Writing Prompt

 One listless afternoon last week , I sat in the sun room thinking that I would never have anything else to write about. The Covid claustration had lasted almost as long as a pregnancy, and as happens with pregnancy my focus had turned progressively inward, until the external world had all but ceased to exist. Of course the external world is still around, but it is either off limits because of the virus risks, or so alarming and depressing (fires, floods, shootings, politics), that I simply shut it out. 

No, there really was nothing to write about, and probably would never be. This was it: the well had run dry; I had sung my swan song. I was deep into a fantasy of life as a non-writer when my dog Bisou burst into the outraged bark that she reserves for the fox: “out of my yard, you weird-looking dog!” I had been missing the fox’s visits, which had grown rarer now that the spring’s young were on their own, so I got up to take a look. 

There, just a couple of feet from the house and facing away from me was an odd-looking creature, larger than a squirrel but smaller than a fox. The back of its big ears was white rimmed with black. Its fur was tawny, its belly plump, its legs short, its tail stumpy. It was clearly an infant. But whose? 

OMG, I should be taking  photos! My phone was in the room somewhere, but like the apostles on Mount Tabor, I couldn’t bear to take my eyes off the apparition.  I whispered to my spouse to come look. What could it be?

Then the little animal turned to face us and its white cheek tufts gave it away. As did its ultra-fierce, non-cuddly demeanor, its look that said, come near me and I’ll bite off your arm…or maybe your fingertip. And having delivered this threat, it toddled off into the undergrowth. 

Where, I hope, the mother bobcat found it, gave it a good scolding (“you are NOT old enough to hunt squirrels, you hear?”) and took it home. 

I haven’t seen any more bobcats, big or little, since that day, though a near neighbor tells me she has seen what I hope is the mother. But that infant on the prowl has been constantly on my mind. Sometimes I think I’ve dreamed him (or her). And a dozen times every day I look out the sun room windows, just in case he's come back (as if). 

I feel grateful to Nature for sending me this writing prompt just in the nick of time, and for reminding me that the writer’s most important tool is neither intelligence nor inspiration, but the ability to pay attention. Colette wrote that her mother's greatest gift to her, what made her the writer she became, was the single word, "Regarde!" Everything starts with that.

The Nymphs of Vermont

The landscape of ancient Greece teemed with nymphs, the protective spirits that dwelt in particular places.  Glens, pastures, meadows, valleys, mountains and grottoes each had their own nymph species.  There were salt-water nymphs--oceanids--of which the Mediterranean contained a subspecies, the nereids.  Fresh-water nymphs, naiads, were classified according to whether they inhabited a river, a spring, a fountain, a lake or a swamp.  And there were nymphs of trees and plants, nymphs of the sky and nymphs of the underworld.

If Nature filled Greece with nymphs, who's to say She didn't put some in Vermont as well?  When I walk outside with the dogs they certainly appear alert to what are to me invisible presences.  Surely the hill on which our house sits has its own oread, or mountain nymph, and the front field its auloniad, or pasture nymph.  The woods behind the house must be alive with dryads--tree nymphs-- and I hope there is a watchful meliad in the big ash tree, keeping the deadly ash borer at bay.

 I never thought about the swamp at the bottom of the woods as anything but a nuisance--the dogs love to wade in it and get muddy--until I realized that it is home to a naiad, specifically an eleinomad, or wetlands nymph, put there to take care of the frogs and turtles and salamanders.

How to explain the disproportionately large crops I've been getting from my young trees other than that there must be a pretty good epimeliad, or apple nymph, floating around their branches?  I should put out an offering--wine?  milk?  maple syrup?--to thank her, and also some for the syke, or fig-tree nymph, to make sure my tiny potted tree survives the cold.

I wonder what happens to the anthousai, the flower nymphs, in this weather?  They must all be deep  underground by now, although seeing how exuberantly the geraniums and the rosemary burst into bloom when I brought them indoors, there may well be an anthousa spending the winter in the sun porch.

May the nymphs of yam and cranberry dance on your Thanksgiving table, and may you be filled with gratitude.

More Crimes Against Nature: Lemon

The list of crimes against Nature in my Vermont garden is getting longer.  Along with espaliering an apricot tree and growing figs in a pot, I am attempting to produce a crop of Meyer lemons.

As with the apricots (three in this, the tree's first year) and figs (nine, in ditto) the lemon crop will be tiny--five, if they all make it.  I have known every one of those five lemons from conception--in fact, I was responsible for the conception of one of them, because when the tree first bloomed it was too cold to take it outside and I had to pretend I was a bee and fertilize the blooms indoors with a watercolor brush.

Meyer lemons, the offspring of a lemon and a sweet orange, originated in China, where they are grown in pots as ornamentals.  They are sweeter and more floral in flavor than ordinary lemons, and their yellow-orange skin is thinner.  Although they had been in this country since the early 1900s, they were rediscovered at Chez Panisse in the 1970s and later popularized by Martha Stewart.  Fancy chefs love them and have figured out a hundred uses for them, most of which are way too complicated for me.

Last winter I was so assiduous with my brush that a dozen flowers set fruit, and I was concerned about how the tiny tree would bear their weight.  But I needn't have worried.  When the little lemons got to be a quarter-inch long they all but one dropped off.

When the weather warmed I took the tree outside thinking that the sun and air would do it good, but with no thought of further fruit.  It surprised me by immediately covering itself in blooms again.  This time there were real bees to do the job, and most of the blooms set fruit.  Again, most of them fell off, but four persevered. 

Now they are tennis-ball-size, but still green.  The weather is turning colder by the day, and I worry that the lemons will not ripen properly indoors, so every evening I bring the tree inside, and take it out in the morning when the sun begins to warm the patio slates.  If it doesn't rain for a couple of days, I water it.  If the wind picks up, I move it to a sheltered spot. 

The four apple trees surrounding the patio watch all this and smirk.  They have withstood ice, snow and drought.  They have been chewed by Japanese beetles, buffeted by high winds and had their flowers decimated by late frosts.  They have not asked for help with fertilization or insect control.  Despite all this, hardy New Englanders that they are, they have produced a mountain of deep-red, crisp, sweet apples.  Now, without any fuss, they are shedding their leaves and going to sleep.

I don't blame them for smirking.  Why go to all this trouble for five measly lemons?  Because I'm human, of course.  Which means that I'm attracted by what is exotic, and delicate, and needing extra care--the tender perennial, the long-finned fish, the white cat, the tiny dog.  It's not just aesthetics or, in the case of fruit, gluttony.  It's the challenge of shaking my fist at Nature, showing her that I can do some things she can't.

As if.

Everybody Loves Chicken

...including foxes, errant dogs, hawks, fishers, bobcats, weasels, raccoons, coyotes, and coydogs.
  
Everybody knows about foxes--we have lost a couple of hens to them, in broad daylight--and about dogs who team up and go on the rampage.  Hawks are bad too.  Our first spring in Vermont, we lost two hens to a red-tailed hawk.

Fishers, or fisher cats, are ferocious members of the weasel family, dark brown, low to the ground, and evil.  At night their screams sound like a woman being murdered.  We have seen a fisher cat a couple of times in the woods behind our house, but so far it has come no closer.  A single fisher will kill an entire poultry flock just for fun, and leave the mostly uneaten carcasses behind for you to find in the morning.

We haven't seen a bobcat around here yet, though I know several people who have.  Bobcats are big and furry and tigerish, and I'd almost consider a hen a good price for a glimpse of one.

Coyotes are commonplace in the area, and we've come across their deer kills in the woods.  But we've never seen one, and I would dearly love to:  Vermont coyotes are extra-large, because they breed with Arctic wolves.

You hear a lot about coydogs attacking livestock.  Coydogs are not shy, eyelash-batting Golden Retrievers.  They are hybrids of coyotes and feral dogs, and they are fearless and mean.  Recent DNA research indicates that dog-coyote hybrids are rare, in contrast to the quite common wolf-coyote mixes, so the coydog may be a myth.

I once knew a woman from NYC who thought that deer broke into hen houses and ate chickens in the night, but deer are probably the only critters that will leave a chicken--or a duck, turkey or goose--in one piece.  Otherwise, poultry are easy prey for just about everything that roams the woods at night.


The Vermont Bird Fanciers Association list serve abounds in tales of prized laying hens and pet roosters disappearing without a trace.  Of mother ducks being dragged quacking from the nest.  Of wholesale massacres of turkey flocks on the week before Thanksgiving.

And for every tale of woe there is a proposed solution.  Dogs work well as deterrents in the daytime, by patrolling the general area.  But in these frigid nights, a dog would have to sleep with the chickens to keep warm, and no dog can be trusted that far.
  
Other suggestions include:  play loud music in your barn all night (the writer doesn't tell us what that does to the hens' laying rates).  Install dusk-to-dawn lights in the barnyard.  Get goats--but what good is a goat against the offspring of a coyote and a wolf? (See Alexandre Daudet's story "La chevre de Monsieur Seguin").
 
Get a llama--they are big and tall and supposedly will kick--or worse, spit on--a predator.  Get an alpaca--in this economy, alpaca farms are trying to cut down on their male populations, and though daintier than the llamas, alpacas are supposed to exhibit the same helpful behaviors, in addition to fabulous fleece.

Or get a donkey.  Donkeys kick as well as any camelid, and a close-up donkey bray can put anything to flight.  Plus you can ride your donkey when you take your eggs to the farmers' market.

My six hens don't have any of these fancy defenses.  Lord knows the dogs alert to the slightest squirrel in the woods during the daytime, but at night, when they are roasting by the wood stove, it would take something wolf-size to rouse them.

Much as I love my six ladies--even the one who lays thin-shelled eggs that break in the nest and make a mess--I must say I like the idea of predators lurking in the dark.  Every evening as I call the hens into the shed and close their doors tight, I like to think that Nature--poor, tamed, benighted, threatened-from-all-sides Nature--is still sometimes red in tooth and claw.

The Snake, The Egg, And I

My chicken coop is a haven of peace and contentment, and gathering eggs is my favorite job. The sun streams through the dusty window, a couple of hens walk around debating what to do next—scratch some litter, lay an egg? Chatting to them in a friendly tone, I reach into the nests, retrieve the morning's harvest and place it in my basket.

But one day I walked into the coop and found, sitting on a clutch of rosy-brown eggs, not a hen, but a snake. This was no pencil-thin garter snake, but a full-grown black snake, sleek and shiny and as big around as a pitchfork handle. She was draped over the clutch like a skein, and she had an egg in her mouth. To get the egg into her mouth she had had to dislocate her jaw (snakes are able to do this when they want to eat something really big), and there she sat, her tiny head barely visible around the huge egg, staring at me and trying hard to swallow.

I am not particularly brave, but when I saw that snake helping herself to my eggs, I was outraged. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the spaghetti tongs. Back in the coop I grasped the snake behind her head with the tongs and pried the egg from her jaws with my other hand. Then I carried her to the woods behind the coop, where she disappeared without a sound. I took the eggs to the house, put them in the fridge, and trembled a little.

Next morning, the snake was back on the nest.

This time she had managed to swallow an egg, and I could see its shape just behind her head, starting its slow descent down her body. The nerve! I exclaimed. I didn't run for the tongs, but grabbed the snake with my bare hand and took off for the woods. I put her down firmly and told her not to come back.

But she did, and when I found her on the nest again I took hold of her and hurled her as hard as I could into the woods. And that time she stayed away.

A day later, the mice arrived. At first there was only one, an adorable little field mouse straight out of Beatrix Potter, all ears and shiny eyes, watching me as I refilled the hens' feeder. The next day there were two, scurrying along the top of a hay bale. The third day—I could smell them as soon as I entered the coop--there were mice everywhere, running on the windowsill, scrabbling on the floor, leaving droppings on everything.


What, I wondered, was behind this plague? It took me a while to put two and two together, but I eventually figured out that the mice had moved in because the snake had moved out. In my ignorance, I had chased away the heaven-sent, poison-free, ecologically sound solution to my mouse problem, and the mice knew it.

Too late I repented my callous treatment of my friend, the black snake. She stayed away a long time, and during that period I fought the mice with traps and poison and verbal abuse, and lost.

But next spring the dog found a dried-out snake skin of impressive length under a bush. A couple of days later, the mice took off. And once again I found the snake in the nest, looking groomed and shiny in her brand-new skin.

This time I welcomed her. So what if some mornings she's draped over the eggs like a broody hen? I chat to her softly and she lets me push aside her coils, occasionally darting her tongue at me, the way a hen will make pecking motions when you get the eggs out from under her.

The snake and I have made peace with each other, and she makes herself at home in my corner of paradise. And isn't that what the real Paradise was all about--creatures living in harmony with each other, and humans knowing enough to let Nature take her course?

September 6, 2008 “A Day For Darning Socks”

Tropical Depression

“The tropics,” our Vermont Public Radio weather man announces, “are active.” Which means they're breeding hurricanes and tropical depressions like the late-summer woods breed ticks.

And it doesn't matter if these depressions are as far as the Bermuda Triangle or the Sargasso Sea, every time one of them forms, I get depressed as well. Whereas the day before the sight of ripe tomatoes in the garden sent me into ecstasies of sauce-making, now, with a tropical depression hovering, nothing much seems worth the trouble. What is the use of tomatoes, after all? All life--specifically, garden, dogs, chickens, even husband--is vanity. Death awaits us all. In a mere 24 hours the active tropics have transformed me from fervent Epicurean to medieval theologian.

I look out the window, and all Nature echoes my despair. Vegetables and flowers droop under the downpour, trees drip. The dogs drowse. The birds are silent. The hens and their husband are the only ones out, hunting for God-knows-what creature that is out in this weather. They are soaked through, though, and look despondent.

But is Nature really in despair or have I fallen prey yet again to the pathetic fallacy? Just because a plant droops, is it necessarily depressed? Under those drooping leaves and branches, networks of roots are quietly absorbing the rain and its nutrients.

My mother used to say that a day like this--low barometric pressure, high humidity, driving rain--is perfect for darning socks. I can see her now, sitting by a window on the straight-backed chair she favored, needle and thread in one hand, a sock (with a wooden darning egg underneath it) in the other, mending what was torn, being thrifty, making us all feel tended.

Darning socks is not the most challenging or creative of tasks. The mender sits, head bent over her task, not unlike a drooping tree branch huddled in the rain. But who knows what is churning underneath, being reborn, energized, by the gloomy-seeming day?

I'm too impatient to darn socks, in any weather. But I'm trying to learn, when tropical or other depressions head my way, to droop gracefully, and take comfort in the thought that there is good work going on beneath the surface.