New pal

My newest pal. Not clear to me whether the mouse is male or female so for now, it lives in its own glass house. But it likes to sit on my shoulder while I write. Tiny whiskered muse. . .

Mouse with Mouse

Home

5:00 pm -- already dark. Just came in from the river and a two hour row in 65 degree weather. I watched the wind pull an oak leaf off a branch and then the leaf drifted peacefully down and floated across the reflection of its own tree. . .

Sad PS

The possum died, but not before she had a scrumptious full plate of cat food. She had a safe, warm place for her last bit of time on earth. I buried her in the back yard in a nest of golden leaves, in a place where the sun first touches the yard as it rises. Poetic but ridiculous since possums are nocturnal. Oh well.

ONE OF THE MANY REASONS I LOVE WINTER

The river's always right there, though foliage screens into invisibility late May through early November. My part of Kittery still hasn't had a hard frost so we've held on to flowers and leaves and wits a bit longer this year. Now the trees are starting to think it's time to let go. Late afternoon, I am wonderfully surprised--as I am every year--by sunset light glittering right over the water into my window. Not a great picture but still, you get the idea. One of the many reasons I love winter. It returns to me the river.

Center for Wildlife today. Got to visit the three squirrels I raised. They were in an outdoor cage, sitting up on high shelves. Their tails fluffed up behind them like autumn clouds. Eating acorns. Three beauties! Soon to be released back into the woods. They started out so scrawny and broken and are now nothing but beautiful. And I did see the release of Great Horned Owl who'd been at the Center since July. Oh, yeah. Amy let go and that owl was off into evening in one big happy hurry!

This isn't my picture but nevertheless, the bathtub possum could be this possum's sister. . .

Opossum with concussion in my bathtub

I was walking the dogs this evening when I spotted a confused opossum on the sidewalk ahead of us. Tied the excited dogs to a telephone pole and went to examine the poor juvenile opossum who let me walk right up . . .couldn't see any blood but suspect the critter had just been
grazed by a car. She turned in a little half-hearted spiral then just stopped and looked at me as if to say, "How has my life come to this?" If she'd her wits about her, she would have fled the minute she saw me and/or the dogs. Up to speed, an opossum can go at a fairly decent clip, about 4 miles per hour. Decided I couldn't leave her there. She was at the mercy of humans both in and out of cars. So took off my coat, bundled her up like a baby, held her in one arm, while I untied the dogs, took their leashes in my other hand and set off under the still-mighty-full-moon toward home, hoping that she stayed dazed long enough to forget about trying to bite me. Opossums have lots of sturdy teeth. Now she's in the bathtub with a small dish of wet cat foot and also water. If she survives the night, I'll take her up to the Center for the Wildlife in the morning. A doolally opossum's in the bathtub and all's right with the world.

Sixty degrees today on the river this afternoon. My new BFF, a young ring-billed gull who kept me company the whole time I was out on the water. I followed this trail of light while rowing and as yet have no plans to return.

While cleaning an outdoor cage at CFW, got a very bad nail puncture. Went to the Dr. for a tetanus shot but that resulted in a fever? I guess. I went to bed in two pairs of pjs covered with a fleece top, wool socks on my feet, wool socks on my hands (who knows where their gloves are when suddenly the body goes polar and its the middle of the night), a hat, covered by two down puffs and a fat warm bedspread, radiators cranking out 80 degree heat. And I couldn't get warm. (I didn't take this picture. . .) But it gives you a pretty good idea what the inside of me felt like last night.

Not as easy as you might think to take a picture of yourself very nearly covered with birds. Stella's looking out the window. Perma-dove's picking out his read for the day. I'm working on a poem. All's right with the world, tho possibly I could use one more bird for my right shoulder. . .just to balance things out. . .

A Happy Birthday
by Ted Kooser

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

Sorry to be repetitious but I am, as they say in Great Britain, gobsmacked. Today my neighbors put up a sign to show the snow where to fall. . .Or perhaps they are planning to sell snow this winter and are pointing to the site of their future snow store. It's hard to tell in cases like this just what's really going on. . .Any ideas?

Have I mentioned lately that I am in love with THIS BOAT?

65 degrees today. I emptied last weekend's storm out of the boat and went rowing. But not far. The outgoing tide was wickedly strong. So I rowed in sweet circles right by the dock. Is it all right to be in love with a boat? I am in love with my boat. I am deeply, deeply in love with my boat. I don't see this love affair ending anytime soon.

This is from Caroline Smith & John Astop.
The Elemental Tarot.
And reminds me that while say things, one
to another, other more important messages
are passing between us.

Last flowers to survive the frost are keeping the camel lamp company. The camel, in turn, guards the desk and desk, now a squirrel and dove playground, inspires fabulous drawings and poems!

All day cold rain. Frost tonight or tomorrow night. So I'm posting this flower lamp. Because.

My squirrels are now eating plates of whole wheat bread and formula. They are old enough that they don't want to be hand fed anymore. And they no longer want to play the Mekeel Is A Pine Tree game. A few more days and I will return them to the wildlife center. They'll be released back into the wild very soon. If I'm lucky, I'll have three more babies to raise for release before winter sets in.

Not always easy for a human to be a tree.

Not a hat. Not a cloud. Not a bad idea. Just a wonderful new brain, purchased for $3 at a local farm stand.
Now all I have to do is figure out how to install it (and get the cabbage juice out of my hair.)

Getting Ready for Winter

Weather's still warm, more like spring than summer, or late summer. No frost yet. Every year, the frost comes later and later. Nevertheless, I'm shifting my attention to the clouds because soon that's where the best blooming will be. . .

Tire cover I saw on an SUV in the school parking lot. She's impressive, if not for her super-powers, then certainly for her dimensions. What a crack up.

Luna Fortuna Secunda Columbidae Fos

Late summer, early autumn, there's a very rare flower, maybe only three or four of them in a year, in the whole United States. In Latin, the name of this flower is:
luna fortuna secundna columbidae fos
and it means something like
"good luck moon-dove flower."
As you can see, I am one of the lucky ones who found such a flower in my own garden!

I'm just goofing. That's Stella the live dove nesting in flowers I brought inside from the garden!

The instructions are from a book called Journal Spilling by Diana Trout
1. Work quickly
2. Choose a magazine and rip out 7 - 10 pages
3. Then choose 7 - 10 images, again quickly
4. Without thinking, place the images on the paper, fast.
5. Scribble

I work slowly and I don't scribble so this exercise turned out to be both difficult and then, fun!

from
FORESTER MOTHS
K.A. Efetor
G.M. Tarmann

Please Do Not Become A Moth

I’ve caught you beginning to look crepuscular,
soft and lost, your edges singed by simple daylight;
at your sides, arms now part wing – like two flags
of surrender the enemy never bothered to notice.
Loss has shrunk you so much even a sparrow
might devour you. When I see you again, I know
you will look like just a man. But once the buried
secret reveals itself, that darkness only grows. So I’m
making sure the moon knows how much you need
its soft cool glow. And I’m folding tin foil into flowers,
filling them with sugar, tying them to leafless branches,
one way of adding a little bit of summer to what now
can only be winter. To me, you will not be coming home
again ever, though home is still my hope for you.

What Happens To Money In My House

A wonderful artist friend sent me a check to pay for something that didn't need to be paid for. After the check
had been in my house for a few hours,
it mysteriously transformed into what you now see. Non-negotiable, I'd say.

Once in awhile, usually on a rainy evening, it becomes visible. . .

When I was twenty eight, I had a dream about a raven who
came to my door with a ring in its beak. A wishing ring. I
still wear it though your first impulse might be not to believe me.
It is, after all, made of dream-metals and so, invisible. . .

Two Hundred Million Reasons to Love Crows #1.

There are about two hundred million reasons to love crows. The first one is:
they are more glossy beautiful than Marilyn Monroe or fresh asparagus or opera by Puccini or clouds shaped like the lost hanging gardens of Babylon or. . .

Swept Up Whole/Kay Ryan

SWEPT UP WHOLE

You aren't swept up whole,
however it feels. You're
atomized. The wind passes.
You recongeal. It's
a surprise.

-Kay Ryan

Belonging

This is my last sunflower. It opened yesterday and isn't just leaning toward the sun. It flattens itself at noon to be a plate, just in case the sun should decide to fall. This sweetie says,"I'll
catch you!"

Have been watching bees all afternoon. They're taking turns with this sunflower. One after another. And they each rotate around once counter-clock wise, as if to say -- you humans tell time backwards. It's really only a matter of how much pollen you can carry away from each blossom. I agree.

I love how much this bee looks like its flower no matter which flower it's on!

One of the most beautiful days on earth. Everything in the garden, from dragonflies, to big fat honey bees, to me -- all soaking in the late, warm light.

Late blossom hoping to become eggplant. I may have to repot the plant and bring it indoors but I'm willing. . .

Marigolds

Origin of the word marigold:
Middle English from the given name Mary, referring to the Virgin Mary + dialect gold

Used for:
tooth aches
headaches
swellings
strengthening the heart
soups
stews
mashed into oil & put
on wounds
festivals
draws evil humors out of the head
strengthens eye sight
stimulant
remedy for pain and bee sting
marigold water in the eyes helps one to see
spirits
herb of the sun
love charms
causes a witch to lose her will
added to pillows to encourage prophetic or psychic dreams
effective in stopping gossip
good for mixing with chicken feed--turns the eggs
extra yellow and the chickens, too
healing skin lotions

If I were telling time by the garden, I'd say that summer is finally here.

Moon Man McBride

Here lies Moon Man who loved to run on what he called his Millennium Wheel or sometimes, The Eye, I'm on the London Eye! He'd go for 10 mouse-miles then stop to wash his whiskers, ears and rosebud nose. Then snack on a seed or berry or a long dried strand of timothy hay and be on his way again on the yellow wheel. As if this journey were brand new, one of a kind, never to happen again. And slept all day in a tea box house, on a bed of shredded grass and bits of pillow stuffing. And he took sunflower seeds from my hand, never failed to peek out of whatever hiding place he was in when I called his name. One of a kind, bright little zen friend, laid to rest on a bed of zinnias, marigolds and fresh mint. He will be so missed.

Beautiful enough to be stained glass. Or the kind of coins they used in Oz or Atlantis.

Don't know what these are but all I can say is I wish my hair looked like this! Whatever they are, they're tiny,
only about the size of the fingernail on your pinkie.

Their heads are beginning to grow heavy. They stop watching the sun and lean toward the earth. So full of riches. Bees and song birds have been feasting. But every sunflower leaves the ghost of itself behind and so they cannot fail to reappear next year.

Except for some hardy tomatoes, everything edible from the garden vanished weeks ago, either eaten by slugs and/or woodchucks or drowned in the monsoons of June. But today, in the back of the garden, I discovered one tiny eggplant! Worth its sweet little weight in gold. Below -- a picture of its actual size.

A success story, no matter the size.

With the help of a zinnia,a sunset begins to practice its usual beautiful revelations.

Stella, the mourning dove's new friend. Stella is a domestic dove. People often release these doves at weddings or funerals but unfortunately they don't know how to fend for themselves in the wild. She was found starving to death and brought to the Center for Wildlife. If you want to release something at a wedding (or funeral) white pigeons
are the way to go.

Emily Dickinson

These are the days when Birds come back --
A very few -- a Bird or two --
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old -- old sophistries of June --
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee --
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear --
And softly thro' the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze --
Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake --
They consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!

Went rowing yesterday and today. Last evening, the water was calm and quiet, herons gliding by overhead. When I came in, I carried a dusky stillness with me. This afternoon, a whole different story. I nearly got run over twice by power boats and had to duck and dodge big sailboats for nearly the whole row. But it doesn't matter. I was out on the river and there's no where else I'd rather be.

Apple for the teacher? I picked this beauty from a fruit tree in Durham. The tree's loaded with fruit that seems to be going to waste, probably because the apples have spots. Next time I pass by, I'll be sure to bring a bag.

Am starting back to teach tomorrow after eight months on sabbatical. Oh how I wish everyone could have that gift of time. The ability to just stop.
And recoup. I'm very happy to be going back. Have missed my students.
Have missed the wonderful energy that happens in a classroom. Maybe I will take my dove to class. . .

Just Another Ordinary Day on the River

Am mesmerized by the patterns stones make in walls. How they do and do not fit together and yet -- there is a wall. Would love to do a painting of this section.

And these many greys are much like the greys I saw down on the dock this afternoon as I bailed tropical storm Danny out of my boat. I'd throw water out and the wind would throw it right back. After awhile it seemed like a game. Took me a long time to win.
To the seagulls, it was just another
ordinary day on the river.

The Most Beautiful Boat in the World

I finally got my boat into the water. Had to sneak into a neighbor's yard to get this picture. She has 4 or 5 dogs who were driven into a frenzy by my trespassing. Sounded like 10 or 11 dogs, really. Who cares. Worth it for a picture of the most beautiful boat in the world.

Late and Nearly Only Sunflower

The rainiest June on record did away with most of the sunflowers I planted. This one just began to open a few days ago. Can there really be that much hair on the leaves? I never noticed before. Doesn't this vaguely resemble a Venus Fly Trap?

One for the Green

This truck belongs to a neighbor who lost his driver's license. Looks to me like he might not be getting it back.