Tricksters

A few mornings ago I looked up from my desk and saw a raccoon hop up from the road onto the stretch of grass in front of my window. It was raining that day, and its fur was sodden. It walked right up to the house like it had important business by the Japanese quince and the linden. Then it disappeared. It was right near the house and I lost track of it. This is the magic of raccoons. They are shapeshifters. When they visit, they are here to teach you to be vigilant, or persistent, or clever in your dealings.There's a lot of folklore surrounding them. When we visited Japan I fell in love with the sensual depictions of tanuki. Tanuki are more of a cross of a fox and a raccoon. I prefer the cheerful and benevolent rogues they turned into to their original forms, which were said to possess humans and haunt them.The rogue tanuki is a partier, with a large belly and scrotum, and usually a bottle of sake at hand.

The animals around here have more business than I do, scribbling and dreaming at my desk. The owl knows when there's the business of a loose duck, the fox knows spring dusks by the pond are her best business hours, the deer keep a quiet business of traffic across the fields, stray cats have the business of frog and field mouse hunting, the rats keep a hippity hoppity duck feed business.

My business hours are 5 a.m. to about 4 p.m. now, when the light shifts into night. I crack open a can of corn, put on muck boots, a giant, black sweater that makes me look like an ominous wooly worm, and lead the duck parade to safety. The business of the raccoon, the weasel, the fox, the owl, thwarted once more by the cleverness of chicken wire, hardware cloth, and hope.

The Raccoon Whisperer, a retired veteran in Canada who feeds raccoons hot dogs, is raccoon and human business transaction at some of its best.

A Reconnaissance of Cats

This morning I woke up thinking about cats, as the newest one in our family wiggled her way from the bottom of the bed to perch directly on my chest. It's hard not to think about cats when you have one breathing on your chin. I made a mental list, and discovered I've known and loved fifteen cats in my lifetime, not counting the ones who lived with my parents or friends.

Spooky

  A black and white wilding of a cat, she was a first cat memory of early childhood. My sister named her. I don't remember much about her except a story of her clawing Dad's back, an event which didn't go over well. She was in and out of the house, and when we moved Mom worried that she'd not be able to find her way back to the new house. She put butter on Spooky's paws, following an old wives tale that if the cat licked it off she'd also taste the dirt of home, and know where she was meant to be. Spooky must have tasted the roof in that butter because she spent a lot of time on the roof of our newly built home in the winter. Our icicles were yellow. 

Pip

    Pip and Pyewacket were a sister and brother pair who found us as kittens in our early teens. Pip was Kristen's cat. A black and white cat, similar to Spooky, I remember her sleeping on Kristen's bed, devoted. Later, when Kristen went off to college, and Mom and Dad moved, Pip found her favorite spot in the new house was in the onion basket on top of the fridge, a perch she used to swat at people as they walked by. Surprise! 

Pyewacket

    A tiger striped male, Pyewacket was really the first cat I called my own. He was a friendly cuddler; a rollicking fatboy. He enjoyed playing with chipmunks outside, which I didn't like to see. Once he got into a ground bee nest and was stung multiple times, and panted like a dog as we took him to the vet. Pye heard all my teen dramas, sadness, and dreams. I couldn't take him with me to my first college apartment. He became an escape artist when Mom and Dad moved to Ephrata. 

Poem

    A calico female I got at a pet store when I was in college, Poem was a tiny and elegant cat. As a kitten she was acrobatic, and leapt onto bookcases and mantlepieces. My grandmother Romayne was amazed by her energy. She accompanied me through college, and my early marriage. She was the cat who sat in my vanishing lap as I was pregnant with Helen, and she was Helen's first cat. We brought Helen's little baby hat home from the hospital so she could meet her through scent. She slept next to Helen's cradle and watched over her.

October

    Mom used to say "The fur fairy threw up on October." I'd  never seen a tweed cat before, but that's what October was. She was like the jacket of a literature professor. Thin and clever, she enjoyed eating spaghetti noodles directly out of the pan in the kitchen, and once sunk her teeth into a tube of ground turkey. She didn't like it when I went away on weekends though. She'd drag her butt across the carpet of the apartment, and I'd come home to poop trails. Mom and Dad took her in when I couldn't keep two cats, so she ate spaghetti at their house, and enjoyed the morning ritual of feeding the African frogs. Mom had her trained to the sound of a music box. She'd open the lid right before she fed the frogs, and October would run in to get her treat of frog food.

Mouse

    Mouse showed up one day on Buttonwood street, in the little patch we called a backyard. She was grey and white, and longhaired. A lovely fluff of a cat. Bewitched by her floofiness, I let her in, and she caused havoc. She was a storm cloud who found her way to a friend in Reading.

Edna

    Edna and Albrecht were adopted at a Reading shelter when Helen was two years old. As kittens they slept with her on her toddler bed, all curled up at her feet. They were her cats, even though I claimed Edna, and Joe claimed Albrecht. Edna was the sweetest, most tolerant female cat. The color of a latte, with faint stripes and spots of white on her chin and paws, she was beautiful in a simple and subtle way. Helen used to dress her up in doll pants, and she would walk around with a rankled look on her face. She curled up neatly on laps, and loved every visitor. In her later years she had a neurological event (a stroke, maybe?), and we took her to the vet after finding her stumbling around on the stairs. She recovered, and was with us a few more years. Her fur was as soft as a rabbit.

Albrecht

    An orange tiger male, Albrecht was named after Albrecht Durer, Joe's favorite artist. In his later years, he grew enormously fat, and loved to sleep in Helen's "critter heap" of stuffed animals. He blended in well, but he snored loudly, giving his location away.

Mango

    I adopted Mango from a Wilkes University student who found herself with a litter of kittens. It was Helen's birthday, and this cat was a birthday gift. Mango was formally named Mango Toodles Kaucher Caraballo, a collective decision of Helen and her best friend, Alex. I remember bringing Mango home, and driving over the Market Street Bridge to discover that she had escaped her box. She climbed up onto my shoulders and tried to sit on my head for the rest of the drive. Mango was white with orange spots, and shorthaired. She was similar in temperment to Edna. She enjoyed sliding around in the hallway in a shoebox, a game we played with her often. She accompanied Helen into her young adulthood and moved with her a few times, including back into our home for awhile, a "home from college" visit.

Stella

    Stella was the half sister of my mother's cat, Miss Havisham. Both of them came from a woman in Ephrata who fed all the feral cats in the neighborhood until they were friendly and less fearful of humans. Stella and Miss H. always retained a bit of the feral in them, even when they found cozy homes. Stella's thrill was discovering baby rabbits in the basement and bringing them up into the hallway for snacks. I still don't know how she did it. When we moved from Edwardsville to Lancaster, she was spooked, and found her secret hiding spot in the basement. We left food and water, and Helen brought her to Lancaster later. Then she became Marissa's confidante. 

Lucy Bob

    An adoptee from the SPCA by way of PetSmart, Lucy had a gravelly, old lady meow, as if she'd spent a long time smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky. On our way out of the pet store with her, some guy heard her meowing from the carrier and said, "Good luck with that." She hated the litterbox, and only pooped next to it. She was cuddly, and chubby, and had no troubles with her roommates, Edna, Stella, and Mango, and Muninn. I have a photo of myself at Christmas one year, sitting in a chair, covered in all five cats. Bliss.

Muninn

    A beautiful black male cat who found us by way of our friend Jack, Muninn was half of a pair of cats Jack had for years -- Muninn and Huginn -- named after the Norse ravens. Muninn didn't like living with us much. He didn't like being away from Jack. First he was first rehomed to Jack's mother, and then to us, where he had to live with four other cats, and none of them were Norse Gods. 

Steve

    Steve was the only male kitten from a litter born on the rainy day porch of one of Helen's coworker's uncles. When I went to visit, all the females hissed at me, but Steve peered up from his spot under a glass topped coffee table. When I picked him up, he purred. He's an all black ragdoll cat with long fur that mats in the summer. He gets a regular "lion cut" when he mats, which makes him look a little silly, but it's more comfortable. Steve loves all of my costumes. When he hears the closet open he's right there, ready to admire (lick) feathers, and chew on tulle. He gets the same giddiness around Christmastime when the decorations and wrapping paper come out. A lover of water, he drinks from the sink, and will also have a sip from your unattended cup, thank you very much.      

Ozgood

    Oz found us by way of the "Kitten Bush" here on our property which we think blooms once or twice every couple of years. I found him in the shed one morning, meowing behind the tools. A tiny, male tabby, he stayed outside for awhile, getting used to us and our schedule. He loved the farmstand visitors and people asked about him. He joined me for hoop practice in the barn, and played with everything I was working on. When it got cold, he came inside and was an indoor/outdoor cat, until he brought poison ivy oil in on his fur. Now he's indoor only, and is the friendliest and possibly the smartest of our cats. When Stubs joined us, he welcomed her like a big brother. When she escaped recently, scared by a power outage, he went outside to look for her. A hero. He's also a great mouser, which is helpful in an old farmhouse. 

Stubs

    Dan heard her meowing behind the rhododendron last year. "I think the Kitten Bush has bloomed again" An all black stump of a kitten, she was truly feral. It took me a long time to woo her with food, and I spent a lot of time sitting on the cold patio. Our neighbor helped too by bringing his stuffed mouse on a string, and coaxing her into play. On Thanksgiving Day last year,she walked right into the kitchen, and never looked back. We call her Kettle Bell, Stubby, Gremlin, Bunbun, Bowling Ball, and a host of other in-the-moment nicknames, and recently Dan said she looks like a whiskey barrel on four thumb tacks. She's short of stature, but has some heft, and plenty of independent attitude. She's the cat I wake up to every morning, because that's when she gets fed. 

If you're up for more cat stories, you can check out Cats I've Known: On Love, Loss, and Being Graciously Ignored by Katie Haegele. 

A Few Typewriter Poems

Bare November trees

slip on wigs of grey clouds

lunch ladies at dawn

Woodpecker on oak

taps to find what feeds her

Royal typewriter

Alcoholic friend

sends a text at 2 a.m. --

the only light on

 

Unrelated and Related Fragments About Ownership

Everyone has hauled out their holiday decor overnight, and now each home dances with projected snowflakes, or an inflatable chicken dressed as Santa bobs in the wind by their front door. Yesterday I found myself in the wonderblitz of Target, considering lights. You can buy them by strings of 200, coiled on large plastic spools, for $28 each. I'd need at least three to cover the tree by the barn. That's a lot of money for something that is impermanent. I decided to not buy anything for the holiday and dig around in the attic when the mood strikes. Then I bought thirteen dollars worth of toilet paper and left, but not before taking a slow stroll through the makeup to ask myself, "Do I care about this anymore, either?" The answer was no. I do not, but part of me wants to. The sparkly part.

I tested negative for Covid yesterday morning. It's been a long two weeks of feeling taken over. I'm still coughing and tire easily, and toothpaste tastes fusty instead of minty. When no extra line appeared on my test I had the impulse to call my mother to share the good news. She would wonder what I'm talking about, gone long enough to have never heard the word "Covid." 

When I was unpacking the toilet paper, I noticed a man was standing by our newly sorted shed, his red umbrella popped like a mushroom in the rain. I pointed him out to Dan, then I saw the man punch numbers into his phone, and Dan got a call. For the next few minutes Dan politely explained that the shop is closed for the season, and yes that information is on the website, and today is Sunday, we live here, we're closed. It is obvious we are closed. The property is under a good deal of construction with a path being replaced by the house, so there are pallet piles, large stones, and heavy equipment in the driveway. The barn is closed, the farmstand is zipped up. There are no signs saying we are open. But this man was insistent in his need to shop, to browse, to consume. When I saw his wife step out of our shed, I was stunned. Who just stands in a total stranger's shed as if it is a bus stop? They sat in their car and kept Dan on the phone with questions for a long while, saying they would place an online order and then Dan could bring it out. Then they spent more time browsing on their phone, and must have decided that it was just too much to bear. They left without any announcement or fanfare. In spite of my frustration with people who act this way, the hostess in me hopes they noticed the charming ducks, dibbling in the mud by the pond.

I looked up William the Conquerer to read about him right before I fell asleep, just because his name popped up in my head like a real estate ad while I was walking down the hallway to the bedroom. I didn't realize he ordered the compilation of the Domesday book, a survey listing all the land-holdings in England along with their pre-Conquest and current holders. Adelina Joculatrix is listed in the Domesday book. She was a jester and owned land, unusual for women. I wonder if anyone ever showed up in her shed, demanding to be entertained. I wonder if she kept ducks.

Passing By

The greying fence that once wound around the corner of our property is gone now. Every morning I looked out at it, close range, from my writing desk. There was not much reason for it. What was it keeping out? What was it holding in? I decided we'd have more light, and I'd get a better sense of the gardens around the house without it. The wood could be repurposed into a wood shed, and possibly an outhouse. My argument was sound, and so the fence is gone and we have a wood shed. 

My morning view has improved. I see the sunrise slap the sides of trees, the frosty grass of the field across the road, and I wonder who is awake in the neighbors house when there's a light on. I also see traffic up close. Yesterday I saw a driver cut someone else off, and the victim gave the offender a solid middle finger. Not a flash, not a flicker, but a switched-on-for-good fuck you. Some drivers who stop at the corner notice me and my little green lamp. This morning there was the older man in the black pickup who shamelessly stares as he makes the turn. His head is fixed like an owl. Yes, someone lives here, and yes, she can see you passing by on your way to work.

Backstage

Don’t worry, spiders,

I keep house

    casually. 

                - Issa

Yesterday, while eating a quick lunch of ramen soup "shooshed up" with garden vegetables and a dash of chili oil, a gentle knock came to the kitchen door. Helen looked at me, and we shared a mild panic. "Who is that?" Dan stood up and opened the door a crack, and partway up the steps stood two women. "We're here to pick up an order of cinnamon buns."

Dan laughed and said, "Ah! How did you get past my camera alerts? We usually get a notice when someone is here." He abandoned his soup, thrust feet into boots and was out the door helping them in no time. Lunch is almost always, without fail, interrupted by a customer.

Helen and I stayed to slurp up noodles. It was rainy, and we'd already been out in it a number of times, getting thwacked in the face by the sodden mulberry, or slipping in duck goo. It was unseasonably chilly. The soup was just right.

"How did they even find their way to the kitchen entrance?" I wondered. Helen posited that they walked through the barn. We'd left the door open to the path, which means they went through the disaster of a prop room, where art supplies and theatre props are piled. Then they had to walk up the mangled path, where jutting bricks make a challenge even for the surest of feet. The fig and mulberry meet to combine a low soggy arch on rainy days, which if you aren't paying attention, will lick you in the face and leave your hair all combed with leafy bits. They worked through obstacles to get to our porch.

What was the prize for making it all that way? They saw all our coffee cans filled with rotting scraps for the compost heap, a muddy array of boots and shoes, an entire closet of plaid coats, pants, and rain gear hanging on hooks, a filthy rag dangling on the banister to dry (not working well on this day). Then, a few surprised faces sitting around a kitchen table.

While we are used to visitors to the farm stand and the barn theatre, we are not accustomed to people knocking on our kitchen door. I felt exposed.

All the coffee cans filled with banana peels and eggshells, loose boards, undusted surfaces, were seen by the audience. Not to mention the cast of maladroit insects we're too lazy to kick out.

 

 

Delight in Clearing

It's been a delight to be outside again, uncovering what's been quietly growing all around us these past few months. Including, of course, our favorite pal, Toxicodenron Radicans, poison ivy. Helen and I got a good case of our systemic rash a little over a week ago when we went wild by the Beatrix Garden and the fence by the road, which has some vines.  I call it the Beatrix Garden for Helen Beatrix Potter, and the Helen who lived here before us, and our Helen who lives here with us now on a part-time basis. 

I have seedlings in the greenhouse to plant in that garden, and I'm excited to see what takes there with all the other beautiful perennials that bloom. Seedlings that are sprouting are Foxglove, Forget-Me-Nots, Delphinium, Stock, and a quiet, cold loving bunch of seeds of English Lavender that rest in the fridge by Dan's beer.

Rashes and rounds of steroids aside, there is an immense sense of satisfaction in clearing. A couple of weeks ago, Helen and I put our focus on the kitchen garden by the farmstand, which will be a family-friendly "Pick Your Own," space this summer. We broadforked, hoed, and fed the goats what was left of beets.

We stirred up the contents of the compost bin like it was a cauldron, and pulled the nutrient rich dirt out from the bottom layer to add to the soil. I stored away a lot of the tools, posts, and items that flotsammed their way by the fence. Dan and I put away every coil of old fencing that had come to rest there too, and it is much improved.

Dan cleared the space between the trees by the driveway, which opened up the view to the fields, and now there's a lovely tree to take shade under in the summer. There will also be much less poison ivy, since we can mow there.

Yesterday after doing some performance work (filming myself, a nightmare), I suited up to join Dan outside. He was clearing away the fencing that used to be a dog kennel between the barn and the greenhouses. I swept the birdseed and last bits of firewood from the kitchen porch, then raked my way around the path past my writing room (the quince is budding!), and toward the front of the house by the Secret Garden Path. It's not that secret, really. I just call it that because it is cozy and enveloping, the kind of space you want to stoop in so you can hear the ants.

It wasn't long before I was on my hands and knees, pulling up whole "carpet rolls" of grass, revealing new-to-me stones in the path. I had chosen the perfect day for this task. The shade of the space and rain we had the other day made all conditions right for path clearing.

 

What a delight to find the artifacts of the family who lived here before us. Their handprints, snail icons, dog prints, and a footprint with a hand. I slid my hand into the largest handprint, was surprised that it fit, and felt connected to those who took care of this land before us.

When I stood up, I heard the bees working in the Leatherleaf Mahonia. Its spires of tiny yellow blooms are opening (the bees do good work),  releasing a honeysuckle scent when the breeze is just right. A thrill.

The Jumblies

The wind is pushing us through March's runcible early days, thrashing our hair, frisking the chimes, knocking the branches from dead trees. It is waking us up out of a long winter sluggery.

Helen and I spent a jovial afternoon pushing a wheelbarrow full of moldy, decaying fruit through the snow to the Rot Spot, an area of ground we are filling in and enriching with compost. In the fall I chucked pumpkins there, our neighbors dumped their chicken coop compost into it, we buried a dead and quite frozen feral cat nearby a couple months ago, the giant sunflowers we harvested in the fall were piled on, and ecetera. It's an area of ground making swift work of what is shared there. The earth is quiet and efficient.

We had to share pushing the wheelbarrow, each of us taking one handle and forging ahead, avoiding (not quite) frozen footprints from previous walks. There were many near misses of toppling over, sending our icky fruit basket rolling onto the snow. We made it, laughing the whole way.

While out there, in the lower fields, we tackled the mess of dried out cosmos, and plants yielded easily from the soft ground. It was good timing. I was hot in my three sweaters, and robot gloves. Hints of summer, memories of flop sweat while weeding, played through my mind.

Our neighbors toy goat was on the outside of her fence. I told Dan to text her. Their goats are the tiny, demure version of our big, meaty dunderheads. They sound like dog toys, and are about half the size of Boer goats. Pygmys, I think? The sweet escapee was happy to just be on the other side of the fence, and didn't wander at all. 

After several trips to the Rot Spot with the cosmos plants, we pushed the wheelbarrow back up the hill together, and went inside for tea and seaweed.

Then it was time to move the goats from the barn to the outside paddock, which required a good hour or more with rearranging the fence while being whipped in the face with thorny underbrush. We made the mistake of leaving the stanchion inside the paddock, so while the fence was charged and all was well, they figured out they could leap from the stanchion over the fence, clearing it without shock. 

When I went outside to put the ducks in for the night, the goats were at the duck run, and then they followed me to the kitchen porch where I called for Dan's help.

Later, I read a poem by Edward Lear aloud to Helen, who was working on memorizing Latin plant names. I'd never read this poem before, and I really love the playfulness, the nonsense words that make some sense, and the rhyme and meter. The title. "The Jumblies," made me think of the day we'd had, and how many of my days now seem like I'm riding a sieve out to sea.

The Sunday Morning Variety Show on Kutztown Road

Yesterday morning before getting dressed I decided to clean out the duck run, since the thaw of snow was revealing an archeological treasure of sludge-filled containers. The coop needed some fresh shavings, too. I was trying to beat a forecast of rain. A bright green front loomed on the radar.

I refreshed the coop with shavings, then dug into the mess exposed by the thaw. I keep the duck feeder on top of a snow shovel head. It works as a tray to keep the feed from getting all over the ground. This needed cleaning, and there was a second feeder, a red plastic one, from the early days of the new ducks being introduced to the group. I'd forgotten about an egg carton filled with corn, which resurfaced. The water container needed a cleaning. Ducks are adorable, but very messy creatures.

The sludge filled items I carried over to the compost heap in the kitchen garden, where I began to scrape the fetid gunk off with the end of a leek. I'm never prepared with a tool, even though I know I'm doing this work, so I just use whatever is handy from the heap. The uppermost layer of the compost heap right now is an array of onions and deflated, moldy oranges, useless tools for scraping, so the leek was a sign of good fortune. I began the work of cleaning the shovel head, and the plastic feeder, as the propane delivery guy was parked on the road, blocking the lane. 

A sporty car from the 90s, something white and sleek with tinted windows, pulled up behind the truck, and paused there with a full view of my plaid-clad, scrunchie ponytailed, pajama-pantsed self, holding a leek in one hand, and a broken shovel head in the other. I waved with the leek end.

Littleface, seeing an opportunity to add to the show since he had an audience on both sides of the paddock, leapt from the barn stall. He sailed through the split in the tree, and caught his leg on a poison ivy vine, which trailed behind him like a fuzzy shooting star (good goat!). Not one for curtain calls, he walked a few steps on the rock pile and munched on a thorny rose. 

An applause of quacks issued from the pond.