Dustbaths and Buzzcuts

North Carolina has been an inferno these past weeks, and everybody's got their own way of beating the heat.  I'm all about the Cook Out milkshakes, but the chickens have a different strategy.   They scratch the grass away in patches and then roll around in the cool earth below.  Batty is an enthusiastic dust-bather.

Tiny Dog suffers a bad haircut in order to get a little relief from the heat.

Ocklawaha to Eno

It's no secret that I grew up in the woods, in a trailer. It's something I like to tease myself about, especially if I have an audience. I was one of a legion of barefooted tomboys the Ocala National Forest turned out over the decades. But not everyone knows that I grew up in the woods on a river. The Ocklawaha River, to be precise, the muddy step-sister of the pristine, spring-fed Silver River, famous in Florida for its glass-bottomed boats and gigantic cyprus trees inhabitated by mysterious chattering families of feral monkeys. So, it wasn't just the bare feet, but also long pony-tailed hair perpetually dredded with river water, and shorts bottoms that were never anything but wet from a bathing suit underneath and muddy from river bank play. I remember always being sticky and sun-burnt and a heathen, really. When we were kids, we could spend a whole day cruising Juniper Run in a canoe, letting the river do all the work as we glided past 15 foot gators sunning themselves, great (and I mean great big) blue herons fishing for their suppers, and hordes of turtles piled cattywompus on partially capsized logs, all but an armspan away.  As children, we really had no sense of the surreal, I promise you.

Anyway, I thought I jumped that ship a long time ago.  Stepped out of the current and brought myself north to urban Durham, North Carolina, and Duke University, the proverbial fish out of river water.  I never joked even once, at Duke, about the woods or the trailor.  I knew, somehow, that it wouldn't have been funny. And I got used to thinking about Then and Now like they happened to two different people.

But this weekend, after a beautiful day lingering in the Eno River,which rumbles less than a mile from our house, Isaac said to me, "I feel sorry for people who don't have their very own river."

"Huh," I said, "Me too." And I surely meant it.  Guess that still makes me a river kid, doesn't it?  Wonder what that does to the whole Then and Now distinction. 

Just look at those river kids:

Jada is a water pixie and she promised to that her stick could mix a birthday present just for me out of the whole, entire river together:

Critter hunting:

Even a snake's heart isn't unaffected by Spring.  Look, they are making love:

The boys ran wild, roaring through the water:

They would disappear at times, so I would wade down a ways until I spotted them playing together on the bank:

Or sword-fighting down by the bridge:

Tiny Dog doesn't like to get his paws wet, but he kept watch over his children at all times:

That face! Oh, how I love that little face!

Thank you, Eno, our very own river.

Cozy

More snowy morning images

At least somebody likes the snow. Tiny Dog loves to roll in it and gulp it up on every other leap. Check out his snowbeard.

Durham is currently populated by a tremendous number of unfortunate snowmen, now that melting has commenced.  My neighbors fortuitously placed their man in a mostly shady spot, so he has been slower to melt than some.  While he looks a bit anorexic, at least he does not have to cope (yet) with headlessness.

Let it Snow

It's a white, white world

We don't see mornings like this very often in north carolina.  It started last night as I drove home from work and all appearences indicate it did not let up while I slept.  We have drifts!  Drifts, I say! The little dog is fearless -- his legs are too short to walk in the stuff, so he leaps through it.  It adds an element of joy to his morning business.

I'm guessing we got 6 inches? 8 inches? My coop-mucking boots kept me dry but not warm.  Actually, from head to toe, I was sorely underdressed for the weather. But the chickies needed to be fed and watered! I'm wishing for some of those insulated Carhart bibbies my brother is so fond of.

A good morning

I got up an hour and a half earlier than I usually do on a Saturday morning.  And what a beautiful morning it was to get up to.  The sunshine was worth it.

Morning Fur and Feathers

At last count, we were up to 14.  Pets that is.  When you take out the nine chickens, that still leaves three cats, one tiny dog, and a three-legged lizard.  Isaac suggested that I list them all here, in alphabetical order. (Isaac thinks all things are improved when placed in alphabetical order).  So, here they are: Atticus Finch, Batty, Black Beak, Cricket, GoldenHeadRedClaw, Goldilocks, Jane, Miss Mouse, Rainbow, Ralphie, Rosalind, Skye, Storm Cloud, Tinydog.  Whew!

Each critter has its own little personality, its own set of needs, and its own way of making Isaac and I smile.  For Isaac, they have allowed his empathic spirit to blossom and his patience to deepen.  I think it is a rare eight year old who successfully tames a skittish chicken over the course of several months.  Look at them now, sneaking in an early morning cuddle before we head out to school:

To me, the animals truly are a reason to wake up in the morning, especially for those three days a week when Isaac is with his Daddy.  On those days, my first smile of the morning is always for my Cricket cat.  She sleeps tucked next to my cheek on the pillow at night so that she can greet me with a gentle head bump first thing in the morning.  I love that little girl. 

It is such a simple thing reallly.  They need us, so we rise up and do what needs to be done.  We fill their bowls, let them out, and turn around to let them right back in again.  We build them safe places to roost and sew tiny felted fish for them to bat around and lose under the couch.  We rescue them from a life tied to a tree in someone's backyard and give them bad haircuts with dull scissors (just an aside -- dogs with standing up ears look terrible with mohawks).  It isn't complex, why they are so important.  But it is profound.  The make us do.  And for anyone like me who has felt the frozen-in-place all the time un-doing of depression, these sweet fur and feather babies are indispensible.

Dog is my co-pilot

TinyD, Isaac and I roadtripped to see our dear ones in Greenville this weekend.  As always, Tiny Dog rode shotgun.  It was a blustery Sunday so we had a spectacular view:

Here's something I learned while in Greenville.  Steve and Amanda get up butt early.  I mean, you can't even call it morning when they get up.  They wake up before even the baby does, which to me is so incomprehensible as to leave me stuttering and stupid.  The thing is, it's all part of their plan.  Those two excel at planning, and somehow, the painfully early start to their day makes it possible for them both to take classes, teach classes, and do the baby-care without having to put their wee one in daycare.  I bow low before them, reigning royalty of the pre-morn.

Isaac and I rose much later, when the baby was already awake and giggling.  We lay abed for quite a while, I snoozing and Isaac keeping me company nearby.  Isaac has learned over the years to take advantage of my drowsy confusion.  He knows how to time his more outlandish requests for that time when I am least likely to refuse.  He'll ask, "Mom, can I have a cupcake for breakfast?"  and I, in my morning haze say, "Sure...ummm...what?...wait!"  But all he hears is the "Sure."  He also knows how to beat a hasty retreat while simultaneously feigning deafness.  Here he is this morning, playing video games in bed, something I have no memory of giving permission for.  Also notice how we are setting a bad example for the baby cousin:

Here's another picture of those cute early bird cousins.  Isaac is teaching Julian to count to ten and Julian is teaching Isaac that babies don't care about counting: