Monday, July 29, 2013

One Man's Handiwork


The dog days of summer are in full force; my least favorite months of the year in the South have always been July and August. But at least it rains in southeast Louisiana in July, providing moments of respite from the heat, if not the humidity. We have had so much rain that I have not been able to keep up with the quickly growing grass in the lawn; the days are so hot and humid that I prefer leaving lawn mowing until after 5 p.m. On Friday, I edged all the flower and herb beds in the back yard while Tom put the finishing touches on the kayak he has been working on since January. Tom had been looking at kayak kits for years and decided that his Christmas present in 2012 would be just that: a kit purchased with his end-of-year bonus. He could have made the boat without a kit,  purchasing all the materials individually and cutting out all the pieces, but he doesn't have the woodworking tools (yet) for that kind of project. We had hoped to take Tom's finished kayak for its maiden voyage on Saturday, but our plans were stymied by a day full of rain. Early Sunday morning, though, we headed out to Bayou Cane, the cool breezy morning reminding me that these dog days of summer will pass. Tom's commitment to his own projects helps me endure the ennui, melancholy, and lethargy that often descend on me this time of the year.
Putting the kayak puzzle together


Tom begins stitching the kayak together, February 2013
Adding fiberglass
Tom stitching the top of the boat

adding epoxy
making progress
finishing touches
loaded up
in working order
And on Saturday, while waiting for the rain to pass, Tom canned tomatoes we had gathered from our garden.

tomatoes peeled

12 pints canned
This post is for Tom, whose energy and love of handiwork inspire me in my own work and help me to endure the dog days of life, which seem, sometimes, to come around too often.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Working through the Heartbreak

Odyssey
You don't reach fifty-five years of age without encountering sorrow and heartbreak many times. I have had friendships disrupted by passion, indifference, and neglect; I have lost friends and family to death, dissension, and distance (of all kinds); I have mourned the consequences of poor decisions and bad breaks. And while I recognize as an old (but unwelcome) acquaintance the heavy sorrow that has welled up unexpectedly every day since Odyssey's disappearance, I also know the feeling will be alleviated by time and preoccupation with life's daily and more pressing cares. But here it is-- now-- a heartache more intense than any I have felt for an animal companion though I have mourned the passing of other pets; Odyssey was that special. She alleviated life's disappointments with her own demands for attention, with her playfulness, her willingness to put up with our own silliness, and her loving yet independent disposition. As she aged, she wanted more and more of our attention, and she seemed happiest sitting in our laps, flexing her little paws against our chests. I miss that cat so much. But today I finally picked up my camera again and captured some photos of a red dragonfly I had been chasing around the yard the day before Odyssey disappeared. These are for Odyssey, who would follow me out in the yard while I recorded the pollinators and other creatures that visited our garden.




Thursday, July 25, 2013

Grieving for Pets

When I think of my great-grandfather Henry Malcolm Scott, he appears in my mind as in a black and white photograph: wearing his usual short-brimmed hat, shuffling along on his old bowed legs, leaning on his cane, with Suzie by his side. Suzie, his black and white chihuahua, went with him everywhere. And though my grandmother, Ruby Scott Benton, did not usually allow animals in her country home, Suzie came right on in with my grandmother's father, sitting at his feet. Aloof and off limits to us children, Suzie knew her place, a step or two above us; she answered to no one but my great-grandfather. As a child reared in the country, I had been around animals all my life, but our dogs were usually Black Mouth Curs, dogs my father had raised since he was a boy: working dogs, cattle herders, hunting dogs. When they weren't working, they were family dogs--guards of our property, amenable to petting and play but not attaching themselves to one family member. Granddaddy's Suzie was the first animal I recognized as being a companion to her owner, always at his side, accompanying him on his short travels to the homes of his daughters and sons.

Over the years, Tom and I have had a number of dogs, three of them Black Mouth Curs that my father had raised, one a Catahoula Cur given to us by a rancher who bred these regionally well-known cattle dogs, and another dog, a little stray whom I named "Chiquita."  Chiquita, who loved following the cattle when they were being herded on the five hundred acre C-6 Ranch where we rented for four years, disappeared one day after a cattle round-up. The Catahoula Cur, whom I called "Lagniappe," also disappeared--probably stolen; Catahoulas were a very popular breed where we lived, and a well-bred one could go for two or three hundred dollars. We cared for these dogs, but we especially loved Moreover, the Black Mouth Cur who lived with us the longest. These dogs, however, remained "cattle dogs," working dogs, guard dogs. They did not sleep in our beds or puddle on our floors.
Benton and Moreover

But then Odyssey entered our lives when Mary-Margaret was nine years old. We remember the year very well because it was the year we all vacationed for two weeks in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico, knowing that when we returned, Mary-Margaret would take home the little gray-brown tabby kitten she had chosen from a litter. It was the summer of 2001.

Odyssey became the queen of the house, even after Persephone appeared on our doorstep in 2002, seriously injured. Then Pluto appeared in 2003, another tiny kitten dumped near our house in the country. He showed up in the middle of the night, during Mary-Margaret's sixth-grade slumber party, welcome entertainment for some very excited little girls.

While we lived on our 23 acres of land in Harris County, Georgia, Moreover roamed our yard and the woods that surrounded our house; the cats had the house and the basement. Black Mouth Curs cannot be trusted with cats or any non-canine pets, though perhaps some puppies can be trained to tolerate other family pets. Moreover would sweetly herd little children around our yard, watching over them, but he would kill a cat. In fact, both Pluto and Persephone had to be rescued from Moreover when they wandered up to our house as very tiny kittens.

In December of 2003, we moved back to Texas and bought a house on a lot in a town north of Austin. After a few months, Tom fenced in an area in the backyard for Moreover, and we decided to let the cats wander in and out of the house into the side yard and front yard. Pluto occasionally wandered out of our yard; Persephone and Odyssey stayed within our property or on the large wrap-around porch.
Pluto in Belton, TX

Moreover died in 2007, in the middle of our move from Central Texas to Decatur, GA. While staying with a family member as we looked for a home with a yard suitable for a large dog, Moreover was the victim of a terrible misunderstanding. We bought a house with a fenced-in backyard, just what we had wanted for Moreover, but now only the cats remained.  City ordinances required that all pets be kept on property or on a leash, and one of our neighbors complained loudly if any cat wandered onto her lot.  Pluto, however, was an escape artist. We eventually had to place an electric wire on top of the privacy fence to prevent him from leaving the backyard. Not only were we trying to be lawful; we aimed for neighborhood harmony, too.

By then the cats were six, five, and four years old, and each had developed very definite personalities: Odyssey was top cat; she and Pluto often groomed one another and took naps together, but a grooming session could quickly turn into a spat that Odyssey always won. The grooming session was often a precursor to Odyssey's supplanting Pluto from any resting spot Odyssey decided she wanted. She knew her special place, however, was beside Mary-Margaret.

Pluto, aptly named, was our devil cat. Aloof and self-contained, he nonetheless sought affection periodically, especially at meal times, when he would rub against my ankles to remind me that it was time for the day's treat--tinned cat food in the morning and in the evening. Every year we could expect him to attack the wooden finger-puppet manger scene that I made when the kids were little. The tiny wooden Jesus would often be tumbled from his cradle, but the angel with fluffy wool wings bore the brunt of Pluto's ire. The angel was always the first casualty; not long after I unboxed the little wooden finger puppets and arranged the manger scene, I would find her on the floor, in very unangelic disarray. Over the years, her wings disappeared, chewed off by a cat who hated Christmas.
Pluto plotting an attack on the manger scene

Persephone was our "scaredy-cat," a cat who early in life had met with violence. Very affectionate with us, she often disappeared when strangers were around. Loud noises panicked her. When Tom and the kids took her to our veterinarian a day after her arrival on our front steps, the vet whispered to Tom that he shouldn't let the kids name her; he was afraid that her injuries might be fatal and that those injuries were probably the result of human cruelty. But I determined to call the kitten Persephone--she had been to hell and back, and she survived. Neither Odyssey nor Pluto was fond of Persephone (or "Persey," as we call her); Persephone was the outcast cat, the bottom of the totem pole. The other cats didn't bully her excessively, but they did let her know her place. She accepted that designation with equanimity but she could hiss a warning if pushed too far.

Our cats had become important members of our family. They could be loving, and they could be annoying, but we tried to accommodate them. Pluto continued to spray his territory even though he was neutered. I learned to leave the herbs on the outside edge of my garden and to pick the herbs on the inside of the herb beds, avoiding territorial marking. When Odyssey began peeing down the floor vents in our hundred-year-old house in Belton, TX, I put my nose to every vent to identify the soiled ones, scrubbed those thoroughly, and placed light furniture over the most popular squatting places. Then I made sure to put a kitty litter box in the laundry room, an old enclosed back porch, for use on rainy days when the cats were hesitant to go outside. When Persephone hid under furniture during thunderstorms, we comforted her. We cleaned up hairballs and cat puke. We had cats on our furniture, cats in our beds, and cats on our desks while we worked.

When the kids went off to college, the cats remained.
cats on my desk
Odyssey on Mary-Margaret's bed right after Mary-Margaret went away to college

















 That's when I began truly to understand my great-grandfather's love for his little dog Suzie. The cats were my companions. I had given up full-time teaching, I was tutoring part-time, and I was dealing with a serious case of empty nest syndrome. The cats kept the nest warm until Benton or Mary-Margaret could return for a visit on a weekend or a holiday. The cats demanded my care and attention. Tom is an early riser, but the cats never clamored for a meal when he got out of bed before dawn. They waited until I arose and would then come running, mewing for breakfast. Pluto would paw at the cabinet door where he knew the cat food was kept. He even managed to open it a few times. In the evenings, Pluto once again would lead the way in demanding dinner. He would begin his quest around 5 p.m., and if I didn't immediately open a tin of cat food, he would lie on the kitchen floor while Tom and I prepared our dinner, waiting for another opportune moment to remind me of my duties to the feline residents of the house.

The cats survived every move we made, from Georgia to Texas, from Texas back to Georgia, and from Georgia to Louisiana--long trips that would have tried the sanity of less resilient animals. When Tom moved to southeast Louisiana after taking a new job, I remained in Georgia for nine months with the cats. They comforted me on many lonely nights. When I moved to Louisiana, I drove alone with the cats yowling on the back seat in their premium, soft-sided cat carriers, while I struggled to stay awake after exhausting weeks of preparing our house for a depressed real estate market.
Pluto and Odyssey resting after the move from Georgia to Louisiana

After two years in Louisiana, we had our habits. The cats would pester me for breakfast as soon as I came into the kitchen in the morning. After I fed them, they would wander outside if the weather was warm. Odyssey and Persephone slept on the patio, moving into shade as the sun rose. Pluto would often nap on a bench on the front porch. Except for Pluto's occasional forays across the two streets near our house, the cats stayed close to home. Odyssey would follow me into the yard when I was gardening. If the day turned too warm, she would retreat to the cool brick floor of our sunroom. As she aged, she sought more and more human contact. When I sat down, she would quickly run to jump in my lap, snuggling her nose under my arm or inching up my chest to place her paw on my face. When I entered a room where she was resting, she would vocalize a soft mew, letting me know she was there. We were aging together: the old humans and the old cats.

And then, last week, Pluto and Odyssey disappeared within less than two days of one another. We first thought Pluto's disappearance was the result of his wandering. Tom drove around the neighborhood looking for him, with no luck.  I always checked on the cats at night, noting where they were sleeping--in the summer, Pluto on the front porch, Persephone and Odyssey on the patio, on a table or the shelf of a garden rack. And they always came when I called in the morning. When Odyssey disappeared, between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., I knew that something was very wrong. No longer agile, she always stayed close to the house.

Tom and I checked the local shelter, talked with neighbors, posted fliers on our mailbox, and walked all over our yard and the empty lot next door. The disappearances were mysterious. There was no sign of foul play--no fur left behind by predators. Large dogs in the neighborhood sometimes escaped their yards; one tried to attack Odyssey in our yard one evening. Though Odyssey had her back to a tree with her claws fully extended, ready to protect herself, she would not have won that battle without help. The dog was so intent to get at her that we had a difficult time chasing him out of our yard.

A neighbor told us--too late--that his cat had disappeared in a similar mysterious manner a month ago. We exchanged flyers about our lost pets, and then he added that he had seen a coyote crossing a highway near our neighborhood. We may live in town, but there are wooded areas throughout our neighborhood and creeks with bushy banks that serve as pathways for wild creatures.

Unprepared for the grief that overwhelmed me, I especially missed Odyssey. She had been my daughter's chosen pet, a tangible connection to a past when my children were still at home. My daughter loved that cat. I loved that cat. I walked around our yard, calling for Odyssey, knowing that the action was futile. Once, startled, I imagined her lying on the brick floor in our sunroom. Another morning, in a partial dream between sleeping and waking, I saw a gray shape, a coyote, pacing the woods at the edge of our yard. On two separate evenings, I walked around our house, shining a flashlight into the crawlspace under our raised house. I called for her and cried. At night, I would look out onto the patio, hoping to see her again where I saw her last late at night, stretched out on the patio table.

Persephone was also sleeping on the patio that night, flopped on a side table under a sunroom window. Where she was when Odyssey disappeared, I don't know, but for a week she has hardly ventured past the patio. She has always been a timid cat, so it's difficult to draw any conclusions from her behavior. But when she sits on the patio, she crouches, ready to jump up at a moment's notice. She follows me into the house. I lock her in at night. I brush her fur and try not to think of the more outgoing cat who demanded our love and attention, who leapt into our laps as if they had been created just for her, who would stretch her paw up to pat our faces, probably saying to herself, "Mine."
Odyssey, 2011
Odyssey 2012
last photo of Pluto, 12 July 2013

last photo of Odyssey, 12 July 2013

Persephone, 24 July 2013



Friday, July 19, 2013

Day's End: Photography Surprises

My Canon PowerShot Digital Elph camera likes to reserve photos for a later downloading so that I can be amazed that I actually DID get a decent shot of that red dragonfly that I chased around the yard. The background of dead leaves on tomato plants does not show the dragonfly to advantage, but since this skittish dragonfly tried its best to elude me, I'm glad to have gotten this photo at least.
In this day of frequent upgrades, my camera is old, and it's acting up in its senescence. When I download photos, not all the photos actually download. I discover the remaining ones when I download photos after the next set of shots. Digital cameras have provided people like me, with only self-taught (and little at that) photographic skill and no technical knowledge of cameras, to shoot an occasionally decent photo despite our ignorance. I took a photography class in high school, but that was in the Dark Ages, when we had to mix up noxious chemicals in a dark room before our photos could see the light of day.

In this second download of the day, a photo popped up that I had taken earlier of my patient dragonfly:
He seems as curious about me as I am about him.
I discovered these photos after downloading photos I took this evening of a rabbit. The wild rabbits in this area come out with impunity during the day, but we see them even more frequently during the morning and evening. I carefully approached, foot by foot, one little bunny eating grass in our yard as the afternoon waned. I got within about seven feet of him before he hopped into the leaf-strewn shade of an azalea bush.
Peter Rabbit, a little too close to our garden but eating grass this time instead of the cucumbers
As I walked into the back yard near the mountain mint, I startled two more rabbits, the largest hopping frantically into woods at the edge of our property, the smallest one stopping just short of the trees. And in the mountain mint patch, I found a tired bee. 
Busy day in the garden.

What Patience Finds in the Garden

Scarlet-bodied wasp moth
On two occasions in the past week, I have caught glimpses of unidentified, brightly colored winged creatures in our mountain mint patch. On one of those occasions I managed to capture one slightly out of focus photo of one of the pollinators; on the second occasion I took several not very good photos of another pollinator. And so I waited, returning again and again to the mountain mint patch at various times of the day, taking photos of other butterflies and bugs until I was finally rewarded: the mysterious pollinators returned, and this time I was prepared. I moved quietly. I observed. I stealthily took photo after photo. Then I would take a break, walking around the yard or going inside for a cup of tea or to read the latest news or to finish a craft project or other task. After a while, I would return to the garden with my camera.

The first brightly colored pollinator I identified as a Scarlet-bodied wasp moth, a very beautiful and vividly-colored pollinator, with a bright red thorax and abdomen and metallic blue dots. (See: Butterflies and Moths of North America: Attributes of Cosmosoma myrodora.)
Scarlet-bodied wasp moth (Cosmosoma myrodora)
Scarlet-bodied wasp moth
What a beautiful surprise this creature was among the gray-green leaves of the mountain mint. After a few minutes of stalking this colorful pollinator, I was excited to see another Scarlet-bodied wasp moth settling on a mint flower. I turned my attention to this second moth, and was so intent that  I almost overlooked a second surprise, a close encounter between one of the moths and a green spider, which I think is a kind of crab spider.
close encounter
The photo above captures the beginning of the encounter, as the wasp approached the leaf on which the spider was sitting. The two creatures actually made contact, but that photo didn't turn out so well--there was fluttering, reacting, retreating, and a blur of tiny limbs. The spider won the encounter; the moth flew to another flower.

The next day, I got a closer look at the second unidentified, brightly-colored pollinator.  It looked like a wasp, but also had characteristics of a moth. I think that this one, too, is in the wasp moth category. The bright colors are probably a kind of camouflage to warn away predators.
another wasp moth

Patience has yet to reward me with the successful attainment of another goal: to get a good photo of every pollinator that visits the mountain mint patch. The smaller waspy-type bees fly very quickly, in a zig-zag pattern. They are easily startled, and I'm working with a point and shoot camera with an automatic focus. The little bee below is an example of these flighty pollinators. In my many attempts to get an in-focus photograph of this bee, I managed just this one.
Am I anthropomorphizing if I suggest that some bugs just seem to have more settled or less-fearful personalities than others? I can get lots of shots of one butterfly and none of another. After two days of trying to get a good photo of a yellow and black swallowtail, I finally managed to do so, while succeeding in shot after shot of a blue and black swallowtail.

This morning I chased (very quietly and as sneakily as possible) a red dragonfly all over the back yard and failed to get one good photograph, while a green and yellow-tan dragonfly posed peacefully on a bamboo stake as I depressed the snapshot button again and again. If I startled him, he (or she) would fly away and then come right back to perch on the bamboo stake. I spoke to him. He moved his little mouth in return.

The mountain mint patch buzzes with bees at mid-day. Most of those are large bumblebees and smaller honey bees, but among those more familiar bees, the large black bee stands out. This is, I think, a species of carpenter bee: Xylocopa tabaniformis
.
black bee-- Xylocopa
black bee--Xylocopa
But occasionally, in the middle of all that activity, I will catch sight of a bee, perhaps half-hidden under a leaf, taking a break from its duties of collecting pollen. All the other bees seem so frantic, buzzing from flower to flower, sometimes almost flying into one another, that a resting bee at first appears ill, out of sorts. But after a few minutes, it will fly away, restored.  I have come to care about the lives of bees.
resting bee

Monday, July 15, 2013

After the Rain

rain-soaked bee recovering after a storm
Yesterday afternoon a tremendous thunderstorm swept through the area, with numerous lightening strikes very close to our house and over an inch of rain. After the storm was over, I wandered around  the yard, assessing the damage, staking with bamboo poles eight- and ten-foot tall Maximilian sunflower plants and four-foot zinnia plants which had toppled in the rain and wind. While doing this, I spied a drenched bee clinging to the back of a zinnia flower. At first, I thought it was dead, perhaps killed by large rain drops, but over the next hour, as I checked periodically, it began to groom itself, and finally, after about an hour, it disappeared. I hope it made its way safely back to its hive.

Where do bees go when it rains?, I wondered. I turned to Google for the answer. The best answers I could find were provided by bee keepers in bee and garden forums. Most of the replies suggested that bees remain in or near their hives when it rains, and if they are out and about during a storm, they are in danger of being killed by raindrops that can overwhelm and drown them. What impressed me most about this bee was that as soon as he could move, he immediately went about trying to collect pollen. The instinctual drive to do their work must be very strong in bees.
drenched bee trying to collect pollen
another drenched bee drying out in the mountain mint patch after a storm
I then became interested in seeing the actions of other garden visitors after this rather severe storm, and I noticed that not long after the rain ceased falling and the sun started showing through the clouds, pollinators had returned to the garden. My mountain mint patch continues to provide opportunities for seeing the most creatures going about their business of survival. The tiny anole was out catching bugs. I have yet to catch him in the act, but I saw him smacking his chops as if ruminating over a fine meal.
tiny anole peeking out from under a mountain mint leaf
I also noticed other tiny bugs that I would not have seen had I not been looking more closely for storm effects: a tiny red and black grasshopper- or cricket-like creature, a black shield bug with white markings, another Delta Flower Scarab that flew away before I could take a photo, several wasp-like bees, a very tiny iridescent blue fly, and the rather odd behavior of a large bee that clung for some time on the side of my garden shed. This bee kept sticking out its proboscis, as if it were tasting the side of the shed--or testing its tongue in some way. The repetitive nature of the bee's sticking out its proboscis suggested some kind of damage to me, but then the bee flew away and acted quite normally. But, really, what do I know is normal to a bee?
a tiny cricket-like bug on a mountain mint leaf
extremely tiny iridescent fly on a mountain mint leaf
bee on garden shed, sticking out its proboscis
It's not just the presence of these creatures that I find amazing; I have an artistic and scientific interest as well. I am enthralled with their beauty, with the color and variation of their markings and with how those markings have evolved as protection or warning. For instance, I often see in the mountain mint a fly with bee-like markings. Is this a bee or a fly? Do the colors warn or fool predators?
fly with bee-like orange and black markings
bee-like fly collecting pollen
As the afternoon faded into evening, I had more questions than answers, and I could hear Tom rattling around in the kitchen, preparing a dinner of tomato and cucumber salad, with vegetables fresh from our garden. But as I took one last turn around the garden, I noticed a bee either settling in for the night or resting before a long flight back to its hive or hole. Or maybe it was just trying to avoid me and my camera.
bee under an althea leaf
Then, while walking up the sidewalk to our patio, I noticed something buzzing around a lily bloom. Of course, I leaned closer to inspect and thus saw for the first time another interesting pollinator, a multi-colored fly-like bee or wasp.
fly-like bee or wasp on a lily
fly-like bee or wasp on lily (taken with a flash)
fly-like wasp or bee on lily (taken with a flash)
Until I started paying attention to pollinators, I had little idea of the diversity of creatures so small we barely notice their existence--unless we deliberately pay attention. Too often our attention is caught only after we begin to suffer the consequences of their diminishing presence.