiana to California, than to Rhode Island, New York, California again, and now it resides on an upstairs bookshelf in Vermont. Along the way it has picked up traveling companions, namely James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” (which I never really read all the way through, though I made many attempts. Love the beginning, oh that beginning) and Gabriel Marquez’s “A Hundred Years of Solitude.” There have been other books that have traveled with me over the years, many, but these 3 are the Holy Trinity, the 3 Musketeers, and “A Night to Remember” outlasts them all . It has staying power. And since tonight is the 100th anniversary of Titanic’s brush with the iceberg, I thought it fitting to herald the book's unsinkable status in my life.

I’ve been a history nerd from waaaaay back. The Civil War ignited the first fires of my fantasies. Also around that time, the idea of a Time Machine, anything to do with traveling in time, captivated me. And I always wanted to go back, never forward. Back to see Lincoln and Lee (and later, much later, Walt Whitman), to be there at Gettysburg, Appomatox, Ford’s Theatre. I checked out a 20 reel version of “A Birth of a Nation” from our library and watched it over and over on our home movie screen. From there World War II and the relentless rise of the Nazis enthralled me. (Why was it wars and disasters interested me? Hmmm?)

I don’t know how the Titanic first cruised into my imagination. There are several possibilities. My grandmother was an expert storyteller, a former teacher in a one room schoolhouse, and a great lover of history. Did she first bring it up or did I ask her about it? She had been born in 1900 and was 12 when the ship sunk. She remembered the headline. And since I was an early collector of old newspapers, obtaining that particular headline whetted my appetite. (I have a Fort Wayne News Sentinel original from that date.) Another possibility would have been the 1950’s movie “Titanic” with Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb which was going to be shown on Saturday Night at the Movies one Saturday in my early youth. I’d seen previews and had anticipated its coming for at least a week (it felt like weeks plural, but time stretched and seemed like an eternity back then), but on the afternoon of the fated day, I had my own brush with disaster. I rode my bike into the street without looking both ways and a car brushed the front tire. No injuries, but my mother witnessed this and as punishment forbad me from seeing the movie. I begged, pleaded, cajoled, tap danced, spun plates, sang in black face (no I didn’t), nothing worked. She was firm as a glacier. Not a crack in her resolve. I didn't see the movie until years later. But maybe the interest was already there. We did have a book about the sea and famous ships in which there was one page that had an artist’s rendition of the Titanic going down, the iceberg still in sight, lifeboats filled with powerless people aghast at the horror they were witnessing. I would stare at that picture, conjuring up my own versions of events. And there were also versions of the Titanic on the tv show “Time Tunnel” and in the movie and musical “Unsinkable Molly Brown” but these again came along after the image of the doomed ship had been firmly branded.

At some time in all this, Walter Lord’s wonderful book steamed into my hands. It’s a thin paperback, with a startling artist’s rendition of the sinking, different than the book’s I mentioned. It was sepia toned and proved an excellent page turner. I wanted, needed to get inside that book. And it held the most effective forward to any book I’ve read since. It speaks of a fictional book written by a struggling author in the 19th century in which he takes a boat dubbed unsinkable, fills it with some of the world’s richest people, and then sinks it on its maiden voyage. I forget now whether the fictional book hit an iceberg or not. The forward goes on then to briefly describe the actual White Star Line ship. Amazing similarity. And then the last line is the clincher, and I paraphrase: “The fictional ship was called the Titan, the real ship, the Titanic.”

Well, I was had.

I devoured the book. This was how history should be written. Captivating, edge of your seat, what’s going to happen next, oh if only they’d done this they could have avoided the whole thing, tales of heroism, foolishness, fate. I loved it. An expert job. Even describing it now it makes me want to open those sad, brittle pages and embark on the voyage once more. It’s as if it’s a cautionary tale against human pride with the scale of a Greek tragedy. Amazing. And there it is in my mind’s eye, the Titanic, its ghost, not at the bottom of the sea, but sailing the same route 100 years later, all the rich in their pomp, all the poor below decks, enjoying what they have no idea is the final day of this ship, of their lives perhaps. It so captivates the imagination. A great story. A great book.

So here's to Walter, to the book, to the ship itself, to all the many stories and myths and conversations its spawned, to all the people, all the people, survivors, the dead, the storytellers.

Postscript: If you’ve never seen the British film “A Night to Remember” adapted from Walter Lord’s book, watch it. Excellent. Far superior to James Cameron’s “Titanic” in my estimation. If they could’ve melded the story and script of the British film with the effects of the most recent version, it would’ve been perfect. But that’s the old history nerd speaking.

Testimoney

I continue to sit in on Senate Finance Committee meeting hearings where testimony has been going on. Yesterday, we heard from quite a slew of insurance brokers and though they seemed like likeable individuals and they each had a slightly different story, the subtext seemed to roar - "I'm afraid! There's a lot of really scared people out there. Fear is just going to increase. Panic, fear, upheaval! Locusts, earthquakes, disaster!! Could we just slow down. CHANGE IS NOT A GOOD THING! It scares me. I'm smiling in front of you now, but I could easily shit my pants. We're going to lose out here and we're scared, so you should be scared too. FEAR, FEAR, FEAR. MORE FEAR FEAR FEAR. Things are changing. Do you realize you're making us feel like dinosaurs. We provide an invaluable service. People need handholding through all the morass of the ever changing premiums and costs and hidden hoo-hahs. There does need to be reform, we're part of the solution, we like most of what you're saying, but don't change us, don't change anything about us, change other people, but not us because this is the way it's been done for years and that's what we know, and did I mention that I'm scared, fearful, in panic, and just trying to hold on to what's mine?! Could we just slow down?!!"

It is refreshing when someone comes into the room and parries through the hype and simply speaks facts. It dispels fatigue. You sit up. There is a ring of authenticity and clarity. There is a gratitude. And my hat goes off to the senators on the committee. They treat everyone with great respect, ask cogent questions, and are dedicated to their offices.

This afternoon I'm to sit in on a full Senate debate. Someone has tacked on a Death with Dignity amendment to a Tanning Salon bill. Hmmm? The move was done in "revenge" for someone else's underhanded move to vote an add on to a bill while someone clearly opposed to it was momentarily out of the room. Testimony and debate on this should be interesting. They're dubbing it Tanning with Dignity. I'm imagining tanning salons set up in hospice care facilities. Let them look good as they're on their way out.

Health Care tidbits.

Back to testimonies. I listen to these personal stories and it seems as if the recurring theme is "burying the lead" unconsciously or consciously. What's not being said? Or what's being passed over that's really where the emphasis should be. For instance above when I mentioned the broker's saying they are really needed to help client's machete their way through the kudzu vine of new premiums, new hidden costs, etcetera. To me, more than proving their indispensability, it screams that if we had Single Pay, save for the transition over, everything would be simplified and clear and under one umbrella. Everyone could be their own best expert. In another testimony, a woman who works for the insurance industry was citing an example from her own life where her 2 chronically ill children with $10,000 deductibles each were prescribed an prohibitively expensive drug by a doctor who thought it was covered by her insurance. She was attempting to blame the medical profession or that doctor specifically, but what screamed to me was "$10, 000 deductibles each?!! That's criminal!! And drugs weren't covered? And you work for the insurance company? You don't question greed in this? Doesn't something sound wrong about this set-up?!" Excuse my passion, but sometimes it seems so obvious. Yet another testimony by a nervous, sweaty representative for small businesses spoke of a 20 question questionaire he passed out to a goodly chunk of small business owners. He kept saying that it was "totally unbiased, completely unbiased" and then proceeded to list these findings - 95% didn't know this was going to go into effect in 2014; 12% would keep their insurance, the rest get rid of it. Now what was screaming to me, and one of the senators inquired about this in an indirect way, "Where's the questionaire? What were these questions? How were they worded? Was there an option that this change would be a good thing or was it all fear, horrible, panic, don't change, horror, hell, end of the world?!"

Fascinating process.

This morning, this evening

This morning ...

Flocked trees, morning sun spotlighting the top of the hill, glistening a rich vanilla. The pond is still frozen, but the surface is wet through. Our pair of Canada geese are sitting on top of the ice, resting, laying claim to it like explorers of old. They're itching to nest and on the squawky lookout for hovering ravens, weasels and minks, and other Canadians.

We had a slight fire in our stove pipe yesterday, comes from not having been very diligent about cleaning it and the flue out this winter, every month had been suggested. We shut off the oxygen to the fire and, after the pipes cooled, we disconnected them and discovered that the fire had sizzled off most of the offending creosote, turned it to gray flakey ash. Lucky. The stove's all spic and span and safe now, and a fine warm flame from within has the kitchen in its embrace.

This evening ...

A big smile of clear water scimitars from the still frozen part of the pond. The Canadian geese have just settled down after staging their version of an Alfred Hitchcock attack on Richard. Of course, he was in a big orange kayak attempting to crack up more of the ice around the pond and was closing in on their nesting area. He knew the chance he was taking and laughed in the face of danger as the male, quite courageously, went after him. Richard's gone now, in the house getting ready to drive across the state for a 6:30 meeting, and I'm about to go on a 4 mile hike. The wind has picked up the geese's earlier fuss and is swaying the big pines into a hypnotized hula and sending gusts of grounded brown leaves skyward in a scatter of false life, back from the dead, one more flight through the air before compost.

Such a blue, blue sky, so pure, innocent, clear. Almost every trace of the morning snow is gone. But it'll be cold tonight. Into the 20's. Maybe that's what the wind's Paul Revere-ing about. Unseasonably warm to unseasonably cold. Unseasonable.

March. More Like Itself

March. More Like Itself

(This first part was written 2 days ago.)

It’s March again. 15 degrees this morning. All the water frozen in the coops, and up in the goose pen there was a 4 inch solid crust of ice on top of the 5 gallon water bucket. With last week’s weather up in the high 70’s, low 80’s it was the perfect time to reel in all the extension cords that had powered water heaters and heat bulbs etcetera, etcetera. Not so anymore. I’m just glad I held back on my urge to plant lettuce and snap peas and kale. I wonder what this has done to the tender fright wig blossoms on the young maples that were turning the forest pinkish red? “They’re toast,” a friend said at a party this weekend when we were speculating on the cold snaps that were sure to return. Richard’s been up to the pens and coops this morning Gunga Din-ing his cute little butt off, and contending with the ever cantankerous Shmuel who guards his harum with a flurry of fluffed up feathers, then a low snake approach of his neck, and a final sidelong glare, those wild blue eyes in a field of white feathers looking like Moby Dick’s, that warns of menace and mayhem should Richard step foot in the pen. I watched all of this from the safety of a kitchen window, a slight sore throat keeping me indoors. It was quite entertaining. And believe me, I’ve experienced every version of this behavior. Last week with pugs around, Shmuel pulled out the full Chinese New Year dragon routine with wings up Karate Kid fashion and a terrifying serpent head in the center, hissing for all get out. It’s very impressive theatre. And when it comes right down to it, that’s all he’s got as a defense strategy - theatre. Theatre and a good bite or two.

There’ve been 2 pair of Canada Geese battling for supremecy over our pond. Not the most ideal nesting place, though, since it’s still frozen. But last week with the warm weather, there were caws and aerial combat, chases, complaints, and through it all, I was so impressed by the calm of our three. Unlike years past, they didn’t look upset at all. The were like Switzerland, wisely sitting it out, swaddled in neutrality. I was pulling for the smaller, sweeter pair of Canada Geese to win out, but size seems to matter in this battle. Too bad, because the bigger pair seem more contrary and combative which won’t bode well if our geese ever want to take a swim. More will be revealed.

Complete change of subject.

Our statehouse. Okay, Vermont’s governmental set-up has to rank as one more of the reasons I love living here. Let’s say it’s reason 60. I’m still a novice when it comes to knowing the inner workings and all the ins and outs available, but upon first tour, it’s the paradigm of a people’s government. The legislature is in session now and topping the bill is the health care debate with Governor Shumlin’s hope that he’ll be able to forge, with the Senate and the House, a successful path to Vermont being the first state in the union to have Single Payer coverage for everyone in the state. Deb Richter, a new friend of mine, former family care physician and now full time advocate for Single Pay, shepherded me through the halls of the statehouse, part tour, part primer.

“They don’t have any offices.”
‘Who?’

“Any of the legislators.”

A pause to let this sink in.

‘So where do they do their work?’

“Deals are hammered out in the cafeteria. You’ll see at lunch. So if you want to talk something over with a legislator, you can go right up to him at lunch. And not only that, you have the right as a citizen to sit in on any meeting in any office. There is full transparency here.”

This was incredible to me. It had the ring of something unique and special, the resonating original intent of the founding fathers perhaps. Of course, it all depends on an educated populace that is interested enough to take part in their government to keep that original intent alive. And I admit that interest/duty/calling has been hibernating in me. There’s a stirring inside me, though, call it Spring, call it March going out like a lion, call it an awakening, I’m not really clear, but I’m following it, heeding its call. I’m interested in all this, there’s an excitement at being a student, in learning, aiming for expertise, intending that, especially when it comes to health care. Something about that speaks deeply to me.

My first tour continued, first day at school. Deb popped me into the main sessions of both the house and the senate (the senate chamber is very cozy, like Williamsburg, Virginia in miniature) where we saw citizens sitting in the back, observing the proceedings, hooray for them. And then we walked right into a small office where a “private” meeting of senators was being given a précis of the proposed set-up of the insurance exchange through Green Mountain Care that would be a forerunner to Single Payer Care. There were other citizens at the edges of the room, listening in. We were all treated like guests, the same handout that had been given to the senators was also passed out to us. I loved it. And I love that Vermont, little old Vermont, could very well be the first state to have the courage and wherewithal to try Single Pay. It’s doable. With a passionate Governor at the helm, it’s doeable. (I would meet Governor Shumlin later in the day. He seemed a consummate politician, present, alert, bright, making me seem like his full attention was on me for that moment even though he was in the midst of a reception for a major check having been given to the state for Hurricane Irene rebuilding.)

This morning

Since the tour the other day, I’ve embarked on a crash course about Single Pay. The idea of Single Pay has always intrigued me, it’s always seemed like the best choice, otherwise why would people be so LOUDLY against it, rolling out the old charges of socialism. That’s my first clue that this must be something really good for the common man. So I’ve been boning up on it. Deb and her husband Terry Doran have written 2 terrific books about health care in Vermont and I’m devouring Wendell Potter’s terrificly true “Deadly Spin” about his background as a senior executive and spinmeister for Humana and CIGNA before becoming a whistleblower and major advocate for Single Pay. I love unlikely heroes. You go, Wendell. More to be revealed. Very exciting.

Back to the geese.

I’m once again at the kitchen window, standing and typing on my Macbook pro. The geese are right outside the window, congregating around a 5 gallon white bucket filled with water. I love watching them. Shmuel submerges his neck, diving so deep into the bucket and then back out again. I can tell he’s so missing the pond because he tries to climb into the bucket, reaching his big orange feet up the sides of the bucket, trying to gain purchase, taking part in some magical thinking that maybe if he dives his neck deep enough in this water it will turn into pond. He’s such a water fowl. It’s who he is. So wonderful observing creatures be completely who they are.

Dear Felicity just gave a little cry. She’s been so game about her injury. It’s getting better, but she’ll probably always have a limp, always a little Long John Silver to her get along. Shmuel and Mary Ann leave her on her own a lot of the time, wandering away from her, which is sad to see. She just noticed they were gone – that’s what brought her cry, a plaintive “where are you?”, they’re flock birds after all – and she’s hobbled over to where they are, chewing grass along the way. She’ll get there and sit for awhile, maybe because of the pain, who knows. I mean, what is pain to her? Just a piece of what her life is now, not necessarily a setback, just what is. Tough it out.

Oh, 2 male Canada Geese are still battling it out up on the hill, both families still waiting for the pond to thaw and Spring to come.

I think I’ll plant some seeds inside today.