May 30, 2003

And then, today: a pastorale, performed with lawnmower, compost pile, and pitchfork.

Or, as much of a pastorale as you can have with a car wash on the other side of your back fence.

Grass grows really fast, or at least our small patch of it does. More accurately, our patch of grass grows at a pace that easily outmatches my motivation to mow it. Whether that's objectively "really fast" or not I don't know, but I tend to doubt it. Nonetheless, following a strange restless night during which the power was out for two-and-half hours, prompting fears for a 'fridge chock full o' fresh foodage (mmm...cow-brisket...), I dragged myself off the bed, threw on the duck boots, and fired up the mower.

Mundane, I know, but a welcome contrast to every single aspect of the city. There: millions of people I don't know in close proximity. Here? Frank the Tractor Collector. There: a near-total absence of greenery, which immediately reminds me of small trees knocked over by buildings. Here? So much greenery I have to kill some of it and chop the rest of it down to size lest it overwhelm me and become living space for small creatures. There: Showers of soot, unexpected bird droppings, and dead newborn pigeons from ill-secured cornice nests. Here? Showers of vibrantly green maple seeds and squirrel nests.

It's true: Flick and Flack have two or three adolescent squirellettes, now, and despite having two fine high-rise apartments in the pine tree out front, they elected to pile a bunch of leaves into the hollow spaces of the porch roof and move in. Some broom-thumping and the expert use of a handheld super-soaker pistol convinced them to change neighborhoods. The next day, the lower of the two high-rise nests was all over the sidewalk. Wild rodent nesting material is its own ecology: fleas, small flies, squirmy unidentifiable grub-like things, and other sundry nest-guests abound, plastered with droppings and bits of fluffy fur insulation. Flick and Flack have been raiding the box pile in the deck out back, so the mess was also full of sodden cardboard, and bits of faded Christmas ribbon that they stole from the trash.

The message, I think, was clear: if you forcibly relocate us we will knock our other house down.

That's Squirrel for pbthpbth! I guess, and still vastly preferable to anything that might fall on your head in the city.