June 14th - 17th

June 14, 2005

I stopped in to see Ann and Mary Wilson yesterday on my way back from town (where I’d gone to get some new tires for my CR-V following the flat incident) to ask them about doctoring Dutch Hen. As it turns out, whatever’s afflicting her has also arisen in quite a few of Ann’s birds, mostly golden comets. Ann said she first saw the problem last year when several of her hens exhibited the same symptoms—sluggishness, lack of appetite and productivity, and heaviness and balding in the gut. She said her birds died after a week or two, but that some of them this year have survived for several weeks. She sent one bird to Portland for analysis. The hatchery claimed it was egg-binding, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Ann said her family’s been raising chickens since before she was born and that they’d never had this problem. She’s convinced it’s from hybridizing the breeds, that it’s a genetic defect. She may be right. She said another woman in town has the same problem, and that her birds responded well to Teramycin, an antibiotic. I told Ann I’d pick some up for the both of us when I went into town on Saturday to get Gussie his haircut. In the meantime, Dutch Hen still sits in her nest doing nothing.

I saw a bear cub cross the road on the drive back. It was dark black and maybe 150 pounds.

Another perfect day here. High 70s and sunny, with a cool breeze. I worked most of the afternoon in the garden, tying up my cucumbers (some are four inches long now) to their tripod and my garlic to some sticks. Everything appears to be thriving except the squash, which continues to be decimated by cutworms, and the one row of broccoli which, it turns out, is shaded in the late afternoon. A new batch of mesclun greens has germinated, as well as some arugula and mustard. I’ve been eating many hearty salads. Not that I’m going vegetarian or anything. Tonight’s dinner was particularly good. Porcini mushroom reduction with sirloin tips (cooked over real mesquite coals) and a side of mashed potatoes.

This evening I confirmed that a pair of red-breasted sapsuckers are nesting in one of the dead alders just up the road from the cabin. At first I thought it was a pair of gilded flickers, one or both of which I spooked a number of times taking our evening walk up to the pond. But then I started seeing the sapsuckers. And twice I saw one fly to the tree and disappear. This evening I brought along the binoculars. Sure enough, here came one of the sapsuckers, its beak pinching some tasty morsel. She landed on the tree and poked her head in a hole, a green beard of lichen spilling out. A nest! I thought I heard some little squeaks, but it was hard to tell. There’s a big patch of blackberries below these alders and then high meadow beyond that, a veritable bird sanctuary. I could hear Oregon juncos and robins in there, and so couldn’t confirm the sapsucker chicks. But I’d be willing to put money on it. On the walk back, I saw both the male and the female sapsucker. And then a gilded flicker, too! Now I’m wondering if the flickers are nesting in one of the other dead alders (there are three). Wouldn’t that be civilized? Neighbors.


June 15, 2005

Gus is a disgrace to his breed. A terrier, a mouser, right? Pshaw. For the past couple of nights I’ve been awaked around 2:00 am by a scratching sound, a sound which, in the deep dark and quiet of night, sounded as though it issued inches from my head. I’d click on the flashlight and the sound would stop. I was convinced it was a mouse trying to get in from beneath the floor, nibbling at the carpet in the corner. Or one out in the mud room, investigating the shelves. Two days ago I put out some D-Con on one of the shelves. Last night I was awakened by the noise once again. This time I was determined to find the cause. I lay on the very edge of the bed, flashlight in hand. But the creature was coy. It would wait until I’d fallen asleep and then it would start up its maddening scratching. The flashlight beam revealed nothing. And then, by chance, I panned it across the window, and there he was! A mouse, caught like a wasp between the window and the screen. The scratching sound? His little feet trying to dig through the screen. Gus, meanwhile, was out sleeping on the couch, his big paws in the air twitching at the dream of a lizard or a digger squirrel. I saw him like that when I went out to the living room area to get my calfskin gloves and to ponder this late night dilemma: how to extract mouse from window screen without it leaping into the bedroom and haunting my cabin for the rest of the summer. But here was my answer, my wheat-colored, burr-covered, bearded, brown-eyed pal. Gus. Gussie. Poopy himself. “Gus, come get the mouse!” I said. He yawned and blinked at the flashlight’s beam. But he’d heard the tone. One that promised play, adventure, distraction. And he followed. The mouse, legs splayed, eyes wide and blinded by the flashlight beam, was right where I’d left him. I played the beam on him, pointed for Gus to see. He gave a tentative sniff, oblivious. Maybe it was the reflection on the glass. He couldn’t see the damned rodent. I slid open the window a bit. Now the mouse shifted, Gus heard him, and was suddenly interested. Only he still couldn’t see the thing. Granted, Gussie’s hair has grown long; his fall covers half his line of sight. But isn’t this what he was bred for? I was wearing the gloves and now I knew I’d be putting them to use. It was hopeless to think Gus would jump up and catch the mouse between his big white teeth. No, I was going to have to grab the mouse myself and escort him out of my cabin. This was the new plan: grab the mouse, and if he happened to jump into the bedroom, there would be Gus waiting. Surely, with a mouse leaping past, scurrying at his feet, Gus would spring into terrier mode and live up to his sole purpose for existing. Right? I blinded the mouse as best I could with the flashlight, slid open the window, snatched, and had him! Had him in my right hand, safely subdued within worn calfskin. Then, like Houdini, the thing squeezed through my tight grip, landed at Gussie’s feet, and darted beneath the dresser. Gussie looked at me. Did I miss something? his look said. “It’s behind your crate, dummy! Get it.” And then he seemed to understand. He slithered beneath the dresser, sniffing. And now the mouse was ours. I’d move the crate and the mouse would run right into Gus’s waiting maw. Only it didn’t. It zipped like a trick of the eye through the doorway and off into some remote nook of the cabin. I gave Gus a disappointed shake of the head, called him a disgrace, put out two more packages of D-Con, and went back to bed. At least I would be hearing the scratching noise anymore. When I go into town again, I’ll buy some mouse traps. God knows they’ll work better than a wheaten terrier.

If Gus is lousy at finding mice, he’s good at finding snakes. Today I was watering the garden and heard him barking in the grass along the road. I went to investigate, and he was terrorizing a large snake, about four or five feet long and maybe two or three inches in diameter at its widest. At first I panicked, thinking it was a rattler, but it didn’t have a pit viper’s head or a rattle. I picked up my pal and carried him away just the same. I looked up the snake, and the closest thing I could find was a king snake. I hope I see it again when I have a camera, and when Gus is sniffing around elsewhere.

June 17, 2005

Marge Boyle told me the other night that it was so hot and humid in the East that schools closed early and people were warned to stay indoors. Man, one thing I don’t miss about home is the humidity. My experience with the East is that winter lasts a really long time, you have two weeks of spring—tulips, lilacs, flowering trees—and then the heat and humidity and thunderstorms roll in, and it’s summer. Marge said the temperature there was close to 100 and the humidity just ridiculous. I looked at my L.L. Bean digital thermometer and it read 63. And there’s no humidity out here. When it’s hot, it’s dry, the air crispy and nice to breathe. I remembered that from my visits to California, too. Unfortunately, it’s not warm at all here right now. For the last couple of days it has felt like autumn. Blustery winds, drizzle, cold. It’s almost nine o’clock and it’s 54 degrees out there. I’ve got a raging fire going in the stove. It cleared up briefly late in the afternoon yesterday, and I seized the opportunity to wash the mud and dust off my car and to wash the cabin’s windows. I brought a nice window-washing tool out here with me, one with a telescoping pole and a removable cloth and squeegee. The tall pointed windows above the sliding door were pretty dirty. Now they’re clean. I left one or two streaks, but I can live with that.

I made another collage last night. This one’s a little different: an abstract piece, a kind of experimentation with color and composition and tension. I used paper and pastels. It fit nicely in a frame I found here, and it’s now hanging where a poster of Van Gogh’s boats at Sainte Marie had been tacked up. Sorry Van Gogh. I’m not a big fan of posters, especially ones curling up at the corners. I’ll hang the boats back up when I leave.