The end of September

September has always been for me a month when life is particularly intense, and so I am a little wistful when it is over. The school year is under way in earnest, the weather changes, fish, turtles, and birds begin to migrate, and so many other cycles begin and end with September. 

For the past hour the crows have been raising a ruckus in the woods behind the house, out of sight but well within earshot. Five minutes ago they suddenly stopped and left. Had they continued any longer, I would have walked around the corner to see what had them so riled up. The crows began to migrate about three weeks ago. I noticed the four crows, two parents and their two juveniles, who had figured out how to get a mouthful of suet from the basket, had left the area.

This morning the noise was so loud at first that I rounded up the littlest cat and called the other three indoors. I doubt they were in any real danger, but though Daisy is an acrobat and fearless, she is also small and easily confused. How she survived on the dirt road where she was found, along with her sister and six nieces and nephews, is a story for which I don't have the details, but now she is here, and I wouldn't want her to go up against the owls or hawks or crows if I can help it.

Now it is eerily quiet. The crows are gone and the cats are asleep.

Further topics that will still not be covered in this blog

Public schools in the United States. Florida governors. The 2012 election. True the Vote. This and that percentage of the population.

Today's quotation comes from Chapter One of When Art Worked: The New Deal, Art, and Democracy by Roger G. Kennedy:

This is a book about artists as citizens. Its point of departure is Franklin Roosevelt's speech accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 1932, in which he summoned his fellow citizens, including artists, to participate in a covenant of common purpose: 

'I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.' Roosevelt's use of the lower case "new deal" is important; he was putting his stress not on that now famous phrase but on what came before and after it in the sentence, upon the pledging president and the people he summoned to a new covenant. He was not announcing a program of princely patronage or largesse. He was, instead, inviting each of his countrymen, artists among them, to come forward in a covenant of service. Artists were among the many who needed work in 1932, and the nation needed the work artists could do.

I find it comforting that, at one time in our country when the economy seemed beyond repair, programs were created that included artists and writers and craftsmen of all kinds.

Greed and damage

Three years ago I planted one Chinese honey tangerine tree because it is my favorite citrus. The tree grew and bore well. The following year, I planted another one, along with a red navel, a white navel, a red grapefruit, and a white grapefruit. These trees did well also. Two of them took a year off from blooming to settle in, but most of them went ahead and bloomed and set fruit lightly.

When I bought the grapefruit trees, the nurseryman advised me to cut the fruit off the first year so the branches would not get broken. I pruned off the fruit where they were too clustered together on one branch. The tree also dropped some fruit that first year, and no branches were lost.

I fed and watered the trees regularly, through a dry winter and a dry dry spring. Since early summer we have had rain almost every day. The first tangerine tree bloomed and set fruit well despite the dry spring. The thickest branch became so loaded with fruit that it began to bend two weeks ago under the added weight of the rains. I kept an eye on it but did not trim any fruit or support it. I was greedy. Two days ago the branch broke and I pruned it off, along with its more than twenty tangerines.

So far the tree is fine, and there are a few fruit on the other branches, but I am filled with regret and disappointment in myself. I should have helped the tree.

Black Discs

With no other answer available after weeks of investigation, my husband concluded that the black discs in the downstairs bathroom are black helicopter poop. Or nanite poop. Small robotic creatures developed by the Pentagon or the Centers for Disease Control had infiltrated our house and were staging operations from our downstairs bathroom. I found that explanation so compelling that I was moved to get the ladder out and resolve the issue once and for all.

The downstairs bathroom has been the location of several incidents during our ten years in this house. The first incident occurred in May 2003, when we had been living in the house for nine months. I found little transparent insect wings, just under half an inch long, all around the floor. No bodies, just wings. I thought some ants might have swarmed outside and wandered into the house somehow. I swept up the wings and they kept appearing for several days. Then finally some little bodies, which we had identified. They were dry wood termites from the cabinet that held the sink. They had probably been in the wood when the cabinet was made, the termite man said. The cabinet maker said that's impossible, and so it went. We treated them for years and finally, this year, no dry wood termites hatched. They are very slow chewers and fortunately the cabinet still has enough integrity to stand after 24 years of chewing from the inside out.

The next incident was the water in the walls. Source: upstairs shower pan. Then there was the water in the ceiling. Source: Repaired upstairs shower pan. When the black pellets appeared I was ready to believe the downstairs bathroom needed a separate cure. Several years ago, during round after round of repairs, we learned some details about the original construction of our house, and as a result we had a ceremony to bless the house after the repairs had been completed. Friends of ours, a married couple of Sufi ministers who conduct multi-denominational worship services, came to the house and performed a series of prayers and cleansed the house. After that, the repairs were reasonable for the age of the house-- replacement of water-damaged wood siding on the outside, a new roof, new gutters, new air units. I thought we were in the clear.

The black pellets appeared on the floor, always near the cats' litter boxes. They are about three eighths of an inch across, opaque black, apparently plastic, domed on one side and dimpled on the other. They are fairly uniform in thickness, a sixteenth of an inch, but some are a little thinner. We swept them up, and they reappeared, but not in numbers or at intervals that fell into any sort of pattern.

Could they be filler which had fallen out of something we carried into the bathroom, kayak gear or garage towels used for car and boat clean up? No. Were they insect poop? No. We were out of rational theories. My husband thought they might be coming out of the exhaust fan in the ceiling. Whereas the dry wood termites found the cabinet homey, the black helicopters would be comfortable in the exhaust fan. I got the ladder out, climbed up with a strong flashlight, eased the cover off the fan, and looked. No black pellets hanging on the ledges waiting to fall out. No black pellets coming through the cracks in the plaster around the fan housing.

I put the ladder away and went back into the bathroom, turned on the light, and took out the whisk broom and dust pan to clean up the accumulation of black helicopter poop from the day before. As I swept the pellets onto the dust pan, more pellets appeared. They were falling out of the handle of the whisk broom. It was full of them. A breach had opened through the straw and out they came. Why a broom maker would fill the handle of a broom with little black plastic disks, or from what other industry they are a byproduct, I can't answer without further investigation. It is a phone call I may never get around to making. I am simply relieved that neither the dry wood termites nor the black helicopters will be hatching again any time soon.

A 9 - 11 Birthday

Today is the eleventh anniversary of 9 - 11 - 2001 and my fifty-third birthday.

Last year, as I read the New York Times articles addressing the tenth anniversary, I gathered that the country was ready to move on-- not in the sense of forgetting, but more in the sense of a settling of clouds of dust and debris that have been swirling around in our minds for ten years. Today on the editorial page of the Times, there is one simple but elegant editorial arranged in the shape of two dark towers.

Last year I began a tradition to mark the anniversary. For ten years I have been reserved about my date of birth, out of respect for the survivors and the lost. Then I read about a girl who was born on that day and started a blog to communicate with others who share the birthday. I found her blog and read it and sent her a greeting. And I made a donation to Beyond the Eleventh, founded by two 9 - 11 survivors, that provides support to widows in Afghanistan. I was inspired by their willingness to reach out to other women whose lives have been changed by war. I will continue the tradition of making a donation to an organization with a healing agenda. It is a small gesture, but it is important to me and perhaps it will send a vibration along a wire somewhere that will ultimately make a sound.

2001 fell during a decade of loss in our family. We felt the accrual of one loss after another; the nation mourned thousands at once. It was hard to believe the pendulum would swing back, but it did, and we have celebrated two weddings and two births in the past four years. Today has been a good day. The kind wishes have meant more to me than anyone could know.

Corralling cats

Mealtime for the cats is a little ridiculous at our house, but we have found a system that seems to be working. A, the oldest of our cats has been dropping weight: B, the second oldest has been packing on the pounds; then there's a big gap of years to the age of the next youngest, C, who put on a little when he came to live with us and is now at a good weight, and the very youngest, D, is a tiny thing who is skittish at mealtime and needs to keep her size.

So two on weight loss, two on weight gain. Cat A also has been placed on a special kidney diet and needs lysine for her herpes virus, which attacks her immune system, and CAT B has developed a hyperthyroid condition, but we don't treat that with her food. She gets a special medicated gel in her ears because the hyperthyroid drugs tear up her stomach.

In fact, years ago we only fed dry food, free choice whenever they liked. We bought the best of the best for them. It turned out to be too rich for the older cats' kidneys. When we were told to give Cat A lysine, we started giving a wet snack for breakfast and dinner, just so we could slip in powdered lysine. As Cat B reached beyond 14 pounds, we got rid of the free choice dry food bowls and implemented two puzzle eggs with small measures of dry weight loss food two hours before bedtime.  Nevertheless, Cat B was still gaining, scarfing everything, finishing her wet snack fast so she could raid the other cats' dishes.

As I said, ridiculous. Our solution is to fix everyone's plates, put them down and get them started, and then move B onto a cooled sun porch where she can eat without distraction and without harassing the other cats. I stand and watch them to make sure the other three don't rotate around to each others' plates, which they really want to do. No matter how much they are enjoying their own flavor, they are convinced someone else has something tastier.

The upshot of following this routine for several months is that B has lost two pounds. I believe she will lose more until she is a healthy weight.

What happens is this-- as B is sequestered on the porch and a messy eater, she mainly achieves pushing her food around on the plate, while about half of it is ingested. With no avenue of escape, she eats a little more, but not much. By the time we let her off the porch, A, C, and D are finished and there is little for her to lick off their plates. The others trot onto the porch and finish what B had pushed around on her plate. And voila, the pounds are slowly coming off.

These mealtime shenanigans were on my mind because last night we were watching a show about a consultant who helps people understand the needs of their misbehaving cats. The fix almost always involves food, territory, and play. Our cats play together well most of the time, and C and D are learning to leave A alone. She is old and just wants to sleep.

If the worst we have to deal with is a carnival at mealtimes, then I think, for the moment, our kingdom is peaceable enough.

Harbinger

Since the Middle Ages, kings and queens have saved a lot of money by bunking with the constituency-- aristocratic allies around the country. The king sent a harbinger ahead-- a rider to announce that the King is coming, so stock up your larders (and lock up your daughters). It was a huge expenditure to feed and entertain the court, and the political rewards were almost worth it.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I spotted a rusty blackbird on the feeders for one day? Well, he must have been a scout, because all his rowdy friends came over tonight.

An hour before sundown, I was making salad with panko chicken and hoisin dressing for our dinner. I heard the crows raising a ruckus but thought little of it. They talk a lot when they are making passes at the suet trays. However, I didn't actually see the crows. Just heard them.

An hour later, just before sundown, when we sat down to dinner on the back porch, Bob said, WHOA, look at the feeders. They were covered with rusty blackbirds. At least thirty of them, talking in their low squeaky voices, sounding like swings on playground a block away, behaving more politely than the crows who had been complaining about them. The only other birds inconvenienced by them were the mourning doves (the cows, who sit and graze on the trays). The rusty blackbirds moved through quickly and the cardinals returned for their bedtime snack.

Dream two

Last night's dream featured an element in common with the night before. I was going through a box of things that belonged to my grandmother, and my mother was there with me, trying to remember what person or event each item came from. There were keys and newspaper clippings and photos and things that neither of us could identify, just as Ma Joad's box of treasures could be understood only by her.

There was more to the dream, a stay in a holiday cottage rental with some long involved rigamarole about a cat, then packing up and leaving.

Today is a big day around our house because the basketball hoop by the driveway has finally come down. All it took was knocking out two bolts and giving it a little push. It was rusted at the base so over it went. We had spent the morning cleaning leaves and pine needles off the roof of the house, and then my husband was filled with renewed loathing of the basketball hoop and before I knew what he was up to, he had the ladder pulled up to it and wrenches applied.

Since we moved into this house in 2002, the hoop has been useful for catching Spanish moss from the oak tree. That was all it was good for, except for getting in the way of ladders and trailers.

Dream lighthouse

How does a fiercely private person go about writing a blog? Good question!

In the early hours of this morning I dreamed I was climbing the stairs inside a lighthouse. At the top there was a window and I looked out. Although the tower had felt stable while I climbed, when I looked out the window I was surprised to see the view of the ground and trees gyrating as if the tower were flexing with the wind. I caught the banister to steady myself and tried to look again, but I could not find the window or the glass was painted over. When my dizziness passed, I walked down the stairs and found myself in an unfamiliar English village. I walked into a small shop. The people in the shop were kind and fed me tea--a woman and a man who might have been her brother, a double amputee. I listened to them as they showed me photos of family and newspaper clippings and keepsakes on the shelves. The woman left to tend to chores and errands. After I had continued talking to the man for a while, he suddenly cried out in pain that his had left his prosthetic legs on too long and had to remove them.

Then I had a few minutes to myself in a back room, took some things out of my bags and examined them, gathered my belongings together, and went back through the shop to go out into the town and find a place to stay for the night. The people I had met were gone, so I could not thank them for their kindness, and a different man stood in the shop instead, looking like he belonged there, saying nothing. I left to find a hotel.

It was an uncharacteristically coherent dream. The only thing I don't remember is... what I was looking at in the back room. I think it was a letter written long ago from someone I knew to someone I did not know.

Mowing patterns

Readers looking for helpful gardening tips will be disappointed. Yes, it's good to vary your mowing patterns so you don't wear out the grass, and a mulching mower will give better results if you mow in a counter-clockwise direction. What I really want to mention, however, is that there is this certain place in the yard where, every week this summer while I am mowing, a bug crawls into my shirt collar and down my back, but today it happened in a different part of the yard. This is of great import, so I am making a record of it here.

Morning and evening

The transitional times are my favorite parts of the day. Often I walk out of the house just to feel the heat of the sun in the middle of the afternoon, but morning and evening I watch the sky and the movement of birds and insects around the garden. Today the butterflies were out. The only food left for their caterpillars is passionflower vine (for the fritillaries and zebra longwings) and a little bit of butterflyweed (for the monarchs, which are few). The swallowtails have eaten all the fennel and parsley and there is no way I could plant more at this time of year to keep up with their demands. The gardener who told me (an English teacher several years ago) that the swallowtail butterflies couldn't exhaust the fennel had not planted fennel yet. The swallowtail caterpillars chew it down to the stalk, and then they chew the skin off the stalk.

All of this is just to say that I look for excuses to go outside at any time of year, whatever time of day.