Journal: Wayward Waterfowl and Rambling Rabbits

 

Scattered through this letter are more photos from our trip to Paducah.  It was a good time of the year to drive to Kentucky; the weather was just right.

Wednesday night after church, I was telling Carolyn and Violet how big the baby buffalos were that we saw at the Land Between the Lakes.  “They looked little next to their mamas, but they’re actually bigger than Carolyn!”

Both little girls looked properly amazed.  Carolyn positioned her hand in a measuring attitude just above her forehead, and then raised her eyebrows high in wonder.

“One of them was bouncing around like it thought it was a helium balloon!” I added, making Carolyn laugh.

Violet stood on her tippytoes and, all serious and big-eyed, said, “I would have to stand like this, so it would know it couldn’t run over me!”

She’s such a funny little thing.

Thursday evening after he got off work, Larry was at Loren’s place, gathering up things from the north garage.  That thing is behaving a lot like the widow’s oil pots:  no matter how much we take out of it, it stays just as full as always.

He walked into the house, heard a clanking noise, and started looking all around to see what it might be.  He is hard of hearing, so the noise must’ve been fairly loud.  He is more deaf in one ear than the other, and that often causes him to mistake the direction of sounds he hears.  But he eventually realized a bird was in the downstairs fireplace.  He peered in for a closer look – and discovered it was a duck, of all things!  A blue-winged teal, to be precise.  He went out to the garage, got a box, brought it back in, positioned it in front of the fireplace doors, opened them, and explained to the duck that all it needed to do was march into the box, and then he would carry it outside and release it into The Great Blue Yonder.

“Nothin’ doin’!” quacked the duck.  “Ah already tumbled down yer stupid chimbly; why would I wanna blunder into a box?!”

So... Larry reached into the fireplace and got a careful hold of the wayward waterfowl.  It did not struggle, so he carried it outside and set it down on the drive.  The bird ran a short distance and then took flight, heading toward a nearby drainage ditch and seemingly none the worse for wear.

So this means that the chimney cap we found under the deck does indeed need to be put in place on that chimney!  How in the world can a duck get into it, but yet the fireplace does not get flooded when it rains??  I don’t understand physics such as this.  But then again, I have not seen the top of the trick chimney, either.

Our friend Tom sold Loren’s camper last week, so Larry brought home title papers for me to sign.  Roy, the young man who is purchasing the house, also bought the John Deere riding mower and the attachments, too.  This means we have sold all of the wheeled items, I do believe.

That night I baked a large rainbow trout, with lots of butter and lemon pepper, for supper.  Caleb and Maria gave it to us for Christmas.  Mmmmm, it was scrumptious.  It was so big, there was plenty for the next night, too. 

Friday evening, Dorcas wrote to say they had gotten a new stove, dishwasher, and refrigerator.  “We haven’t had new appliances since we moved here, so I feel spoiled now,” she said.

She sent pictures, writing, “Chow time!  Almost every Friday, Trevor begs for pizza for supper.  Sometimes we order it, but I like making it best.  This is the first time baking homemade pizza in the new oven.”

Later, Hannah sent some photos from the storms they had while we were gone.  She got this shot of lightning from her front porch.

She told me there had been a tornado near Schuyler, 20 miles to the east, a week ago Friday.  She and Nathanael were in Lincoln that afternoon, having had an event there selling her Lilla Rose hairpieces.  She stayed put for a while before going home.

Along the highway, center pivots were ruined, and twenty utility poles were downed.

“I didn’t tell Nathanael about the tornado, but just said we were going to see something,” she said.  “As we headed toward the overpass on Highway 15, Nathanael suddenly said, ‘Wait, didn’t there used to be telephone poles over there?’”

It made her laugh, that the kid who will be 16 later this month, who loved and took great noticed of phone poles when he was a toddler, would immediately note the poles that had gone AWOL.  “He still knows the telephone/utility pole landscape.  haha”

Last Sunday, Hannah told Violet, “Your dress is pretty!”

“It was Aunt Mary’s (Kurt’s sister),” responded Violet, “and then, it grew to my size!” 

Several people have asked if my quilt did well at the Paducah quilt show.

“Yep,” I responded.  “It hung there quite nicely, and didn’t fall apart and go to confetti, or nuttin’.  And it rode all the way home without even gettin’ carsick.” 😂🤣😂

Early Saturday afternoon, Kurt, Victoria, Carolyn, Violet, and Willie brought me a strawberry crumble roll for Mother’s Day.  It was made by our niece, Rachel Wedige, who owns Wildflower Pastries.  She is a pastry chef and professional master baker extraordinaire.

I cut that big roll in half in order to save part for Larry... but he took too long to come home, and three hours later I ate the rest of it.  (◔◡◔)

Meanwhile, Kurt loaded the lawnmower Larry was giving him onto a trailer he was pulling behind his Yukon.  Larry told them it was their ‘housewarming gift’. 

Baby Willie is so sweet and cuddly.  The little girls went up to the little library and got some books, which they brought downstairs to read on the new loveseat.  Before they left, Carolyn took the books back.  When I peeked in that room later, I couldn’ts see a thing out of place; she’d put everything back perfectly.

As they were walking down the front sidewalk, first a black cat and then a tortoiseshell cat ran from under the cedar tree to hide under the camper.  Those are doubtless the cats that had been making the garage their home (and their litterbox).  They are quite wild, and won’t let us get close.  They look healthy and well-fed.  They’re usually together, and I’ve never seen them fuss (except  with Tiger, whose poor little nose got scratched repeatedly).  They’re probably siblings; they’re almost exactly the same size.

Larry got home, and a few minutes later his brother Kenny arrived to collect a big motorcycle Larry had offered him.  Together they loaded it on Kenny’s trailer, a process that always makes my hairs stand up on end.

Then off we went to see Loren.  He was glad to see us, as always.  We brought him the newspaper he has subscribed to for many years, the Messenger, along with an older Reader's Digest with stories about dogs and a book on Huskies.  Teddy had given him the Reader's Digest and the book back in early January when he was staying with Loren.  We were surprised when Loren remembered the books, and remembered Teddy giving them to him.

Larry told him about finding a baby bunny in one of his cradles of smaller aluminum forms.  He’d picked up forms at one job... loaded them on his truck... driving to another job... unloaded the cradles – and spotted that baby bunny clear up at the top of the rack, poking his head up and looking around as if wondering, Where on earth have I gotten myself to this time?!

In his 22 years of driving boom trucks, Larry has found mice, chipmunks, birds’ nests, and frogs in the cradles, but never a bunny.  Amazed that the little cottontail hadn’t come to harm, he lifted the form down to the ground so the little thing could safely hop away.

Seemingly unfazed, and in no hurry to get away from him, the bunny promptly started nibbling on grass.  “He’s little,” said Larry, “but if he can escape cats  and coyotes and foxes and hawks, he’s big enough to be on his own.”

This reminded Loren of a time when he had gone out to his woodpile to get some wood for his fireplace – and when he pulled out a couple of logs, a bunny had gone hopping off through the trees.

I then told a story about camping in a couple of tents on the shores of Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas.  We had all nine children and Aleutia the Siberian husky with us.  The three older boys slept in Keith’s tent; the rest of us slept in another big tent.  Aleutia was on a long tether near the boys’ tent.

In the middle of the night, I was awoken by a loud CLANK.

I sat up, quietly zipped open the tent window, and peered out.

Prothonotary warbler on the boat slip by our cabin in Kentucky

It was a raccoon.  He was up on the picnic table, and the large, heavy pan I thought would keep the loaf of bread for our breakfast safe all night – wasn’t.  Wasn’t keeping it safe, that is.  The raccoon had taken the lid off with no trouble whatsoever.  He wasn’t the least bit concerned about being quiet, either.

Sitting in a bright moonbeam, he was happily holding an entire piece of bread, munching away on it.  After a couple more slices, he decided that was enough, and headed down the picnic table to the other end, wiping muddy little paws on our clean white towels all the way.  I’d lopped them over the bench to dry after our showers.

I looked quickly toward the boys’ tent, which was the direction the raccoon was headed.  There lay Aleutia, flat on the ground.  Even her chin and her tail were down flat in the grass.  She wasn’t moving a muscle.  She was hardly breathing.  But in the moonlight, her eyes were shining bright, and her ears were straight up.  She knew exactly how long her tether was, and she would never wiggle until that raccoon was well within its circle.  She was an older dog now, but she was strong and fast, and very stealthy.

“Aleutia, you leave that raccoon alone!!!” I called out the window.

Blue-gray gnatcatcher near our cabin, spiderweb full of insects in beak

The dog’s ears collapsed as her eyeballs rolled toward me, simultaneously.

Then she lifted her head, turned it away from the raccoon, and laid it back down in the cool grass, with a long, resigned sigh.

Meanwhile, the raccoon had come to a screeching halt.  His head had first whirled to look in my direction, then back to stare in alarm at the dog he had not noticed until she moved.  His tail flicked.  Then he turned quickly and scamper-waddled into the woods, making little chirring noises as he went, doubtless warning his fellow raccoons, “Wolf in the campsite!  Wolf in the campsite!”

Aleutia lifted her head and looked at me, her big plume of a tail starting to fan. 

“Good dog,” I said quietly.  “You’re a good dog.”

She wagged, laid her head back down, and all was quiet until sunrise.

We had oatmeal instead of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast.

Next, Larry told Loren how his family had raised rabbits when they lived in Trinidad, Colorado, and then told of finding a full-grown cottontail rabbit in the small garage behind the house where they lived when they first came to Columbus.

He and Kenny decided to catch it.

Bunnies were docile little animals, after all, right?

Wrong.

They had slowly gotten it cornered in the garage, and Larry was just reaching for it, when that rabbit shifted into HPM (High Panic Mode).

It leaped straight up.  It was probably just trying to escape, but Larry, being quite close to it, was convinced it was jumping straight at his face.

Cottontail rabbits generally make vertical jumps of 2-3 feet; but if they are trying to escape a predator, they can sometimes make – get this – 15-foot jumps!  Yes, that’s a fifteen-foot jump, straight up. 

This particular rabbit made some impressive five-foot jumps.

Larry and Kenny promptly made a couple of impressive jumps, too – straight back.

They got out of the way, managed to get to the door – one of those single-panel, up-and-over swing doors – and pull it open enough that the bunny could escape.

Larry and Kenny came to the conclusion that day that wild Nebraska rabbits are a whole different breed than Colorado domestic bunnies. 

Bunnies can and do bite.  Larry’s favorite buck bunny bit him once when he was giving it food and replacing its water dish.  Evidently its mother had neglected to teach it to “Never bite the hand that feeds you.”  That rabbit had always been friendly and tame, until then!

Once upon a time when I was three years old, I had a big white bunny.  It was the nicest thing – at first.  But school children began taunting it through the fence as they walked through the alley behind our house, and that bunny got nasty. 

I was once running through the yard, when suddenly that big bunny gathered himself together, came running after me, took a flying jump, and sank his long, sharp teeth right into my finger!  He bit clear through the fingernail, and left an awful sore.  I couldn’t understand why my nice bunny would’ve ever done such a thing as that.

Loren laughed over our stories, cringed over the bunny that bit me.  He added onto his woodpile story:  “That rabbit in my woodpile bit me, too!” he said.  He held up his hand and inspected his fingers.  “It bit right through the fingernails of my two middle fingers!”

 He then told a few stories of his own, starting by asking if we’d noticed he had gotten a haircut that day.  We hadn’t, but we assured him it looked nice.  (It actually looked like he needed a haircut; but how do we know it hadn’t started out that morning an inch longer than it was right then?) 

“I owe the barber $14.00,” he said, “but I don’t have any money!” 

I said, “Hmmmm,” in a helpful manner.  They put charges like that on the monthly bill, and it’s automatically taken from his checking account.

“I have some books of checks over in my other house,” he remembered.  “I’ll go get them tomorrow and get the man paid.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t like it when I forget to pay him!”

I decided to put his mind at ease on the matter.  “It’s okay,” I said; “I’ll get the bill emailed to me, and I’ll pay it for you online, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

“Oh, will you?”  He was relieved.  “That’s good.”

He then felt of his face, and realized he needed a shave.

“My razor is over there at my other house in the east,” he said, actually pointing east.

He has sometimes in the last year not understood where he was, or where his home was located, but he almost always had his directions straight.  (That’s no help, of course, if you don’t know which direction you should go to get to your desired destination.)

Both of Loren’s razors have gone missing.  I should ask about them; I’ll betcha they don’t let the patients have them in their rooms.

“My razor is in...” he paused, unable to think of the words.  He made a ‘zipping’ motion with his hand, and I think he was meaning ‘shave kit’, but I usually keep still and let the conversation go wherever it wants to go.  But thinking of ‘zipper’ took him back to my story of camping by Table Rock Lake.  “In a tent,” he finished.  He stopped and looked puzzled, then continued.  “I was trying to close my door—” he gestured at the door of his room “—and it wouldn’t go shut.  I opened it to see what the matter was, and there was a big ol’ rabbit sitting there, big as you please!”  He laughed.  “It was the one from the woodpile.  I scooped him up, carried him outside, and let him go.  He went hopping off a little ways, and then started nibbling on the grass.”

So, after a confusing conglomeration and mishmash of entertaining stories, we told him goodbye and departed.

 We ate supper at La Mesa Mexican Restaurant.  We were planning to meet Joseph afterwards to give him and Juliana their birthday presents.  Joseph laughed when Larry told him where we’d eaten, as they had earlier eaten at another La Mesa Mexican Restaurant just seven miles south of the one where we had been.  By then, however, they were home again, over half an hour away, and it was getting late; so Joseph chose a halfway point, and we met them.

We gave Joseph an LED camping lantern.  For Juliana, we had an etched crystal jewelry box similar to this one, in which I tucked a thin gold chain necklace with a little gold and enameled heart, and a small hand-painted china toadstool on which perched a wee frog.

Sunday was Mother's Day.  Between Sunday School and church, I spotted Andrew with Baby Oliver, and made a beeline to see them.  Little Oliver gave me such a big smile, he wiggled clear down to his toes.  After two or three of those, he used up all his reserve calories or humor, and proceeded to fuss almost before his last smile faded out.

So I bid him adieu and left Andrew to contend with his no-longer-relaxed baby.  ’Cuz that’s what Grandmas do.  😄

Jeremy and Lydia gave me a tall Mandevilla... Caleb and Maria gave me a pot full of various types of impatiens... Andrew and Hester gave me two vintage wooden trivets made of small wooden pieces strung together in what resembles quilt-block patterns, and a wonderful old songbook published in 1910.

A great majority of the songs in the book I do not know and have never seen before, even though most of the authors are favorites of ours.  I learned three of the songs on the way home.  😅

Last night after church, we gave Hester the wet and dry cat food we had left over from Tiger, along with the heavy water bowl I’d gotten not long ago.  We discussed some of the idiosyncrasies of our various cats, including the calico kitty that was born on our wedding day, and which we got when she was six weeks old.  That kitty would lick the manger ornaments we had that were made from olive wood from Israel until they were totally soggy.  I, not suspecting anything, went to undecorate the tree, grabbed an olive-wood camel – AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!

Why did she do that, I wonder?  Maybe the sap (olive oil?) smelled like butter?  😝

We came home and ate a quick supper.  Larry finished my chimichanga from La Mesa, and I ate the leftover nachos and avocado-tomato dip.  Applesauce and Alo Aloe Vera juice finished the menu.

Then we went to Loren’s house to fill up the garbage cans and put them out by the road for the trashmen to pick up.

There’s a gray catbird in the lilac bush, singing away--------- oh!  Another one just landed in the bush!  Now Catbird 1 few at Catbird 2 and chased him/her away.  Perhaps it was two competing males... or maybe Catbird 1 is a male and Catbird 2 is a female, and Bird 1 was too amorous for Bird 2.

Now there’s a house wren in the bushes, scolding and flitting about.  Perhaps one of those displaced cats is nearby.  The birds never mind or fuss at the bunnies.

For supper tonight, I fixed lambchops from Teddy, sweet potatoes with butter and brown sugar, cornbread stuffing, vanilla cheesecake pudding, and applesauce.

Time to hit the hay!

,,,>^..^<,,,           Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,