Sightings

The sky these past few mornings is nearly opaque, stained with faint colors like the inside of a seashell.

The air is not crisp as it should be with the calendar proclaiming autumn. 

I sit on the east porch, fingers wrapped around a mug of decaf sweetened with maple syrup.

Hummingbirds--still with us--make the first visits of the day to the feeders dangling from the overhang of the porch ceiling.

While I wait for the sun to appear around the corner of the barn, I watch for the squirrel families who live in the trees that line the ravine across the lane.

In the springtime, from this spot on the porch, the gymnastics of the squirrels were easily visible through nearly leafless branches.

Now I take note of a jiggled limb, a cluster of leaves suddenly shaken, and follow the sleek dark bodies as they shimmy down, branch to branch, make a horizontal run and leap to an adjoining tree.

During high summer we grew accustomed to sightings of the foxes--if not daily, on several consecutive mornings during the week. I've expected that they were out and about in the mornings even if I missed seeing them lope across the lower field or trot down the lane to melt into the tree line.  Pegging sheets on the line I once caught a flash of movement and turned to see a fox meandering behind the clump of small trees where our camper trailers were parked during the winter of house building.

A special confirmation of the fox family''s continued residence was seeing one saunter boldly across the meadow above the gardens last week as I stood at the kitchen window.

 The first owners named the lane leading to the three homes here in reference to the wild turkeys who frequent the area.

When we first came here to begin clearing the house site we saw the turkeys daily.  Like the foxes, they seem to disappear for weeks.

Unlike the foxes the turkeys have no discernible routine--they may appear at any time of day or evening. 

This group was pecking about below our bedroom windows early one morning.

Turkeys are skittery--as soon as they realize we are aware of their presence, panic ensues. 

Deer cross the property--usually grazing across the upper meadow.

We come to think of these creatures possessively--'our foxes'--'our deer.'

It is more accurate to realize that they were here before us; we are the interlopers.

Transition

All week the sunrise has been lovely, although it is still barely light at 7 a.m.

Sunsets have likewise been splendid.

On this Thursday morning, all was pearly grey. We hoped for rain, but there was only a misty drizzle, quickly over.

Looking up the lane I noticed hundreds of birds ranged along the wires.

I walked quietly up to the bend in the lane that designates our driveway.

Birds jostled for space, while still more alighted in trees along the boundary hedgerow to the east.

The air was full of their soft twitterings and the swoop of wings.

Not barn swallows as I first thought, but tree swallows. Our neighbor has placed several nest boxes on fence posts along the lane, which the swallows are pleased to occupy.

Later, walking to the mailbox, I found a single blue tinged feather laying on the stubbly grass.

Bedraggled sunflower heads.

Zinnias are faded.

This one was a brilliant red-orange.

Leaves are drifting down along the drive; the cool air has a tang of woodsy dampness; a faint breeze stirs.

Willis, my ever faithful companion on walks. This has been his 10th summer.

He is still lean and supple, still the overseer of the property.

At the edge of the open-ended barn, a nest had fallen from the ledge above the entrance

It has a mud-daubed base, but has been sturdily wound into shape with fine stems, twigs and bits of moss, lined with soft down.

A balloon flower bud, so intricately veined.

A 'balloon' bud ready to spread its petals.

I miss the autumn proliferation of  New England Asters which grow wild on roadsides and in old pastures in my native Vermont. Here, the tiny frost asters bloom, but the purple beauties must be purchased as garden plants. There were no purple ones at my favorite local nursery in the spring, only some of a garish 'hot' pink. 

This one, Raydon's Purple came from Select Seeds--the only one in stock when I ordered.

Cockscomb in all its brilliant velveteen glory. There are seeds for a few million plants!

Temperatures are meant to climb again this weekend, but the days are shortened, giving way to cooler nights.  The equinox has passed and autumn is slowly moving in.

Autumn Flowers

As the gardening season slowly winds down, the flowers which rebloom after the heat and insect pests of high summer are especially cherished.

I have continued to water my shrub roses through the long stretch of drought and have been rewarded with blossoms to bring indoors each day.

My favorite of the shrub roses I have grown in Kentucky--Hawkeye Belle.  This rose has been moved twice--from our first Kentucky home--to the Amish farm--now to our new place.

It is a 'Griffith Buck' rose, bred to withstand cold winters.  I think I ordered this as a bareroot plant during our first Kentucky spring. 

It has a soft sweet scent.

A Landscape rose purchased this spring at the local garden center. 

I removed the tag thinking I would remember the name--but I don't.

I have two of these which stay compact, bloom profusely and have a light scent.

I am happier with these than with the varieties planted on the east retaining wall. Those tend to straggle over the ground and aren't scented.

Two David Austin roses--the apricot variety is Roald Dahl.  The shrub has a very open spreading form. The pale yellow rose is The Poet's Wife.

Hawkeye Belle in the background, and the 'un-named' rose moved from the Amish farmhouse. 

It is very fragrant with some variation of color from one bloom to another.

At the nursery I saw one nearly identical called "Cameo.'

Ballooon flower--raised from seed this spring and tucked along the improvised fence.

Dwarf butterfly bush from the local nursery. This began the season in a large pot, but after its first blooms were over I trimmed it sharply and put it in the ground near the fence.

Coneflower from seed--in spite of being ravaged by caterpillars these are making a modest show of bloom.

I putter outside each morning to inspect my plants, finding a quiet joy in those that are flourishing--reward for the hard labor of creating gardens where none had been before.

Still waiting for rain to mellow the ground for setting out the remainder of the plants grown from seed and now bursting from their pots. 

Then will begin the repotting and pruning of tender plants that need to come indoors before frost.

Some can reside in the sun room--for others I hope there will be grow lights in the basement.

Endless Summer

The heat continues, temperatures varying only a few degrees between the high 80's and 90 F.

Nightly dew fall has become sparse.  A few trees along the edge of the north ravine have begun to shed their leaves, which crackle underfoot. The grass and weeds there are limp, bleached and diminished.

The power company sprayed herbicide to the south where the ravine runs deep below the lines. 

Last year it was a tangle of brambles, poison ivy, honeysuckle vine, thistles, but rimmed at the upper edge with goldenrod, joe pye weed, ironweed.

Today I noticed one stalk of ironweed in triumphant bloom above the blackened rubble of dead plants.

I'm uncomfortable with the use of herbicides, while understanding the constant battle to keep wild plants, some of them undesirable, under control.

A year or more of neglect by the former owners of our property resulted in drifts of weeds along the lane, encroaching on the gravel, thistles and briars bristling along the side of the barn.

Jim mows, runs the bush hog, trims out saplings and over-hanging branches along the lane.

I wish it was possible to save the pretty plants--the wild ageratum, delicate frost asters, the goldenrod. 

Fungus grows on a rotting branch in the deep shade at the edge of the south ravine.

Walking slowly up the lane, late afternoon sun striking through the denim of my jeans, I hear a muffled thud ahead of me.

Black walnuts falling into the rough short grass.

It occurs to me that standing under the black walnut tree is not the most sensible place to linger!

Zinnias at the edge of the garden have faded.

I need to gather seeds from the spent sunflowers--seeds for another summer.

At 7:30 in the evening the sun is melting into a molten pool behind the treeline to the west.

It is too warm still to open the bedroom windows hoping for a breath of cooler night air.

The rooms are comfortable with the A/C running, but I long for the freshness of an autumn breeze, for an end to heat and drought.

9-11-19

We remember where we were on the morning of 9-11-01.

We were living in Riverton, Wyoming, in the house we had finished a year earlier.  

Jim left before 7, headed to the site of a house he was constructing for a customer.

I began tidying the kitchen, turning the TV to BBC America with the intention of watching the gardening show, Ground Force. 

I didn't understand the images on the screen: smoke, dust, firetrucks, rubble.

Turning to several news stations I found the same photo coverage and at last managed to grasp the basic facts being broadcast by stunned and disbelieving reporters.

We were two hours behind New York time where the horror occurred while we were still asleep.

I jumped in the truck and roared to Jim's work site, a 10 minute drive.

There the radio blasted country music as usual, no mention had been made of the disasters in NY, the downed plane in PA, the attack directed at the Pentagon.

Many of us remember our where-abouts on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and a few days later our compulsive viewing of his funeral via grainy black and white TV.

It is right that we remember days of infamy, those recent and those that impacted other generations.

It is right that we also remember those days of grim endurance and victory.

Each of us in a lifetime, accumulates our personal roster of remembrance--anniversaries of joy, of new beginnings, of loss, of heartache.

Some are shared only  with family or close friends, unacknowledged by country or world at large.

Events such as the 9/11 terrorist attack, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the evacuation of Dunkirk [a few that come readily to mind] need to be accorded a solemn mention, year after year, decade after decade.  As Abraham Lincoln stated in his speech at the Gettysbugh battle ground, 'It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.'

September 11, 2019 has had a quiet beginning here. 

A storm swept in last evening, unexpected.

Thunder boomed, wind blew, rain drove in furiously from the east--so intense that it briefly sounded like hail. 

I had been out to water the cabbage and broccoli transplants within the hour and to sprinkle them with sevin to deter the flea beetles which have been lunching on them.

The sky to the east was pearly with an innocent pile of pale grey clouds. The air was still.

I was reading in a chair by the east windows, Jim was in his bedroom watching TV when the first blast of wind flailed through the trees along the lane.

Within seconds rain streamed down the windows, drenched the chair cushions on the east porch.

The storm passed within the half hour, though the degree of moisture on the ground this morning suggests a quieter, gentler return of showers during the night.

Shortly after full daylight I was outside collecting the variety of plastic plant pots which had been blown from the lower porch and scattered over the grass.

The red flowered cushion lifted from the back of a porch rocking chair, made a splash of color against sodden grass.

I walked the edges of the garden plots, noting that the cabbage and broccoli plants were standing up pertly--no trace of the sevin dust. 

The first blooms of purple coneflower, raised from seed this spring, are rising above their caterpillar-riddled leaves.

Four Monarch caterpillars are clinging to the defoliated stalks of milkweed.

Sunflowers are past their prime, a few small blossoms open near the bottoms of the stalks.

Cockscomb--free-loader from the Amish farm--blazes with heady color, seemingly undaunted by the long drought.

Jim is away overnight on a quest for a 'bed' to be used on a truck he is having restored.

I was invited along--a road trip of 9 hours each way.

I declined, politely I hope. 

The cats and I are keeping house. I've some music to practice; a mystery to finish reading; I may go downstairs this evening to sew more curtains.

It is a quiet day on Turkey Flatt Road--as it should be.

Where Are The Foxes?

Yesterday [Sunday] marked two weeks since I have seen the foxes.

Prior to this, on many summer mornings one or more of them have made early forays into the small meadow below the house.

Their preference has been for first light, scouting along the edges of the wooded tangles which define our north and south boundaries where the land tips into the ravines.

Photo ops haven't done justice to the beauty of the foxes. My camera is unsophisticated and the low grey light of early morning has seemed to swirl gently about the rusty moving shapes.

This photo was taken through my bedroom window.

We became aware of the resident foxes soon after our purchase of the property.  During the winter and early spring months of house building we sometimes saw an adult fox appear from behind the barn to lope casually across the east meadow, pausing to sniff about in the drive before disappearing into the ravine. 

As spring progressed, Jim [whose hearing is sharper than mine] sometimes heard the high-pitched yipping of the fox cubs from a den at the end of the ravine.

Our neighbor [a long time resident on one of the three lots making up the Turkey Flatts property] assures me that there are three dens: the one in the southerly ravine, another to the north and a third partway along his drive. "They took over an old woodchuck burrow and made a den," he stated.

I became accustomed to seeing the foxes--often only one, sometimes a youngster accompanying one of the parents. Some mornings I've had the sense that they were barely out of sight, stealthily watching me trudge about my early chores of cat tending and plant watering. 

One morning, barely awake, I noticed Robert-the Cat poised tensely on my bedroom windowsill, ears alert, concentrating on something of importance.

Slipping from bed, I approached the window cautiously, reaching a hand to stroke Robert's long silky fur.  Below the window, a few yards away, one of the young foxes zig-zagged through the damp grass, plumy tail aloft, nose to the ground. 

Robert and I watched in equal fascination as he/she meandered down the slight slope of the meadow, stopping to rise and pounce on some hapless mouse or small insect.

I continue to look for the foxes, going repeatedly to the window each morning. During July and August the foxes established a pattern: perhaps three mornings in succession they were here, then no sign of them for the same number of days.  I told myself that they likely made their circuit earlier or later than my watch--or perhaps they were 'hunting' inside the tangle of trees and vines on the slopes of the ravines.

Perhaps their visits have become nocturnal; perhaps this is a time when the youngsters are urged away from the parental den.

I will continue to keep watch, trusting that the foxes are still in residence nearby and will again make their presence known.

A Complete Eejit

Chester-cat is not bright. Intelligence, savvy--however it might be labeled is not a quality we should have expected given Chester's background.

Chester, his parents Charlie and Maisie, his sister Jemima, were rescued from a neglectful situation on the Wind River Indian Reservation and delivered to the Lander Wyoming Pet Connection in autumn of 2008.

My SIL, Matt, saw a poster of the kittens and declared that I should adopt them.

When a month passed and no one claimed them, I visited the shelter, bundled them into a cat carrier and with a feeling of resignation paid the adoption fee and brought them home

Fast forward two months when time was running short to home the parents, Charlie and Maisie.  Because I often donated food or funds to the shelter, adoption fees were waived and the feline family was reunited.

From the first it was evident that Charlie was a 'people cat.'  He was [still is]  loud, gregarious, a boisterous clown.

Maise was a sad creature, weary, given to walking about the house wailing like a lost soul.

Her teeth were bad, her tail had at some point been broken.  We suspected that she and Charlie were likely too closely related to have produced a litter of 'normal' kittens, the bad treatment on the Rez not with-standing.

We did what we could for Maisie; she had been spayed at the shelter, we fed her well. Her health deteriorated badly when we had been about a year in Kentucky and the most merciful solution was having her put to sleep.

Charlie [named 'Otis' at the shelter] learned the joys of being an indoor/outdoor cat.

It took him a good deal of demented dithering and 24 hours spent in a tree from which he had to be rescued. A revolving door would suit him well as he likes to come in one door, then stomp to the other demanding to go out again.

We lost Chester's sister, Jemima, early in February, after several rounds of antibiotics failed to deal with a mysterious wasting illness.

Mima was shy, velvet-furred, a lap sitter, a cuddler.

Like her brother she was not endowed with any common sense.

Mima got outside twice at the farmhouse and immediately lost her head. When we approached her, coaxing, her eyes rolled  wildly, and as we drew closer she scooted away, darting behind shrubbery, crouching out of reach beneath the car.

We eventually caught her by setting a saucer of tuna in a Hav-A-Hart trap.

Chester, lodged behind a chair in the camper where we--and the cats--spent the winter of house building.

Chester takes the prize for witless behavior.  As a young cat in Wyoming, he several times hurtled out the front door and flung himself under the low porch that ran along the front of the house. Flattening myself on the ground, aiming a flashlight into the darkness I could see him beneath the porch. Sometimes he replied to my calls with a plaintive mew.  Mostly he huddled, staring and refusing to come out even when the night grew cold. It was as though on exiting the house he lost all sense of domesticity.

On the third day of his self-imposed exile I removed the screen from the porch window that opened into my sewing room and leaving the window raised, shut the door into the rest of the house. Why he chose to eventually slink from under the porch and creep in through the window, is beyond reason.

During the past two weeks we have been opening the front door early in the morning to look out over the mist-swathed meadow, watching for the first rays of sun to peek round the barn.

The cats, Chester included, wander out to sit on the steps. Chester is quick to dash back inside, seemingly convinced that bogeymen are lurking.  Once he walked around to the back of the house and forgot how to make the return journey to the door. 

Jim discovered him and was able to carry him to safety.

Yesterday after closing the door  against a burst of rain, I realized Chester hadn't come in.

Chester's only use for me is to sleep in a heavy lump by my knees once the bedroom light is out. Only at such times am I allowed to stroke him.

In a sociable mood he courts attention from Jim; when Howard was with us to build the house, Chester developed an affection for him, rubbing round his ankles, wanting to be brushed.

I am viewed as a menace.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday searching for Chester, plodding about between rain showers, peering into dim corners of barn and shed.

I went out again at nearly midnight, aiming the beam of my flashlight toward any likely hiding place.

I felt concern for him spending the night, supperless, outside.

I was out again this morning bundled against the rain, calling the wretched cat.

In the barn, the side aisles are still a clutter of bins, empty boxes, tools, as well as three tractors, the riding lawn mower, the 4 wheeler.

I moved a big packing box, crouched to look behind a large feed bin left by the former owners.

There, wedged beneath a stack of staging, I spied Chester.

He might as well have been deaf for all the response he gave me.

I hauled aside the Troybilt tiller, edged around the bin.  Chester's eyes glowed red in the gloom.  I expected that he would bolt.

I went creakingly to my knees, reached cautiously under the staging.  My right hand made contact with his fur, but he is so stout that there is no 'scruff' to grip. I got both hands round his middle, began gently to haul him out.

Finally I had him--and surprisingly he didn't pee on me!

Hoisting myself from the gravel with both hands full of a cat who weighs upwards of 15 pounds was a feat of contortion and balance.

Once inside Chester went immediately to the water bowl. 

He eyed the other cats as though they were complete strangers. If I moved toward him he scuttled behind the furniture.

 

On this dark and rainy afternoon the cats have drowsed quietly on cushioned chairs and sofa.  Even busy Charlie is content to nap.

Chester has appropriated Jim's recliner. If I walk past he twitches nervously, opens a beady blue eye.

I'm reminded of John Cleese in the role of village idiot--a trait apparently passed from one generation to another.

It is well that this family of eejit cats was not allowed to continue the line!