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.