We live beyond the clutches of a small town east of Dallas in an agricultural setting that is rapidly being eroded by encroaching developers. In spite of all the activity, we live peacefully with three adopted dogs and a lazy barn cat who adopted us. There's other critters: birds and squirrels and once an opossum, and the seasonal raccoons that sneak in at night to eat my grapes. They watch as I work in my garden, and plot.
Sure, I’m a people watcher. Not consciously though. Until you walk onto my stage, into my line of vision. You might ensnare me on a grocery aisle where I linger a split-second too long because I note something singular in your step...maybe it's attitude or the footwork or body language. I might see you at mall, on a campus, at a park where you intrigue me with a distinctive laugh. I would jot a note on my iPhone.
A life situation might give me pause. Maybe you’re the man in the restaurant interacting with family or friends…the way you talk, the way she reacts. What did you say to covet such an expression? I can only imagine, and cannot look away.
People-watching is not unique to me. We all drag along our individual styles wherever we go, so it shouldn’t surprise you when somebody notices. Not weirdly…just casually. There’s a name for this game: Curiosity.
Then I sit at my keyboard and recall the brief encounter that triggers a scene: the couple holding hands under the table at McDonald’s, the child screaming for candy at the check-out lane--dad’s mouth drawn; he just wants it to stop! I’m not judging. I’ve been there, too. I already know the quick-study analysis of that little dress-rehearsal will humor a scene that’s already shaping in my head. “What’s your favorite flavor, kid?” Noted mannerisms are recycled onto a page that I will embellish with strengths and flaws, varnish with quirks and attributes and, Bingo! You’re in my story, kid!
A writer is like an engineer who rolls out his plans to build a house, or a painter splashing a canvas with subject or form. Writers gravitate toward the human in us: actions, reactions, emotions. Writing is wonderfully entertaining. And that’s exactly why I do it.
Gosh, it's been hot this summer.
Skunk spray is an awful thing to wake up. Skunk odor seeps through the house even though the doors are shut.
"Uck! They did it again." I open the glass door a pinch, cut my eyes to the sleeping dogs. Koko and Pancho don't even look up, but Sammy jumps to her feet.
Guilty! She hadn't learned yet how to...just walk away from that waddling, black and white ground rat.
"Ah, it was you, wasn't it!" We can't always fix on the right dog right away because skunk spray is in the air and hits us from every direction.
James reachs across me and pushes the door shut. "They're just protecting their territory."
Sammi's the youngest, a Catahoula loves strong scents. She's not afraid to protect us from skunks, but cowers at the door when coyotes sound off in the field.
She gets a bath regularly, every time she trots home from the neighboring pasture, her white coat camouflaged in fresh, green cow manure. So, actually, I could say she's the cleanest of all the dogs.
The patio smells...well, eyes are watering. I close the distance between the door and the cabinet where dog leashes are kept. She can't see it coming--it has to be a surprise, or she'll run. The distrust! A bath can take all day. These dogs know when they stink. I love a bath. What's wrong with them?
We draw a special bath. A treat! A recipe of hydrogen peroxide, white vinegar, and a healthy splotch of Dawn dish detergent mixed in a gallon of warm water...no matter the weather. We're all deep in it by the end.
I reach for the leash and hide it behind my back as James casually takes Sammy's collar while Koko, the Shepard splits. She's run through the left-open door and flops on her house-bed smelling every bit as bad as Sami. It takes a few days for the house to air out.
Everything comes to life in spring. My terrier found baby rabbits hiding in our raised garden--five little 'uns, with their heads stuck in the concrete blocks, as if they thought themselves hidden.
I shooed the dog away, picked them up, and, laid them, one by one, in my shirttail.
James rigged a dog pen with chicken wire, and we bottle fed them for several weeks.
The brown terrier, same color as the rabbits, sat by the cage every day. One time I came out to find all the rabbits sitting in a row in front of her, their faces turned up like students in a classroom. They didn't care that the terrier panted with a toothy smile, that she drooled as she kept watch over them.
I don't know if it was her size that tricked them, or her color, but I can imagine that's how the story of Little Red Riding Hood came to be.
We turned them loose when they were big enough to nibble the grass down.
The dogs run through the field, barking at the sky...Alert! Alert! Five...then ten...fifteen buzzards circle overhead. As their circles narrow, I know.
It's time.
Buzzards usually return to the same nesting site every year to hatch their yearlings. They like quiet places, like abandoned barns and broken, deserted houses with tall chimneys. When the buzzards lost their chimney in an old tenement house a mile or so up the road, they set their sights on the old barn that stands behind the fence and overlooks our garden, in spite of any rowdy dog. The once-icon barn had grown weary and was ready to collapse, its tin roof curled back in several places. A perfect nest where buzzards can roost and keep an eye on things, like me. In the backyard. And my garden.
I watched them, too, their comings and goings as they plunged through the slit of tin and dropped to the ground. Or hop out of the hole to sit and stare on the roof. Several times a day they'd beat their wings and lift away, only to come back, sit a moment before plunging into their hole.
The dogs mostly ignored the birds, even the rustling coming from inside the barn. I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to take a look.
Inside was grungy, with broken boards and round, black drums, and a few metal pipes. The roof was broken open and squeaked in the breeze and winds that bent it. I tiptoed through the traffic of leftovers and made my way to the muffled scuttling noises that came from behind a wall of plywood propped on its side, nails dangerously exposed. Tilting the plywood away, I startled as a gangly buzzard baby scurried away. It had downy, stale-yellow feathers with splotches of black, as if trying to grow into a color.
I snapped a quick picture with my iPhone and left.
The dogs never bothered them, so the buzzards come back every year. Buzzards are like that.
The baby buzzard...vulture
There were unusual scuttling noises high in the oak tree in the back yard. They were coming from the old abandoned tree house my son, Josh, built with his dad many years before. We couldn't see what was making those noises inside the tree house because it was well-boarded on all sides. So Josh climbed the rope to investigate.
Peering through the tree house slats, he found an owl had made a nest there. The owl wasn't visiting at the moment, and Josh didn't climb inside, but he reported that, not only had she made a nest, she'd cleaned up the mess winter had left by placing leaves and twigs into a forgotten bucket left in the enclosure.
Every time Josh came to the house, (he was grown, now, and had a treehouse of his own.) he would skitter up the rope and detail the progress: One egg. Then two.
The owl laid as many as six eggs before she started kicking them out. From the six eggs, she raised one baby. Afraid the owl would abandon the nest if he got in the way, he left it alone for weeks and weeks.
It was quiet up there, and we thought the owls had moved on. My brother came by one day and had to shinny up that rope. A knee propped on the base, he raising himself quietly inline with the side slats and peeped. He almost fell out of the tree. A long-faced baby owl waited until his eye was pressed to the wood, then hissed! It's downy white feathers shuddered.
Owls like open pastures with a plentiful food source, like field mice. Beware, cat-lovers. An owl can just as easily snatch a small cat as a darting mouse...if you happen to be missing one.
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