Winter Lament, Continued

Let me know if you're getting tired of hearing about my victimization at the paws of non-hibernating creatures, but in the meantime, here's the latest.

Taking advantage of the time-honored January thaw, I went outside to take stock of the depredations and implement defensive measures.  My most depressing discovery:  the baby apricot that I  espaliered against the side of the house last spring is probably dead.  I had wrapped a spiral plastic protector around its skinny little trunk to keep the rabbit away, but I did this after the heavy snow of Christmas week, and I did not realize that with the milder temperatures the snow next to the house had melted.  This exposed a couple of inches of bare trunk between the protector and the earth, and the rabbit had chewed almost, but not quite, all the way around.  It had also started working on the lowest branches.  In the hope that that little bit of intact bark will enable the apricot to survive, my spouse built a wire cage around it.  We'll find out its fate in the spring.

That same rabbit has been making tunnels under the snow all over the chicken yard, which is covered in his poop.  I finally figured out what he's been after:  the long, twisted stems of kale that were left when the chickens ate all the leaves.  He's been systematically denuding them of their green outer layer, leaving only the yellow, fibrous insides.  (I am not a monster--I do not begrudge him the kale stems.)

Next,  I cut lengths of burlap and wrapped them around the deer-eaten cypresses, and the Master of the Knot secured them with old baling string.  Then I made another upsetting discovery:  not only have the deer been eating our cypresses, but they have also attacked the low-growing evergreen bushes that I planted in front of the house foundation. There was no way I could cover those earth-hugging bushes with burlap, so in a fit of pique I dumped a bucketful of woodstove ashes on them.  The ashes may repel the deer, or they may kill the bushes.  We'll find out in the spring.

The Seventh Squirrel has been caught and deported by the Master of the Trap, with a stroke of red paint on its tail so we can greet him by name when he returns.  The ermine remains elusive.  The Master of the T baited the trap with a freshly-caught (dead) mouse from our basement, and put a dab of peanut butter on his back to make him more attractive.  The next day the mouse was gone, but the trap was unsprung.  Everybody who hears about our ermine warns me of the impending murder of my hens if we don't catch him.

The birds are the only creatures with whom I'm not at war right now.  They go through a lot of seed and suet, and the ground beneath the feeder is covered in guano, but they haven't tried to kill anything yet.  Though who knows what they'll have gotten up to by spring....

The Evil Passions Of Men

James Michener, in Iberia, published this list of rules for women, which he found posted in a church in rural Spain in 1943, the year my parents married.  I grew up in Barcelona, but spent summers in the countryside, and although some of these rules don't ring a bell, some do.

Women shall not appear on the streets of this village with dresses that are too tight in those places which provoke the evil passions of men.  Ah, those evil passions.  I heard about them as a child and for years wondered what they were.  "Never trust a man who has a nose on his face," my mother's mother used to admonish me when I reached puberty.  All this caused my girl friends and me to grow up thinking of ourselves as sticks of dynamite, liable to cause widespread damage any minute.


They must never wear dresses that are too short.  By the time the 1950s came around, this was fortunately no longer an issue, because mid-calf skirts were the thing.

They must be particularly careful not to wear dresses that are low-cut in front.  While I mostly chewed my nails or amused myself by staring at the row of hairlines in the pew in front of me during Sunday sermons, I do remember one priest thundering against women who decorated their decolletage with a cross.

It is shameful for women to walk in the streets with short sleeves.  My mother and my aunts certainly wore short sleeves in summer, and no men that I know of burst into flames at the sight of their upper arms.  But they could not appear in church without sleeves down to their elbows.  This widely observed rule caused many problems when Northern Europe discovered Spain as the ultimate vacation spot and the churches were invaded by hordes of scantily dressed, sunburned walkyries.

Every woman who appears in the streets must wear stockings.  That rule had gone by the wayside by the time I was born.  In summer my mother and aunts would drop into church (for a visit with the Blessed Sacrament) in bare legs and espadrilles, though they may have put on stockings for Sunday Mass.  No mention is made of the need, first dictated by Saint Paul, for women to cover their heads in church.  It was too deeply ingrained.  And by "cover" I don't imply little hats, or those eensy "chapel veils" that used to do the job in the U.S.  Women wore mantillas to church, which covered their head and neck and were gorgeously embroidered, semi-transparent, and often more beautiful and more inflaming than the hair they were intended to hide.

Women must not wear transparent or network cloth over those parts which decency requires to be covered.  Must be the same parts that inflamed the evil passions of men.

At the age of twelve girls must begin to wear dresses that reach to the knee, and stockings at all times.  This rule was no longer in operation by the time I came along.

Little boys must not appear in the streets with their upper legs bare. What is this doing on a list of proscriptions for women?  I remember my male contemporaries wearing really short pants until they turned fourteen or so.  I remember their upper legs turning bright red in winter.  Maybe that too inflamed the evil passions of men.


Girls must never walk in out-of-the-way places because to do so is both immoral and dangerous. Obviously the "immoral" part indicates a strong tendency to blame the potential victim.  However, despite my belief that ideally women as well as men should be free to go anywhere, anytime, I think that while we wait for this imperfect world to become perfect it's a good idea for men and women to be led by common sense, and play it safe.

No decent woman or girl is ever seen on a bicycle.  Oh, my rusty, brakeless bicycle on which I rode the dusty summer roads around my grandparents' farm with the smell of rosemary in my nostrils, hoping for a glimpse of a shepherd and his flock under the blazing sun!

No decent woman is ever seen wearing trousers.  I wore not only trousers but shorts in the summer, but I never saw my mother in pants until we went to Ecuador and she had to buy a pair of blue jeans for trudging around in the jungle.

What they call in the cities ‘modern dancing’ is strictly forbidden.  I suspect this referred to dances imported from America, such as the fox-trot, which even when done by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers don't hold a candle in sexiness or inflammatory potential to the most threadbare flamenco danced around a gipsy fire.

(Thanks to Dona artistseyestudio.com for reminding me of these rules.)

Under Attack

The winter fauna are getting to me.  Here, in order of increasing annoyance, is the latest:

1.  A squirrel is back at the bird feeder.  It's a plain old gray squirrel, so I can't tell if it's one of the four that we trapped and deported across the state line.  It hasn't gotten inside the squirrel-proof bird feeder or into the chicken house yet, or into the trap that we have set under the feeder.

2.  The ermine, which I mistakenly identified as a stoat until corrected by Marty--  http://www.wcax.com/video?clipId=2211121&autostart=true--is still AWOL.  My husband baited the trap with one of the dead field mice he had trapped in our basement (traps upon traps--it's the dark side of country life).  The next day the mouse was gone, the trap unsprung....

3.  And, this is the worst, the deer have, for the first time in eight years, invaded our yard.  Yesterday, walking in the woods behind the house with Wolfie and Bisou, I noticed that my previous tracks on the snow were a palimpsest of deer hoof prints which ultimately led to our backyard and to the baby Leyland cypresses I planted last year in a desperate attempt to camouflage the failed wattle fence around the hen yard.  Alas, those little cypresses have been eaten down to the top of the snow.  I dearly hope there is some living bit of cypress left under that white duvet.

I have since moving to Vermont met dozens of people who can't grow evergreens, or hostas, or vegetables on their land because of the voracious deer.  I have always mentioned, with a humble smile, that "our" deer seem to find enough to be satisfied with in the fields in front of the house, and never wander into the backyard because of the mystical, magical effects of my marvelous dogs.

Well, that's all over now.  The backyard is the playground of the deer.  Was it Lexi's assertiveness (you remember Lexi, she was euthanized last spring) that kept them at bay?  She kept Wolfie and Bisou firmly in their places, and she may have done the same for the deer.  But Wolfie is a lot bigger and scarier-looking than she ever was....

If I were a dog owner like the dog owners of past millennia, I would tie Wolfie out on a chain and leave him out all night to earn his kibble.  There's no question that we would not then be troubled by deer.  But I am a 2013 tree-hugging, quasi-vegetarian, tender-hearted dog owner, and Wolfie is accustomed to sleeping next to our bed, plus he gets weird sores on his pasterns in deep snow.  I'll sacrifice the cypresses for the sake of his comfort if I must.

I have asked my spouse to let Wolfie out for one last patrol just before his bedtime, which is considerably later than mine.   And I have bought a roll of burlap with which to swaddle the remains of the baby Leylands.  Whether the burlap turns out to be a cozy blanket or a shroud, only spring will tell.

Petting The Warrior

Originally I got him as a decorative object, but now we have a relationship.  I'm talking about my Betta splendens, my Siamese fighting fish.

I could not believe that a creature with an iridescent blue body surrounded by a corolla of pale yellow fins veined with delicate blue and pink could be had for a mere $4.  So I whipped out my Discover card and brought him home and gave him an elegant apartment in a two-gallon flower vase that I found at Target.  I also bunged a nice green plant in there, and some aquarium gravel and, to give him privacy, a hollow floating "log" to hide in.

When the weather turned cold it became apparent that an ambient temperature of 66F was not appropriate for a creature that evolved in the rice paddies of Thailand.  So we got the little warrior a heater of his own, but that didn't raise the temperature enough, his optimal range being between 70F and 80F.  We replaced that heater with another which still didn't do the job.  We tried a third heater, but when a cold wave came through yesterday and it was -14F in the morning and the furnace couldn't quite keep up, I set the flower vase on top of a warming tray, and that finally got the water temperature up to an acceptable level.

Why, you ask, go to such trouble to ensure the comfort of a potato chip-sized creature?   Basically, because he lets me pet him.  I never thought such a thing was possible.  Pet a fish!  Who would even want to?  But I noticed that whenever I came near his flower vase, which sits on the kitchen counter, he would swim in my direction.  That led me to put my finger on the outside of the glass and move it around slowly, and by golly, he followed it, flaring his fins.  The next step was inevitable:  I put my fingertip in the water, and he came up to it and I made the slightest stroking motion on those butterfly-thin fins and he stayed put, saying clearly, "Do that again."  So now every day, as I do my rounds misting the houseplants, feeding the chickens, and brushing the dogs' teeth, I make sure to remember to pet the fish.

This puts me in a philosophical quandary.  If an inch-long creature can actively solicit petting, what does that imply about the rest of the minor fauna around?  What about the chickadees at the feeder-- are they longing to perch on my arms?  And the field mice who invade our basement in the fall--would they like to join us as we read by the woodstove?  And those poor squirrels we deported....  Then there are the houseplants.  Who knows what they think of me, what they long for?  Maybe I should murmur to them while I mist them.    At this point, I can't even bear to think of the chard and the kale and the spinach I grow in the garden.  How, I wonder, do they feel about being cut down in their prime and eaten?

This living, feeling biomass that pulsates around me often leaves me feeling anxious and confused.  The only thing I know to do then is to mumble the Buddhist blessing, "May all beings be at ease...."

Some Moral Reflections On Needlepoint

I just this minute finished a needlepoint pillow I've been working on for almost a year.  And by "finished," I mean finished--backing attached, stuffing stuffed, the last seam sewn and the final thread firmly secured.

But as I look at the thing my thoughts turn, as they have every time I've looked at it over the past months, to the day I bought it.  I had been suffering from one of my periodic bouts of itchy fingers--the  urge to do something mindless with my hands--and had found a website, Ehrman Tapestry,  that had the most gorgeous needlepoint designs I had ever seen. Instead of the hearts and kittens that are the staple of crafts stores, here were reproductions of medieval tapestries, Art Nouveau motifs, and designs taken from the paintings of Gustav Klimt.

I badly wanted one of those kits--in fact, I badly wanted half a dozen of them.  But they were expensive, around $100, and I really did not need another pillow.

Still, my fingers kept itching, and I thought that maybe someday I would buy one of those Ehrman kits.  But not now, not right away.  As a recovering Catholic, I knew all about deferred gratification, and how good it is for the soul.

I decided that before I got the kit I lusted for I would test myself with a cheaper, humbler one, just to see if I had the perseverance, dedication, and moral stamina to finish the project.  That way, if I lazily and irresponsibly gave it up half-way through, I would only have to feel a little bit ashamed.

I told my plans to a friend, and on a sunny, icy day we drove an hour to the nearest needlepoint shop.   I was not enchanted with the selection.  My friend watched me sifting dispiritedly through the stacks of hearts-and-kittens kits and said "You know, you should get something you really like."

"Look," I said, picking up an ultra-conventional design of blowsy roses on a white background, "this is not too bad."  And I bought the thing.

I brought it home and put it on the needlepoint stand and worked on it halfheartedly for months.  And without fail every time I threaded my needle I thought about those medieval tapestries and those Klimt designs.

Now that the pillow is finished I can direct a compassionate look at the deferred gratification virtuosa that was me, and let her go.  No more little useless sacrifices that don't do anybody any good.  From now on, it's pleasure first, and the devil take the hindmost.

Go to the link above.  See the pillow with the eye-popping poppy?  That's what I'm ordering the minute I post this.  It's not even on sale, and I need a pillow even less than I did before I finished the blowsy roses one.  But carpe diem is my motto now, because who knows how many diems I have left, how much longer my eyes will be able to find the holes in the canvas and my hands to grasp the needle?  

Bring on the needlepoint, then, but only the kind that will take my breath away every time I look at it!

Winter Fauna

I've long been under the impression that wild creatures hibernate, or at least slow down, during winter.  But around here the cold weather seems to have raised activity levels by several notches.

A couple of weeks ago, for the first time in the two decades we've had our squirrel-proof counterweight bird feeder, the squirrels defeated it.  The feeder consists of a metal seed container with a feeding tray and a perch in front of it.  If anything heavier than a tufted titmouse lands on the perch, it closes the feeding tray.  This year the squirrels--sumo-wrestler, rabbit-size gray squirrels--managed to undo the latch of the seed container, crawl inside, and have Roman orgies. 

Then they got tired of gobbling sunflower seeds and made for the chicken house, where they feasted on the all-vegetarian, high-protein, Omega-3-enriched laying mash and stressed out the hens, who all but stopped laying eggs.  

I sniffed skeptically while my husband set up a humane trap next to the hen's feeder.  But the next morning, mirabile dictu, there was a squirrel in it.

He put the trap in the car and drove off to the next state, where he released the squirrel into the wilderness.  Then he set the trap again.  The next day, there was another squirrel in it, whom he also deported.  We caught four squirrels in as many days.  We seem to have run out of squirrels, at least for the moment, and the hens have resumed laying.

Meanwhile, at the bird feeder, evolution is at work.  In Vermont cardinals are fairly scarce, and I was glad to see a pair at our feeder after the last big storm.  Unfortunately, the seed that spilled from the feeder would sink instantly into the snow, where the ground feeding birds, such as cardinals, couldn't get it.  That's when I saw the male cardinal clinging for dear life onto the hanging suet feeder, eating blueberry-studded peanut butter with the finesse of a woodpecker.  It's safe to say he'll be passing on his DNA next spring.

I was in the garage yesterday, carrying their winter breakfast of hot powdered milk and laying mash to the hens, when something small and sleek and very white scurried from under the car and hid behind a stack of cardboard boxes.  For a nanosecond it turned to look at me, and I saw a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, two bright black eyes, and a tiny muzzle.

Google tells me that it is a stoat, a member of the weasel family.  Unlike most species, which grow in size as the latitude increases, stoats get smaller as they approach the pole.  This accounts both for my stoat's cuteness and the hens' survival (I once lost an entire flock in a single night to a weasel).

So now the trap is set again, this time in the garage, and baited with a bit of lunch meat, stoats being carnivorous.  But I don't think that if we catch our little stoat we'll deport him.  I really just want to get a closer look.  Has anybody ever tamed a stoat, I wonder?
  

Into Deep Silence

After the Christmas hullabaloo and brouhaha are done, a deep silence sets in.  It helps if, as happened this year, a good thick snowfall comes to muffle the sounds and obscure the sights that might distract from the journey inward.

Now, with the presents put away and the guest laundry done, there is, for a little while, not much to do besides water the houseplants and brush the dogs.  And figure out what to do with my life.

Or at least with my writing.  I haven't been posting here much in the last year.  Instead, I have been working on a book-length manuscript, a memoir of my years with CFS.  I figured that working on that and posting daily might be more than I can manage, even if that is what I would really like to do.  Because of my CFS, I have to be ever wary of  my enthusiasms.  I never know when something I enjoy, something that feels great while I am doing it--whether physical or mental--will plunge me into a relapse one or even two days later.  So I have to be careful.

But I've really missed writing here.  I like the feeling of completion, of achievement that writing a post gives--there, that 's done for today!  Plus, I get comments from you good people, which takes away that voice-crying-in-the-wilderness feeling.  Whereas working on a book feels precisely like being lost in the wilderness, crying and endlessly wandering with no idea whether I'm getting closer to home. 

I may be getting closer to home with the book.  I've been working on it exclusively on the computer, and this week I plan to print it out for the first time.  I'm hoping that getting physical with the thing--shuffling the pages and making notes on the margins with an actual pencil--will enable me to find the shape of the story.

Still, during this momentary lull, when the world outside is holding its breath and there are no trees to prune/weeds to pull/seeds to plant/ chard to harvest, I will try to post more often.  And I hope that the CFS will be o.k. with that.

In the meantime, new year hugs and blessings to all.  And if the title of this post has a familiar ring, it's because I semi-stole it from a documentary, "Into Great Silence," about the Carthusian monks of La Grande Chartreuse.  It is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen, and you can get it on Netflix.