Curtis and the Ghost Bone

Writing on January 12, the Ghost Bone has shrunk from over 9" to just 4" long. Curtis has been happily chewing it whenever he's hongry and it's not mealtime yet, or whenever I have house guests or a phone conversation and he wants to be part of it. But it wasn't always so...

 Curtis got the nickname Krampus at Christmas 2023 because he absolutely insisted on opening every gift before its recipient could have it. It was adorable, but it made the unwrapping process take hours upon hours. He is a very slow, nitpicky gift opener, tearing tiny shreds of paper away, savoring the process. 

So this Christmas I got him several alluring chewy treats (they have to be real; no toys or Nylabones for this primitive dog) and he spent almost the entire gift opening session finishing one small bully stick. Great! Krampus was occupied. In the center of everything, happy, but occupied. Surrounded by tiny shreds of giftwrap. And we were no longer his present prisoners.

 When he was done with that he started spelunking among the gifts and he found a huge collagen roll (who knows what that is--connective tissue, probably, but not rawhide, which is bad for him--and started in working on it. Perfect! 

He chewed on the bully stick and then the big collagen roll for so long I knew his jaws must be aching so after everything was cleaned up I took the big toy from him and put it high on the mantel overhead where there was no possibility he could reach it. I told him just to ask a human if he wanted it back, and we went about our merry business, me preparing a meal of prime rib, Hasselback potatoes, green beans and salad. The kids spent some time going through their loot and trying things on. 

You can see where I put the collagen roll in this sweet picture of Liam and Ayla. It's that foot-long tan-colored thing. Near the edge, but by no means hanging over it. There it would stay until the next sunny day, when I could let him out to chew it on the lawn.

Everybody gorged on the prime rib and sides, which miraculously got done by about 1 pm, and they'd all taken off for their next destinations by 2 pm. 

Curtis and I absolutely collapsed. It had been such a sweet but intense Christmas, and now it was over, just like that. 

I went downstairs to bed by 9 pm, leaving Curtis on his favorite couch. I was deep in a beautiful dream--it must have been about 1 AM--when Curtis whined at my door. I very reluctantly struggled up out of the dream, with no idea why Curtis chose to wake me. Was his stomach upset? I let him in, but instead of jumping up onto the bed, he circled the room a couple of times then stood looking out the greenhouse door. I could see him there, in the moonlight. What in the world? 

I shone my iPhone flashlight on him and there he stood, the giant collagen roll sticking straight out of his mouth like a huge cigar. He had brought it downstairs to show me. I will tell you that this is absolutely atypical of him. He is not a dog who meets you at the door, carrying a toy. Nor does he carry them from room to room. He just doesn't carry stuff around. Probably because he has no lower incisors and is missing a top right canine (thanks to no vet care in his first four years, and his penchant for pulling roots when he's digging) And yet here he was, in the screaming middle of the night, wanting me to see that he had this coveted bone.

But how had he gotten ahold of it? How indeed? That chew toy was a good 6 1/2 feet above the floor. There was absolutely no way he could have jumped up to reach it. 

In the  morning, I texted the kids to ask if anyone had taken it down for him. No, they hadn't. And a photo I took of the Christmas tree--you can see the time stamp of Wednesday, 4:05 pm--two hours after everyone left--shows it still firmly in place on the mantel. Inaccessible. I certainly hadn't given it to him, or touched it at all, before going to bed.

My mind turned in circles there in the dark as Curtis settled in to sleep. Needless to say, between his snoring, hogging the bed, and cutting bully stick farts, and my brain racing around wondering what the hell had just happened, I didn't get much more sleep that Boxing Day morning.

How did he get ahold of that roll? I decided it could only have been Bill's doing.

He loved Christmas morning. I'm sure he was in that room with us, and it seems he hung around into the  night, maybe sitting on the couch with Curtis, looking at the Christmas tree.

I texted the kids to ask how they thought Curtis got ahold of it. 

Liam: "Maybe Dad flew by and knocked it over?"

Phoebe: "I am sure Daddy knocked it down and scared him. I remember thinking it was funny when you told Curt to just ask one of us when he wanted to get it down. He must have sent a message at some point and since none of us answered, Daddy did."

Short of an earthquake (which didn't happen) or a rat (which we don't have, and it's too big and heavy to be moved by a mouse), I cannot come up with anything other than telekinesis that could have made that toy fall from its secure position on the mantel. I mean, look at it! 6.25 oz. it weighs. And it's square sided. It wouldn't have rolled.

Telekinesis seems about Bill's style, and the middle of the night was always when he came alive. 

I remember once when I told Bill that Chet Baker was sitting there staring at me, sending me pictures of a treat. I don't remember what treat it was, just that I got the message (and picture) loud and clear, and got up to give him what he'd asked for.

Bill scoffed, as men often feel they must. The unexplainable scared him, I guess.

(Until he became the unexplainable, and now he enjoys messing with the ones he left behind.)

 I shrugged. "You just wait 'til he sends you a picture." I should have said, "You just wait 

'til you're open to his mind pictures." Because animals are always sending them. 

It's our reception that's bad.

It wasn't many days later that Bill came up off the living room couch, saying, "That dog just sent me a picture of a little bowl of ice cream!"

I smiled. "Oh, so you got his message? Well, get him a little bowl of ice cream*!"

*(teebo icekeem)

I dragged myself out of bed on Boxing Day and gave the roll to Curtis in the morning. He really, really wanted to take it outside. I knew better than to let him, but who could say no to this soulful, dome-skulled boy, his tail waving hopefully?

First he carried it to the place where he chews and piles his bones, in the middle of the yard. And the next time I looked out it was gone, and Curtis with it.

I stood and listened hard for the jingle of his collar bell. And there it was, tinkling on the edge of the woods. Curtis had shoved the bone up under a fallen tree and packed lots of soil around it. He was about to cover all that with leaves when I swooped in and rescued the bone from certain death by mold.

He'd really packed that soil with his nose and paws! But I clawed it out from under the log.

Good job, Curtis! But we're taking this back indoors. We'll give it a wash.

Am I going to have to ask Daddy for it again? 

I reckon so, Curtis Loew. You and your ghost bone.

A Spark Bird for Liam?

On New Year's Eve, Phoebe, Liam, and I were texting about remembering to notice our first bird of 2025 the next morning. Liam was already back in Columbus, but Phoebe and Oscar were still here with me in Whipple. Liam got very excited about going to an actual birding place on New Year's Day and trying to see a really cool bird. A birding co-worker had told him about Pickerington Ponds Metropark south of Columbus, which is the only place I've ever seen sandhill cranes in breeding season in Ohio. Oh, YES. Go there, Liam and Ayla! Go there!

(Sadly, they were not as well protected from cold on New Year's Day as they were the day before Thanksgiving, when we went to see cranes in Indiana! Didn't have me there with the giant duffel full of Michelin Man down parkas...)

I was at Pickerington Ponds in February, 2016, and it was fulla ducks and I'm almost sure the cranes were there as well. If you look hard you can see some ducks flying over this beautiful barn, a signature sight at the park.

So he and Ayla climbed in the car, innocent of binoculars or field guide, because they don't own either. I was of course writhing with frustration, but there was nothing I could do about it from two hours away. Believe me I was tempted to drive up with the right gear. My boy wants to bird? I am ON that like Bluebonnet!

I knew they'd have fun with the water and the open sky, and I figured they'd see something cool, binoculars or none.

It wasn't long before I got a call. "Ma? We're looking at some ducks with a white spot on the head. Do you know what they might be?"

Well, they could be several things, this time of year. Buffleheads. Goldeneyes, for two. Liam said he thought the white spot was behind the eye. OK, that narrows it down...

"Can you take even a horrible cellphone photo of them?"

I got these a few minutes later, just what I'd asked for.

Ayla had thought to bring a small astronomical telescope, hand-held, and she somehow held her phone up to its eyepiece and got...something. But in this one I could eke out enough to figure out what they were.

I studied the photos. "Am I seeing cocked tails here?"

"Yes!" Liam answered. "Their tails are cocked!"

I fired back with some shots of my Sibley guide, opened to the pages I knew had the answer.

When Liam realized the mystery birds were hooded mergansers, his excitement knew no bounds. "That's so COOL!!" he kept exclaiming. 

It IS so cool! I could have gone to Pickerington Ponds with Liam and Ayla, and shown them those mergansers through a proper telescope, and I'm sure they'd have been pleased. The whole difference was that he and Ayla found them themselves, had no idea what they were, were burning to know, and figured out how to get the information they needed to identify them. (call Ma).

I know damn well I was about three times as excited as they were. THIS!!

Phoebe was to drive up and have lunch with Liam on her way home with Oscar today, Jan. 5. So the second I hung up with Liam, I started making a birdwatcher's care package. First, of course, was a pair of 10 power Swarovski binoculars, one of my spares. (I find I carry the smaller, lighter 8 power).

I put a brand new bino bra on them, with a Zick-decorated leather shield.

Next was the field guide his dad and I had worked together on, with help from Phoebe's fourth-grade class focus group at Salem-Liberty Elementary. Why, that's Phoebe on the cover!

Bill wrote it, and I did many of the illustrations (My dear friend Mike DiGiorgio did lots of the western species). 

I also wrote the WOW facts.

I included a lens cleaning kit for the binoculars, with a lens cloth with my photo on it. Phoebe had found this red-morph screech-owl along the driveway when she was coming home from work around 9:30 one night when she was in high school. She came in the house, grabbed a flashlight, told me to get my big camera, and said she was going to show me something. 
She literally led me by the hand across the yard and just down the little hill in the driveway. She whispered that I'd have probably only one chance to take the shot. She flicked on the light, found the owl, shone it; I took the shot, and the owl flew away.

And the shot was perfect. We had no right whatsoever to get a good shot, but somehow we did. Angry bird! SUCH a great moment, captured forever, never to be repeated.

February 28, 2013, 9:28 PM.

Then I wrote a card to go along with it all. Now that's what you call home-cookin'.

I had to tell Liam how I'd been waiting for this moment for 25 years, and how excited I was that it was finally here. And that the perfect time to start birding is exactly when you start. 

I hope he'll remember that whenever he puts these old Swarovskis on. I hope he takes this moment forward in his life, and opens the door wider to the joy of birdwatching. Ayla, I'm counting on you to get him out in nature and noticing everything around him. You two can learn together. My mama's heart is full to bursting. 

If you're going to find a bird on your own, THIS is a mighty fine one to find. A spark bird for Liam? 

Time will tell. No pressure, darling boy. No pressure at allllll.....

                                    From the website of the Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, NY.                                                                    

Isn't it lovely that the first bird Liam found on his own was this insanely cool little fish-catching                                                                   duck? May there be many more.

Requiem for a Blue Jay

Even seven years out from the Saving Jemima year of 2017,  

the year I looked so hard at blue jays I nearly became one,

I am still looking at jays

 the way jays look at jays, searching their faces for distinguishing marks

Building galleries of dated images, to what end I'm not sure

Except that I need know each one for who it is.

You might not believe I have spent the entire day going through my photos,

matching face to face over the months they've been here

Aging and trying to sex the birds,

so I can recognize each one at a glance.

Hyperfixated, my kids would say.

OK, go ahead, label me, box me up.

I am well aware I'm not like the others.

I need to know more, need to know who.

You never know. Something might happen.

The part of loving blue jays that I don't recommend

is the sudden squawk explosion

the gravelly rasp they give when the hawk dives in

Shuffle of wings and cartwheel motion

as a small band bursts outward

from a sharpshin supernova.

Then, the rhythmic cries, 

strident first, with outrage then

passing through each color: fear to anguish

Into futility, then surrender

Crying, crying still, minute on minute

Unseen, talon-pinned beneath the briars

Slowing, then ceasing

The jay's life ebbing as it's

reduced to simple substance:

feather, meat, and bone.

A friend and neighbor, slowly

torn into small chunks

turned into food

packing the crop of a quick young sharpshin.

At my desk, now watch and wait.

Their daily peanuts sit untouched

The band of seven, too shocked to fly

Too rattled to eat.

I will know the victim only by its absence.

In days to come I'll study every face

Skeetles and Messi

Blobby Blue, Spangles

Taking the grim roll call of my teachers.

This afternoon I'll push through the brambles

edge along the north slope

Where the little blue Piper went down

Looking for the feather splash

For clues amidst strewn wreckage

The scrap of flesh, the drop of blood

And the little black box of knowing.

*Skeetles, 22 Dec. 2024

*Messi, 27 Dec. 2024

*Spangles, 13 Dec. 2024

*Blobby Blue, 7 Dec. 2024 

(Blobby always licks their bill after drinking)

Unidentified, 25 December 2024

*All four jays pictured reported to the yard today, December 27, 2024