NEWS FLASH ONE: I have a new camera. A Pentax K50. So soon, many of the website pictures you will view in the comfort of your home, will have been taken by my brand new Pentax K50.

NEWS FLASH TWO: We had another bat find her way into the trailer. A brown coloured bat.

We were watching a movie called “Marion Bridge”. We were watching this movie because it was filmed in Cape Breton.

“Oh look, I recognize that building.” That kind of thing.

Suddenly, we beheld a shadow pass in front of us. It is always startling to suddenly behold a shadow passing in front of you. Especially when you are tucked away in your living room, feeling safe from the night’s darkness, which you know is outside licking at your windows. It’s like being in the Stephen King movie, “Salem’s Lot”. And bats do look like tiny Count Draculas and they have some very scary looking teeth.

The bat disappeared somewhere in the vastness of our trailer. We couldn’t find her. No matter where we looked. So we went to bed, after shutting the bedroom door, and putting a towel under the door so the bat couldn’t get into the bedroom.

At two am I was awakened by the sound of silky wings cutting through the air. My first thought was it was gentle snoring but I discounted that idea. So I grabbed my little flashlight and scattered the darkness. And there she was. Flying around our bedroom. Trying to escape. We’d locked her in.

She landed on our window screen. I shut the window, trapping her between the window and the screen. She frantically tried to escape, making us feel sorry for her as she used her small feet and wings to search for a small opening to squeeze through. We could hear her wings and feet tapping on the glass.

So, rather than leave her there until morning, when we might have been more rested and more able to deal with the bat, we dealt with the problem right then and there. We went outside into the drizzle. At two a.m. I climbed a ladder and removed the screen. Which allowed the poor little bat to fly free into the night sky.

We also taped the cracks around the oil furnace grates. Again.

“I have been acquainted with the night.
      I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
           I have outwalked the furthest city light.”                            

                                                        Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night

Do insects have memories? Good memories? Are they charitable? Empathetic? Do they give others the benefit of the doubt? Are they sometimes more charitable than we are? If so, is it because they don’t have any over-riding ideology which might make them, say for example, sting us? I don’t know.

Why do I ask?  Well, you see, it’s like this. Last week I decided to begin a little building project. Any building project I initiate usually leads to some kind of problem. In this case I wanted to build a bookshelf. We needed another one because we have a trailer full of books.

I began by setting up the two little metal horses. Got out my battery-operated Black and Decker tools, a level, a tape measure, a pencil and etc. I then grabbed a six-foot length of pine and cut the wood to the required length. You should note that what I mean by required length is defined as the length I think is needed. Not necessarily what is required.

So what could I do that would make things go the way they usually go when I begin a building project? I know my limitations. Oh yes I do.

Well, I could lose a tool for a time, or forever. Check.

I could cut a piece of wood and find out it wouldn’t fit. Check.

I could put in the shelf holders and find out they aren’t level because of inaccurate measurements. Check.

Hold on. Here comes the hook to this whole story.

I could carry a long piece of pine wood out of the woodshed and inadvertently knock the top off a hornet’s nest. Check.

The hornets rushed out. Yes, they did. Luckily it was a small nest so there weren’t that many in there. I think it was still under construction.

Anyway, the hornets buzzed around me while I was cutting the said pine board. That’s how I noticed them. Because they were buzzing around my head while I was cutting the wood. The hornets were pointing out the damage I’d done to their decapitated prefab. But they didn’t sting me.

I packed up the horses and the tools and the wood and moved closer to our two-bedroom complex. Where I finished sawing what I planned to saw for the day. I then put the equipment away. Because I planned to work on it some more another day. It was very hot.

Well, another day blossomed forth. It’s amazing how this happens. I went outside, keeping close to the trailer. I turned on the saw and began cutting a board. Suddenly, I was assaulted by an in-my-face hornet. He was giving me a great one-two-three look over. Really close to my face. I turned the saw off and fled into the house.

Where I asked Sue the same deep, probing questions that I asked at the beginning of this story.

Do insects have memories? Are they empathetic to my wants and needs? Was he curious? Was he worried that I might be planning to come back and nick off another one of their additions?  Did he remember the bad things that happened when he heard the sound of my Black and Decker? Did it give him an anxiety attack?

Another question hit me too. How far down the food chain is the hornet and how far up or down the food chain are we? Are we as high as we think we are?

What about raccoons? Our coon story goes like this.

We have many birds at our two seed feeders, our one suet feeder and our one hummingbird feeder. We have blackbirds, red-wing blackbirds, chickadees, evening grosbeaks, starlings, juncos, purple finches, blue jays, crows, ravens, pine siskins, hummingbirds and others we haven’t identified.

So I have this big, metal garbage pail by the feeders. With the top bungee-corded on. Because of the raccoons, of course.

In the morning, I often found the big metal garbage pail down by the riverside. Not waiting for the glory land to descend, I can tell you that. But luckily the top always stayed on.

However, one morning, I found the pail in the bushes with the top off and what was left of the seeds spilled onto the ground. Oh my, but those raccoon consumers must have had a party. (The word ‘consumers’ having a different meaning from the label the economists give us in their make-believe world.)

So, I moved the garbage pail to the side porch. We used two bungee cords to tie the pail to the porch and one to seal down the top. That night we heard a terrible racket as the coons tried to complete their new work order.

Next morning’s report: A metal garbage pail seen lying under the main deck. Two bungee cords seen to be tied to the side porch. The top wrestled part way off the garbage pail with the bungee cord still attached. Seeds spilled and eaten.

I’d fix that! Yes, siree. I put the seed pail in the woodshed with Grinder, my tools, the firewood, empties and etc. Then I shut the door. That would teach them.

Raccoon Work Order for following night: Go unto the deck and tear open the garbage, recycling, and compost pails. Which created a terrible racket around midnight. So I got up and got outside just in time to see a coon trying to roll the pail down the steps.

I shouted and he bolted. Stopped fifteen feet from the deck. Watched me return the pail to its place. When my task was completed I looked to my right and saw the coon staring at me through the deck’s railings. I felt like a zoo creature being stared at. The coon had the whole dark world to himself. I had my porch and the porch illumination.

                                                            “The world has room to make a bear feel free;
                                               The universe seems cramped to you and me.”

                                                                                       Robert Frost, "The Bear"

I stamped my foot. I shouted. He ran towards the river and stopped. I heaved a metal pail at him. He ducked. He backed up. He stopped. So, I shouted at him, “Stay away from here! Stop doing this or I’m going to have to do something which might hurt you! Go on! Get out of here!”

I was quite aggressive, assertive and rude. Then I went inside. Walked into the living room and looked out one of our new windows. Watched the raccoon walk across the lawn. Away from the trailer. He had his head down and looked depressed. To tell you the truth, his walk and posture made me think I had hurt his feelings.

And I felt sorry for him. Felt empathy. Wondered if I should run out onto the porch and shout. “Oh, I’m sorry. Please don’t go away mad. I promise I’ll try to be nicer.” That sort of thing.

Did the raccoon understand my language and the tone it was said in? Some Indigenous people believe that animals can understand our words.

I will tell you this. The coons haven’t touched our garbage pails since I gave that one coon the what-for lecture. However, two mornings later, our flower garden was dug up. Was it done out of vengeance? And even though we are now laying down moth balls and moth balls in packets and sprinkling cayenne pepper around the flowers, the coons are still coming back. If only to knock over a flower pot or to poop near the deck.

We’ve been told to piss around our flowers. I feel more like saying, “Piss on them all”.

We returned from grocery shopping a few days ago. I looked at our little six-foot gazebo and what did my little eyes spy? They spied a young evening grosbeak inside our gazebo. Trapped inside. He’d flown in through a small opening in the door and couldn’t find his way out. He was crashing into one meshy wall and then another as he tried to find the exit.

I put down my groceries. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending.

Yes, we go from one story to another. Because nature fills our lives with a kind of reverse cosmopolitan life-style. And it does make us wonder as the needs of THE CONSUMERS encroach ever more.

                                           “I heard his voice ascending the hill
                                    and at last his low whine as he came
                                    floor by empty floor to the room
                                    where I sat
                                     in my narrow bed looking west, waiting   
                                    I heard him snuffle at the door and       
                                    I watched
                                    as he trotted across the floor
                                  
                                    He laid his long gray muzzle
                                    on the spare white spread
                                    and his eyes burned yellow
                                    his small dotted eyebrows quivered

                                    Yes, I said.
                                    I know what they have done."

                                                 Mary TallMountain, "The Last Wolf"

And last week, I watched as young grosbeaks crash-landed on the feeders, almost landed on the feeders, made wide curves and missed the feeders and fell off the feeders. And what I particularly noticed was there were no adults at the feeders.

Was this a Bird Feeder 01 course? Was it?

Where are we actually located on the food chain?

What would happen if we gave the crows two hands?

PS: Middle River is very quiet, subdued and small at the moment. The heat and lack of rain must be getting to her.

Our river plays a good game of poker. We do not let her worried countenance, her I-have-no-hand expression trick us. We know she has something up her sleeve.

Holy Helvetica font, Batman. This is my seventh blog post. So thank you to all the readers who have actually landed on my website and have taken the time to read it.

Last weekend, the Cabot Trail Writers Festival hit North River. Sue and I attended the Friday and Sunday events. Well worth it! We enjoyed the readings by authors Russell Wangersky, Carol Bruneau and Peter Robinson, their panel discussion on Sunday morning, the music of Otis Tomas, Carmel Mikol and Buddy MacDonald and all the tasty food. The fall colours were nearly in full display so the venue was about as perfect as one could wish for.

So, I got myself all educated up, by listening to excellent writers throwing out their writing wisdom and then I went home.

Last Monday, I was working on a short story. Previously, I had read an article on what judges are looking for in a good short story. I’ll give you a partial list. Here it is: The writing should be sincere, hold few generalities, pack an immediate punch, show rather than tell, be character-driven and have knock-out sentences. There are others too. Aren’t there always others?

The one point that stuck with me was the grab-the-reader idea. To fill my stories with zip - wild sex if need be. To grab the readers by the shirt collar, lift them up off their feet, stare them square in the eyes, and shout, “Read my story, damn it, or I’ll melt into a puddle of talking-head verbiage.”

So, I was sitting in my back-friendly chair, tapping away on my old, somewhere around twenty-year-old Performa 580CD MacIntosh computer. A workhorse. I was attempting to write something that had sticky plot claws and would save me from becoming another wicked witch in a meltdown. I’m not sure, but I might have even been wearing coloured striped socks, when did I not see floating by my window a scary looking woman wearing black, riding a bicycle with a little black dog in the bicycle basket? Oh, probably not, but as I shook that image away, I thought I’d stumbled upon a real zipper. Which I can’t share, because I’m still considering it. Because that’s one of the rules of writing. Don’t talk away your story before you have written it. At least it works for me.

I sometimes hit upon topics that emotionally seem to be so far outside my comfort zone that they induce guilt in me. Scare me, and having been raised in a religiously conservative tradition, I come by this feeling naturally. So, there I was, tip-tapping away, while noticing that my back was beginning to complain. I put the pain down to the damage done to my back years ago when it prevented me from being crushed by a falling, fully-loaded fridge, or to a psychosomatic reaction to writing "no-no" stuff. I adjusted my chair and kept on slogging away and suddenly the paragraph I was working on was jumping all over the computer screen. What the h---! I started banging on a few keys to make it stop. It didn’t. The wild, grab-you paragraph I was writing just leapt to another page. Then another and then back and then I was getting dizzy.

As if that weren’t bad enough, I realized that I had added about fifty blank pages to this story. I ran my fingers over the keys, hoping I could hit a key that would stop this nonsense. I’d lean forward to try another key and my paragraph would high-tail it for another page while more blank pages were being added. I started to wonder if my muse had something to do with it, but he was nowhere to be found.   I whispered, “Oh my god, I think I’ve written my way into a perverse, dangerous, spirit-filled hell-hole. Maybe I should stop writing this story and change direction.”

Then I figured it out. It was so simple. Did you see it? Remember, my back was sore. I’d readjusted my chair. The right arm of said chair was resting on the <ENTER> key on the keyboard. So simple...yet I was a little disappointed. Because, if my writing had been able to get my inanimate computer’s attention, just think what it might have done to the reader. It frightens me to think about it.

Of course, I had to clean up my chair’s interference and cut and paste to another document so I wouldn’t be saving about a hundred blank pages. Sue’s printer would not appreciate it, nor would Sue.

So, as you can see, writing is a psychologically dangerous profession. And even though I had solved the problem, I began to wonder if my chair was trying to give me a message. Not the computer, but my chair. I mean, what are the odds that my chair’s arm would be able to hit the key that would make my brilliant, Hemingway-like paragraph leap around like a jumping bean?

Thanks again for sticking with me and my blog. I hope this blog doesn’t make you nervous about the objects around you but instead gives you a good idea to use so you can grab your readers’ attention and throw them on their proverbial asses.

I know blogs aren’t supposed to be too long, because of the twitter world, but I just have to tell you that our bat is not far from us.

A few Saturdays ago, we were having new windows installed in our little ancient trailer. In preparation for this exercise, I had leaned a large piece of particle board against the woodshed and covered it with a large tarpaulin to keep it dry.

The contractor came to our door to tell us that there was a bat sleeping in the dark folds of the cover. Oh, we knew. She was back. We followed him to the board.

Yep, there was the little gal. Sleeping, and this is where it gets interesting. Sue is scared of bats. We have an understanding. I catch the bats and she catches the mice. So I found a box and tried to swipe the bat down into the box. The bat fluttered away. They do flutter like butterflies. Very interesting how they flutter and she fluttered to, you guessed it, Sue’s shoulder.

I walked around Sue, who was standing like a statue, and watched the little bat bare her teeth. They looked healthy and sharp. She seemed to like the material in Sue’s sweater.

Well, I did finally persuade the bat to drop off Sue’s shoulder into the box. Sue was the one who carried the box to the woods where she let her go. I expect to see both again.

I also must say that I was proud of Sue, who won’t let her fear of a creature get in the way of her understanding a creature. No matter how small or big it might be. 

Can’t believe it. Summer is hanging on by a few fingernails while winter is already beating his drum over the cooling night temperatures. It makes life seem as fleeting as a field full of dandelions.

But hey, we’re having an anniversary of sorts. We’ve lived in the Gold Brook Forest for a year. A whole year, listening to the whispering of the Middle River twenty-four hours a day. A relaxation tape without a machine.

Speaking of, one morning we were in the living room, listening to satellite radio. We had the nature channel on. They were playing music mixed in with the calls of birds and the sound of running water. I turned the radio off and my god, we were still listening to music, birds and running water without the radio on. We felt privileged and lucky.

But you know what? The river rules. We have little control over the river’s temperament. She can be a sleeping cat or a fighting tiger. You see, we live on a flood plain. Which means that every heavy rain or rogue hurricane that wants to dump on us can induce a flood. And with the climate changing, well, do the math. Forget the one-in- every-hundred-years storms like the one in 2010.

We’ve had two floods so far. The last one surrounded our trailer with determined, knows-where-its-going water. It gave us a few pennies of apprehension. That’s for sure. We even drove to the hardware store and bought two pairs of high, kick-ass rubber boots.

“Take that, Middle River! Make our day!”

Yeah, like they’re going to help. But we like to feel we have options. A life raft may be in our future.

After a flood, though? Exciting! It’s like when I was a kid and the fair left town. We’d be finding money and trinkets of all sorts that had fallen out of the fair-goers’ pockets. The river leaves interesting rocks, trees, pieces of docks and other interesting things when it calms down.

We get lots of other reminders that life is not really under our control. Like last night. We heard troubling sounds in the kitchen again. On further investigation we found mouse turds in different areas of the kitchen. So we got out the traps. Three of them. Loaded them with powder and peanut butter then cocked the triggers. Spread them around. We hate doing it but we do.

At one am we heard scurrying and rattling. We got out of bed. Reluctantly. I shone my flashlight around the kitchen. Spotted the little lassie. Looked like she was swimming in our butter dish. But what a shock when we realized the little critter wasn’t a mouse. She was a bat. She flew off before we could figure out what to do.

Probably the same bat we saw walking across our living room rug the other evening while we were watching TV. Walking, not flying, over the living room rug. Creepy, but the show on television was boring. What to do? What to do, seeing both of us are nervous of bats? Could be Dracula’s great, great, great---- grand-daughter.

Well, that little critter jogged across our carpet to my running shoe and took a break on the edge of said runner. I was able to gently carry the bat and shoe outside and let her go. I brought the shoe back in.

Last night we tracked the possibly same bat down. We found her hanging from the inside of our living room curtains. So we stood on the couch and cautiously and nervously removed the curtains from the window. The bat nonchalantly and not very nervously fluttered from the curtains to the curtains on the other side of the living room. Whereupon, after some deliberation, I stood on a stool, knocked the bat down and into a box with a towel and with the box covered and Sue getting the door, escorted the bat off the premises.
Then, in the wee hours of the early morning, we proceeded to bat proof our trailer. We screwed a board into the wall that covered the hot water heater, sealed the vent above the stove, taped the oil furnace cover to the wall with very red and very sticky tape and then we closed all the windows for good measure.

Afterward, we sat on the couch and watched a show about the history of Tupperware. I never knew Tupperware was so friggin interesting. Life in the forest. Can you beat it?

It was our passion for and love of nature which brought us to live in the forest rather than in town or in a place a little less remote. So we get what we get. Mice in the cupboards, birds at our feeders, tons of snow, floods, the sound of moose clomping around our trailer, humming birds trying to drink from our red truck’s key hole, minks skirting our property, a young grosbeak chirping madly into our living room window while sitting on the sill, deer eating plants in our back yard, crow babies squawking for mother to stuff more whatever down their throats, coyotes howling, owls hooting, eagles watching us, bats in our butter, bats in my shoes and all those folks who think we have bats in our belfries.

Loneliness, however, is not one of the results of living in the forest. That ladybug walking across the book I was reading is full to the brim with secrets that the scientists still aren’t close to discovering. Mystery and magic are great antidotes to loneliness and without them I find life boring, predictable, petty, enervating and lonely.

Call me crazy, which you might, but I believe societies that have no connection with the wild can yield a crop of aberrant, oblivious and wired-up citizens.

With a connection to and a consciousness of nature, societies become more whole, compassionate and alive.

Nature. Always unpredictable. In this world of rising greenhouse gases, forest destruction, water pollution, wars, false witness and species extinction, nature still lets us know that she holds the power. Keeps throwing the universal curve balls, hammers the trick slap shots and this is one of the reasons why I write about my love, reverence and respect for nature.

I leave you with a picture of my new bike standing proudly in a misty early morning on the shore of beautiful Lake O’Law. I call the bike "Buddy Lee". Can you figure?

Cheers!