many changes since i began

there have been many changes since i began blogging about life at the holler, not the least of which is the amount of time i have to blog on any given day. maybe it isn't so much the time as the brain power that has been next-to-nil, but the evidence is how little this blog has grown in the past couple of years.

what has grown is my family. the munchkin is four now, and going for a spot in guinness's book as world's most stubborn boy. *digression* is there a connection between guinness book and guinness beer? he is in preschool as we wobble precariously into another year in the kentucky hills. i wonder how best to keep him interested in the wonders of outdoor kentucky. already he asks me just as often if he can watch a movie right when we get home from school as he does if we can go out and play. but there are so many things i want him to know, like how chlorophyll works, and what a grub is. the difference between a bluebird, a blue jay, and an indigo bunting. camping, fishing, swimming... how do i do all this with him and a new baby?

because that is the newest change at the holler. we are joined, as of november 30, by a new baby boy, a soul of tranquility and cheerfulness. when he is with me, he is the calmest baby i have ever seen, content to watch the world around him and delighted by all it contains.

also joining us is bob, the taleless cat. alas, tigu was chased off by the erstwhile neighbor's yellow dog. we hope she is somewhere living fat and sassy. as for us, it is a new world we enter this summer, with a larger family and bigger dreams. soon to come: the tuckymisfit garden.

something you don't see every day

it has been way too long since i blogged anything. i admit to finding less to expound about from the holler in winter, but that's no excuse.

this winter and subsequent spring have been banner seasons for the heading above, starting with a freak snowstorm in early march. as my paternal unit put it, you usually see headlines on weatherchannel.com that say, "major storm heading in south of cincinnati." in this case it was "the storm front is south and east of I-69" and was it ever! a wall of muffling white that stretched from cleveland, ohio to the southern reaches of tennessee, dumping its worst on us here in rural kentucky. twelve to fifteen inches, they said, and i scoffed. but the snow started to fall on friday morning. by the brief lull around 2:00 in the afternoon, a fluffy six inches was on the ground, soon to be coated by a thin layer of freezing rain. the snow picked up again that night, and by morning, darned if we didn't have the fifteen plus inches they'd threatened us with. and though it had effectively cancelled some plans, it was difficult to be grumpy watching two goofy dogs and a three year old try to manuver through snow up to their bellies and knees respectively. so we tried sledding and snow boarding down our hill, thankfully with minimal casualties. we tried snowballs, but they didn't pack. we built the requisite snow man, whom the dogs later killed. the munchkin looked out the window the next day, as the snow was already half-way melted, and said, "the snowman is dead!" the dogs had knocked him down. thus was our here-and-then-gone snow storm in the first week of march.

apparently the heavens hadn't unleashed enough precipitation on us. after last summer's drought, winter has been an irony of rain, continuing hale and hearty into spring. last week, after five straight days of rain, the river crested a foot short of flood stage on the side of town where the library sits. houses along the riverbank found themselves suddenly more like lake front property. i can only imagine looking out the back windows of those houses at the brown water that had swallowed half of their back yards and asking themselves, "do we pack up now, or will it go back down again." recede it did. leaving behind more debris than it took with it. and still april has been rainy and temperamental: good for my cistern, but giving the folks in town more than their fair share of headaches.

and speaking of headaches... tax season brought me to the library early on sunday morning to make use of the fast internet connection and turbotax online. as i drove, dread-filled and half-asleep, towards town something caught my eye atop a farm gate on three loop road. this is a small plot of land with the most spectacular assortment of animals. pygmy goats mill in with the horses, and some of the most amazingly plumed and tufted black and while chickens occasionally stray into the road from this house. but the most extravagant attraction this morning was what looked like a gate-post that had sprouted willow-like branches right out of its top in the dawn-light. i rubbernecked shamelessly, slowing down to observe this phenomenon, and found that it wasn't a post gone to seed, but rather a peacock sleeping with is head under one wing and his rainbowed plumes hanging down behind him. just as though he felt my scrutiny, his head came out from under wing to watch me drive past, and i could have sworn his expression said, "what? isn't this a perfectly normal place to sleep?"

a bird of a different color

new birds to report at the holler. the most consistent feeders now are a small group of rose breasted grosbeaks; three males and a female. these are larger than finches, but not as big as jays, with black back plumage white bellies, white wing markings, and breasts so red they’re almost fucia. i have also seen the occasional red winged black bird picking around under my apple tree. the real excitement came today, however, when i saw an oriole of some kind nibbling at the suet cage i have hung from the shepherds hook three feet outside my window. at first i thought he was a finch, but on closer look, he was too big for a finch, and his yellow was so amber it was almost orange. he also gave a very gay, trilling call. i hope to see him again soon. also, if i haven’t mentioned it, there’s a mourning dove nesting atop my clematis arbor with two little eggs. she’s a brave little mommy who doesn’t fly away even when i come peer at her from three feet away on the ridge behind her nesting spot.
now that i’m done driving the worm population of my yard crazy by digging up their happy homes, i am seeing the fruits of my labor. the flowers are popping up nicely in my pots and around my flag pole. everything is a bit later in the bed by the garage because i had to dig it up and re-lay the brick wall around it first. but hopefully in a months time, i’ll have some lavish flowers to show. now on to the destruction of the beds gone to seed around the arbor and the second drive. vegetables will be coming last this year dependent upon my neighbor to plow the plot for them. i feel a regular green thumb... now to see if it will actually grow or not...

retraction

The "Red Bellied Woodpecker" does, in fact, have a small red patch on its belly, just before its tail. While it does have a white breast, my previous blog was mistaken in taking umbridge with the name "red breasted woodpecker" because that, in fact, is not its name.
The Cardinal/Wren lovechild may, in fact, be a Purple Finch. In this case, I once again have to wonder at the naming of birds. According to Mr. Audobon, the Purple finch is brown in its body feathers with a maroon head that turns more reddish in the summer. So where does the purple come in?

autobiography installment I

I was born on November the twenty-third, 1979, at Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, Indiana. I was too young to remember it at the time, so there’s not much I can tell you about that. All I really know about it comes from threats and insinuations my mother made over the years. Threat: “When you were born, you came out the wrong way-- face up. You gave me back labor. Just wait until you have babies.” Insinuation: I somehow did this on purpose to cause her pain. Threat: “The doctor said you had a head bigger than ninety-five percent of babies. Just wait until you have babies.” Insinuation: Well, I don’t know. Perhaps the thought is that my head is still bigger than ninety-five percent of heads out there; a thesis supported by the fact that ninety-five percent of pairs of sunglasses I try on squeeze my head unbearably. I think I’m getting off point.
My parents are not classical reminisce-ers. In addition to what Mom told me about my being born, Dad told me that he was surprised by me. I have an older brother, the advent of whom apparently convinced Dad that only male babies come out that particular chute. Thus, the introduction of a girl was of some small shock to him. I guess he got over it eventually.
It was actually my older brother who had the most adjusting to do. When I was brought home from the hospital, he was an eager two year old. “Can I hold it?” he asked. But I think he quickly found what a trial baby sisters can be. Perhaps the first time Mom took one of his toys away because he bashed me with it, he had some inkling of the difficulties of siblingdom, but I think the aggravation really set in when I was old enough to talk and insisted on calling him “Joelly” every time I addressed him.
Other than these few shared recollections, my first couple of years were largely uneventful. The usual diapers were changed, blankies were loved, smashed foods were gummed, and I grew. When I was about sixteen months old, my maternal grandfather succumbed to a heart attack, to the surprise of my family. He was quite young when he went, and my mother says that it was a comfort of sorts to have me toddling around, babbling at the funeral. But this, like other early events, is only an image in my imagination.
Somewhere in the space of those early years, I split my head open on one of Joelly’s toy trucks and had to have stitches. I also fell in love with my elderly neighbor’s miniature house. Not that they lived in a miniature house, but they had a miniature house full of miniature items that I loved to look at, to the point of venturing over there to look at them once when I was about three without first telling Mom where I was going. I guess you could say I ran away, but only next door. This is an incident I do have strange, waivery memories of. It seems as though I look at my small self through air that shimmers like it does rising off of the pavement on a very hot day. The living room ceiling in Jim and Treeva’s was textured with precise, swirled brushstrokes, and I have an impression of the room being blue. I recall the doll’s house in a small room off of the living room that may have had yellow walls. I was fascinated with the small house with its tiny chairs and little light fixtures, but I had a strong impression that I must not touch it. Instead I watched it with a hushed reverence that only very small children truly have. I also remember being aware that I might hurt Treeva’s feelings if I seemed to be there only to see the doll’s house, and trying to show interest in Treeva herself out of a sense of politeness. But I wonder where these memories come from. They don’t seem like thoughts of a three or four year old mind, and yet I couldn’t have been any older.
I don’t remember much about the home I lived in before the age of five. It was on the corner of Nebo Road and I-don’t-know-what. There was a mulberry tree on one end of the house. There was a garden with a small shed out back. A woods bordered the property. There were huge pine trees around the neighbor’s house, and I often saw dragonflies there.
My bedroom at Nebo road had Cookie Monster-Blue carpet, and was the first door on the right down the hall from the living room. In that bedroom, I used to have recurring dreams. One was a nightmare wherein I would walk out into the living room and suddenly from all angles giant donut-like objects would roll towards me and try to smash me. They were colorful, and always rolled in the same pattern in the dream. They seemed to emerge like ghosts from within the furniture rather than hide behind or under it. I would run away from the donuts in a set pattern, finally escaping from the living room to find Mom doing dishes at the sink in the kitchen.
Did I have these dreams more often when I was sick? I remember having what Mom called “adrenaline attacks” when I was sick as a child. Always during these attacks, the room seemed to distort. Suddenly the door would seem to be hundreds of feet away, and I unable to move. I lay disconnected from my body in my bed above the blue carpet feeling painful fear until Mom came and with calm in her very presence.

the bird tree

spring came and went again in mid-march at the haley holler. we were granted a brief respite from forty degree temperatures and rain. two weeks of shorts and tee shirt weather fooled all of us. i into planting flowers. the birds into coming back to the wooded countryside. i love the birds in northern ‘tucky. we all seem to revel equally in the benevolent warmth of springtime. it is a warmth that makes one forget that the air yet to come in late summer will drive us all into hiding with its choking, steaming humidity. still, though this fake spring induced fits of gardening optimism, i knew it was too early for the hummingbird feeders to go back out. even so, i found myself longing for birds. as a result, the tree in the front of my house has sprouted no less than three bird feeders; two with “song bird mix” and one just for the finches.
finches are not shy about visiting a well placed bird feeder, it turns out. they also like other seeds beside just thistle seed. on any given day, i can peer out my corner window at something like twenty goldfinches.
the songbird food has broadened the color range beyond the dandelion yellow of the finches. i got it hoping for cardinals, but i was in for a surprise. cardinals have come, but not as many as i thought might. in their stead, i have a faithful contingent of sparrows, cowbirds (a type of swallow with a dull brown head and handsomely glossy blue-black wings), mourning doves, and one lone blue gray nuthatch; ever amusing as his makes his way down the tree trunk head first to pick seed from the grass.
the real triumph of the songbird seed has been the woodpeckers. there are three magnificent orange headed, black and white backed “red-breasted woodpeckers” who delight me by hanging comically from the bottom of the feeders, craning their necks for seed. why they’re called red-breasted, i have no idea, since their breasts are white and their crowns red-orange, but that is what mr. audobon says, and i have no choice but to believe him.
i gave myself credit for a smart tactical stroke when i saw the blue jays had found the feeders. blue jays are big and often bullies for all their pretty coloring, but evidently three feeders in on tree are enough to satisfy even the greediest jay. they make the finches flit, but they don’t bestir themselves to chase anyone off.
perhaps my favorite bird of the motley flock that i’m currently feeding is the one i can’t identify. it’s the size of a finch, with a plain brown body like a common house finch. the delightful thing about it is its brick red head, complete with a tiny crest as though a cardinal and a wren had an illicit love child. true to form, i have only seen this bird once, and only one of them at that. perhaps the cardinal/wren theory is gaining strength?

meal worms

everyone knows the old axiom that goes, “when it rains, it pours.” the current ‘tucky winter is taking this to extremes, if you ask me. it is cold today, and has been for a few days, but for two or maybe three weeks before that, we experienced a steady, soggy fifty five degree rain that turned even the hilly part of our yard to a swamp. they call this a “mild southern winter.” ‘mild’ here means ‘miserable.’
despite the sogginess, one day amongst those blurred days of rain put me in mind of another axiom. this one goes, “every cloud has a silver lining.” in this case, it was more like a slimy lining composed of earthworms. at least, i assume it was the earthworms driven to the surface by the water that brought the birds.
as i watched the endless drizzle out the corner window of my kitchen, something blue shot through my vision. drawing closer to peer out at the little tree in front of the house, i saw that the blue streak was on of my favorite red breasted blue birds, come to rest on the anchor cable of our light pole. he wasn’t alone. five glorious blue birds sat either in the tree, or on the ground pecking at the juicy morsels driven to the surface. they flitted around, puffed up against the damp chill, like animated sapphires, unaware of their observer inside the window.
after that day, i decided that continuous rain is not totally miserable. the abundance of wriggling gourmet meals on top of the ground has since invited a small flock of robins to my little tree, and, another day, five fantastically bright cardinals. maybe i should fill my bird feeders with worms instead of seeds.

after the leaves fell

now that the fires of autumn have smoldered to ashy starkness, i have begun to seek color in other places. for example, at this time of year, i always relish people’s sudden and very temporary willingness to wear orange. i also find myself twiddling with my beading more, even if all i do is just stir the color-sorted compartments with my fingers and draw a blank, so to speak. but as it turns out, the holler and surrounding hillsides have a few ideas of their own. one of late fall’s favorite colors seems to be blue. not just any blue, but a fantastic, living, royal blue that puts sapphires to shame in the form of the vivid blue jays i see glints of in the woods. their proud black and white crowns atop their heads, they defy the cooling air, waiting migration just to show off their vividness, i think. not to be outdone, at least one perfect cardinal is still hanging around here, and at least one royal bluebird as well.
another defier of the dimming of the year is a fellow i came upon driving home from town a few days ago. rounding a bend there was a tractor with wagons stopped in the road. at first i didn’t see the wonder, but the farmer flagged me to the side as i went around him. in the middle of the road, proud and fighting, was a snapping turtle a good foot in diameter if he was an inch. i’m not sure why the fellow glared at me when it was the farmer picked him up by his log-like tail, but i assured him i wasn’t in the mood for a tangle.
perhaps the crowning glory of the holler’s fall is not the brightest colored birds or the most tenacious turtles, but the glimpse i got one day topping the hill just before home. just at the top of the hill i slammed on the brakes to marvel at a small flock of proud wild turkeys crossing the road, calm as you please. probably they were seeking a place where the hunters had yet to tread. still they stood, proud and unfazed, as i crept the car past them, and i understood in that moment why benjamin franklin once expressed the opinion that they, and not the eagle, should be our national symbol.
then again, franklin also believed beer was a sign that God wants us to be happy, so maybe he was under the influence...

uncustomary rant, part 2

i never had a quarterlife crisis. have you heard of this? it's like a new fad or something, where kids get out of college and suddenly realize that the crappy job they got with their basically useless degree, plus the endless rounds of unfullfilling socializing, dishes, and laundry really are their life. well, i skipped that, and it must have been a mistake. it's like everyone else getting the flu, so you take a lot of garlic, echinnachea, and zinc and you avoid it, but a few weeks later it comes along and steamrolls you all the worse. welcome to my disgruntled world...
i'm ashamed to say i think i'm a little jealous of every woman who is just starting out, with their day to be princess still coming, and the world at their feet and basically under control. this is my pre-midlife crisis: maybe a one-thirdlife crisis. you know: where you're just realizing that you're coming up on thirty and you have a little kid and a spouse and of course you love them, but you're irritable about the chaos you dwell in and you haven't done all the big things you thought you would and are starting to wonder if you ever will and at the same time you're just coming to terms, perhaps not too contentedly, with the fact that this really is your life, that the laundry and dishes never end, that time to yourself is the ephemeral luxury of youth, that you will never make quite enough money to cover everything and still have some to save, and that if you are what you do, then you are not who you thought you were all your life up to this point....
i think perhaps i haven't gotten enough sun lately. pass the rum and apple cider.

3 a.m.

a couple of nights ago, joe woke me up from a sound sleep at about three a.m. of course, the first thought at such times is always, “something better be on fire, or i’m going to kick you as hard as i can.” joe told me i had to come outside as fast as possible, which, to my sleep fogged brain confirmed the fire theory, although i didn’t smell anything burning.
when i got outside, however, something far more pleasant than a house fire was waiting for me. have you ever heard anyone say they felt like they were standing “under a bowl of sky”? i never knew what that meant until this moment. we stood in the shadow of the house, tilting our heads back as far as we could. there were no clouds in the smell of the arctic air. the blackness of the sky was palpable. it seemed to me i could see it spread over me, curving to touch the hills at points too far away to be seen. so clear was the dark that it seemed i could see the clouds of the milky way, if faintly. the night was bright with points of light, brighter than i have ever seen-- venus to the east twinkling different colors, orion shining strong, the big dipper proud above, and the pleiades quietly watching it all. but most remarkable was the meteor shower. they fell with a brightness and frequency to inspire awe. one, the last i saw that night before the cold sent me back to my bed, was so bright that its tail hung shining for a moment behind it, visible to the naked eye, before winking out. held in the sphere made by the overturned bowl above me and the holler beneath my feet, i photographed with my minds eye a crystal moment of wonder.

uncustomary rant

it's amazing what i can accomplish when i get a normal amount of sleep. normally, my sleep schedule consists of three hours between two and five a.m. when charlie has finally gone to bed and i have finally gotten the entire house reassembled and then two hours between three and five p.m. when charlie naps. i was sick on thursday and friday last week. sick enough to call in sick to work. coughing and shivering all night sick. when i put on four pairs of pajamas and turned the heat up to "blast furnace," and drank half a bottle of nyquil, i finally got to sleep. then it was more like hybernation. but i woke up refreshed two days later*.
charlie had been unattended during this time for the most part, so he had, of course, gotten out all of his toys as well as every cooking implement in the house. he had eaten only chocolate covered mini donuts for days, had changed his own diapers with amazing finesse, and had repainted the kitchen using pink and blue highlighters. but what the heck! i had energy for once.
i swept, i mopped, i vaccuumed. i did laundry that had been sitting for weeks. i did dishes that had been sitting for weeks (ack!). i painted a copy of the mona lisa. i cleaned the bathroom. i came up with a plan for world peace. i cooked something that didn't involve the microwave. i taught charlie about wave/partical duality. i dusted everything i could reach... okay, that's a bit of a stretch.
the moral of this story is... i could be a much better homemaker if i didn't have to drive an hour from six to seven a.m. to go stuff paper in vera bradley purses four mornings a week. thank heaven i'm using that college education to my family's greater benefit. i've figured out how to market crack on ebay!

*textual note: please excuse excessive use of hyperbole

fall at the holler

fall has come to the ‘tucky hills, and artfully. the trees are a brilliant blend of rust, terra cotta, yellow-green, and a smattering of burgundy. up close, some trees can’t decided themselves what they want to be. the fall wildflowers have gotten into the act with corn-on-the-cob-yellow spears next to feathery purple stalks. bob ross would be beside himself.
autumn in the country really makes me long for pumpkin pie, apple butter, family around the table talking politics. and the holler has all the trappings of a storybook autumn: misty mornings, mild days, crisp evenings, a family reunion of migrating flocks of sparrows dinning the woods across the road. they make me glad that i haven’t seen that particular hitchcock film. it might ruin it for me. a profusion of woolly worms predict the coming weather, although northern indiana seems to have northern ‘tucky beat for woolly population this year, if the pictures of my parents’ fuzzy sided farmhouse are any indication.
this season especially, i can’t understand why anyone would want to live in the city. the only real urban indication of the change of seasons is the merchandising displays in all the stores. and considering that my bookstore is sporting tables full of halloween paraphernalia smack up next to the boxed christmas cards (where did thanksgiving go?) a person could get understandably confused.
i drove to work this morning on a carpet of drizzle-wet fallen leaves past ramshackle black barns full of hanging tobacco. the drying leaves look, from a distance, like so many chamois clothes. i always get the whimsy to walk through these open barns rubbing my cheeks against the plants. i know the plants are not actually as soft as they look like they might be from a distance, so instead i go home and rub my cheek against a two year old in footy blanket jammies. fall is by far the best season of the year.

slightly more serious than most

life of late has got me thinking about the nature of faith and the nature of God. someone close to me has recently had a breast cancer scare. someone has gotten married. someone engaged. two someones have lost jobs. one someone has gotten a job. another someone came close to losing a job and getting an ulcer with worry. two someones are trying to have a baby. one someone has two seriously ill family members. life is like this. i have noticed a pattern in myself. when something terrifying or sad happens, i find myself praying like tomorrow's coming depends upon it. when something beautiful happens, i say a quick thanks and, sadly often, don't think much of it again. if i were god, thank God i'm not, i would stop listening to me. i'm like the oposite of a fair weather friend. i only pray when the manure is being flung through the oscillating fan. it makes me think. God is faithful. the root of the word "faithful" is "faith." i claim to have faith. why, then, do i constantly seem to be without devotion? it's rather like a marriage without intimacy, without obedience to the vows. but here God hasn't divorced me yet. as far as i can tell, He has no plans to. He's patient. He keeps answering the prayers said in times of terror. more than that, He keeps saying yes. He even tells me to pray for certain things. why? if God has put it in my heart to pray for something, it's obvious He has it in mind already. already knows what He's going to do. so what possible effect can my faith-without-devotion prayer have? no effect on God, but that's not the point. He keeps reminding me to pray so He can keep demonstrating to me His faithfulness. it's a mystery. a beautiful, moving, challenging mystery.

travel conclusions

having been back in the holler for nearly two months-- can it be?-- i have been remiss in not concluding my vacation account. i left off, i think, with charlie’s rocks and my critters. you would think that, being in florida, less than an hour away from any number of beaches and the historical site of st. augustine, there would be an endless supply of adventures to be had. in all honesty, i’m sure there probably are, and yet as i peruse my vacation pictures, i find that most of the pictures consist of family members doing strange things (welcome the “fart transplant”) to one another, or else florida indigenous wildlife. and when i say “indigenous” wildlife, i mean such exotic creatures as pigeons and toads. we did go to the ocean one day to drink margaritas, build sand castles, and collect shells in the hopefully-not-vain hope that i would make them into jewelry some day. mom-in-law and i did go back to st. george's street in st. augustine to wander vainly in and out of fifty shops and find very little worthy of the price being charged for it. but all in all, somehow, the thing i'll remember most about the trip was probably the armadillo. it was the one thing i never got a picture of (those buggers waddle FAST) but it caused the greatest excitement. i’ve never seen one before. charlie’s never seen one before. and there it was, for reasons only it can understand, hanging out in my family’s landscaping. i can’t imagine that their artful shrubbery is all that tasty. what’s the appeal? i did see a lizard in basking on top of a light fixture in the same flower bed, but armadillos don’t eat lizards, do they? as fast at the lizard moved to escape my camera’s attentions, i think the armadillo would’ve had to be on crank to catch one. and all of this just serves to demonstrate that you can take the girl out of the holler, but she's still just a critters-and-barefoot-in-the-grass being wherever you plunk her down. you can't go barefoot in florida, though. they have scorpions there.

skipping town 2

the best thing about being married is inheriting family. no, really, i believe this. myself, i gained a sister with whom i can commiserate about being married to one of her brothers, and the other brother who liberally farts on people, as well as two new parents who live in florida. the living in florida part is a rare and special perk that i cannot garrantee to all people who are considering nuptial bliss. for our part, joe, charlie, and i, every summer, have a built in vacation get-away, complete with free accomodations, free baby-sitting, and a really nice, semi-private pool.

saturday morning began with the usual early morning, last minute, frantic detail resolving rush. i got up at 6:30a.m., after having gone to bed at 2:30a.m. to go to that hell-spawn laundromat that continually eats my quarters. when i went home from there, i flogged joe out of bed, while packing frenetically with one hand and diapering charlie with the other. we drove up the hill, threw a key and some catfood at mary, who graciously agreed to feed the whiner while we were gone, then hightailed it townward again. all told, we left a half hour later than we should've to get to the airport two hours early-- the new recommended protocal since this latest round of terrorist shenanigans-- only to arrive at the airport an hour and a half early so that we could walk straight through security in fifteen seconds flat. then we chased charlie around the airport for an hour and a quarter before boarding a plane that was so small i could've sworn in was powered by chinchillas on excercise wheels. have i ever mentioned that joe is six foot three?

as the plane taxied, charlie and i played a peekaboo game with the little window shutter, until, without preamble or apparent reason, charlie decided to let out an ear-splitting shriek just as the plane began its take-off run. having made our presence known to the entire plane, and especially the elderly gentleman sitting in front of us who i assume had to have an emergency pacemaker installation upon landing, charlie then climbed all over joe more or less contentedly for the rest of the flight. his favorite game was "let's drop everything under daddy's seat and watch him accordion fold himself to fish it out again."

on the decent into florida, charlie fussing because of the pressure in his ears, joe gave the little guy an ear massage that would've done a ferringy proud (one for you trek fans.) looking like he'd been puffin' on the wacky terbacky, charlie promptly fell off to sleep on daddy's arm... five minutes before landing. who says God has no sense of humor?

there was a flight attendant on our flight who must've been on the home stretch because, when the descent began, she went to the lav to change into street clothes. i've never been in an airplane lav, but i bet that was a feat almost as acrobatic as leg-shaving in a dormatory shower. anyway, she confirmed something i've long suspected: delta issues standarized navy blue thongs to go with their flight attendant uniforms. i know this because, as she was walking up the jetway with her spiffy little rolling suitcase, her spiffy little floppy pants fell all the way off of her spiffy little rear end revealing said navy thong. i wonder what it's like for the male flight attendants at delta?

and so we arrived at the in-law homestead, where charlie and i soon went to test out the springy grass that grows on all lawns in florida. so far, the kid has been most fascinated with the rocks in nana and papa's landscaping. myself, i was more entertained by the armadillo that came waddling indignantly out of the bushes. add to that a lizard that lept into the bushes after letting me take its picture, a crane standing in the top of a tall, spindly pine tree, two pigeons that begged us for treats on the balcony of a restaurant in saint augustine, and a sea hawk of some kind that posed for us that the old fort, and i'm thinking florida's wildlife is as varied and fearless as tucky's own.

i love having this convenient vacation home away from home, but i don't think i could live here. for one thing, i've heard that alligators tend to occupy any body of water they can find. that's one critter i don't need to meet up close.

i'd also miss waking up to the mountain mist in the morning, and i'd miss my body pillow in the familiar hollow on my side of the bed. i'd miss my bluebirds and finches, and the fat hummingbird that sits all day guarding the feeder. i'd miss stupid marsupials, and the brave raccoon that i saw climbing our apple tree at 6:00 in the afternoon in the holler. i'd miss whiny k'tigu, and charlie's bedroom now that we painted it green instead of the garish magenta color it was when we moved into the house. here in paradise, is this misfit pining away for the holler? um... no. don't get me wrong: i'm a back holler girl at heart. it's just that, this week, i'm a back holler girl with a tan.

nighttime invasions

many nights after “little thunder” has gone to his peaceful sleep, i find myself wide awake and wandering. sometimes it is more of a prowl, but mostly i just meander around the house in confusion, thinking, “what were all those things i was supposed to do today that i can only remember when there is no actual possibility of doing them?”

one such night, a few days ago, i had settled down to read a novel that can only be characterized as scandalous in its stupidity. all was quiet in the holler, when, from the back patio, i heard the distinctive clang of the cat bowl hitting pavement as some nefarious minibeast knocked it off of the low wall where it sits.

this happened once before. the first time, k’tigu apparently felt the need to protect her food source, because we were alerted to the presence of the intruder by her battle growl. that time around, however, we arrived on the porch in time only to see k’tigu peeking out of the holly bush.

this time i was prepared. with sloth-like stealth, i made my way though the mud room to peer out the door at the unwelcome guest. the “guest” peered back at me over its shoulder. at first i thought we had drawn the attentions of a rat, but i soon realized that the only animal stupid enough to stand there staring over its shoulder at a full size human is a baby opossum. i could just see the thought slowly trudging towards its brain, “oops..... i’ve been caught..... i’m supposed to do something now..... what is it?..... maybe i should run away.....”

before the opossum had fully comprehended the gravity of its situation, i was flapping my arms at it, saying none-too-sternly, “get out of here. who invited you?” eventually, it reached the same conclusion. with astounding stealth, it waddled foreword to the end of the wall, tripped over the cat’s water dish, and fell off the wall onto its head. then it ambled at full tilt, somewhat drunkenly, into the darkness, disproving the old adage “too stupid to live.”

unbridled spirit

now that i live in the land of the unbridled spirit, i think i want to get a horse and name it “colonel sanders.” race horses are always named things like “war admiral” and “man of war” and “dumber than a road apple.” (that's the one that loses all the races because it’s too busy ogling all the pretty girl horses.)

but i would name mine “colonel sanders.” it would be an especially appropriate name, because i would want a fat, lazy horse that had been put to pasture years ago. one that liked to search for particularly tender clumps of grass, and had gray hairs on its nose. i wouldn’t ride it or anything. i’m actually afraid of riding a horse. this comes from the few experiences i've had with those old, tired trail horses that are just supposed to follow each other in a line down a familiar path, but who, whenever i happen to be the rider suddenly decide that they've had enough of the quiet life and feel like taking off cross-country to see the world. that's another story entirely. suffice to say, i think a dilapidated horse would be a fun and stylish way to tip the tall grass by the fences without ever having to bust out the weed whacker.

this would be a horse for whom the very thought of being ridden casts his whole world into upheaval. occasionally i’d put charlie up on his back and he would cast me a sardonic glance. i imagine him standing so still that my goldfinches build nests above his tail, or maybe k’tigu decides his back is a good place to sun herself.

i don’t even know why the idea appeals to me so much. maybe just the idea of some otherwise washed up critter to love. i could feed him sugar cubes and lean on him. of course, i do have joe for that, but i don’t know what he’d do if i tried to feed him sugar cubes.

a phone call from ozzie

i was sitting around the holler one day when, as happens frankly more often than i like, the phone rang. i picked it up, expecting either a telemarketer or my husband. i tend to hang up on one of the two. i’ll leave which to your powers of deduction. instead i heard a distorted voice on the other end that sounded somewhat like my brother-in-law, jim, might if he was trying to mess with me.

“jimmy?” i asked.
“this is ozzie osborn,” the roughened voice said.
“ozzie osborn, huh? so how are you?”
my mother-in-law, who was visiting at the time, shot me a quizzical look.
“um, i have a complaint,” ‘ozzie’ said. “i’m sick of everybody always asking for my autograph.”
“okay,” i told him, “i haven’t asked for your autograph, but i’ll spread the word.”
“um, okay. um, ‘bye.” i guess ozzie’s not much of a conversationalist.

just one more of the nuances of country and small town life. i guess there are, in fact, still people out there bored enough to make prank calls. either that or i’m having elaborate hallucinations. i guess i’ll let you know if i receive any important messages from the almighty.

when you come to a horse in the road

before we ever got the washer and dryer, charlie and i spent considerable time at the scuzziest laundromat on the face of the earth. it was returning from one of these laundering trips that we came upon something unusual. once you get off the state road, the rest of the roads out to the holler are hilly, twisty, and narrow. at one point, you come to a little colony of sorts where eight or so houses are clustered and it is here that we make a turn by a dilapidated red barn. we were driving the blue truck, which has a turning radius little better than the average aircraft carrier. once i maneuvered it around the corner, we were met with a humorous sight. smack in the middle of the road, just as if she belonged there, stood a beautiful red-brown mare. it was a good thing she was near between a major curve and a turn off, or surely someone coming from either direction would have hit her. i rolled down my window and said, “what are you doing here, buddy?” and she gave me a look that plainly said, “i live here. what are you doing here?” ultimately, she moseyed most of the way off the road, at least enough so that i could drive around her. when i looked back, i saw she had resumed cropping the side ditch and enjoying the sunshine.

i found the whole situation so remarkable that i had to tell someone about it. i dialed my parents from my cell phone. reaching their answering machine, i left this message: “this is your ‘things you don’t see every day’ update. driving home from the laundromat, i turned the corner and found a horse in the middle of the road.”

the following day, my parents were meeting us at our old house to follow us down to the holler to see our new place and help with whatever they could. it was late in the afternoon when we came through town, and eventually turned that same corner.

there she was again, just a little further from her previous position, standing for all the world as if she belonged in the middle of the road. i turned to dad and said, “well, i guess it’s something you do see every day.”

the cat 3

one day, i had just laid down for a rest when i heard joe from the front door, “come here! come here! quick!” presuming he had chopped his finger off in the garage, i vaulted from bed and went running. instead of a severed limb, much to my relief, he showed me a little lizard catching sun on the driveway. it had a yellow and black striped body that tapered into a green and black tail which ended in a blue-purple tip. i looked it up in my reptile book and found it to be either a female or an adolescent five lined skink.

i have always loved reptiles and was happy to learn that there were some indigenous to our area. ultimately, it turns out this one was probably an adolescent, but i’m getting ahead of myself.

another afternoon, i was hanging out laundry when the great gray lump finally decided to show her hunting prowess. when she stalked past the clothes line to the clump of weeds that currently passes for a flower bed, i wondered what had attracted her attention. i found out, a moment too late, that it was one of my family of mourning doves. well, two actually. they must have been making out in the bushes, and one of them flew away fast enough, while the other didn’t. i whacked the great hunter with a dish towel that i had in my hand, but too late. she had already killed the dove. i laid it in the fence row so its mate could mourn.

ever since, k’tigu has been trying to prove her loyalty by delivering various dead things to our doorstep. i generally forgive her for the gifts, but i wasn’t too happy when joe showed me the severed tale and dead body of the skink, who must not have been experienced enough to get away. at least we won’t have mouse problems.

there is only one creature who is safe around here, and that’s the resident toad in the garage. he’s a big fellow who comes out to blink at us whenever it rains. often, the cat goes up to sniff him. he gives her a disdainful expression, because he knows, as we do, that no sane cat wants to eat a toad. he is the king of all he surveys. now, if only she would show me that much respect.