A little bit of the ole drear today. A day of rain, flood warnings in New Hampshire later in the afternoon. The big maple out my back window has been mostly stripped of its foliage. And that's how it will remain until May. Wow. The last remaining leaves fall like yellow tears. They held on for a long time, for a last bit of glory, but that's all she wrote, folks. Going out with a grand splash of color, in one's finest clothes. It seems like a big thank you to LIFE. Nature's fireworks display. Didn't William Blake die singing and applauding and laughing in bed? Yes, yes, yes. Saying YES to it all.
I was just back in Indiana visiting family and friends, a good visit, a bit wearing, as all family visits are, at least for me. On my last day I had one of those obligatory relative dinners, we went to Bob Evans - I deferred to their restaurant choice - and they had chicken fried steak buried in milk gravy with some deceased carrots on the side. I had a dead salad. Nothing against Bob Evans personally, but I don't think there wasn't an ounce of nutrition on the horizon. I was holding the place of "good cheer" at the table just to counterbalance a drear that they carried with them. It was raining that day too, but there was a continuum of drear they had with them that would've clouded a sunny day. It had heft and weight and tradition behind it. Most of the conversation was about how lousy life was. That growing old is for shit, that it's all down hill, that it's pain and aches and ... you get the picture. I held back the urge to say "if you say so" and just listened, nodding, trying my best not to judge as I watched spoonfuls of dead flour and milk shoveled mechanically into sullen mouths. But I thought it. If you say so. Words are powerful. They imprison. They manifest. We're so powerful, we humans, and what we say, we are; we define ourselves whether negative or positive. I've imprisoned myself many times, I'm sure I still do unwittingly, though I HOPE I can recognize and interupt it with a little more celerity than I have in the past. There've been times it's taken me 20 years to realize that what I've been saying blithely for years has formed a belief system on which so many other beliefs have been founded. Humbling to recognize it ONCE MORE, accept it, and start dismantling it all. Trips home are like hauntings. They're like the Ghost of Christmas yet to come pointing his boney finger from underneath that Ingmar Bergman death robe as if to say "You too can become this. You came from this. It's in your blood, it's in your bones, it has a pull, a power. There's work to be done or you too can become this! Beware!!"
And it's so easy to judge!! It's easy. IT'S EASY!!! It's easy getting angry. It's hard NOT being impatient. Visits are a workout. And I may be right in all my pronouncements about "them", but so what? So what? Maybe what they are, what they eat, what they say is the best they can do. This is them at their best. This is it. I shared that thought with Richard at one of the airports as I was heading home and he shouted the phrase I'd thought, but didn't allow myself to say. "It's NOT ENOUGH!!!!" We laughed. Oh it was good to laugh. It echoed through the corridors of the Detroit Airport where I was making a late connection back to Burlington. And it was raining out on the tarmack and also on the roads Richard was driving down on the other end of the line.
It was good getting on the plane for home. My spirit shifted just being on a plane I knew was either filled with Vermonters or people being pulled there for some reason. I could breathe more fully. I was going home. The plane landed at 11 pm and I had an hour and a half drive ahead of me. I had viewed that as an inconvenience, but once on the road, I welcomed it. I found a whole new reserve of energy and delight. It was a blast. I got a good cup of coffee from a Mobil station coffee urn - surprise, surprise for a self-proclaimed coffee snob. The road was wet, but there was no rain. And the moon, buried just behind the grey black clouds, gave out an eerie, wondrous sheen. I listened to the first part of Simon Russell Beale's production of "Hamlet" on the cd player, a fitting choice on such a blow about ghostly night in the wee hours and then I slapped on a language tape and practiced a little Italian. Lots of fun.
I just thought that drive home is emblematic of, let's say Reason 50 of why I love living in Vermont: a new perspective on aging. Granted I'm a young pup in the arena of aging, I'm just at the thresh hold, but I like looking at it as a drive home through a dark, late drive I had expected to be one way, but turns out to be something completely and surprisingly and unexpectedly rich and fun. Vermont's helped me re-examine any pronouncements I may have made about growing old, negative or positive, and to question them, to see where I stand now, and see how that serves me or not. I intend the rest of my life to be the 2nd Act of a really well constructed play, where the first act has set-up and planted the seeds in preparation of what's to come. And that doesn't have to be a rock em, sock em, WOW show, a big Billy Rose finish - though it would be fine if that's what happens - but to more fully appreciate everything about it. To celebrate it, give thanks for every bit of it, highs and lows. At least that's my intention. And I'm surrounded by plenty of models and teachers here that live life with a great deal of grace and humour and activity. There's a steadier, more grounded vitality, they're in it for the long haul.
I'll take that.
So bring on the rain.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
New David Budbill poem
This is a poem found in a new collection from Vermont poet David Budbill that was sent to me from a friend in Middlebury who felt I had a similar pull between the country and the city. I like it a lot. Very true in its haiku spareness:
Contrasts
Off to the city
Everything so different
one place from the other.
Crowded and noisy streets
of the City, the solitude of
the quiet mountainside:
human-nonhuman, hectic-
calm, bright-dark, yang-yin
The sages say it’s all the same.
I don’t know; they sure seem
different to me. Each magnifies,
is better with, the other.
Contrasts
Off to the city
Everything so different
one place from the other.
Crowded and noisy streets
of the City, the solitude of
the quiet mountainside:
human-nonhuman, hectic-
calm, bright-dark, yang-yin
The sages say it’s all the same.
I don’t know; they sure seem
different to me. Each magnifies,
is better with, the other.
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”
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”
Monday, September 12, 2011
Woke in a cloud this morning
Woke in a cloud this morning, everything hazy white, opaque outside, just the silhouettes of the coops and the garden. A big comforter blanket around our house. Up with chores, the squawks and clucks all about. As Richard fed the chickens, I dodged the geese who were demanding grub which we’re low on. Then to the garden where I did a quick once over all the tomatoe vines for hornworms – the past few days I’ve sent 7 to their squirmy maker – then to the pole beans where webbed leaves semaphored that bean beetles were about. 7 of them are now at the bottom of a jar of sudsy water. I wonder if it being autumn, with leaves just beginning to turn in the woods, signals the predators to come out and feast on the first signs of decay? Everything in the garden is still craning for life, that last big burst, dodging frost warnings. We have about 12 good sized butternut squash swaddled amid those huge African looking leaves. Blossoms are still trumpeting out, bright, bold orange. Life! Life! Life! We have about 8 or so acorn squash. The tomatoe vines are teeming with fruit and we’ve already made 2 big batches of green tomatoe chutney that we canned in pint Ball jars. There are pole beans and broccoli, celery, a couple cantelope and about 6 small watermelon, all yearning for warm days. Not a whole lot of those in Vermont’s short growing season. I’m so proud of the garden, it looks grand.
We called in the owls over the weekend. Our friend Susan came with a cassette recording that she played over and over in the moonlit night as we sat around in lawn chairs, wrapped in fleece and flannel. It was a cold night. We all behaved, followed her instructions, sat still, didn’t say a word. We sat for a good half hour, the only sound the click and whirl of the rewind of the recording on her cassette player. Nothing. I could tell she was getting discouraged and a few of our stalwarts were getting cold. But then the moment we began talking, we heard a big hoot in a nearby tree. Like disobedient school kids chastened, we sat down and bit our tongues. Why, I don’t know, because it was our chatter that had attracted it. Again, Susan played the recording. She had said that once they came they would begin a chatter reminiscent of monkeys to display their territorial disgust that a foreigner was in their midst. Jingoism in the animal kingdom. And sure enough, after another break where we began talking to one another, another owl showed up in a nearby tall pine and began a breathy hoot and howl chatter. I was back by our goose enclosure when this was happening and they were stirred up and whispering to one another, their white coats like crook-necked ghost bobbing about. I agree with Richard when he said: “Isn’t it wonderful at our age to get a group together like this and do something completely new.” Yes, yes, yes!
A correction from a blog a few days ago. We went to Middlebury over the weekend and went to the Folklife Center there where the photographic and audio offering was of a drag club that had been in Dummerston, Vt. until 2004. Dummerston is the site of a famous annual Apple Pie contest, the town’s down near Brattleboro in the southern part of the state. My mom and I went one year and though it took awhile to get there we finally found this quaint little town nestled in the woods, tents set up with vanilla ice cream and pies, pies, pies and most of the town populated with leather clad motorcycle riders! Most of whom were 35 plus years old. Very funny, very incongruous, very Vermont. Of course this place would have a famous once a month drag show with Mama and Kitty and Sophie and Chloe. The photos were wonderful and the interviews telling and insightful. My favorite quote: “Everyone has their own drag. It’s their ‘if only I could …’. Fill in the blank and that’s your drag.”
The sun is out. Daphne, one of our loudest geese, just answered one of the roosters crows. It’s time for me to get out and paint a little primer and the newly clapboarded east side of our house.
Have a great day!
We called in the owls over the weekend. Our friend Susan came with a cassette recording that she played over and over in the moonlit night as we sat around in lawn chairs, wrapped in fleece and flannel. It was a cold night. We all behaved, followed her instructions, sat still, didn’t say a word. We sat for a good half hour, the only sound the click and whirl of the rewind of the recording on her cassette player. Nothing. I could tell she was getting discouraged and a few of our stalwarts were getting cold. But then the moment we began talking, we heard a big hoot in a nearby tree. Like disobedient school kids chastened, we sat down and bit our tongues. Why, I don’t know, because it was our chatter that had attracted it. Again, Susan played the recording. She had said that once they came they would begin a chatter reminiscent of monkeys to display their territorial disgust that a foreigner was in their midst. Jingoism in the animal kingdom. And sure enough, after another break where we began talking to one another, another owl showed up in a nearby tall pine and began a breathy hoot and howl chatter. I was back by our goose enclosure when this was happening and they were stirred up and whispering to one another, their white coats like crook-necked ghost bobbing about. I agree with Richard when he said: “Isn’t it wonderful at our age to get a group together like this and do something completely new.” Yes, yes, yes!
A correction from a blog a few days ago. We went to Middlebury over the weekend and went to the Folklife Center there where the photographic and audio offering was of a drag club that had been in Dummerston, Vt. until 2004. Dummerston is the site of a famous annual Apple Pie contest, the town’s down near Brattleboro in the southern part of the state. My mom and I went one year and though it took awhile to get there we finally found this quaint little town nestled in the woods, tents set up with vanilla ice cream and pies, pies, pies and most of the town populated with leather clad motorcycle riders! Most of whom were 35 plus years old. Very funny, very incongruous, very Vermont. Of course this place would have a famous once a month drag show with Mama and Kitty and Sophie and Chloe. The photos were wonderful and the interviews telling and insightful. My favorite quote: “Everyone has their own drag. It’s their ‘if only I could …’. Fill in the blank and that’s your drag.”
The sun is out. Daphne, one of our loudest geese, just answered one of the roosters crows. It’s time for me to get out and paint a little primer and the newly clapboarded east side of our house.
Have a great day!
Thursday, September 8, 2011
What's in store the next few days ...
We trek over to our friends in Middlebury tomorrow -- all the way up to Burlington and then back down around the Green Mtns since all the scenic roads over them have been pretty well crippled by Irene. (It's still amazing to see what the storm has done to people in this state.) While there we'll see a new play by a friend of ours which uses letters written by Vermonters, soldiers and their families, during the Civil War to tell the state's personal history of the conflict. One little historical tidbit: Vermont contributed more soldiers per capita than any other state in the union.
The following day in the morning we'll visit the Folk Art museum there that has impressive audio archives of people from the state encompassing many different issues and themes, very reminiscent to me of Story Corps. They have some unique exhibit going on there about a drag Cowboy bar that used to be in existence in Bennington (???) and was quite famous in its day. Ah Vermont Folk lore.
Then home in the evening to host a potluck dinner with friends where Susan Mann, our friend and sister of our neighbor Royce - both of whom grew up in our house - has promised to "call in the owls" from the woods. She is supposed to be incredibly good at it. Can't wait.
Sunday is Richard's 51st birthday and there will be a party at our dear friend, Charlotte's home in Hanover and I think earlier in the day, to pay homage to those who died 10 years ago, I'll visit St. Thomas's Episcopal Church in Hanover where they are slated to perform Mozart's Requiem.
Good news today -- probably old news to others, but new news to me: Phish, the famous Vermont rock band that disbanded before we moved here, has slated a concert to raise Flood Relief Funds! Way to go Boys!! I wish you great and abundant success!!
The following day in the morning we'll visit the Folk Art museum there that has impressive audio archives of people from the state encompassing many different issues and themes, very reminiscent to me of Story Corps. They have some unique exhibit going on there about a drag Cowboy bar that used to be in existence in Bennington (???) and was quite famous in its day. Ah Vermont Folk lore.
Then home in the evening to host a potluck dinner with friends where Susan Mann, our friend and sister of our neighbor Royce - both of whom grew up in our house - has promised to "call in the owls" from the woods. She is supposed to be incredibly good at it. Can't wait.
Sunday is Richard's 51st birthday and there will be a party at our dear friend, Charlotte's home in Hanover and I think earlier in the day, to pay homage to those who died 10 years ago, I'll visit St. Thomas's Episcopal Church in Hanover where they are slated to perform Mozart's Requiem.
Good news today -- probably old news to others, but new news to me: Phish, the famous Vermont rock band that disbanded before we moved here, has slated a concert to raise Flood Relief Funds! Way to go Boys!! I wish you great and abundant success!!
Back home after 2 months
Back home after 2 months in the city. I reacquaint myself with everything, settle back into the pace, the quiet. I like it. There doesn’t seem to be such a struggle this time.
Well, there has been a tussle, a left over from the city. My gmail and Facebook were hacked on September 2nd, contacts stolen, e-mails erased, a fairly transparent money scam saying I was stranded in Madrid sent out to all. After 5 days I have regained possession of my old gmail address, but not Facebook yet. Despite my disdain for anything that smacks of techno computereze and my utter frustration that a LIVE customer service representative is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND on either site to help shepherd one through the morass, I have not run away. I’ve stayed at it. I’ve walked away, come back. Gone a bit overboard, seen the error of my ways, dallied with black and white thinking ie “That’s it!! I’m quitting all these sites! I’m getting rid of my iphone. They’re all a sign of group speak, addictions disguised as conveniences! I’m becoming a part of the pack. It’s madness, Madness, MADNESS!” But for the most part, I’ve been able to keep a balance. To see how unimportant it is while still trying to rectify the situation. Maybe there’s been a change in me. Maybe it’s the effect of being back here, back with Richard, back with the green and the animals and the space. A little bit of everything.
Little things make me smile, petting the cats, for instance. This morning, Delilah, our big girl, looked up at me and launched into her morning ritual of “pet me, pet me, pet me …” a stuck record, her meow a monotone, insistent crabbiness, like Selma Diamond in fur. But once you bend down and begin to stroke her coat, she transforms into a kind of princess, rubenesque still, yes, but so graceful and sweet, her face full of pleasure, paws clutching in, then stretching out, her purr, a marvelous motor idling. The whole thing becomes a meditation, it’s poetry, it grounds me.
Drippy and grey today, the last remnants of Hurricane Lee taking a New England visit. We dodged a bullet a week ago when Irene splattered through. The eye of the storm went right over our house stopping the rain and wind as if a faucet had been shut off up in the sky. Strange and wonderful. We were completely unaware of the flash flooding and damage all around us until the calls of concern came in from friends around the world. Our state, our dear state.
On with the day. Just wanted to make a check in after almost 3 months.
And if anyone has a tip about getting back on Facebook after having been hacked, that would be great.
Well, there has been a tussle, a left over from the city. My gmail and Facebook were hacked on September 2nd, contacts stolen, e-mails erased, a fairly transparent money scam saying I was stranded in Madrid sent out to all. After 5 days I have regained possession of my old gmail address, but not Facebook yet. Despite my disdain for anything that smacks of techno computereze and my utter frustration that a LIVE customer service representative is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND on either site to help shepherd one through the morass, I have not run away. I’ve stayed at it. I’ve walked away, come back. Gone a bit overboard, seen the error of my ways, dallied with black and white thinking ie “That’s it!! I’m quitting all these sites! I’m getting rid of my iphone. They’re all a sign of group speak, addictions disguised as conveniences! I’m becoming a part of the pack. It’s madness, Madness, MADNESS!” But for the most part, I’ve been able to keep a balance. To see how unimportant it is while still trying to rectify the situation. Maybe there’s been a change in me. Maybe it’s the effect of being back here, back with Richard, back with the green and the animals and the space. A little bit of everything.
Little things make me smile, petting the cats, for instance. This morning, Delilah, our big girl, looked up at me and launched into her morning ritual of “pet me, pet me, pet me …” a stuck record, her meow a monotone, insistent crabbiness, like Selma Diamond in fur. But once you bend down and begin to stroke her coat, she transforms into a kind of princess, rubenesque still, yes, but so graceful and sweet, her face full of pleasure, paws clutching in, then stretching out, her purr, a marvelous motor idling. The whole thing becomes a meditation, it’s poetry, it grounds me.
Drippy and grey today, the last remnants of Hurricane Lee taking a New England visit. We dodged a bullet a week ago when Irene splattered through. The eye of the storm went right over our house stopping the rain and wind as if a faucet had been shut off up in the sky. Strange and wonderful. We were completely unaware of the flash flooding and damage all around us until the calls of concern came in from friends around the world. Our state, our dear state.
On with the day. Just wanted to make a check in after almost 3 months.
And if anyone has a tip about getting back on Facebook after having been hacked, that would be great.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Showdown at Goose Island!!
Did the White Gander and his dames take back the pond from the Dastardly Pair from up north with their 5 new offspring OR is the swimming hole still off limits to Pilgrims and full steam ahead for Canooks?
FLASH! Newborns on Goose Island. The claim that the Canadians have hatched quintuplets has been corroborated by a sighting of the 2 adults and 5 shrimpy little fur balls on the banks of the pond at approximately 11:57 am Eastern Daylight Savings Time. “These Canadians like to get their young out on the water pronto,” I’m quoting myself here. “If they could figure out a way to float those eggs and hatch their young right into the drink, they’d be happy.”
Enough of the Sam Spade/Walter Winchell imitation.
Richard and I have been wondering whether the animosity between our geese and the Canadians would be eased once the eggs hatched. Today was the testing ground.
But first, a precursor.
Yesterday morning, Richard decided to bring our baby gosling out into the front yard to play in the grass and being the imp that I can be I decided to “stir up a little trouble” and see what would happen if I brought the babies around back where our brood was resting in the shade of the back porch. Faster than Richard could say “Are you happy now?” I got my answer because at the first sighting of the babes, Shmuel and the girls rose as one and began coming toward me at a good waddling clip, eyes glazed, babbling some goose incantation. Richard, smiling and a little glaze-eyed himself, wanted me to put the babies down on the grass. “Not on your life,” I spat out, clutching them to my breast and running away from the hellhounds like Eliza on the ice. “It must be instinct,” Richard yelled out in between laughs, running after me to the front yard. We put the babes back in their box and stole them inside, while Shmuel and the girls kept circling the house in search of them, calling out. Who knows whether they were saying “Come here, babies!” or “Kill them! KILL THEM!!” Either scenario would’ve been plausible. It took them about 15 minutes to calm down.
Okay, background information over, smash cut to today. Seeing the Canadians out on the pond with their babies piqued our brood’s interest. Shmuel was transfixed, standing, staring over across the road, as if on point. So again I thought I’d stir things up and headed over to the pond with my cup of afternoon coffee, hoping our group would follow. And they did, curious, wanting to inspect. On their way over they were harassed by a male red winged blackbird who hangs around on the power line, literally watching over a nest of his and his mate’s in the tall ferns near the edge of the pond. “Will our geese never get a break?” I thought as this little flying pipsqueak (And I like Redwing Blackbirds! Ask anyone at the Audobon Society!) darted and jabbed and tried his best to hiss, which sounded like a flea exhaling loudly. He gave it a good shot.
So we’re at the shore, all 5 of us, me and my geese, but they’re a gun shy, having been chased off the pond repeatedly and violently by the Canada Geese and they’ve spotted them across the way on the far side of the pond on the shoreline with their young. I walk to the end of the pier to nudge our gang into the water. It does the trick, with Shmuel leading they all walk into the water. No swimming, though, they just stick to shore, digging around underwater with their bills. Nothing wrong with that, but I know they’re cowed, they can’t hide it. So I decide to take the kayak out. A few days prior Richard and I had done the same thing to encourage them and they’d stuck close, braving the waves, as if the kayak were a big brother to help with the bullies. (Of course, when we pulled the kayak out and left, the Canadians attacked them again. But I digress.)
I paddle toward the other side of the pond and turn back to see that Shmuel and the girls are following behind in sure steady strokes of their feet. The Canadians head their young to tall grass; I can’t see the babies anymore, just the curve of the adult heads, like periscopes. So I stop, giving them their space. But Shmuel keeps going! As do the girls. They walk up on land. They start challenging the Canooks. “Come on, Shmuel! Let’s go!” I say, but though a part of me is chickening out for our geese’s sake, I love the build up of drama, I wonder what’s going to happen next. The Canada male has been shivering his back feathers in warming and Shmuel and the girls all answer back with shivers of their own and continue to move steadily in on them. The Canada pair’s heads look like serpents now. They begin bobbing up and down, hissing like cobras. And then the male attacks! He goes after Daphne who flies into the middle of the pond, then veers back towards me, begging for help. It does the trick. Daphne flies to shore behind me and the male Canook veers off to the left and rejoins his family. Shmuel and the other girls are still crying out and join Daphne on shore.
Now wait – I’ve left out a bit chronologically. Before the showdown – the FIRST showdown, that is – I paddled over to goose island to have a look see, see if I could spot any shell pieces etc., relics of the birth. I rounded the island and could see down feathers in profusion, whitening the straw, as if someone had just had a pillow fight. There was a piece of an egg, I thought, and as I came around the back of the island, I saw movement in the nest. There was another gosling in there! Covered with flies, a little loopy, heavy headed, but there was another gosling! Was he injured? Was he too weak to take the pond? And there was another egg beside it. That makes 7 potential offspring. But why had they left this one back on the island?
Back to the present. I paddle away, urging Shmuel to do the same. Well, swim away. I can see the Canada geese are leading their young across a far log into the brush in the swamp area, choosing, I suppose, to hide their young from the threat of both our Pilgrims and this big orange floating creature with paddles. Shmuel starts to swim away, but wait, he’s not headed for the pier and home, no. They’re headed for Goose Island and the nest and the baby. “C’mon Shmuel! C’mon!” No good. Drama, drama. What’s going to happen? No sign of the Canadians. Shmuel is at the island. Shmuel is walking onto the island! Now the girls!! What’re they gonna do to the baby? Kill it? What about the egg? Will they try to eat it? I can hear shivers of tail feathers and quiet hissing and goose conversation. “C’mon guys!” Are they just going to stay there and wait for the Canadians to return? Oh, this is good! And I’m wondering if the father protector is kicking in in Shmuel? There’s an abandoned young one, has he taken it on as his issue? Is this instinct now? I wait alongside the island for maybe 10 minutes. I paddle over to where I last saw the Canadians. There’s a little stirring of brush, but no sound. They’re laying low. And wait … wait … Shmuel’s in the water, ladies and gentlemen!! He’s leaving the island!! The girls are following. They seem calm, resolute, like they’ve done a good deed. They’ve fought the good fight. I pull up alongside the pier, hop out, quickly drag the kayak out to make room for them and one by one they climb up out of the pond like returning champions. One by one they flap their wings to the silent acclaim. Heroes. Is the pond theirs again? Who knows? I run over to write this as they primp and prune their feathers in preparation for the laying on of the laurel wreath ceremony.
BUT WAIT AGAIN!! As I began the above paragraph, the Canadians came out of the brush with their young, swam to their island, and disappeared. Our guys stood up and took to the water themselves and swam directly to the island. What was going to happen now?! Were they going to go ashore?! A fight for custody? A fight to the finish? They murmured something in goose to the Canadians. Then Shmuel gave a defiant cry “What’s going on in there?!” I saw movement. The Canadian male took to the water. And he came after everyone – Daphne first, of course – then Felicity. Shmuel and he faced off. Lots of squawky cacophony. Daphne submerged and surfaced crying out, paddling madly for shore. Shmuel cried out “Regroup! Regroup!” And it was over. The Canada guy splashed off as if he were washing off after a successful fight, a gladiator duel. And the Pilgrims came out, still proud, wings fluttering. To add insult to injury, though, the little blackbird came down to add his 2 cents of harassment. They batted at him with their wings, open billed, as if he were some infuriating insect.
Now our 4 are gathered in the shade at the side of the pond. The Canadians stay behind the protection of the dogwood bush in bloom on their island. It’s nearing 7. Every once in a while Shmuel lets loose with a trumpet call. “We’re still here!” it announces to the surrounding forest and pond. It never lets up here near Goose Island. Thrills and spills a plenty. I for one am proud of our geese. They conducted themselves handsomely. What will happen tomorrow? Stay tuned.
BUT WAIT AGAIN, AGAIN. PS!! When I pulled the binocs out to watch the young take to the island, I could’ve sworn I saw SIX offspring. SIX in the water, ONE and an EGG in the nest. THAT’S EIGHT GEESE, TEN COUNTING THE ADULTS, FOURTEEN COUNTING OURS, AND SIXTEEN INCLUDING THE GOSLING IN THE ATTACK!! YOWZA!
FLASH! Newborns on Goose Island. The claim that the Canadians have hatched quintuplets has been corroborated by a sighting of the 2 adults and 5 shrimpy little fur balls on the banks of the pond at approximately 11:57 am Eastern Daylight Savings Time. “These Canadians like to get their young out on the water pronto,” I’m quoting myself here. “If they could figure out a way to float those eggs and hatch their young right into the drink, they’d be happy.”
Enough of the Sam Spade/Walter Winchell imitation.
Richard and I have been wondering whether the animosity between our geese and the Canadians would be eased once the eggs hatched. Today was the testing ground.
But first, a precursor.
Yesterday morning, Richard decided to bring our baby gosling out into the front yard to play in the grass and being the imp that I can be I decided to “stir up a little trouble” and see what would happen if I brought the babies around back where our brood was resting in the shade of the back porch. Faster than Richard could say “Are you happy now?” I got my answer because at the first sighting of the babes, Shmuel and the girls rose as one and began coming toward me at a good waddling clip, eyes glazed, babbling some goose incantation. Richard, smiling and a little glaze-eyed himself, wanted me to put the babies down on the grass. “Not on your life,” I spat out, clutching them to my breast and running away from the hellhounds like Eliza on the ice. “It must be instinct,” Richard yelled out in between laughs, running after me to the front yard. We put the babes back in their box and stole them inside, while Shmuel and the girls kept circling the house in search of them, calling out. Who knows whether they were saying “Come here, babies!” or “Kill them! KILL THEM!!” Either scenario would’ve been plausible. It took them about 15 minutes to calm down.
Okay, background information over, smash cut to today. Seeing the Canadians out on the pond with their babies piqued our brood’s interest. Shmuel was transfixed, standing, staring over across the road, as if on point. So again I thought I’d stir things up and headed over to the pond with my cup of afternoon coffee, hoping our group would follow. And they did, curious, wanting to inspect. On their way over they were harassed by a male red winged blackbird who hangs around on the power line, literally watching over a nest of his and his mate’s in the tall ferns near the edge of the pond. “Will our geese never get a break?” I thought as this little flying pipsqueak (And I like Redwing Blackbirds! Ask anyone at the Audobon Society!) darted and jabbed and tried his best to hiss, which sounded like a flea exhaling loudly. He gave it a good shot.
So we’re at the shore, all 5 of us, me and my geese, but they’re a gun shy, having been chased off the pond repeatedly and violently by the Canada Geese and they’ve spotted them across the way on the far side of the pond on the shoreline with their young. I walk to the end of the pier to nudge our gang into the water. It does the trick, with Shmuel leading they all walk into the water. No swimming, though, they just stick to shore, digging around underwater with their bills. Nothing wrong with that, but I know they’re cowed, they can’t hide it. So I decide to take the kayak out. A few days prior Richard and I had done the same thing to encourage them and they’d stuck close, braving the waves, as if the kayak were a big brother to help with the bullies. (Of course, when we pulled the kayak out and left, the Canadians attacked them again. But I digress.)
I paddle toward the other side of the pond and turn back to see that Shmuel and the girls are following behind in sure steady strokes of their feet. The Canadians head their young to tall grass; I can’t see the babies anymore, just the curve of the adult heads, like periscopes. So I stop, giving them their space. But Shmuel keeps going! As do the girls. They walk up on land. They start challenging the Canooks. “Come on, Shmuel! Let’s go!” I say, but though a part of me is chickening out for our geese’s sake, I love the build up of drama, I wonder what’s going to happen next. The Canada male has been shivering his back feathers in warming and Shmuel and the girls all answer back with shivers of their own and continue to move steadily in on them. The Canada pair’s heads look like serpents now. They begin bobbing up and down, hissing like cobras. And then the male attacks! He goes after Daphne who flies into the middle of the pond, then veers back towards me, begging for help. It does the trick. Daphne flies to shore behind me and the male Canook veers off to the left and rejoins his family. Shmuel and the other girls are still crying out and join Daphne on shore.
Now wait – I’ve left out a bit chronologically. Before the showdown – the FIRST showdown, that is – I paddled over to goose island to have a look see, see if I could spot any shell pieces etc., relics of the birth. I rounded the island and could see down feathers in profusion, whitening the straw, as if someone had just had a pillow fight. There was a piece of an egg, I thought, and as I came around the back of the island, I saw movement in the nest. There was another gosling in there! Covered with flies, a little loopy, heavy headed, but there was another gosling! Was he injured? Was he too weak to take the pond? And there was another egg beside it. That makes 7 potential offspring. But why had they left this one back on the island?
Back to the present. I paddle away, urging Shmuel to do the same. Well, swim away. I can see the Canada geese are leading their young across a far log into the brush in the swamp area, choosing, I suppose, to hide their young from the threat of both our Pilgrims and this big orange floating creature with paddles. Shmuel starts to swim away, but wait, he’s not headed for the pier and home, no. They’re headed for Goose Island and the nest and the baby. “C’mon Shmuel! C’mon!” No good. Drama, drama. What’s going to happen? No sign of the Canadians. Shmuel is at the island. Shmuel is walking onto the island! Now the girls!! What’re they gonna do to the baby? Kill it? What about the egg? Will they try to eat it? I can hear shivers of tail feathers and quiet hissing and goose conversation. “C’mon guys!” Are they just going to stay there and wait for the Canadians to return? Oh, this is good! And I’m wondering if the father protector is kicking in in Shmuel? There’s an abandoned young one, has he taken it on as his issue? Is this instinct now? I wait alongside the island for maybe 10 minutes. I paddle over to where I last saw the Canadians. There’s a little stirring of brush, but no sound. They’re laying low. And wait … wait … Shmuel’s in the water, ladies and gentlemen!! He’s leaving the island!! The girls are following. They seem calm, resolute, like they’ve done a good deed. They’ve fought the good fight. I pull up alongside the pier, hop out, quickly drag the kayak out to make room for them and one by one they climb up out of the pond like returning champions. One by one they flap their wings to the silent acclaim. Heroes. Is the pond theirs again? Who knows? I run over to write this as they primp and prune their feathers in preparation for the laying on of the laurel wreath ceremony.
BUT WAIT AGAIN!! As I began the above paragraph, the Canadians came out of the brush with their young, swam to their island, and disappeared. Our guys stood up and took to the water themselves and swam directly to the island. What was going to happen now?! Were they going to go ashore?! A fight for custody? A fight to the finish? They murmured something in goose to the Canadians. Then Shmuel gave a defiant cry “What’s going on in there?!” I saw movement. The Canadian male took to the water. And he came after everyone – Daphne first, of course – then Felicity. Shmuel and he faced off. Lots of squawky cacophony. Daphne submerged and surfaced crying out, paddling madly for shore. Shmuel cried out “Regroup! Regroup!” And it was over. The Canada guy splashed off as if he were washing off after a successful fight, a gladiator duel. And the Pilgrims came out, still proud, wings fluttering. To add insult to injury, though, the little blackbird came down to add his 2 cents of harassment. They batted at him with their wings, open billed, as if he were some infuriating insect.
Now our 4 are gathered in the shade at the side of the pond. The Canadians stay behind the protection of the dogwood bush in bloom on their island. It’s nearing 7. Every once in a while Shmuel lets loose with a trumpet call. “We’re still here!” it announces to the surrounding forest and pond. It never lets up here near Goose Island. Thrills and spills a plenty. I for one am proud of our geese. They conducted themselves handsomely. What will happen tomorrow? Stay tuned.
BUT WAIT AGAIN, AGAIN. PS!! When I pulled the binocs out to watch the young take to the island, I could’ve sworn I saw SIX offspring. SIX in the water, ONE and an EGG in the nest. THAT’S EIGHT GEESE, TEN COUNTING THE ADULTS, FOURTEEN COUNTING OURS, AND SIXTEEN INCLUDING THE GOSLING IN THE ATTACK!! YOWZA!
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