The Cat Sitter

No pets are allowed on the Divine property, the better to preserve our wildlife, but sometimes I like up close and personal, especially with exceptionally fine cats such as those I cat sat for this past weekend: Hermann, Rufus, and Mimi (pictured).

They filled life with surprises. I opened the bedroom door after waking, and ginger cat Rufus was there waiting for me--and raced me downstairs to the kitchen where each morning we caught the suburban sunrise from the exceptionally fine eastern-facing window.

suburban sunrise

The house is on a hilltop and it is very different for me to see houses below, to sit in an armchair (which I don't have) beneath a good lamp (which I don't have), with a cat perched on the armrest or in my lap, making a continuous bubbling sound, to enjoy life and simple reading and writing as if on a vacation--because I wasn't driven to do 200 things at once, as I am at home--and some inter-species communication, mutual curiosity, and unconditional love.

Domestic animals rule, too!

Cleaning the Garage

To hear my neighbor Terri tell it, her garage was piled to its rafters with furniture and craft supplies and papers all wet because of leakage, and all of it mouse-fouled, and when the job of cleaning got started, about halfway in, in the hutch under a desk an opossum had built himself/herself a little nest. Excellent choice of residence: well-protected, with an endless food supply. Terri had during the summer photographed a nice fat adult copperhead coiled in her garage; that's food for an opossum--they eat snakes and are immune to most venoms. And mice we have always with us.

When exposed, the possum played dead and allowed itself to be picked up by the tail and gently dropped onto the other side of the fence.

Mice Ate My Lipstick

I'd vacuumed up all crumbs, cleaned and bleached the kitchen and its trash can, even tightened the tops of the spice jars and the toothpaste, all because a very bold and demonic mouse or mice for weeks had scampered across my living room and eaten peanut butter out of my traps, without triggering them -- and, the final straw, had scrambled across my bed one night while I was in it. With my house sparkling clean, I then left for eight days, and returned to mouse droppings just about everywhere although there was no food. Wait; I'd left out some makeup, a suite of Sephora brush-on lipsticks ranging from pink to red. Every color had been nibbled, clawed, and messed with. Disgusted, I declared war, and told a friend. She said perhaps the mice had wanted only to look prettier.

Tossing the lipsticks and the traps that work so well on my stupider mice, I bought at Dickey Bub's another, sneakier, super-hair-trigger mousetrap which holds the peanut-butter bait farther out of reach. This morning I beheld the very satisfactory results, and proof that at least one mouse (the one with the glowing eyes) was in fact demonic.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider Mom

Remember the huge spider in my shower on June 5? It soon vanished and life went on until today, when while yanking a clean towel from my kitchen towel rack, the stacking kind of rack seen in hotel bathrooms, I was aghast to see tiny black crawling specks all over my clean white towel and the other folded towels. Hundreds of -- what, ants? No, newborn spiders!

Quick inspection revealed their cottony white egg case, ruptured (see top center of the photo, a bit to the right; it looks like piece of popcorn), and when I pulled out more spider-infested towels, Mom Spider emerged, fled beneath the tea towels and tried to hide her enormous self, finally dropping to the floor and fleeing into the bathroom. I took all the towels from the rack and threw them into the washing machine with hot water and soap and returned to look for Mom, curled up at the base of the shower, unmoving. I thought because I'd just thrown her babies into my washer that she had died of grief, or else, like the storied Charlotte the spider, finished with reproduction she had no further business on earth. I scooped her up with a long-handled spoon. She clutched it, and I escorted her out of doors, where she is free to make as many babies as she wants.

But what a great choice she made for laying and nurturing her egg case, in a nice soft stack of clean kitchen towels, just outside the bathroom door! Good job, Ms. Wolf Spider! Meanwhile, as I write this, hundreds drown, and any who didn't will roast in the dryer; I expect PETA at my door any minute.[ P.S., the spiders won this round! I washed all the towels without sorting them and now they're all freakin' pink.]

Fifty Shades Freed

Sat down with early-morning tea and saw tiny young hatchling (because his tail is blue) five-lined skink trapped in a web spun beneath the picnic table, and its spider approaching to suck his blood. Skink was so tightly wrapped and limp that I thought him dead already, and turned away because I didn't want to watch, but then I saw him wiggle. Breaking the web, I carried the skink outside and urged him to run and hide, but spiderwebbing had bound his back legs to his body, and the same with his tail, depriving him of his rudder and best weapon. He didn't move. I thought him dead again and was sorry I had interfered with the spider's meal. He was still so pretty I wanted to take his photo. Then he struggled: Alive!

Using a round toothpick I picked apart the webbing, cotton-candy sticky. I plucked it off his shivering whip of a body, and he ran. And he will never stay out past curfew again!

Photographing Bluebirds

When I see a blue streak and flutter out of the corners of my eyes, I will neglect all else in life to let you know the bluebirds are raising their second brood of the 2013 season in my bluebird box.

At a day course taught by a Missouri state nature photographer I learned that to photograph wild creatures I should make myself inconspicuous. Animals are threatened by the human shape, so he used to shoot photos from his truck with a huge telephoto lens. With my simpler equipment all I did was put on a hat and baggy clothes of that greenish-brown worn-out sort, and set up my tripod. "What's the difference between an amateur and a professional photographer?" he asked rhetorically. "A tripod." And -- as he advised us -- I waited. He said "If the animal was there before, it'll come back again. So just wait." Sweat  and wait, sweat (94 degrees; but how hot must it be inside the bluebird box?) and wait. This, my best bluebird photo yet, was fortuitiously taken on the day of summer solstice. Happy summer solstice!

Rabbits Return

Relieved and pleased to see wild rabbits again in my yard. For two years I wondered if coyotes and feral cats got them all, but I had been spoiled because the huge garden before then attracted them like iron filings. I won this one over after only two days of approaching him (or her) bit by bit for a photo. Bunny story: One day Demetrius was out mowing with our monstrously loud old lawnmower. A rabbit stood alert in the grass near the propane tank and we were amazed that no matter how close Demetrius got with his awful machine it would not scare.Later we figured that it had to be a mother with some young nearby. A mother won't move. Treasure any bunnies you see; they are universal symbols of pluck and luck. P.S. Happy June, my favorite month.

Rock 'n' Roll Reptile

A special guest star joined the army worms aka tent caterpillars in my dining room last night: a young blacksnake. His mom lives beneath the kitchen floorboards and is as thick as my wrist. Already crazed by the hundreds of crawling things in my house, I approached him with a camera hoping he'd dine for me on nearby caterpillars. He gave me a full-on, like totally natural, snake dance.

Crunch Crunch

You'll never see another photo like this one: The beaver team down on the LaBarque thought they'd fell this mature creekside oak -- which would have been the largest timber in their dam -- but then changed their minds, apparently. Wonder why? Their jaws got tired? Too much chance it would fall the wrong way and create a fatality? Too tall to guide down their mud chute into the creek? They've simply abandoned this particular tree.

Camping in the Yard

If you have a porch or a few square feet of property please try the adventure of summertime sleeping outdoors. Steamy days become cool nights here, 10 to 15 degrees cooler than in the city, sometimes with a delicious trace of ice in the air, and among my chief summer delights is sleeping about three times a week in my old green and yellow two-person tent and a nylon bag and blankets. New this year: mats all across the tent floor for comfort no matter how I roll.

I pitch my tent where the grass is mown and short, which discourages ticks. About 10:30 p.m., settling in with my pillow I watch stars through the ceiling netting; or through the door netting watch the knee-deep tide of early-summer fireflies. Every year on the very first night out there's always an incident, such as a nighttime creature sniffing around the tent. This year my presence in the meadow annoyed a deer who snorted for 30 minutes in a threatening manner, edging closer with every snort. I downloaded onto my Droid the loud and unpleasant "Police Siren" app with flashing lights, and thus established my rights without a confrontation. I've discovered that sleeping on the chilly ground eases and breaks the cycle of tormenting night sweats and hot flashes. The photo is a view through the tent ceiling early one perfect June morning.

I often wake at sunrise to a world filled with humidity embodied as mist and dew, so much it soaks the tent walls; or I oversleep and the sun heats and heats the tent until I'm driven back to the house inspired maybe to make a dreamlike breakfast of berry scones and coffee. Early one morning, creeping out of the tent into an almost psychic orange mist, I saw a buck so majestic I understood why the classics say a god disguised himself as a stag.

Three Dead Mice

One morning this week I woke up and just outside the bedroom a small mouse was dragging itself across the carpet. It didn't run from me. It looked sick and just about to drop. I put it out of its misery, bagged it and emptied the bag outside for the ghoul squad.

In the kitchen fixing breakfast, I saw a small dead mouse curled up almost beneath the stove and did a double-take. I had just dumped a mouse outside! It couldn't have fallen from the bag on the way out; I saw it plop from the bag into the grass! Using barbecue tongs, I put this body outside. Went about my business. Later in the living room, I smelled that funny dead-mouse-rotting smell, as if it were right in the room. Looked with a flashlight beneath the couch and such. Nothing. Hoped it would go away on its own, knowing it never does. I went out all evening, and back home went straight to bed.

Today, opening the shade in the living room I looked down among the computer cables and there's a little dead mouse curled up there and that's what stunk.

That first mouse looked poisoned, but I don't use mouse poison any more, precisely because poisoned mice die in inaccessible places like the attic or beneath the water heater, and stink for as long as six weeks. I use traps. So what's going on? Was there a nest? I can't find it. Were they family? They were pretty well grown, completely formed and furred, able to make their way; why aren't they surviving?

Meet Wendy, the Turtle Saver

This area's wildlife includes box turtles and painted turtles, and in seeking territories they cross the roads without looking. This Jeep wagon's back window had spelled out on it "I Rescue Turtles," and its owner happened by. Wendy loves all animals, but she is the turtle-rescuing squad around here. She will pick up turtles with cracked shells, who have been run over by cars, and take them to the animal hospital where she says the shells can often be fixed and the turtles made well again. That was news to me. She will stop and get a turtle out of the road or turn it around if it's headed for danger. She has 15 acres, room to bring turtles home and feed them melon rinds and corn on the cob until they're ready for the wild again. She said her mother raised turtles on Long Island, but what made her a turtle rescuer here in Missouri was witnessing a driver deliberately swerving his truck to crush a turtle that was in the road shoulder. (I myself have heard a crass person say about turtles, "I like to hear 'em pop.") She furiously followed the driver, pulled alongside and gave him the finger. "I don't do things like that," she said, "but I was so mad."

God bless Wendy the turtle savior! She is the answer to all turtle prayers.

"Will You Please Help Me?"

"If it's smart enough to find its way in, it's smart enough to find its way out," Demetrius used to yawn, whenever skinks, lizards, snakes and whatnot got into the house. But maybe not. The Broad-Headed Skink that crawled from beneath the dishwasher last month (see April 18th) lived here about 10 days. One afternoon I came home after a day out, and it was in the middle of the kitchen floor clearly waiting for me, and it looked up into my face with an expression that quite plainly said, "I want out. Will you please help me?"

"I will help you," I replied, and opened the porch door and tried luring it out there, but it would not go. (Yes indeed, this skink is missing part of its tail; it was that way when we met. Maybe that's why it was skittish.) Then taking the broom I very gently swept it, an inch at a time, over the threshhold and out onto the porch, and then out the screen door onto the concrete stoop, where for a moment it regarded the wide world it was about to rejoin. This let me take the photo. When the camera got too close, the skink ran away through the grass, to some secret lair where I hope it's much happier. Probably it now makes the rounds on skink talk shows, describing its ordeal among the aliens, and how it survived because God had a special purpose for its life, and so on.

Hello, Southern Coal Skink

While I was cutting patches for the porch screens about noon, a rustling next to the pump house made me think, "It's the blacksnake." But the resident blacksnake is usually noiseless. More rustling. I went to look. Saw something unusual, cumin-colored, fat and glossy. I thought, "The glass lizard," but when I went outside with the camera and knelt by the ivy that covers fallen oak leaves, I saw its face and little alligator legs. What intelligent eyes. I said, "Hello."

When I moved too close it backed up beneath the ivy so that only its tail showed. I said, "I can still see you." The Amphibians and Reptiles of Missouri by Tom R. Johnson, the only handbook ever needed around here, ID'd it as Southern Coal Skink, plump body, stubby legs and all. Latin: Eumeces anthracinus pluvialis Cope. This is a female. The male has orange patches on its cheeks because it doesn't know how to blend foundation.

My Faithfullest Friend

He's back...this time in a beautifully textured "wooden" coat and the loveliest green waistcoat -- my faithful (platonic) friend the Walking Stick. He's hanging on the porch door right now, head down, waiting for me to take his annual portrait -- much more colorful than last year's, when he dressed as a dry stick. I saw him a few days ago clad in chalk-white, playing part of the garage siding. Enter "walking stick" in my search box at upper  LEFT to see his previous outfits. Here you see him at his most handsome and tasteful.

Fauna

What is it in our spirits that makes us all excited to see a new fawn? The new deer were born in July, two of them, to the deer family that's been on the Divine 100 acres since I moved here 10 years ago, whom I see and meet now and then in the woods, but just the other afternoon I saw the new babies walking down the lane, and then, as I tried to get a better photo, they skip-hopped into the cedar hollow. Here's one of the pair. I love the details: the elegant hooves, the dark sweet nose,white freckles, skinny legs. They're twins, so when they pass it's like seeing double.

They Say These Things Smell....

I met a muskrat today in a swimmin'-hole type area in LaBarque Creek that is otherwise mostly dry--the drought continues--and was surprised because I'd never seen a muskrat in the creek before, common as they are in Missouri. Beavers, yes; snapper turtles, yes; water snakes yes; egrets and herons, yes; muskrats, no. Maybe about eight inches long not counting a long black tail. Nibbling on leaves attached to some vines, he or she ignored me until I switched the camera to video, making a "bing" noise, and splash, off swam my photographic prey, paddling a bit (pictured), then as I cried, "Hey, wait!" it dove and fled like a torpedo. Walked about a quarter mile farther up the road and turned back, and found him/her again, nibbling on leaves. I fussed with the camera, got 13 seconds of video, just so you could see it really swims and it's real, and then moved to get closer and maybe sniff that famous musk--and splash, it swam under water someplace inaccessible. Camera shy. Next time I will look for its lodge and will commandingly say to it, "Take me to your leader." They say the trappers liked its fur and the peak time to trap and collect them is in December, doubtless right after the office party.