short stories 7

Well, the wrens are at it again. Every fall they become intensely interested in our garage/shop and the stuff in it. Earlier today I interrupted one giving the open tool box a look see. I have startled them on several occasions in the last week or two and just now I could hear and see one through the open door poking around on the top shelf of one of the shelving units. It's nearly impossible to get a picture of the wrens but I did get one of the tool box.

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Yesterday as I was sitting here at my computer gazing out the window and (different) open door I saw a squirrel climb down the trunk of the chinese tallow in the little back yard (as opposed to the big back yard which is the back half or our little half acre of heaven) and scamper across the yard to the bird bath which he promptly climbed and then perched on the rim of the plastic dish and got a drink of water. First time I have seen that. Now I know why sometimes when I come back after being gone for several days, the dish is laying on the ground. I imagine when it doesn't have much water in it then it tips over surprising the squirrel with an unplanned bath. The squirrel was too quick for me but I got an excellent shot of the birdbath.

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This morning as I sat at my computer gazing out the window didn't I already use this sentence? one of the local hawks swooped down out of the air and perched on a small low branch of the same chinese tallow in the same little backyard. Oh, he was huge and so beautiful, perhaps 25' – 30' from me. He (she?) sat there for a few minutes scanning the yard then spread his wings and flew off low across my neighbor's empty half acre toward the agricultural fields. I have been unable to identify the hawks here and when I inquired of one of the locals what kind of hawks we have out here he just looked at me like I was stupid and said 'chicken hawk'. Allrighty then, chicken hawk it is. Since my camera was not in the same room and I was loath to miss even a second of watching this beautiful bird, I did not get a picture of it but here's a shot of the branch he was sitting on.

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I've picked up another 24 pounds of pecans but I decided not to take these to the cracker. They will last longer in the shell and now I can take my time shelling them. I've come across two mutants, nuts that had three 'halves', a triplet. The first one I cracked was not good and it broke apart. But then, last night I cracked another one and it was good and remained intact. In fact I succeeded in shelling it without it breaking apart. I put away the shelled nuts and left the triplet in the bowl. I had forgotten to remove it so I could take a picture and I shelled more nuts into the bowl tonight. When I went in a minute ago to retrieve it, half the nuts I had shelled were gone and the triplet was missing. I looked at the husband sitting there with several in his hand. He ate my triplet. “I can't believe you ate my nut!” I said. “You just had dinner. Man, I can't believe you ate my triplet.” So here is a picture of some broken shells instead which may or may not have been from the triplet.

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We tackled the dead cherry laurel tree a couple of weeks ago that fell over in early summer. It was in the very back of the property behind the little shed and it fell into the space between it and two other trees right at the edge of the little 'wild' spot of the property where it backs up to the 13 acre field and joins the trash tree line that has grown up between my neighbors' properties. Here in the country we don't have fences or hedgerows so much as trash tree lines that separate properties. Although there are plenty of fences if the property is a pasture. Don't want them cows straying too far. I passed one of the sheriffs one day trying to herd a cow out of the road and back to it's pasture.

Because the fallen tree was in the wild space and we have been unable to get back there, things have grown with abandon. Before we could even get to the actual tree to start cutting it up, starting with the small branches and working our way to the trunk, we had to hack our way through a jungle of vines that had covered the fallen tree, both the trees it fell next to and the little shed. In one summer, the wild space had doubled.

It took us half the day just to get enough of the vines down to actually get to the closest fallen tree branches. The worst was the wild grape vine that has trunks as big around as my bicep when I was working out regularly. It had covered everything with a thick layer. Think kudzu. After that was the trumpet flower vine which had also climbed into and over everything. Virginia creeper was making inroads and another vine that grows out here that I don't know what it was but it pops up in the grass constantly and the vine is tough as wire.

I forgot to take a picture before we started but this is what it looks like now.