Dancer at his Dance

I heard from a friend in California who told me about the saddest thing he'd seen during the pandemic. He drove past the empty parking lot of a defunct Kmart and saw a lone parked car. Near it, a graduating high school senior in cap and gown was dancing by himself, his very own senior prom.

I'm not sure a kid missing his prom is sadder than the deaths of 100,000 people in this country alone and, anyway, I look at the event differently. I see it as an inventive response to a situation over which, otherwise, the lad has little control. He adapted to the situation of no official prom by devising his own which, to me, is an impressive act of both defiance and affirmation. I like to think he also informed other classmates so they could all dance together at the same time, in their own spaces, to create a moment of true solidarity in the face of a changing and changed world.

At any rate, my own high school prom back in 1969 was actually pathetic. As a severely-closeted gay kid in the Texas Panhandle, I only attended the prom at my parents' insistence, and “with a nice girl, please.” Actually, I didn't know any other kind. So there we were, dancing with each other while casting longing glances at the ones we really wanted to be with. Now, that's pathetic. And I lacked the imagination, and the courage, to dance by myself in an empty parking lot at Kmart.

Uncommon Sense -

Finding Wholeness in a Shattered World

Imagine a world of wholeness, where everything is contained in everything else and we are all part of each other, like drops of water in a pond. On that imaginary planet, the reality is that things are not what they appear to be: objects are not separate, apart and solitary, but all are part of the same thing, like facets of a jewel. And everything sensed and experienced on that planet comes from a shared and common ground of existence, as the inhabitants realize that they are all manifestations of an incarnating, creative spirit or, from a naturalist perspective, the result of binding an underlying sea of energy into building blocks of particles that, in turn, form larger, visible objects.

Of course, I'm saying that imaginary world of wholeness is actually our own planet, that all of us are part of each other and, indeed, are part of the earth itself. We are generally unaware of that basic underlying fact because at least three things sustain our illusion of self-hood, of being alone and apart when, actually, we are not that way at all.

1. Language divides the world into separate subjects and objects, operated on by verbs.

2. Our senses - touch, taste, small, vision and hearing - indicate, on a physically built-in level of awareness, that each of us is a unique individual separated from everything else, which we apprehend through the senses.

3. Social custom and tradition reinforce the idea of being alone and isolated from each other and the world. We are trained from early awareness that this is the way the world is and have little encouragement to consider other possibilities for explaining how reality works. Even questioning the basic tenets of the world view we inhabit can seem absurd and heretical.

In fact, I cannot convince you with words or mathematics to reexamine the foundational premises and axioms on which our shared world view is constructed. There are no logical theorems or mathematical formulas I can use to convince you to change your mind, nor can I ask you to take what I say even on faith, because each of those methods relies on higher cognitive functions while the underlying ground of being to which I'm referring operates on a much lower, nearly pre-cognitive level because it is the baseline of our existence. So, how do we get there?
I suggest going into nature, wherever you can find someplace to be completely away from other people, whether it's a forest, a desert, a river bank, the sea shore, a high plateau, a mountain ridge, even a park, someplace, any place, where you and you alone can immerse yourself in nature and, in that isolated place, ask one question: "Is this all there is?" Meaning, is what you're experiencing at that moment the sum total of existence, all this vista and creatures around me? Then be quiet and just listen. If the answer you hear is "Yes," then you've simply had a hopefully enjoyable experience outdoors. And I include in this answer any traditional religion, philosophy or spirituality that divides the world instead of uniting it.

But if the answer is "No" or "Maybe not," then you begin a journey of miraculous discovery and you will never be the same again. You will realize that you are not just connected to everything else, but are actually part of, and contained in, everything else. Your very values will change, as you will want to unify, to enlighten, to harmonize and to heal with the world around you and of which you are now a conscious part of and not apart from. You will find yourself on a new path on which you will increasingly want to interact with yourself and others with kindness, patience, humility and respect born from unity and harmony.

In that society of newly-changed people, we will seek cooperation, not competition, because what sense does it make to compete against others when all it means is that we are working against ourselves? By working together, we can heal the planet instead of just using it, because we are healing ourselves as well.

Instead of consumerism, we need communalism, with the entire planet as our community, where everyone has shelter, food, health care, education, transportation, and engagement in productive activities. All of that is possible by working together and not against each other. We can finally have lives of accomplishment measured not by how many things we can make and sell, but in the amount of good we accomplish for each other and the planet. And we can get paid to do it because a market economy values whatever its users value, and now our values are changing. Let us achieve projects instead of making products.

Let robots and artificial intelligence make the widgets we need for a civilized life as they will eventually take over all production anyway. That will free us to nurture the planet, which makes sense if we think of it as a giant flower, with us as its gardeners, providing fertile soil, nutrients, clean water and fresh air so that the flower grows into its fullest potential as a strong, healthy, beautiful, vibrant plant and planet.

So go into nature, ask the question, "Is this all there is?" and follow the answer wherever it leads.

      He came into my heart when I needed him most. The early January death of Riley, though expected, was nearly more than I could bear, and here I was, a dog man without a dog. It was not a good place to be and wasn't healthy as I found it harder without a dog to take me outside myself. I was trapped with my sorrow. Though Dido was still here, she also missed her brother, as did Zephram, her human companion.
     I waited four months before feeling emotionally ready for another dog, and Zephram took me to a local SPCA kennel. I was cautious but eager; what would I find? We walked to the first outdoor pen, and this face looked up at me, and I saw Riley in it, and I knew this was the dog Riley wanted me to have. He leaped up and into my heart. He chose me as much as I chose him. He had already been returned by two different families and we soon found out why with his rambunctious energy that would not make him good with children. He did bond with us, but there were issues. For a small dog he was strong, and, in his eagerness to explore and to run, he pulled his leash out of my hand several times on walks, then I had the joy of watching his curly-haired butt bounce down the road, having no idea where he was going, yet also not caring. Fortunately we caught him each time, and realized it would take time before he could be trusted to run free with us. Even now, six months later, that is only done on a limited basis and only when the 15-foot tie-out is securely fastened. Zephram and I are too old to be chasing Chief for long.
     Still, he has greatly improved. He taught me that he needed to poop immediately after supper, a lesson we learned many times the hard way. We took him, perhaps too soon, on a family trip to Maine in July and everything was new and needed to be barked at. It was a long trip in many ways, but we made it and he never ran away.

                                                           On the way to Maine with Dido

    He loves Dido, his bigger, older sister, and probably more than she loves him as he wants to play with her long after she's worn out and wants to be left alone. We're still working on that. In the evening, Chief assumes his drag name of Champagne, that's Miss Champagne to you. And he knows it as well as he does Chief. He's learning to rest during the day between walks and drives as he has an entire sofa on which to lay. He follows me upstairs at night and joins me in bed. Unlike Dido, he doesn't like to be covered up, even with his thin coat of hair which doesn't look that warm to me.  Now that it's winter, he sits in front of the coal stove and worships the fire god.

     He's learning our daily morning route that takes the dogs and I along the creek, and even in the creek when it's low enough. There's a path through the woods we also follow, at least usually, since he is easily distracted by smells and the neighboring farm dog who often comes over to join us. He is not good with other people, perhaps because he rarely sees them. We had old friends as Christmas guests and I thought at first things would go well when I let him greet them, but something happened as he suddenly turned and ferociously attacked Chuck,. even to drawing blood with a claw. I hastily put him upstairs where he and Dido stayed the rest of the visit. However, Michele later sent a beautiful water color she made of him.

     So that's where we are now. Chief is a beautiful incarnation of the spirit. Sometimes I try and project myself into his psyche, to get an idea of how the world looks through his eyes, since we are all facets of the same jewel. It's good practice to extend myself beyond myself and the illusion of separate individuality. I rejoice in him daily.

     It was a dark and stormy night. A truck was racing along a slick, leaf-covered lane, turning a corner in the rain. Suddenly, there appeared a lump on the road, then it moved. Brakes squealed as the truck skidded to a stop just in front of the figure that now had stopped moving. As the driver got out and approached the form, he noticed that it was a mass of matted fur, laying prostrate in the middle of the road. He picked it up and a limp head rolled back, showing a tiny, bony kitten whose legs moved slowly as he held it. 

     He brought it to the truck and got in, holding the kitten close to his neck as he began to drive slowly away from the curve in the road. Suddenly, there was a sound. The kitten yelped and came to life, clinging to the warmth of the driver's neck and pushing its head up under his chin. 

     This little creature had reached his solstice, the darkness of its brief existence and then, miraculously, began its journey towards life and light again.

     The kitten was named Chancey, saved by chance, and in a few months grew into a great, fluffy ball of fur, with yellow eyes and a flat face and an inquisitive personality. He followed us everywhere outside, discovering the world for the first time, every experience new and exciting. 

     Chancey's long, thick fur was brown and grey, striped along the back in an intricate pattern of golden swirls. He was a Celtic Seelie Wicht, a lucky cat from the other world, come through to charm and brighten our lives. 

     He is a reminder to me of other times of darkness that we pass through, always alone, unknowing if we will reach any form of light or clarity again, but knowing that we are no longer what we were going into the darkness.

     At this later date in our lives, we approach this new solstice with a seasoned eye to more change and loss, more death around us. We remember more than we hope, but this experience of going into the darkness one more time is the possibility of a magical change, a hand reaching out of the wet, cold darkness towards us, picking us up off the road as we lay unconscious, and offering us new life, a life beyond clutching for survival. 

     Nature shows us the cycle that our lives follow, and guides us slowly to our fate in the unknown, passing into the longest night, from the shortest day. 

From the brothers at the Hermitage, our best to you this holiday season. 

O'Riley, beloved companion still with us.

O'Riley

It is beyond our reach to climb

To where, upon the highest step

The face, in fur, lean out,

Still, pausing, now in memory,

His slant ears turned upon us,

Like radar to attend our slightest move,

A momentary vision in the faded light,

Before the turning darkness cover him.

He was illumination from within,

A warmth no spheric orb could emulate,

No sun contain, his joy at life a radiance

To bask in, at his quiet touch, now still.

We move each moment by him,

A fate into the dusk

That blur where he had been,

And all too searing bright

The ache replace what had been joy,

The space as empty shadow

Move into us like a haunting bell

That rings in unheard sound

Upon the need to grasp his spectral form

Within our weary, gasping hold.

To what had been, to now,

Mix bitter and sweet as we reform our broken selves.

poem by Zephram de Colebi, February, 2019



     It was Zephram who found O'Riley at an animal shelter while I was visiting my parents in Texas. My previous dog, Shadow, died of complications from diabetes and I was ready for another one. Zephram said he chose Riley from all the available dogs because Riley was so needy. Abused while still a puppy, he was discarded, afraid, whimpering in his cage, and facing euthanasia. Zephram brought him home to await my arrival but the puppy ran away in terror as soon as he could, but stayed across the road, sheltered under a rock ledge, completely lost, hungry, yet afraid to leave.
     When I returned, I threw bits of weiners to him, hoping he would gradually come close enough so I could grab him, but I was too eager and grabbed too soon and Riley escaped, leery now of approaching again. We borrowed a deer cage and trapped him a couple of times as hunger drove him into the cage for food and he tripped the wire that closed the sliding door. I got a harness of him but he twisted his body so much that he broke it, and a second one as well.
     We finally got him up to the Hermitage from the winter house and he broke free again. Now he was so desperate for food that he started killing the chickens, which I couldn't allow, so I borrowed a gun to shot him but when I aimed it at him, he ran away to the neighbor's house, only to be shoot by him with a shotgun. The lead pellets in his body later showed up as bright dots of light on X-rays.
     Riley managed to stagger back to the Hermitage only to collapse in high weeds. Zephram heard him whimpering and this time Riley was too weak to run. He allowed himself to be picked up, dried off and his wounds tended. Now we were able to keep him with us since we finally understood him and had a very strong harness from which he could not escape. He never bit me, but he was terrified and it took months, years actually, for him to calm down and feel secure. Food, lots of food, helped him. He always loved to eat.
     And so we gradually became inseparable. He was my companion; he slept on my bed. But he was also a member of the family as well, and Zephram took him everyday into the studio with Dido, his own dog, and each one had an upholstered arm chair in which to lay.
     He always had a fatty tissue lump on his belly, but it never grew larger so I paid it no attention. Aside from that he was always healthy. He was cured of lyme disease.
     He and Dido made a good hunting team. Dido, larger and more aggressive, would kill a groundhog by ferociously whipping its neck back and forth, but Riley was always there, biting the poor creature's legs and doing whatever he could to assist in the kill. 
     And so the years passed. They flew by quickly but I never thought they would end. In the mornings as I wrote in bed, Riley would wait patiently until I was done and then he'd wait patiently as I put on his harness and we'd get our sister, Dido, for our morning walk. They would run across the fields/ We'd take the road back and I was always looking out for passing vehicles to make sure the dogs were safe.
     I wanted to have him for at least sixteen years, but he was only twelve when he caught pneumonia and an X-ray indicated there was also a tissue lump growing between his lungs and under the spinal chord. A biopsy would require inserting a needle through a lung and I refused to have that done. He was put on a chemo treatment which extended his life, but I could tell he was getting weaker. Each evening, on my bed, he looked at me and, instead of staying on the bed, he told me he had to get down and he started spending his nights on the floor. "I have to leave, Pops," he said, as he jumped off the bed, and I finally realized he was teaching me to accept the time when he would have to leave for good.
     There came a time in December, 2018, when he no longer had bowel movements. Concerned, we tried a diuretic, to no avail, so I took him to the vet who X-rayed him and found cancer had filled his abdomen and ruptured his spleen. His abdomen was filling with blood and he had only a day or two to live. She did give a packet of Chinese herbs that would help slow the bleeding, but he was doomed.
     I drove home in shock and screamed to Bro. Zephram that Riley was dying. Neither of us could believe it. We actually had him five more days, but each day he got weaker and weaker. Still, he stayed with our daily routine and did as much as he could. When I took them out for the morning walk, Riley went as far as he could, even if it was just around the corner. Then he laid down and waited for Dido and I to return. In the afternoon, Zephram took him with Dido in the truck up to the Hermitage and laid him in the studio on his chair, or perhaps on the floor near his feet, where Riley stayed until it was time for the evening walk, but when he could no longer go with Dido and Zephram, he waited until they returned. Zephram had to lift Riley into the truck as he could no longer even go up the ramp, which he'd been using for months when he could no longer jump in by himself.
     For our last midnight walks, I had to set Riley on the ground and he only went a few feet and laid in the January snow while Dido and I went out a short distance and returned. I didn't want to live Riley by himself for long in case a vehicle came by and struck him.
     While he was on two pain pills, I knew the time was coming when the pain might become unbearable and I thought I was ready to put him down myself so he wouldn't suffer. And the night did come when he moaned constantly and I knew it was time, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't bear the look in his eyes as I suffocated him because he wouldn't know why I, of all people, was doing this to him. And so I called a vet who said she was already in the neighborhood and would be over shortly. Those were our last minutes together. I laid beside him on the floor and put my arm around him and we waited. I think we both knew the final parting was coming.
     The vet arrived, explained the procedure, and Riley, of all things, growled as she went around to his backside. He never did like people back there. She gave him a sedative to calm him down as she shaved a section of fur off a back leg for the injection. All this time I was looking into his eyes and speaking to him softly, "Look at me, Riley; look at me." I continued saying this until the injection stopped his heart and he was gone, eyes still open.
    I thanked the vet for being as gentle with him as she was, and then she left, with Riley dead on the floor. Zephram finally came down and looked at Riley, and we brought Dido down who smelled her dead brother and backed off in panic.
    I wrapped him in beautiful Indian silks, and wrapped a funeral necklace I'd already made around his neck. We laid him in state in the Saal of the Gemeinehaus for three days. I built a funeral pyre and on the fourth day I carried him up the hill and placed his body on the pyre. These were difficult days as we saw him everywhere, and I knew his spirit could not rest until the body that failed him so miserably was ashes. We started the fire and gradually it built to a roaring blaze that consumed my child. We left and returned the next day to collect what few bones were left. Zephram made a funeral bag from linen that he embroidered and added tufts of Riley's hair saved from his annual haircuts. He will not have a separate stone as he is the first of the family to be already on the obelisk we had installed last year.
     It wasn't until after the cremation when his spirit first spoke to me, and I realized he was not gone but was with me, and would always stay with me. "I'm here, Pops. I'm here," he tells me daily, when I get up, when I walk Dido, when I look at the sofa in the TV room where he sat every evening waiting for a handout. That was how he taught me that death is not final, that the spirit lives on, and how, when I get a new dog companion, I know Riley will be glad to have a new brother. "I'm here, Pops; I'm here."

                                                 The last picture, two days before he died. 

Loss and Renewal
   
    “Girls! Girls!” I'd cry as I walked down to the chicken yard with a bowl of rice, the hens' favorite food. And both of them (we were down to just two, through attrition, from a dozen just last year before foxes got to them), the Barred Rock with her grey and black stripes, and the Rhode Island Red with the yellow star on her red chest, would come running towards me. They were so happy  as they followed me into the chicken yard and I laid the rice on the ground and they eagerly started eating. It was our daily routine and it meant so much to the three of us, and now the Rhode Island Red is dead and her sister has no idea where she is and she won't even go into the chicken yard anymore. She no longer roosts in the house at night and I have no idea where she is, except that our routine is gone and will not return. We do have a replacement group of eight hens I bought in early summer to expand the flock but they roost in various trees and not in the chicken house and the rice doesn't mean anything to them. So I must adapt to new ways while missing the moments I had with my two girls.


                                                                         


Three Sisters

    Our three female barn cats died last year. They were each 14 years or older so we knew their time was coming but such loss is always hard because they had been part of our lives for so long. The barn was their home and had been for as long as they lived here.
    Of the three, only Charlotte was born here. Her mother, Blackie, either roamed to the property or was dropped off as so many have been. Once, someone left a box of kittens down along the road but I assumed it was just trash that someone had thoughtlessly thrown away so I didn’t look at it for several days and, by then, the kittens were dead. And so we learn.
    Blackie was pregnant when she came to the Hermitage and soon gave birth to a litter of kittens. However, this was the summer of 2001 when we still let our dogs run loose about the property. One day we heard a commotion near the wood pile and rushed over to find Riker and Shadow had cornered a kitten deep within the wood. We pulled the dogs away - they had already eaten the rest of the kittens - and carefully pulled away the boards so we could gently withdraw the remaining kitten. We put her and her mother in the stable, safely away from the dogs, and they quickly made the barn their home. In the process, they eventually made the barn rat and mouse free, which had long been an issue.
    Boudica showed up shortly thereafter. She was already a young adult. She was very strong, a fearless hunter and had a pink triangle on the tip of her nose, so we named her for the Celtic queen who valiantly fought against the Roman occupation of Britain. She was one tough female.
    I fed the cats over Christian’s objections; he felt they should hunt for their food. I felt their lives were hard enough already and that feeding them would relieve needless pressure to survive. Besides, cats are natural hunters and never lose the, to them, thrill of the chase.
    And so they became part of our lives. In cold weather they stayed inside the barn which, though unheated, at least kept them dry and out of the weather. And there were plenty of places where they could make nests in various straw piles.
    I kept litter boxes filled with sand as I was too cheap to buy Kitty Litter and the cats learned quickly what the boxes were for.
    In warm weather, when I kept the barn door open to the barnyard, the cats came out and laid in the sun, enjoying the warmth of the earth and grass. And that’s how these three cats lived their lives. We finally learned to keep the dogs on tie-out chains so they didn’t bother the cats and, indeed, dogs and cats became familiar with each other and, indeed, we became a family.
    One thinks, incorrectly of course, that such happiness will last forever. On warm summer evenings I tried to take at least a few minutes after the end of my work and before starting supper to lay on the grass where the cats would join me, laying beside or even on me. Those moments were fleeting, special and we wanted them never to end as I would look high above to see blue sky with clouds drifting lazily by and the occasional bird flying by.
    But years pass and we age. The cats began to slow down but there was nothing apparently wrong with them except so many years and the gradually wearing down and wearing out of the machine. Still, it was a surprise to come down one morning to begin my chores and find Boudica dead on the grass. She came out of the barn to die. Her passing did not seem painful, fortunately. It was as though she simply expired.
    Charlotte’s death, however, was disconcerting and needless though she, too, had become feeble and walking was difficult for her. Somehow she got caught in the summer house with the dogs. She rarely tried to go into the summer house and I always caught her and put her outside. This time, however, I hadn’t noticed her going inside but the dogs found her and she must have panicked, which sets off their killing instant, because she was dead when Christian found her. There were no wounds on her body so she may have had a heart attack.
    A mother never wants to outlive a child but now Blackie, and old and feeble as she was, was alone. On summer days she still walked, unsteadily, into the barnyard to lay in the sun. By now other cats had come to live on the property but none of them lived in the barn, where Blackie was the sole resident.
    By now we had turned the barn into a local-history museum and folk art center. I was working on a project and sitting on the floor when Blackie walked right into me, and that’s when I realized she was blind. I also realized she was dying. My heart broke because she was the oldest of all the animals who had lived at the Hermitage. She was a link to a time that was gone and to an earlier Hermitage that no longer existed.
    I laid beside her on the floor and she curled up beside me. I held her close and we stayed together for some time before she wandered off. I heard her bumping into the furniture as she made her unsteady way across the barn, and then she was gone. I assumed she went outside to die, as our cats usually do.
    It was sometime later when I found her body in a corner of the barn, her home and where she wanted to die.
    We buried all three in our cemetery, wrapping all three in beautiful Indian silks and costume jewelry. Over each grave I put a large, heavy flagstone so they would not be disturbed. They are together in death as they were in life.
    I had kept their food bowls near the barn door and they quickly learned as young cats that they would get fed whenever I went into the barn. I always kept food in their bowls so they could actually eat whenever they wished but the sight of me going into the barn always caused them to follow me inside and each would crouch at the bowls and begin eating. It was a predictable ritual that we followed daily for years. I never thought those days would end and now they were gone forever. Sleep well, my girls. You are forever with me.

                         
Bowser

    I knew Bowser was blind the moment I saw his eyes. It was early morning and I was awakened by the sound of a barking dog outside, rare because my dog was with me and Zephram’s dog was down with him.
    I opened the door and there he was, wandering back and forth, not knowing where he was and walking into shrubs and trees. I immediately named him Bowser and realized someone had dropped him off, someone for whom Bowser had become too much to handle and who thought the Hermitage would be the best place for him. But I also immediately knew we could not handle another dog because the two we have are highly strung and overly sensitive. They cannot share their respective humans with another dog.
    We decided the only thing to do was to take him to a no-kill shelter. We found one, where the staff was not pleased at yet another dog to feed and place. A quick inspection also revealed what I had not noticed, that he had advanced testicular cancer, with a huge lump on his scrotum. He needed treatment so a vet was called and preparations were made to take Bowser immediately over for an examination.
    I never saw him again and made no effort to find out what happened to him, whether he was treated or put to sleep. By giving him away as he had been given to us, Bowser was out of my life. Still, it was a horrible decision to have to make and even harder to deal with as I felt so sorry for him, blind, lost, afraid. A terrible situation for which I saw no other option. Rarely have I felt so helpless. He was a remarkably sweet and trusting dog living in a very dark world. He needed love and care and I could provide neither. This knowledge is my penance for not doing more. The sound of a barking dog woke me up that morning and I had no idea it would end so tragically.   
                                                                        

The Fox

    Foxes and coyotes have taken a toll on our helpless birds this year, our ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys. In a particularly brazen attack, coyotes came right into the barnyard and pulled a turkey hen right off the gate where she was roosting. I found her gutted remains the next morning across the road by following a trail of feathers.
    By late October we had a trapper setting out traps but it was too late for those we had lost and I won’t replenish our stock until late spring. I only hope our remaining birds last through the winter.
    One day as I was driving back to the Hermitage, I saw a fox on the dam across the road. This was odd because they usually hunt at night and are rarely seen. I assumed it was an old fox, probably mangy and wormy and desperate for food. It may have been the same fox our dogs corralled a couple of days later as I was walking them up along the line and had let them run free for the exercise. Sometimes they find a groundhog or a klatch of baby rabbits but this day was different. What they found was fighting back as a blur of red and I knew they had found a fox, whose fangs, claws and aggressiveness could do real damage to our dogs. I ran to a nearby rock pile and brought two good-sized rocks as weapons while yelling to the dogs to move away, which they were only too glad to do.
    The terrified fox was indeed old, mangy and scrawny but still a good fighter and was dangerous because it was fighting for its life. I stoned the fox to death as quickly as I could. As with Bowser, I cursed fate for putting me in this situation and having to take this creature’s life. I yelled at the dogs to go on and they continued their run while I threw the lifeless body over the fence where they couldn’t get to it. They eagerly moved on to their next adventure. I found it harder to forget the staring eyes of a creature who only wanted to be left alone so it could continue killing our birds. What a life.


The heron and the catfish

    A heron visits the pond every spring summer when the water warms up and the catfish emerge from their winter hibernation in the mud and begin swimming again. She flies in low, her wide wings slowly flapping and she gently lands on the dam. Standing on her long legs, which bend backwards from ours at the knees, she waits patiently at the water‘s edge for a catfish to move near enough for her to stab with her long spear of a beak. When she is lucky and she catches a fish, if it is small enough, she swallows it whole. If it is larger, she typically takes it away from the pond so it will not escape. back into the water. Then she uses her beak as a knife to repeatedly slash at the fish and pull it apart into edible pieces.
    This year she learned something different because she quickly noticed how I came down every afternoon with a bucket of food to feed the catfish. The food is small pellets that float on the surface and the catfish swim to the surface, hungrily swarming, dozens of them, frothing about in the water to eat every pellet. The water around the dock where I stand boils with their bodies. The heron watched this and I could imagine her thinking to herself, “How does he do that? He brings them all to the surface while I have to stand here and wait for the occasional fish to swim by.”
    Sometimes she remains at the far edge of the pond while I feed the catfish. Other times she flies a short distance away to watch me until I’ve fed the catfish, bringing them to the surface. “For me?” I can hear the heron asking. “Yes, for you,” I reply.
    Being a bird of opportunity, as soon as I leave the dock, she begins flying over to stand on the dock herself or else lands in the shallows by the dock and often, with seconds, has a fish which she  proceeds to rip apart and eat.
    This puts me in the odd position of being her procurer: by feeding the catfish and keeping them alive, I also offer them up to her so, by their death, she can live. It is a queasy relationship, yet my heart goes out to her. She only has one way of living, spearing fish with her beak. That’s how nature has designed her; she has no options. And it’s a hard-knock life for her; there are days she has flown away hungry, with nothing to eat, to try her luck at another place along the creek.
    Even the catfish have grown familiar with her lurking over the edge of the dock. They can see her by looking up through the water and so they often remain down below and sometimes refuse to come up to feed even when I throw food on the surface for them. At such times, when nothing is feeding, I look across the pond to the heron waiting expectantly for them to rise and I say, “Not today, girl.” She will still fly over and assume her position of huntress. Sometimes she still finds an unsuspecting fish but sometimes she doesn’t and so eventually leaves. But the catfish can only go for so long without eating and, when hungry enough, they eventually come to the surface and there she is, waiting for them.
      The heron and I have unexpectedly bonded, bird and human. She knows me and will allow me to come remarkably close, but not too close. She has her space and if I enter it, she flies away with slow, loping flaps of her wings. I like to see her at the pond and I like the idea that I can play some role in keeping her alive. There are few things worse for any creature than to be hungry, starving hungry, with no idea as to when or where she will eat again.
    As I write this, it is early November. The temperature of the pond water has cooled considerably and the catfish have once again buried themselves in the mud at the bottom of the pond for their long winter hibernation when they slow their body activity to a minimum and simply wait for spring’s warmth. The heron has left for the season. I have seen other herons here in the middle of winter, along the creek when it isn’t frozen over, waiting, waiting, for something to swim by so they can eat. So I don’t know if this heron stays or leaves. In any case, if she survives the winter, I will look for her next year, when it’s warm, when the catfish rise to the surface, when I begin feeding them again and when our connection continues.

Life and Death at the Hermitage

 

 

Life

 

 

 

The mother duck hatched her baby in one of the brooder hutches two feet off the floor of the chicken house so his first step was a doozy. Mom was the first and, so far, only duck to ever nest there. Our hens do it all the time but there she was, the first morning I saw her, with her yellow bill protruding from the front of the hutch and just looking at me as if to say, "Don't bother me; I'm busy." And she remained there for the four weeks it took to incubate her egg. She only had one duck egg under her and two unfertile chicken eggs but she remained there day after day after day. I couldn't see how this could end well but she was determined.

Finally one day I looked into the chicken house and she had left the hutch and was standing on the floor. Her child was beside her, laying on his side, cold, wet, barely alive having survived hatching and then the fall. I couldn't leave him there to die so I picked him up even though Mom went wild as I took the fruit of her labor away. She squawked and squawked and I knew the loss would be hard on her but I also knew a dead duckling was not the answer. I took him to the attic of the summer house where I had a large metal tub with a heat lamp overhead and plenty of food and water. I carefully dried the young fellow off. His yellow down was matted to his body. I turned on the heat lamp and laid him on fresh, dry newspaper and left him to see what would happen.

I came back an hour later and he was standing, dry, fluffy and living. I gave him his first taste of water and food. I knew he would be lonely but he was also alive. His mother was still frantic but within a day or two she had resolved that her child was gone and so she resigned herself by moving on with her life.

Over the next few weeks the duckling grew and grew. Morning and afternoon I picked him up to stimulate him. He hated it and squirmed to get away but I knew the stimulation was good for him. Otherwise, all he could do hour after hour was just sit there and look at the metal walls of his tub. Finally, when he grew large enough, I moved him into the brooder house where we keep birds until they are large to survive on their own.

His mother was trying again with a new batch of eggs, this time under one of the buildings, but it was getting late in the season and I knew they had little hope for survival once they hatched.

After several more weeks, her child was ready for the pond so I picked him up and carried him to the water. He was not happy at being transported this way. I walked onto the dock, held him in both hands and then tossed him into the air. He finally discovered what wings and webbed feet were for as he frantically flapped until splashing into the water and quickly began paddling around. He even dove under the water. Meanwhile, the other birds went wild, especially the geese as they squawk at any intrusion into their territory and they rushed over to let him know he was not welcome. So he raced to the edge of the pond and climbed onto the bank where he started preening himself. There was corn nearby where I toss it on the ground so he had plenty to eat. Now he was large enough to fend off most nighttime predators and he quickly learned the value of staying near the other birds.

Now, months later, he is fully grown and is too heavy to run around as he did during the summer when he avidly chased grasshoppers across the pasture and gobbled them up. Now he's more sedate. His mother did lose all of her next batch of babies. She had fifteen and each day there were one or two fewer until all of them were gone. While I'd like to blame foxes and racoons, I'm afraid our cats ate most of them.

People rightly think life is hard in the human world but it's infinitely scarier and tougher in nature's realm. Still, the duckling who nearly died is now an adult and he's happy and his story of survival is a gift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Death at the Hermitage

 

 

 

 

 

Mutt and Jeff are done. Our team of turkey toms is broken up. A fox dragged Jeff across the road last night. At least I think it was Jeff; I never could really tell them apart. This morning, I saw the place where the fox and Jeff fought it out and Jeff had his last stand. It wasn’t pretty; the site, down near the pond, was covered with feathers and the snow was splattered with blood.

Mutt and Jeff were two of our Royal Palm turkeys, notable for the distinctive deep blue markings on their tail feathers. When the tail feathers fan out, the blue forms a semi-circular stripe in stark contrast with the white.

Normally, one of them stayed inside the chain-link fence surrounding the chicken yard while the other stayed outside. Through sad and painful experience, they realized that being together was no good because then they could really hurt each other in their competitive frenzy. When that did happen, I often had to forcibly remove one from the other when their raging hormones took control and they started pecking and clawing each other.

No, the fence provided a safety net. With it, they could glare at each other without really being hurt or hurting, which I thought was quite wise.

They spent hours playing a game best called “Anything you can do I can do better.” If Mutt raised his head high, so would Jeff. If Mutt lowered his head, so would Jeff. They strutted back and forth along the length of the fence, as though they wanted to get at each other and take the other one out. At night, when it was roosting time, they inevitably ended up side by side on the fence. But come daylight, they were back at it, puffing out their feathers and dragging the tips of their wing feathers on the ground which made a distinctive grating sound in vain attempts to intimidate each other. At such times, they looked like mirror images of each other as they walked back and forth, back and forth along the fence.

Their copycat behavior reminded me of the old “I Love Lucy” episode when the Ricardo family visited Hollywood and Lucy met Harpo Marx. She put on a duplicate Harpo costume with his distinctive coat and slouchy top hat while the two comedians did a vaudeville-type mirror routine where each imitated the other’s movements as though one was standing before a mirror. The idea was to see who could trick the other into making the first mistake.

I always wanted to make a video of the Mutt and Jeff show. I think it could have been a hit on YouTube. But I kept putting it off and now, as with so many things in life, it’s too late.

I walk through the snow and pick up the body. As typical of a fox attack, the head was gone and the fox had also eaten a large piece of the breast. We’ve had really cold weather and snow lately so wild animals are frightened for their survival, which makes them take chances they normally avoid in warm weather, like coming among the farm buildings. And since there are already intimations of spring, it’s possible the fox was a mother with babies to feed.

I put Jeff’s body into the back of the pickup and drive to the bend in the lane where it begins to rise towards the main road. The swale comes close to the road at that point, with the ground dropping sharply down to the creek. This is where I put our dead animals and birds (except the dogs and cats, who have their own cemetery). There are many bones down there from many creatures going back many years. Of course, wild animals take many of the carcasses away and that’s fine, they can be recycled to keep other creatures alive.

As I lift the body out of the back, I feel Kali’s presence. The Hindu goddess of death is never far away when one lives close to nature. More than an occasional visitor, yet not quite a family member, she is more like the next door neighbor who always comes over in an emergency. Kali is always ready, like now, to start her dance. As her consort, Shiva has his dance of life while Kali has her dance of death. Yet I don’t think she’s happy when a creature dies; I think she dances because that’s her job, it’s what she does. It’s as though she is acknowledging an existence and its passing and its transformation into something else, a return to its home, to the spirit from whence it emerged and into which it has merged again.

Kali and I know each other well by now, which is odd because I really didn’t know her at all before moving here in 1988 to create the Hermitage. Oh, I had known death, I had seen death, but I had never related it specifically to her before. Now her image is constantly before me at times like this as I mourn the loss of our dearly beloved turkey. He was a sweet, innocent soul despite the times he wanted to get at his dance partner on the other side of the fence and rip him open. But that was hormonal rage. No, when he was calm, he was sweet and, in any case, he could do little to defend himself against a creature who really wanted to kill him. He lived a peaceful, secure and bountiful life right to the end, and if the end was terrifying, so it is for many of us.

As I toss the body towards the bottom of the slope, I say aloud, “Rest in peace, sweet child.” All of our creatures are sweet, even the farm cats whose idea of a good time is to torture a field mouse until they finally get bored and kill it. But that’s what they, like foxes, do.

We have purposefully tried to make the Hermitage into a New Jerusalem, without the Christian connotations, a place where earth and spirit can unite and heal each other. The idealistic “Peaceable Kingdom” paintings of Quaker artist Edward Hicks show the lion laying down with the lamb and the child holding the snake. Those are crucial images to us and while they may not come literally true in my lifetime, I hold out the promise that they could be true someday.

Still, we cannot always make it so as the death of Jeff reminds me. At times like these, nature thrusts itself upon us and Kali dances again. We cannot always protect our children from the vagaries of the world, no matter how much we wish we could.

I drive back to the barnyard. In the ensuing days, I miss Jeff terribly. The lack of his presence leaves a hole in the fabric of the Hermitage. Mutt has no one with whom to compete.

Then one day I return after some hours of being away. I pull in, get out and stop at what I am seeing. A first-year Bourbon Red male turkey is on one side of the chicken-yard fence while Mutt is at his station on the inside. And the Bourbon Red is mimicking Mutt; when Mutt raises his head, the Bourbon Red raises his; when Mutt lowers his head, the Bourbon Red lowers his. And what about the dance? Sure enough, Mutt struts up and down on one side of the fence, the Bourbon Red struts up and down on the other side, a new team is doing the old routine.

It is humbling to know that life continues, that Jeff is dead but his role remains, now played by a new actor. I feel Kali looking at me, and she is smiling.