Larry Gibbons
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Bite Me!

13/8/2016

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A few weeks ago, on a hazy Sunday afternoon, I was at a friend’s house getting pricked and poked by a mob of downed crab apple branches. Have you ever seen the size of those thorns? Two inches at least. I’m glad I’m not scared of needles.

Anyway, while I was doing this, Sue was at home, sitting on the deck, swatting at black flies and feeling Buster’s love, as he was sharing some quality time with Sue.
Suddenly, a moose appeared out of somewhere and Buster was off like a shot and then, so was the moose.

We’ve been told that our acreage—who really owns acreage?—-is a moose highway. This route meanders between the mountain range to the south of us and the mountain range to the west of us. Lucky us. I mean it. Really.

You may not know this, but a moose can outrun a dog the likes of Buster Boy. But, well, let me tell you another story.
Years ago, I used to have a wee rust-bucket 1962 VW Beetle. By the time I’d junked it, it had had almost every one of its organs replaced, including the motor and transmission.

(Note the two ‘its’ and the two ‘hads’ following each other in the previous sentence. This is what makes a writer’s life so gol-darned exhilarating. Sometimes I can hardly contain myself.)

Anyway, there was this big blustery fella who liked to have everything big. Big cars, big noises, big these and big thats. We used to park our vehicles near each other on a gravel parking lot.

One day, when I met him in the parking lot, he challenged me and my wee little handicapped, under-powered car to a drag. His vehicle was a 1961 V-8 Buick powerhouse. The drag would start at the back of the parking lot and end at the street entrance. It was a pretty casual affair.

So we started our engines, gentlemen, and lined up. He revved his engine. I burped my engine. A surrogate flag of some sort was dropped and we were off. Or at least I was, because this fella’s powerhouse car just sat in one spot and spun and spun and spun. My little beetle hiccuped forward and was at the street before the monster even got mobile.

I think this race happened because I’d mentioned that on a short race track, a race horse could probably beat this fella’s car. This guy was very competitive and he wanted to show me that I was wrong. As if I’m not competitive!

Anyway, I guess he thought he could prove I was wrong by having this race. His car being the car and my car being the race horse that looked like a ladybug.

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Moose
So, in the animal world, Buster was my 1962 Beetle and the moose was this fella’s 1960 V-8 Buick. And Sue gawked at Buster’s speedy acceleration and at the gigantic moose spinning his hoofs. And as she saw them racing across our lot toward the quiet forest and into the beyond, all this drama was quickly ended by a law of physics.

The law that says: A two-hundred-foot rope tied to the neck of a hell-bent canine will stop this fuzzy streaker’s inertia faster than the sudden acceleration when the overly excited canine began.

However, it took Sue’s heart longer to decelerate than Buster’s and likely that of the ghost of the forest as well. Which, I think, is one of the phrases they use to describe a moose, along with sayings like, “Your mother wears army boots”.   

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Our Busy Bird Feeders
***
Before I begin this Maritime Mac story I would like to make a little disclaimer or confession. Most of my M.M. stories are close to true, but not totally non-fictional. There’s usually a teeny, weeny bit of artistic license buried in the MM tales. So, you’ve been forewarned.

Here’s the next Maritime Mac adventure. Mostly true.

Maritime Mac likes to cycle, just like me. And, like me, he sometimes finds it repetitious and boring if he rides the same route over and over again. So, of course, he does other routes, like me. Seems sensible.

You see, his get-in-shape route is a 13.6 K ride to the Middle River Hall and back again. This is the route he cycles the most often and from time to time it can be a tiny bit tedious. Not a lot tedious though, because there is always something to see, smell, hear or feel.

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Perfect example of seeing and smelling!
On this training route there are four dogs for Maritime to worry about. There is, however, another route which is 19.6 K and which goes to a now extinct baseball diamond. On that route there are six canines to worry about. Some of these dogs are huge. Two look like part bull-dog and part rottweiler.
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Curious deer along the way...
Because, as I said, the training route can get a bit overly familiar at times, Maritime Mac has made up a game. This game, which he calls a road game, in contrast to a board game, contains only a few parts. They are: Maritime Mac, his bike, a dog and a stop sign. Maritime calls the game, ‘Sneak By the Dog.”

Now, it should be noted that the opposition, which is a medium-sized, yappy, canine mixture of dog and woof, is a fella who, once he gets his barking motor going, has difficulty shutting it off. He’ll start barking when he sees Maritime and, even after Maritime has biked the last K and a half to his house, has stripped down, taken a shower, dried off and is back outside to feed and water his bike, (which he calls ‘Hornet’), he can sometimes still hear the dog bow-wowing into the highland sky.

This dog is tied up along the side of his owners’ house. He’s hitched to his own little dog house. Maritime doesn’t know his name so he calls him Spot. See Spot bark. Woof, woof.

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Spot

Anyway, here’s the goal of the game. If Maritime, on the way back, (The 'Way Back' Rule), can bike past the dog and make it to the stop sign, which is about a hundred yards down the road, without Spot barking at Maritime, then Maritime gives himself a point by sticking one of his right hand’s fingers out and saying, “One point for me.”

 If Spot barks before Maritime makes it to the stop sign then Spot gets a point. Maritime will stick one of his left hand’s fingers out and say, “One point for Spot.”

Saying these phrases out loud helps Maritime avoid the Senior’s Brain Fart Syndrome.

Another rule I should mention, is Maritime is not to look at Spot when he passes Spot’s house. This is the ‘Innocence is Bliss’ rule.  It must be noted, at this point, that the game can never be considered totally fair because Spot has no idea that he is in this competition.

By the way, the game only goes to five. I’m sure you can guess why. Therefore, the winner is the first competitor to get to five fingers. It’s called the ‘Five Fingers’ Rule.

***
“Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man had hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand, instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”
                                                        D.H. Thoreau, “Thoreau On Man & Nature ”

***
Anyway, one sunny, but cool day, with the wind a pleasant and gentle breeze and only a day after ‘Thumper’ had snowed Cleveland under a foot of sad bullshit, Maritime was breezing by Spot’s house. Not looking at his highly skilled competitor. His eyes focused on the stop sign. Pedaling as quietly as he could, avoiding gravel and noisy road surface stuff. Riding, riding, riding by the house. Not looking. The stop sign up ahead. Maritime’s fingers on alert, on both hands. Totally neutral. Left or right? Left or right?

“Woof, woof!”

“Oh nuts,” Maritime whispered. “Five to three for the dog. Looks like I’ve lost.” And he’d left the trophy at home.


Suddenly, “OMG!!” Maritime whispered, in the way only somebody on social media, such as a blogger, can curse and show genuine concern and fear. “OMG!!”

Spot wasn’t tied up, but wasn't he always tied up? It was part of the game. It was an unwritten rule. Spot had broken the rule and was barreling for old Maritime.

Maritime stopped his bike while Spot circled around the bike like a hunting wolf.
Maritime pulled out his water bottle. Tried to look cool. Took a swig of the warm water. Began to talk to the dog like he was Spot’s friend. Talked about the weather and about climate warming, those kinds of things. Tried to impress him with the human power of proper, grammatically correct speech.

It should be noted that Maritime sometimes, from time to time, has the tendency to put his foot into his mouth.

Anyway, “Woof, woof, woof and grrrrrrrr,” Spot replied, using only verbs. Bad dog.
Then he began to lunge forward and lunge backward. Parry and thrust. Snap, snap and so close to Maritime’s bare leg that Maritime could feel Spot’s hot breath on his leg.

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Maritime tried offering Spot a drink. “Would you like a drink?”

Spot’s growl got to sounding more vicious.

“Holy crap,” Maritime whispered. He had to get the hell out of there. This dog, this competitor in this made-up game, was becoming frenzied in his attention to detail. In a game where he’d suddenly changed the rules.

  So, Maritime sprayed water square into Spot’s mug. However, his ammunition was low, because he had drunk most of it. The water strategy seemed to work, however, because Spot backed off. Watched Maritime intently while his lips curled and folded above his shiny white teeth. It looked like Spot didn’t like water in his snozzle. So, Maritime took a trial pedal forward.

Spot watched him. Still on hair-trigger alert.

Maritime might have been let off the hook, at this point, if he hadn’t had his macho streak. The element that makes him want to win. So much. Made him want to get in the last word, as mentioned previously.

Because, as he began some serious pedaling, with Spot only watching him and growling, but not making a move to charge, Maritime fell back into his old pattern.
So, as he was cycling his escape and as he was feeling the power and seeing the distance pile up between him and the slightly catatonic dog, he twisted his head around, looked at Spot’s confused, dripping face, and shouted, with the wind clearly carrying Maritime’s aggressive and competitive words to the dog, “BITE ME!”

OMG!!!.

Final score:   Dog five.   Maritime Ten stitches.   Game over.   For good.

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life and death themes

7/7/2016

1 Comment

 
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Baby Evening Grosbeak on our Deck
A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine passed away. Terry Phliger, who lived in Michigan, died only days from his 69th birthday and only hours before his scheduled resettlement in Ontario.
PictureTerry Phliger--R.I.P.
Terry was an artist, professor, humourist, practical joker, story-teller and a compassionate and highly intelligent human being. His mind and spirit were powerful, which was obvious in all he did and said. He was also a person who continually encouraged me, whether in my personal life or in my creative one. His humour and laser-sharp, insightful responses would usually leave me chuckling and encouraged, while sending my problems fleeing to some decrepit corner, where, safe from Terry’s iron-clad diagnosis, they could sulk and suck their miserable thumbs away.

I’ll miss Terry. As astute a man as I have ever known and one who, I’m sure, if there is an afterlife, is already planning some heavenly prank or is busily becoming a pain in the devil’s ass.

“On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.”
                                                              H.D. Thoreau, Thoreau On Man & Nature

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Larry, Grace and Sue on our Knotty Pines Patio in Ingonish
Maritime Mac, who likes to hang around train stations, was hanging around the front door of the Truro train station one grey, humid day . He was there because he had to drive a friend to the station.

While hanging out by the heavy doors he also enjoyed the delicious odour of Murphy’s Sea Food which drifted around the corner and into Maritime’s nose.

Three young lads approached on their bicycles. The oldest boy might have been twelve while the other two were younger. Maritime only heard part of the conversation and he didn’t hear the names of these characters, nor that of the character they were talking about, but what he did hear made his loitering worthwhile.

I’m going to make up the names, all for the sake of security and quality, so you can enjoy the conversation.

“Tod kissed Rebecca,” one boy said.

“I’m going to kiss her,” said the second little boy.

“You already kissed her. It’s my turn to get one,” responded the third little fella.

Then the three cycling smooch bandits rolled on down the concrete plaza sidewalk and out of Maritime’s life. Leaving Maritime Mac chuckling and with a wee story he knew he’d just have to tell to some Cape Bretoner when he got back to the mountains.
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Sue, Grace and Buster enjoying a morning walk in Ingonish
***
And now a brief note to Marianne. Never fear, I have been keeping my eyes open for the angelica plant and have already filled two big plastic bags with their shrivelled up bodies. I think, however, now that I recognize what they look like in their infancy, that next year, I’ll walk my grounds in the early spring and pull them up when they’re in their babyhood.

Thought you’d like to know.
***
I think comments on the language in my book, ‘White Eyes’ are a good example of democracy at work. For every person who doesn’t like the swear words in my book, there is at least one other who doesn’t mind those nasty words or may even find them cathartic.

I’ve mentioned this profanity issue in another blog, but because it has been brought up again and because I try to respond to comments from folks who read my blog, I’m discussing it here, once again.

I think profanity can make the dialogue in a story more authentic and not too sugary sweet, when used appropriately. However, the longer I continue to write, the more careful I am about when and when not to use these big-bad-wolf words.

The strange thing is, I don’t, for the most part, swear. However, when I’m writing, and I have the dialogue bouncing around in my mind, the words are there and I simply type them out. Later on I may edit out some of the little buggers.

My hope is that folks who don’t swear, can read through, over or under the words and still enjoy the stories.

Like the fella who read my book and then congratulated me on capturing the insanity in this world. I appreciated his kind words. He’d apparently found this theme in my stories and as in many stories in many books, the messages aren’t always so easy to discover.
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Moon Peering Through the Trees

“The voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It comes from thought above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer which has nothing private in it: that which he does not know; that which flowed out of his constitution and not from his too active invention; that which is the study of a single artist you might not easily find, but in the study of many you would abstract as the spirit of them all.”

                                                                         Emerson, Selected Essays

One thing I’m trying to say through my stories, is that we aren’t as important as we think we are. Our actions, philosophy and status on this small, rotating, egg-shaped ball of immense diversity, aren’t as solid, momentous, or as superior to ‘the others’ as we believe they are. Intrinsically believing that an idea or opinion is rock solid does not prove anything.

HOWEVER, BEWARE! Our creative muses, like wind or spirit, once tamed or fully understood, lose their power. Sort of like when Delilah cut off Samson’s long hair. He couldn’t pull down a pillar, a post or a two-by-four and maybe that’s why, in the original Hebrew, the word God was written without vowels. Impossible to utter and therefore out of our taming and diminishment-of-awe reach.

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Heavy Mist at Ingonish
Anyway, no matter how I try to convey it, I’m really not very good at verbally expressing what touches and affects my soul. That’s why I write stories.
***
When ‘White Eyes’ first came out, I found myself walking around town with my head down as I waited for the criticism - negative and/or positive - to begin. I found that both kinds of appraisals filled me with all kinds of emotions and often not the feelings I expected.

Not too long after ‘White Eyes’ was published, I was walking along the lake shore in Baddeck. It was only a few days until Christmas and the snow hadn’t yet come to Baddeck with any vengeance. While hiking along the shoreline I came upon a  friend who was sitting in his vehicle, looking out over the lake, teary-eyed. Not because of having read my book, but because the memories Christmas brought to him were stirring his heart.

We chatted and, at one point, he told me he’d read one of my stories.

Then he said, “I didn’t like it.”

He apologized for not liking it.


I told him not to apologize, because I took negative criticism better than positive. Maybe I’m more used to it, I don’t know. But funnily enough, he has since become one of my best ‘White Eyes’ promoters. However,  I found his negative criticism easier to handle coming from a non-Aboriginal than the accolades coming from non-Aboriginals. At least during the first year.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I genuinely appreciated receiving positive comments from non-Aboriginal folks. However, what I really needed was to hear the Aboriginals respond positively to ‘White Eyes’ and therefore, being congratulated by non-Aboriginals would often cause me to feel, at some level, emotions of guilt and sadness, even though I appreciated their kind, supportive words.

I think it was because I knew that the stories only existed because I’d had the chance to spend time with the Aboriginals. Therefore, I needed to know what the Aboriginals thought about my book. Because, if I didn’t hear positives from them, then I knew I’d feel like just another exploiter, as so many White people were before me.

‘White Eyes’ wouldn’t have existed had I not been able to live in their community, taste their food, drink their drinks, experience their customs, share in their joy, feel their pain, be sad when they were sad, laugh at their humour and a whole lot more that I will probably never be able to properly represent. 
That’s why, on the first page of ‘White Eyes’, you can find an appropriate verse which is taken from the Bible. “I was a stranger and you took me in.” Matthew 25:35
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One cold night, a Native fella and his daughter dropped around to pick up some toilet paper. Notice I didn’t say borrow toilet paper, for obvious reasons.

It was after midnight. The Aboriginal fella’s daughter, about twelve years of age or so, picked up a copy of my book from the coffee table. She opened it, quietly read a little bit, looked up and then told me she liked the book, specially when it talked about eagles and she told me all her friends were passing the book around and enjoying it.

That was the best critique I could hear. And then as time went on and other Aboriginals commented on White Eyes, I came to realize that the Aboriginal folks around here enjoyed the fact these stories were written about them. They found the stories funny and ‘White Eyes’ had also allowed the non-Aboriginal world to take notice.

Also, many of them visualized me as being the main character in most of the stories. One fella talked about when I fell under a truck in the story called, ‘Mountain Iris Spirits’. It wasn’t really me and that specific incident never happened to anybody I knew. It was made up. However, I did get my thumb wrapped up in a rope as a load of logs shifted on the back of a wagon.

I may, from time to time, include in my blog the beginning of one of my stories. Just a page or two, in the hope that it may whet the appetite of some blog readers to read ‘White Eyes’.

Oh, and many of you might be wondering what bits of Busterness Buster is up to. A lot, so stay tuned. I’m sure you’ll hear more about Buster, but for now, please read the first very small section from one of my stories in ‘White Eyes’.

MOUNTAIN IRIS SPIRITS
We were up on Owl Mountain.  Both of us frustrated up to our yin yangs with Denise’s extended family. We live with them, on the reserve, in the family home. Three bedrooms and fourteen people. Us sleeping on the living room floor. Everybody else sleeping in bedrooms, except for Uncle Charlie who, with his fat tabby cat, slumbers half his day away in a tent on the front porch. Denise’s ex moved in last month and Denise gave him our small basement bedroom. A piss-off but she felt sorry for him. Red alert to our relationship, as we couldn’t sleep or do anything personal until the last member of the family had decided to turn off the television. Phony anger fits and antics were on almost the whole goddamn night, and in the morning we’d awaken, our eyes swollen from lack of sleep, to find the kids dripping their breakfast all over our bed sheets while they watched cartoons, or tiny Tod-alias Batman during the day-soaking us in everything from thirty-five S.P.F. sunscreen lotion to his cereal milk.

According to Denise, this mountain we had retreated to is also the home of spirits. She said they were everywhere, but today it was quiet and peaceful, as a bald eagle circled over the spruce forest. I hadn’t seen many eagles in Ontario but there sure were a lot of them in this part of Cape Breton.

“My stomach’s all jittery. Means there’s spirits hanging around,” Denise said.

“I get that with a hangover.” I laughed. She didn’t.

“Yeah, right. Most of you white people couldn’t see the spirits if they were plastered to your nose.” She swept her long black hair up into the mountain air, looking like an ancient mountain fairy queen.

“Maybe I can. I’m just not around people who talk about them all the time. You’ve been drenched in ghost talk. People always going on about spirits. Everywhere. Cripes, your sister ties her blankets down so the ghost won’t yank them off her bed, and you’re always hearing about somebody finding Mary or Jesus or some saint on a window or somebody’s toilet seat.”

I was sounding skeptical. Denise didn’t care for skepticism.———-

***
There, that wasn’t so painful, was it?

Thanks for reading my blog and you all take care.
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1 Comment

Out of the Darkness

29/7/2014

0 Comments

 
brown bat
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.

HornetYellow Jacket
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.

Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds
raccoon
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?

grosbeak and friend
Larry and Grosbeak Communing
***
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.

Middle River
Middle River Temporarily Subdued
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