A BAD DOG TRIES, BUT FAILS, TO BE GOOD

Autumn Leaves

IT'S COOL AND OVERCAST IN BIRDLAND. In short, a perfect Autumn day. The Hackberry trees in our yard shed brown leaves that gather in the driveway, and soon I will rake them up for the deep litter bedding in the chicken coop. So far, not much color in our yard or in the woods beyond the fields—just the green is not so brilliantly emerald as it was in summer. I did see a sugar maple in town yesterday that had half turned a bright pink-orange. That is, one side of the tree had turned, the other side was still green.

Cullen, the good dog.

I sit on the porch to enjoy the breeze, bundled up as I am. The cat just came out from under the ornamental quince to join me. Ursula barks from the line on the other side of the house. She, the bad dog, is on probation, but I will let her off in a minute. She is sneaky, that one. She knows she is not to go into the chicken coop and steal food, so she waits patiently on the walk up to the kitchen door until we go inside. We watch from a window—sometimes the window in the kitchen door, sometimes over the kitchen sink. She watches the window until we go away. She even waits there a minute more, steadily gazing at the window.

I am but an innocent dog.

When she thinks she is in the clear, she v-e-r-y c-a-s-u-a-l-l-y moseys toward the coop. She takes a circuitous route, behind the garage. But sometimes we are still watching from the window with our coffee, and when I see her come around the other side to go into the door of the coop, I will knock loudly on the window. Then she will run back to her station on the cobblestone walkway and scrutinize again the kitchen door. "Who me?" she asks with her innocent gaze? "I was just, you know, visiting with my little feathered friends."

This morning, though, the knock did not call her back because I had just put out a pile of compost for the chickens to scratch and gather. Is there anything tastier than orange peels, apple cores, egg shells and coffee grounds? All that deliciousness is just too much for a bad dog trying to be good. I had to run out yelling, "No, No No!" And still she gobbled as fast as she could. What could I do but catch her (easy to do when she stands with her head down, gorging as fast as she can) and put her on the line for a while.

She is getting used to the line. Cullen doesn't mind it, and we put him there after his meals for a while, so he doesn't run off following the deer and come back full of prickles and cockleburs. He takes it in stride and lies in the driveway watching for whatever comes around the corner and down the hill. But Ursula used to fret quite a lot. So mournful was her cry that we would not leave her on the line too long. So anxious was she that we could not leave her unattended or she would tangle herself in the bushes. But now she takes it in stride. Her barking this morning is just because Jim has come out in his white truck to check the soybeans. Are they dry enough to harvest? We both watch him, I from the porch, Ursula from the driveway. He walks down the grass waterway a bit and over to the beans and bends over them, feeling, I suppose for dryness. Then he hops back in his truck and drives away. Will he be back today with the combine? Will the rain that seems to be gathering in the low clouds to the west hold off? (And will I gamble, and hang my laundry out anyway despite the lack of sunshine and warmth? Probably. It should be done with the wash cycle by now.)

Ursula has settled back down, and I can see her in my mind’s eye, lifting her nose to the breeze, letting the wind lift her black fur a little. I'll go in a minute and let her loose from the line, but for now I'm going to sit here just a little longer, looking off into the bronzed fields and enjoy the morning.

Sit in Beauty; Lie in Peace; Blessed Be

Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. If you’re missing your weekly dose of Birdland Letters in the News Gazette, you can still read them every week in the Piatt County Journal Republican and at www.letterfrombirdland.blogspot.com. Consider subscribing to support your small-town newspaper. You can follow Birdland on Instagram and Twitter @BirdlandLetters. Mary can be reached at letterfrombirdland@gmail.com or via snail mail care of this newspaper.

A BIRDLAND ALL HALLOWS EVE

GAMBOLING GOATS

IN BIRDLAND WE TAKE HALLOWEEN SERIOUSLY. Halloween morning I was driving to work, and when I got up to the cemetery, I couldn't believe my eyes. A herd of goats was having a party. They looked like kids, (the four footed kind) or, maybe miniature goats, but they were grazing and gamboling between the stones. I stopped the car and tried to take some pictures with my phone, but the goats were suspicious and started jumping around and heading for the woods. I couldn't get close enough for a good shot, so I called Aunt Jane, thinking she might be able to get ahold of the neighbor whose fence they must have escaped. I told her, "The cemetery is filled with goats!"

"Well, of course it's full of ghosts," she said. "It is Halloween."

WHAT KIND OF FACE
DOES IT WANT?

"No, goats!" I shouted. "They are gamboling amongst the stones."

"Gambling ghosts? Cards or dice?"
"Goats!” I shouted. “The kind that eat tin cans.”  I said this, although I know full well that goats don’t eat tin cans. They may nibble on the paper around the tin cans, but not the metal, itself. "Can you call the neighbors and tell them they got through the fence?"

Well, we finally got it sorted out and I went on to work, but not before calling Michael. He must have been in the shower and didn’t answer his phone, so I left a detailed message asking him to take pictures for me. When he got to work he texted me. "No goats." They must have found their way home by the time he went by.

 Halloween in Birdland is my favorite time. I had two pie pumpkins on my windowsill, but they have gone into the oven for pumpkin cheesecake. The big pumpkin awaits carving, and sits right outside the kitchen door. In days gone by I used to make costumes for the kids, but the kids are all grown and making their own costumes. My youngest came home and announced his intentions to trick or treat the neighbors. I was ready with the papier mache, but no. His costume, he said, would be a mustache.

"That's no costume!" I said, “It’s a disguise.”
"Yes," said Ellis. We're going as secret agents, and secret agents need a disguise." With those words, I knew it was the end of an era. No longer are my services required as maker of masks or of totally awesome swords and shields. No longer are my seamstress skills necessary. I’ll just put my sewing machine away up in the attic. No more capes or hoods or swashbuckling pantaloons. 

 I might have argued that since No-shave November was almost upon us, a mustache was not much of a disguise, either, but they also dyed their hair. Since it was probably the last year that they can get away with knocking on doors and demanding candy, I relented, and stayed home to comfort myself with pumpkin carving.

Treat in Beauty; Trick in Peace; Blessed Be.

The Pumpkin was big and round, but a little flat on one side. It spent the past several weeks silently greeting everyone who came in the kitchen door. It was a little flat on one side and that side still had a little mud caked on it, although it had kept its silent vigil through at least two rainstorms. I wiped it clean and patted its cheek, peering at it to see what kind of face it wanted. It didn’t want to be a zombie, so popular now, with stringy, orange “brains” spilling out of its mouth. I cut its cap and scooped out the seeds, putting them into a bowl to roast later. No, it just wanted a couple of triangular eyes and a lopsided, jagged smile. I found a candle and set it back outside to greet the trick or treaters. The yellow light shone bravely into the dark night.

FIND A COZY WINDOW

My window with the Gothic Arch.

IN BIRDLAND THE SKY IS GREY AND THE DRIZZLE IS CONSTANT, BUT AFTER THIS SUMMER'S DROUGHT I WOULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY. It is, after all, October. The grass is finally green again, and the leaves are just beginning to turn. They are muted so far, with only a little yellow. The hackberries outside my window seem to be going straight from a washed out greenish-yellow to a dry brown. Leaves crunch on the sidewalk below and I wonder if the extra stress of the heat and drought drained all the color from the trees. Or will they light up yet in the coming weeks?

The cornfields by my house have been harvested, and it looks like Jim and Sean have already pulled a disc through them so that they're a moist jumble of brown earth and tawny brown stubble. Ursula still runs out into the field to glean the few dropped ears (stunted this year), bringing home one or two a day. My dog will play with these ears for awhile, cheerfully gnawing the golden corn off the cob, and then leaving it for the chickens to peck. Everybody is happy.  

Looking forward to Winter

The days are getting shorter and more and more often, by the time I get home in the evenings, the chickens have already gone to bed and I'm only left to latch the door. Soon I will have to cover the coop and the aviary with plastic. Soon I will have to plug in the lights for warmth. As much as I'm enjoying sweater weather right now, I do look forward to the coming winter with all its glorious ice and cold. For one thing, when I turn on the lights in the chicken coop, I'll finally get eggs again. This flock is all pullets, bought as day old chicks this spring. I've been buying chicken feed since April without collecting one single egg. I can't wait until I get my first one, which usually happens for the first time soon after I put on the lights in the winter.

Reflecting on Peace

 For another thing, Michael's been cutting a lot of trees. Most notably some poplars we planted many years ago, which have lived out their lifecycles. They are fast growing trees, which is why we planted them to shade the south windows in summer, but quick growth means they don't last long—maybe 20 years. They've been dying one by one, and now we have a big pile of firewood. I don't think Poplar is the very best firewood, but it's still nice to have a big pile, and I'm looking forward to warming the house with fires in a few months.

Find a Cozy Hidey Hole

Today I'm cozy in my little office and something about the overcast day makes me snuggle down deeper into my sweater and wrap my hands around my warm cup of tea. I've got errands to do across campus, but they can wait. Today is a day to sit and write, read a chapter or two, grade some papers and talk with students. Today is a day to pause and take a long glance out the old window with the Gothic arch, to see the small, brown berries on the tree outside. Suspended on each berry is a silver pearl of rain, shining with refracted light. Below, umbrellas sail back and forth on the sidewalk. Everyone has somewhere to go. But me? I'm content to sit here and turn another page, take another sip, and enjoy the warm coziness of a fall day.

Sit in Beauty; Soak up Peace;
Blessed Be.

GATHERING BEAUTY

AUTUMN IS A TIME FOR GATHERING, FOR HARVESTING, FOR PUTTING UP STORES TO GET US THROUGH THE LONG NIGHTS OF A LONG, COLD WINTER. After the monstrous drought this summer, there's not much to harvest in my yard—tomatoes accumulate on the vine, but only enough to sprinkle on my salad; the peach trees bloomed early in the premature spring, but then met with a late frost; the walnut tree drops a few nuts one by one, instead of dozens by dozens as it does in most years. I kick 5 or 6 green ones into a little pile to let the husks darken and begin to rot off before I bring them in to crack. Last year I filled bushel baskets and couldn't keep ahead of them. I won't have that problem this year. I keep my eye open for other harvesting options and I found a little feral apple tree over by an abandoned storefront. It wants pruning, but somehow, despite the drought and lack of care, put out a bumper crop of golden apples that are just now starting to fall. I park my car in its shade and pull a canvas shopping bag out and bend to pick up the windfalls.

After the Monstrous Drought

As I come over to the other side, I start. A woman stands silently with her own bag in her hand. “Oh, hello!” I laugh. “I'm glad I'm not the only one who appreciates these apples!” She is friendly, but seems disappointed in the apples. “These are bad apples,” she tells me. Judging from her lovely, colorful clothes and her accent, she is from the Indian subcontinent. I look into my bag. Yes, many are a little wormy and some are bruised from falling off the tree. They seem to be a golden delicious, nicely firm. I tell her that I just pick them up anyway and cut out the bad parts, peeling them and freezing the good parts for pies. We chat a little at our work, and walk away with maybe a half a bushel each. I take my harvest home and that night I sit in the Adirondack chair and peel and core them until it gets dark, then move my production in the house, collecting a big bowl of parings for the chickens.

I stop to watch the flow
of golden kernels..

 But I am not the only one harvesting. Yesterday I came home to find Jim and Sean in the fields, cutting the corn. I didn't have high hopes for the bounty of this year's crop, but I still love to watch the big combine slowly making its way across the field, leaving a wake of cornstubble. The grain truck waits by the road and periodically the combine creeps over to dump its load of corn into the waiting truck. I stop to watch the flow of golden kernels. Dust rises and the pile grows. The air fills with the ringing of grain flowing through the metal tube and dropping into the truck. When the combine is empty, it turns slowly back to cut more corn.

 I stood for a moment and watched. I had laundry to hang and bread to loaf, lessons to plan and papers to grade. I thought about shirking my duties and shedding my cares, running out into the field, waving my hand and chasing down the combine. Whoever was driving would stop and let me climb aboard, sitting up in the glass paneled cabin high above everything. Jim or Sean would kindly listen to my questions about the rhythms of the farmer's year, and entertain with kindly amusement my latest crazy ideas for what to plant in the grass waterway. But this evening, responsibility wins out and I gather my bags and turn to go into the house, thinking that I'll catch them when they harvest the beans.

Harvest Beauty;
Reap Peace;
Blessed Be.

RAIDING THE NEIGHBORS' TOMATO PATCH

Birdland is full of Fall.

BIRDLAND IS DAMP AND CHILLY AND FULL OF FALL. Leaves fall, walnuts fall, rain falls, temperatures fall. Night falls early and the day comes late. Last Monday I lay in bed and convinced myself that it was so dark when my alarm went off that surely it was time to set the clocks back again. It was nearing 7, and the sky was just lightening. But when I got up to check, instead of finding I had another hour to get ready for work, I discovered we still had a few weeks left of daylight savings time, and this morning I had to pay with my hopeful thinking by rushing to get ready for the day.

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but this year I just didn't have it in me to garden. Instead, I've been keeping my eye on the tomatoes at Barb and Dave's house. They have the best tomato patch with assorted varieties. Big, chunky salad tomatoes, summery grape tomatoes, sugary cherry tomatoes. I've invited myself over to help keep them picked, and they are very generous with their bounty. The vines always seem to be full of fruit in all stages of ripeness. We've been keeping an eye on the weather, too, hoping to strip the vines just before the first frost. This afternoon I received a frantic text from Barb, asking me to come by and pick. We're supposed to get our first frost tonight. I had told her about my method of ensuring a winter's crop: just before the frost, cut the vines and hang them upside-down in the basement. The vines die, but the green tomatoes slowly ripen, and we have red tomatoes into January. They tend to get a little wrinkled on the outer skin, but they taste at least as good, or better than, grocery store tomatoes. Barb told me she wasn't going to have time to harvest, so I should go and cut all I want. I picked up Ellis and his friends and drove to Barb and Dave's. Their oldest son was home with a cozy fire, and I popped my head in to tell him I was raiding the garden. “That's what it's there for,” he said. I raided the kitchen, too, for a salad bowl and some plastic bags, and first set about picking the red tomatoes, and there were plenty. I left a big bowl of all varieties on their counter, and we filled several bags to take home. Tomorrow we'll have fresh tomato soup.

The sun was setting and the air was crisp. The fruit was cold, too, and the chill was beginning to seep into our hands. The boys thought we had plenty of tomatoes, but the hard work was ahead of us. Barb and Dave's tomato patch has lovely wooden cages, pointed at the top, like tall pyramids, and painted green. The bushes grow tall into these cages, sometimes two plants together, so that big beefy tomatoes are intertwined with the cherry or grape tomatoes. Pulling out whole plants was impossible, so we began cutting off branches and piling them into the back of my car. The boys were glad when the car was finally full to the top, but the work was still not finished.

At home I drilled hooks under the basement stairs and bundled the branches together with string to hang from the hooks. I used to hang whole plants, roots and all, from ancient nails in the joists. It worked well, but the roots brought in a lot of dust, and the plants were so big that picking the ripe ones was sometimes difficult. I hope that hanging bundles of branches will make picking easier.

Yellow Pear Tomatoes

When I finally finished it was dark, but I still wanted to gather the walnuts I've been stumbling over on the front walk. I did it mostly by feel and gathered about a bushel. I thought about how much I love the Autumn when we can reap what we sowed in the spring. And if we didn't have time to do our spring sowing? Our world is pretty fertile. We need only look around to see what is provided for us by the trees and by the generosity of neighbors.

Collect Beauty; Garner Peace; Blessed Be.

CHICKEN ON THE LOOSE!

 AUTUMN SEEMS TO BE BLOWING THROUGH BIRDLAND, and I haven't quite got the hang of a cool weather closet. I pull out a sweater but find myself at the soccer game wishing I'd chosen a jacket and maybe gloves. It's suddenly damp, too, and the grass is greening up, and growing after its long weeks of stagnancy. I think I'll mow once more if I can remember how, and then put the mower away until Spring.

 The chickens have outgrown the aviary, and I need to transfer them to the garden coop before long. The garden coop needs a new door, which I bought several weeks ago, but is still sitting in the basement waiting for a coat of varnish. I also need to build new nesting boxes for the inside of the coop. The idea is to slowly transition them back to a free range lifestyle. I've been letting them out in the late afternoon with Ursula on the leash. She tries to be good, but she is a bird dog at heart. On the leash she seems curious and friendly, but still tries to tangle with the big rooster, who baits her constantly, though more than once she has grabbed him by his hackles and run around the yard with him. I believe she is only playing, but her play is pretty rough. He can still manage to get away from her, but I'd rather she learn that chickens are not toys.

 This morning as I was carrying food to the chickens, a little Barred Rock pullet dashed out the door as I stepped inside. Ursula was out, but occupied. I always spill a little food for her midway between the house and the chickens, to distract her from racing around the aviary, upsetting the flock. I scatter the pellets on the path, and she is quite occupied with snuffling up every last one of them, so when I realized catching the chicken would be a two person effort, I shut the door and snuck up on Ursa instead. Luck was on my side and I was able to grab her and walked her into the house before she realized the little chicken was out. “Walking” her into the house is harder than it looks. She wasn't wearing a collar, and she's too big for me to carry, so it was an awkward dance. We made it to the kitchen door, and then I called for reinforcements to retrieve my little stripped chicken.

The trick to catching a chicken is not to panic. Ursula and Ellis can outrun a chicken, but even that takes some doing. I don't stand a chance of winning that footrace. Chasing is no good. It's much better to use psychology: what does a chicken want? The chicken feed I just brought out to the coop. All of her sisters and the two roos are gathered around the feeder, clucking contentedly and greedily pecking. She wants in on the fun, but now the door is shut and she doesn't see how to get back home. If one person holds open the door and discourages the others from escaping, it's an easy matter to walk slowly counter-clockwise around the aviary, herding her toward the open door. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries, but eventually the chicken walks in, the door swings shut, we go back to the kitchen to finish our coffee and start our day. Maybe some long sleeves, a sweater. Do I need a jacket? I look up at the overcast sky. An umbrella, just in case.

Coax Beauty; Pursue Peace: Blessed Be.