Thankful Rita (*1)

 

So I have successfully located Mommy's famous turkey head centerpiece again this year! Of course, I forgot to procure a pineapple, so this year it's installed on a log. The mini squashes are from our garden, and the brand new blue tablecloth is on its virgin voyage; thank you to Beatrice and John for Bob's birthday gift! It will be gravy and cranberry stained by day's end.

What am I thankful for this year?!??! Fuck 2020! It's almost (thankfully!!) over... hooray!

Let's see: I know I'm thankful for Bob; a heckuva guy. He fixed the barn roof recently, finishing up while recovering from an eye procedure- service above and beyond the call of duty. He (as we all know) is a great sculptor and a fun guy to have around. (He also doesn't lose it when I do things like buy a new horse. Gotta be grateful for that!)

I'm thankful every minute of every day for Robin the Good. A splendid friend and a wonderful dog. (She asks, "What's a "dog"?!?") My partner in gardening and studio time and pretty much everything else. My little shadow...

I think I'm grateful for having two horses. Sometimes they can be a pain in the ass like when they want to kill each other when food is involved... like all the time (so much for peaceful herd animals!) But in general, Maggie and Neko are entertaining and I can ride one of them. (Maggie is amused by my requiring Neko to do weird stuff; she watches us in the round pen and laughs.)

I'm thankful that I have a nice family, even if I didn't get to see them this Thanksgiving. Hello Cathy! Hello Beatrice! Hello John! Maybe next year? I promise to get a pineapple for the turkey head. (And John: I especially miss that cranberry sauce you make!! A tragedy to be without it!)

I'm grateful for all our wonderful friends. We may not be able to visit in person now that the weather is colder, but at least making contact on the phone is a good thing. It's good to know they're out there.

I'm so existentially glad that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election that I cannot say anything else without stumbling all over myself and becoming redundant. Thank you to all 70+ million Americans who voted for them. Democracy lives!

I guess I'd also have to admit to being thankful that we haven't contracted COVID 19. So many people have died and I go back to my previous statement that 2020 pretty much sucked. 

Onward and upwards as we hurtle towards a new year!

(*1) I am making a sideways reference to the "Thankful Arnold House" in Haddam, Connecticut. Bob and I have never been but pass the sign occasionally and say to one another, "Wonder what that's all about? We'll have to go sometime." I used think that that was some guy's name- "Thankful Arnold" but after visiting their website, I found out Thankful was a woman's first name and Arnold was her last name. Here's the link; they have an exhaustive section about outhouses from those times. Exciting!

Thnakful Arnold House

 

Wild Kingdom

 

Because I never think to carry a camera with me at all times, I mostly succeed in missing all the really dramatic visitations that occur in our yard. Hence, Robin the Good's stuffed animal collection will offer stand-ins for the actual critters. (Above is "Snake", one of Robin's favorite toys. There are three (3!!) squeakers in this play thing which lends an almost stereophonic soundscape to her rough-housing.)

Coyotes have become a regular feature of life in the wilds of suburban Connecticut. Alarmingly, last week I opened the back door at 10:00 in the morning to hear what I thought was a siren. On closer listen, I realized- as did Robin who wanted back into the house- that it was a pack of coyotes. Out and hunting in broad daylight seemingly just one backyard away. Yikes! Probably hunting turkeys...

So we have turkeys; boy do we have turkeys! There's a flock, or a slew, or... what's the group name for turkeys? A throng? Dunno but we have what must be an extended family of them. Every day or two, they make a slow-motion appearance in the horse field. The horses don't seem perturbed, but Robin goes ballistic. They show up and dine on horse poop. They also are no doubt eating endless bugs and ticks so they are indeed welcome.

(Okay, that's "Bison". I thought it was a squirrel when I purchased it, but it does have horns and on closer examination, yes, it's definitely a buffalo). Anyway, the other day when I was playing with Neko in the round pen, She kept flexing her nostrils and holding her head really high, like she was smelling something. I trying peering across our stream to the area that was holding her interest. I saw motion in the bushes and thought maybe it was our resident fox but NO! It was a large and muscular bobcat. I was brandishing my (long) lunging whip anyway, so I ran to the lower end of the round pen and swung my whip around and ululated loudly. The bobcat- correctly- assumed it was being hunted by a human lunatic and took off towards the nature preserve which our property abuts. Good riddance!

(That's "Alien". Robin doesn't care one whit for Alien but I like him/her.) I saw something that not please me at all the other night. When taking Robin out for her late-night pee, I thought I detected a large dark form near our side fence, between the birch clump and the wood pile. Holy fucking crap! It was a deer! We have been blessedly free of these cloven hoofed vermin; all they do is chew things to pieces. It scrambled to safety as I bolted out of  the house, (again) ululating wildly. (I think there is a pattern developing here. If it keeps the wildlife in abeyance, I'll gladly keep exercising the weirder aspects of my sound-making capabilities!)

("Frog" who makes a peculiar crunching/clunking noise because you put an empty plastic container inside of it. Robin's had this toy forever and he's stood the test of time and constant dog chew.) We also have a neighbor's stanky Siamese cat that insists on putting in guest appearances. I just don't like this pest, particularly because it emerged from the hay section of our barn once and the area smelled like nasty cat piss for days. It's a grudge match since then, with me hollering like a banshee and giving chase (sometimes in the car... don't ask) when I see it. (Our next door neighbors on the other side of the driveway witnessed one of my finer performances involving this cat several years back. I believe I recounted that particularly embarrassing event in a previous blog.) 

(Your guess is as good as mine, here. Chipmunk? Squirrel? Corduroy hybrid? I had to replace the eyes as Robin pulled them off early in this toys debut at our house; that only added to it's elusive identity.) So what else? We do have a fox that stops by. And Bob has a special gaggle of crows that await his mouse offerings. I think they've missed him these past few days as he recuperates. The crows were massed by the driveway and vegetable garden- unusual location for them!- and seemed to be looking for Bob. Don't tell them, but we did catch a mouse and I'll be delivering it to them soon.

Our friends (Hi Sheldon! Hi Louise!) in Hamden have had a bear ramble up the driveway recently. No thank you! You can keep the bears! We have plenty enough wild life without bears!
 

 

Exhaustion... And Relief!

 

I'm so relieved! So relieved, in fact, that I am starting a new piece that has NOTHING TO DO with The Orange Menace or all the lies and trouble he has caused. How's THAT for radical??!?! Although when I was shopping for fabric, I had three people exclaim, "Oh! that's such pretty material! What are you going to make?" (I think they expected me to say, "A winsome frock!" or some such nicety.) I replied, "I make profanity-laced political banners." One woman retorted, "Oh, that's nice." Another older (even than me) woman asked and I once more offered that I make political banners. She suggested that the election is over... implying that there's no room for politics anymore. I replied that although I was very happy with the outcome of the election, as an artist, there is always something political to address. Such is my mission!

But yes, relief and exhaustion. I know that many of us are experiencing this combination. I wanted to call friends and sing praises of democracy in action, but I've been so tired that crawling into bed and reading and then... YES!! SLEEPING!! Deep, restful sleep. Or, more to the point, safe and restful, sleep, sleep, sleep.(*1) I am certain we face many up-hill and stupid battles between here and inauguration day (biggest one EVER!!) thanks to intransigent rethuglicans and a little poor-loser dictator that just won't quit. But we won!

And how's this for a hopeful sign? I was walking past the compost pile and I spied something orange. It was a gazania, alive and still in bloom despite last week's below freezing temperatures and being chucked out of a pot. A bit of sunshine to help us along!

(*1) Although I did have a truly weird dream that Rudy Giuliani helped me steal a very large (blue) dump truck to help try and rescue someone. He was actually a good person in the dream; how warped is that?!?

 

 

And A Little More Anxiety Please!!

 

Don't be fooled: the photograph of our jack o' lantern is a distraction. I didn't think to document the following story as it was unfurling as it was too real-time awful and all-demanding of our attentions.

Never a dull minute around here! I trotted out "bright and early" (read actually pitch dark and fucking freezing) to feed the ponies. (*1) (You knew it had to involve them, right?) There's Neko, never one to be late for a meal, already waiting at the gate issuing, "I'm hungry!" and "Where have you been with my morning slops?!?!" whinnies. I'm wondering where Maggie is but figure she knows by now I feed her on the other side of the fence, away from our friend Neko (who bolts her food so as to scarf Maggie's down as well). I'm looking and looking and still no Maggie so I open the gate and start walking down the field when I spy a dark lump on the hillside. My first thought is, "Oh hell; Maggie has gone and died!" but when I called her name, her head came up and she nickered to me. 

Sure enough, just like last year (look it up on my blog) Maggie had once again cast herself on the hill. Her feet were uphill and she couldn't right herself. Additionally, poor Maggie is as old as that hill and probably not the strongest equine around. I went down to her and petted her head and made sure her blanket wasn't caught on her legs and preventing her from standing. Tough old thing that she is, she kept trying to stand. I even went and got her grain, thinking food being a super inducement, she might succeed in standing. It didn't work so I retreated to the house to inform Bob that, "Houston, we have a problem." I'm positive that Bob's love of horses is growing astronomically every day!

Did I mention that there was snow on the ground, it was 22 degrees and still only 7:00, pre-time change? And then I remembered that my riding instructor had always said to call the horse farm if anything like this happened. And I did just that, despite not having left on especially hospitable terms. (Don't ask: an unfortunate string of events this springtime). Anyway, I called and Jess answered and agreed to rouse her husband and come right over. Troopers these horse people!!

A darker, nighttime picture for a visual interlude.

Neko kept eating, Jess and Scott arrived, Bob located ropes, I thrust a thermometer into Maggie's posterior (such fun!) and when it was documented that she was still warm and alive, ropes were looped around her feet and hey presto! Maggie was flipped over and stood up in a single bound and trotted off up the hill just like that.

Horses! Gotta love them (or not). They do some pretty stupid things and it is documented that they can get hurt on almost anything- including a slight hill in their pasture. I thanked Scott and Jess profusely and later bought them a really nice bottle of champagne (which I know they appreciated. How else to reward their heroic call to duty?!) (Although Sabina my riding instructor informed me, drily, that they didn't come to help me; they came to help the horse! Hahahahaha! Who cares?!) 

Bob was mad at Neko who seemed blissfully oblivious to her pasture pals distress but I guess someone among us had to maintain calm. 

So I'm still a nervous wreck about Tuesday's election, somewhat sanguine about the outcome but expecting havoc. And everything inducing stress in the last blog posting still applies. Bob thinks I need an exorcism!

(*1) I also have to insert that I really hadn't slept the night before at all (full blue moon etc) and had said to Bob, "After I feed the horses, I'm going back to bed". Really!??!?!?!!?!?