Nature at it's best

I was driving home the other evening, after dark again, I'm getting used to this 'dark stuff' after almost a year of being pampered, safe and secure in my house with real lights and all..

Any-hoo, when I turn on my road I have a HUGE hill to go up and over to get to my house. The hill is about a mile up, and a mile back down. It's really, really dark on the hill, at night, of course. I think the boogey man might live up there, in perfect harmony with the armadillos, bob-cats, coyotes, turkey, buzzards (that puke on your car if you upset them), deer and the one and only little black bear anyone has seen around here.

So, I turned up my road and started up the hill, and my headlights caught sight of a large dog, no, a small deer! This little guy couldn't have been very old, it was all spindly-legged and tiny, with the brilliant spots only a recently new-born would have. This little bugger was standing in the middle of my lane, and upon my arrival, it started to run. Up the hill. On the road. There is nothing but woods on both sides of the road for two miles, plenty of opportunity for the poor bugger to dive off the road, but it stayed in front of my car, running for it's poor little life.

So I slowed down, followed it for a while, then 'Beep, Beep' I made my horn say. Oh, the poor critter started trying to run faster up the steep hill, his little hoofs slipping, I felt bad. I grabbed my camera to get a shot at it but all I got was glare off my windshield. Rats. Poor-little-scared-bugger ran a whole mile to the top of the hill, passing several spots that had easy access to the woods, until it finally stopped on the crest to hang it's head and pant. Now I was really feeling sorry for it.

I stopped the car, got out with camera in hand, first I wanted a pic of it standing in my headlights, and second I wanted to usher it into the woods. Well, it got one look at big-ol-mean-I'm-gonna-eat-you-me and started running again, still on the road. The crest of the road ended and started to climb again, by now it had run about a mile. It got in the opposite lane and I pulled up beside it, to One; get a pic, and Two, chase it into the woods. Poor dumb thing turned towards my car and bumped off the front left fender, which panicked it even more, if that was possible!

It got back in front of me and ran like I was the devil himself, for another half a mile or so, until it found a driveway on the left to dive into. And he was gone. I hoped for two things: The run didn't kill him and he finds his dear deer mommy, I'm sure he was hungry after the marathon! And I bet he stays off the road from now on, too!

Baby on the shelf

Isn't she cute? I named her Alley. Aww, so cute, such a quiet baby, haven't heard her cry yet, she doesn't fuss when I hold her...

I found her laying on a shelf. I was appalled that someone would leave a nearly newborn baby laying on the edge of a shelf 3 feet from a hard floor, but, well, people do strange things. 'Specially in these-here parts.

When I first saw her lying on the shelf, I thought someone had given her black eyes, you know, popped her one. Turns out the 'black eye' affect was simply new-born veins that show on, well, new-borns.

After exclaiming loudly, "There's a BABY on this shelf!", the real owner came over and offered to let me hold her. The owner picked the poor baby up by ONE ARM. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. But the baby didn't fuss, she just hung there like a rag doll. I was becoming more and more confused by the second. Is the kid dead? Mentally challenged? Comatose? And, why in the world was it laying on the edge of a shelf???

Turns out it IS a rag doll. Oh, what a relief, the thing isn't a poor abused, neglected and abandoned real kid after all. Ok, I regathered my scattered thoughts and emotions enough to ask some questions about it. The owner makes these things, (so stinking REAL looking) and sells them, for upwards to 400 buckaroos. Cheaper than a real baby and a whole lot less trouble, I guess. "What's with the bruised eyes?" I asked. The owner explained that she buys plain looking-life-sized baby dolls and paints new-born veins into them, puts a little make-up on, glues some hair on and dresses them up. Stinking spooky things sell like hot-cakes.

Now, I am positively SPOOKED OUT by real-looking dolls, well, ok, fake-looking ones too. And the owner wants me to hold the thing. Trying not to make a face, (I failed at that attempt), I held my arms out to take it. She gently (gently after scooping it up by one arm?) placed it in my outstretched arms, as though it were really alive.

I sort of held it at arms length, feeling Owners questioning eyes on my, I'm sure wondering why I was acting like it was a python or something. I gave it back, explaining that it looked really nice, I was sorry, but it spooked me out. Yeah, well, she thinks I'm weird!

I tried to continue my work day and forget the whole thing but, honestly, I tried really hard to avoid that part of the deli until the thing went home! I think she might be a cousin to Chucky, or maybe one of those Children of the Corn. I don't know, I don't care, just keep it away from me!

Murder in the Livingroom

I worked till dark today, first time I've driven in the dark in a long, long time. It seemed weird, to only see what my headlights would allow! I got home and discovered that I didn't leave a light on for myself, so I stumbled around in the dark, trying to find the right key and then the right hold, finally letting myself into my dark living room.

I fumbled around and found a light switch, bathing the living room in light. Ah, I can see now!

Ok, the cat is here, my furniture is still where I left it, all is well. I'm tired, can't wait to get into my jammies and flop in a chair, read a while and go to bed.

WAIT! What's that moving over on the floor by the cat, and speaking of cat, why is he acting so strange, what's he hiding over there? As my eyes travel across the room to the cat my sight stumbles across some red spots on the rug.

BLOOD? No way, this is a MALE cat, HE, the BOY cat doesn't have 'times of season'. Where is this blood coming from? OH! Another spot, and another, and another, GEEZ, what happened here while I was gone?

I look again at the cat, acting very 'cattish', hunkering over some kind of, of, Prize. I got up and navigated my way around the many, many blood spots on my rug, shooed the cat away to find a poor, pitiful, injured, alive and struggling mouse.

Ah, Mr. Mouse, YOU are the provider of the blood spots! I picked the poor critter up by the tail, feeling very sorry for him/her/it as he/she/it looked up at me as if to say, "Are you my rescuer"? Well, Mr. (Ms.?) Mouse, I do have a penchant for rescuing poor, pitiful little animals but you don't quite meet the criteria.

I took him/her/it outside and set it free, if you can call putting an injured 3 ounce animal out into the wild 'free', much to the cat's chagrin.

To make matters worse, in the cat's eyes, I had the nerve to clean up the blood and disinfect the area. That cat hates me!

Well, at least the cat is earning his keep!

350 pounds and growing

"I'll have the feelin' puhleeze", and " I'll have the 12 pack of Cheeikan" were the words I heard all day today. Well, that's not entirely true, in the morning I heard things like "I'll have two sausage and bacon Beeiscuts, puhleeze".

Most of these people weighed about 350 pounds, well, maybe some weighed about 300 but you git the jist.

Where on earth was I to hear that stuff all day? Oh, I was at the local grocery store deli. I got hired yesterday and started work today. Pay and hours aren't bad, busy atmosphere, the day mostly whizzed by. I was given an hour-long lunch break. In the morning I wondered just what would I do for a whole hour, but after working for 6 hours I was more than ready for an hour to chill out and get off my poor screaming feet.

The deli served breakfast and lunch, all fatty stuff, fried stuff, eggs, sausage patties, the greasiest bacon I've ever seen, and lunch was fried chicken, chicken filling, or, as the locals call it, 'feelin'. I had to quench the urge to say something like, "feelin? you ain't gettin' no feelin here, I don't feel people!" And "You really don't need to eat fried food, how about some green beans?"

But the customer is always right, go ahead, eat yourself to death. At least I have something to do now. And I'm getting paid for it! That's always a good perk.

Alfred Hitchcock in real time

Remember the movie 'The Birds', where all these crazy black birds attack a town and wreak havoc? I don't remember what set Alfred's birds off but I know what set my yard birds off and I'll tell you.

The darned cat caught a little baby birdy. Ok, the cat does stuff like that, he's a cat, fer cryin' out loud. But he just happened to pick on the meanest bird-family in the yard. These little creatures, no more than a handful, are grey with white spots on the tops and undersides of their wings. You can only see the spots when they are in flight.

They have a very distinct vocabulary; Chirp, Chirp, trilllll, Chirp, trilllll, Chirp, and so on. And they're mean. Oh, I did say that, didn't I? I have seen them dive-bombing crows, and the crows run like hell, which is weird, since crows are at least 3 times bigger than these little buggers, and crows are WAY louder, 'CAW, CAW'! But for all their big-ness and loud calls, they still run like hell.

Well, guess who else runs like hell? I do. Back to the innocent little baby birdy. The cat has this little creature captured in his mouth under the porch and two of these little killer birds are having a FIT. Flitting all over the porch, sitting on the rails, chairs, Chirping and trilling.. I came out to see what all the racket was about and got dive-bombed by one of them.

I extracted the un-injured baby birdy out of the cat's mouth, banished him to the inside and released the innocent baby birdy onto the grass. Baby birdy flies away, problem solved, right?

WRONG!

Several hours, I say SEVERAL hours later, I went out the back door, opposite side of the house from the bird incident, to get my laundry off the line. "Chirp, Chirp, Trill", I find the talking bird on the edge of the roof. "Chirp, Chirp, Trill", I see the other one on a pole behind me. The cat walks across the lawn to lay at my feet, good little kitty, and on the way towards me one of the killer birds dive-bombed him. Straight out of the air, zoooooom, pecked at the cat's tail on the way by. Now don't tell me those birds remember!! ?? I started to wonder about me, I had my grubby little hands on cute little baby birdy too.

Sure enough, they set up, one on each side of me, and started calling back and forth, and, to my surprise, calling in back-up troops. Now I had 4, that's FOUR killer birds Chirping and trilling, surrounding me and making a plan of attack.

As I reached up to the cloths line to take an item down, two of them swooped down off the roof and buzzed between my arm and my head, screaming all the way.

I don't know what kind of birds they are, or how long they remember that the cat and I murdered their cute little baby birdy, but I think I'll stay in this evening. Man, I hope they forget!

Restaurants and Grief

This is the Maternal Figure, you know, the one who inspired most of my blogs. Well, ok, some of them were a little on the grouchy side, and this blog might get grouchy too, I'm not sure yet.

Read on!

I have been kind of out of sorts this weekend, I hate weekends anyway, nothing to do, things aren't open, can't make any phone calls, and it's been too hot to breath outside. So I've been stuck in the house, bored out of my mind.

But wait! Don't just sit around and feel sorry for yourself, DD, go DO something. Yeahhh, why didn't I think of that hours and hours ago? Oh, that's right, it was too hot outside to breath. But as nature will have it, (after all, it's not nice to fool mother nature anyway), it cools off in the evenings. Well, a little, anyway.

So I decide to get in my car and GO somewhere, Oh, how about the state park? Ah, yes, go see the river. So I gits out my bug spray, pour a thermos of homemade ice tea with a touch of rasberry flavor and goes out to start the car. Vroom, vroom, come on, AC, cool this buggy off!

The park was nice, they must have just mowed, everything was neat and tidy. And nearly devoid of any human presence. I found some people swimming in the river, and moved on. I took a road that looked like it would go forever in the woods, 'camping this-a-way' 'no dumping' and 'port-a-potties that-a-way' , the signs directed and announced. I saw some deer, shooting accusatory glances at me as they scuttled off the road. I parked in an empty lot near a play ground and walked to the river, wondering if I would be bitten by a poisonous snake or murdered by a woods-bum that might look a bit like Sasquatch.

Of course, I'm home typing this, so I survived the trip, (in case anyone was wondering). Well, I sort of survived the trip :(

I decided to stop at a little cafe in town, the one where the one-and-only hotel is. I ordered a delicious Chicken Scampi and sat back to enjoy the old guy who was playing blues and singing. I remembered that the last time I was in that restaurant and there was entertainment (better the last time, btw), I was with the Maternal Figure. She had the Catfish and ate like a hog. She shared her pecan pie with me. She sat right over there... Ok, I'm ok with that, just a nice memory. I chews my chicken, listens to the old guy croon, all is well.

A young woman, (ha ha, young, she was about my age!) came up to sing with the old crooner, all is well, she was good. She finished a song, I clapped, then she introduces her Mother, who was up from Florida on a visit. (Mama was small and frail, just about the same size as my Maternal Figure). "And Mama's favorite song is 'over the rainbow' and she's gonna sing with me, so a big hand for Mama!"

The old thing hobbled up to the mike and they sang together, arms around each other and looking at each other, smiling, singing, The old lady was really out of tune but it was clear the daughter was relishing every sour noted moment with her Mother.

I must be allergic to 'Over the rainbow' because for some strange reason I noticed that the room was getting blurry. Uh Oh, I realized I was going to do something embarrasing in a restaurant like CRY. I wolfed one more bite, found my waitress, paid the bill and sniffled my way out to the car. 'Geez', I was thinking, 'when is this grief crap going to be over?' Oh, what the hell, I'm in the car, I'll let the tears do thier thing. I told the car to take me home but it had other ideas, it took me to the cemetary. Ok, geez, I'll do the right thing and cry at her grave.

The picture you see before the Maternal Figure is my Pekingese, Kelita. She died in 'o6. I never thought I would grieve as hard as I did for Kelita. Maybe I was wrong..

Playing Tag

Cricket and Lady, this is my '10th' pic in my documents. I rescued Cricket first, she's the paint on the left. Sweet, sweet horse, about 10 years old, good rider, really nice horse. When I brought her home she was starved to bone, no, really, she was skin and bones. I had never seen such a skinny horse until I met Lady, the one on the right.

It turned out that Cricket and Lady were stable mates in their other life, they knew each other and were glad to be back together. After kissing and nickering to each other, Lady fell into the leadership role she obviously played before she came to me. She (Lady) is a pure Mustang, complete with the tattoo showing that she was rounded up from the wild somewhere out west.

Lady was also a sweet horse, I think she was a barrel racer or perhaps a roping horse in her other life, when I got on her for the first ride she went right to work, looking for something to go around or round up. Once I got her settled down into 'gentle riding horse' mode, she became a true pleasure to ride. It was hard to decide who to ride, they were both so willing and gentle.

I fed them as much grain and hay as they wanted and each put on the additional 100 or so pounds they needed to be normal looking again. I sold them to a young couple with small children. When they came to look at the horses the decision to buy was an easy one for them. Lady took to the young wife very well and the husband fell in love with Cricket. Job well done, the horses survived a year of so of starvation, learned to trust people again and now have a great home. That's my 10th picture and I'm sticking to it! Who's next?