Water water everywhere...

Lets talk about water.

Water is on my mind today.  It’s been raining for a couple of days now, in the dutiful, focused way that it rains in Arkansas.  Lots of water, coming straight down as if it had a deadline to meet. I’m astonished by how quickly it comes down, and then how quickly it drains away.  The soil here is so rocky and porous that the water just vanishes, seeping down into all those layers of limestone, I suppose. I imagine swollen underground rivers rushing through the dark.

At CB, located as we are at the bottom of a ravine, a little water turns into a lot of water, and a lot of water turns into a river, rushing through the site and filling the lower pond. This morning I walked over to the north bridge to watch the water pouring away downstream on the north end of the property, and to see it coming over the weir under the bridge.  It makes a dull roar, and falls about five feet.  This water isn’t pretty:  it’s coming down through the south pond above it, carrying topsoil, mulch, and construction debris.  It’s muddy and has junk floating in it.  But it’s cool, nevertheless, to see the lower pond full and get a taste of what the museum will look like in real life when everything is finished.

Last night the water as accompanied by serious lightning and thunder.—enough to scare Grayson and all three dogs into my bed. It was quite a night.  Thunder Booming, Grayson stuck to me like tape with his fingers in his ears, and the dogs climbing all over both of us in their attempts to find someplace they perceived as “safe.” Kobi finally chose to squeeze down under the covers between us. Roxy spent about half an hour with her elbows up on the bed next to my face, her own face shoved as far as she could get it under my neck. Flower, usually the one who tries to sleep on my head in a storm, was unusually calm, choosing to merely drape herself over our feet and pant hard enough to vibrate the whole bed.

After struggling with the horde for awhile—Kobi changing her position every few minutes and occasionally burrowing under the blanket to dig at the sheet like she was trying to get to China, and Roxy jumping up on the bed and stepping on everyone and starting a growlfest with Flower, and Grayson hollering “Ow!  My Nuts!’ a few times, we both got tickled and dissolved into giggles.  All of this at 4 a.m. 

The thunder finally let up around 5 or so, and we all went back to sleep.  It was all fun and games until the alarm went off at 6.  We were a pair of ass-draggers then, I assure you.

More thunder this morning.  And more rain. It makes me wonder how much snow we’ll get this winter!

There are many percs to my new job. Some of which, until the museum opens in November, I can't really even mention... confidentiality agreement and all... but there are some that are safe to talk about now.

One of the things that always refreshes me... brings my patience back from the brink when I'm frustrated, lifts my spirit if I'm blue, or gives me perspective when I'm stuck... is the forest. It's all around us there at CB:  120 acres of it.  Lichen-painted rocks and cold springwater bubbling out of the ground, great trees arching overhead, and the sweet hush of the woods.  Unfortunately, at this time, it's impossible to get away from the construction noise and dust, even though on the trails the sound is certainly muted. But the time will come when the caterpillar excavators will be gone, the ponds will be full of water, and the woods will fill with silence again.  I look forward to that.

For a couple of days last week the staff were all obliged to park at a church a few blocks away and take one of the trails in to the museum every morning.  The crew wass laying one last layer of asphalt on the museum's main drive. Though I feel for those for whom this is a physical hardship, for me it was a blessing.  It was like a benediction to walk through the cool, quiet woods to get to work. I wish it were a longer walk, rather than the 10 minutes or so it takes to follow the winding dogwood trail.

There are fewer butterflies now.  The butterflies were one of the first things I noticed on moving here.  They were numerous, large and colorful, floating like escaped bits of tissue paper everywhere.  The toads that have populated our neighborhood under the streetlights of an evening are dwindling in number as well.  Whether they're tucking in for the season, or being devoured by predators, I won't speculate.

Just this week the trees began to turn in earnest. It's such a wonderful time of year:  warm and bright most days, cool at night. This weekend I took Kobi to an area called Slaughter Pen Hollow-- it's a hiking and mountain bike trails area, nicely wooded, but not remote. We saw a group of about four deer and one enormous owl that peered down on us from above as if speculating as to its ability to carry off Kobi.  I guess it decided against it, because it flew away.

Today we have had rain again.  Rain is something Arkansas take seriously, as I may have mentioned before. It rains and rains. I've heard we can get up to two feet of snow here, as well.  That will make Grayson happy, at least.

Grayson called me from home today when he got off the bus. He was in tears, which is extremely rare these days. My heart about stopped in my chest. Kobi has been getting out of the yard every day and I was terrified that she had been hit by a car. But no, he called to tell me he'd been bullied.

All my Momma Bear instincts came roaring to the fore. "By Whom!?" I demanded to know.  He doesn't know. Some kid at school. Not someone he'd ever seen before. The kid was pulling on a stuff "Angry Bird" Grayson wears attached to his back pack, and he wouldn't stop.  I couldn't figure out at first why he was crying, but then I realized that the simple fact that G couldn't make this kid stop bothering him showed him how helpless he was against the kid. He was crying from frustration and a sense of being trapped.  He said he wanted to swear at the kid, or kick him, but he knew then he'd get in more trouble than his antagonist. And he was right.

The real problem for Grayson is that he's essentially a very good kid.  He's kind and considerate and well behaved. A rule follower.  Like his mother. It incenses us that someone would just disregard a reasonable request purely for the purpose of being annoying. What recourse do we have in a civilized world when people don't act civilized?

I said I gave him free reign to get in the kid's face and tell him to stop being a dork. To flip him off if he had to.  But what tools do we really have against someone like that, someone who just wants to get a response?  My grandfather used to say "If you don't want 'em to get your goat, don't tell 'em where you tied it up."  And I've translated that to Grayson as "If you don't want them to push your buttons, don't put up a big sign that says 'Don't Push.'" but the world pushes our buttons, anyway. What's a good kid to do?

Angry birds, indeed!

Little Wild Animals

Our neighborhood cat had kittens a few weeks ago. 

She's not really a stray... more like communally owned, inasmuch as she is more or less housed, and certainly adequately fed, and she's friendly with people.  But nobody has full responsibility for her, which means she has no healthcare, which includes, of course, spaying.  Apparently she's had a litter a year in one of the garages along the block, popping out 5 to 7 kittens every summer.  The neighborhood is good about feeding and housing and finding homes for the kitties, but nobody wants to pony up to have the poor old girl spayed.

This litter started out at seven, but we lost one last week to unknown causes, so the number is down to six.  They mostly live in our next door neighbor's garage, but occasionally the mommacat attempts to relocate them to the next garage down.  Those neighbors are in the process of moving, so they move the babies back.  Poor little guys keep getting dragged by the next back and forth across the yard.

Mostly their healthy, fat little balls of fluff.  But a couple have had eye issues. Their eyes get gummy and seal shut, so I go over every evening with a warm damp rag and check them out. I soak their eyes open if their gummed over, and give them a general clean-up if needed. There's one I've been a bit worried about:  a little runty white one whose eyes looked pink and cloudy when I get them open.  And they seem sunken in the sockets.

Anyway, I worry over him.  Over all of them, really.  We'll need to find homes for them, and everyone knows the world does not need seven more kitties.  When we first moved in, there were two wild cats semi-inhabiting our back yard, until the dogs made a go for them, cornering the smallest against the fence. I got there in time to avoid injury to either side, but the kitten was wet all over and spitting in terror.  They haven't returned... wisely.

Kobi escaped the yard and went next door last week to check out the mommacat and babies.  I heard her yelp and saw her come out, tail down and eyes squinting from the slash she received across the face.  She had it coming.  She too has not returned, and I hope it keeps her from harrassing the kittens any further.  But they are only just now big enough to begin exploring a bit (when their eyes are not gummed shut).  So I hope there's no trouble when they are big enough to be bouncing around the yard like fluffy balls of bait.

And that day is coming up very soon.  Last night at about 10:30, my neighbor rang my doorbell, and when I opened the door she just said "you gotta come see this."

Well, all the kitties were out in the driveway, chasing and pouncing and rolling over one another. I had not seen them so active, and in fact just early that evening I'd had to pry open the eyes of two of them. But they were all wide-eyed, healthy and playful, with clearly not the slightest fear of people.  So I sat down right there on the concrete and let them all pile into my lap.

There is just not much that a lapful of 4-week-old kittens can't make you feel better about.  Not that I have any reason to feel sorry for myself just now, but I do sometimes get a little lonely.  But these little balls of play reminded me again of how good life can be.

For one thing: I have a neighbor who is nice enough to adopt a litter of homeless kittens, and a neighborhood that is nice enough to make sure they are fed and safe and healthy. And people who recognize the value of a lapfull of kittens enough to be willing to ring my doorbell at 10:30 at night to be sure I get a chance to enjoy it.  There's a lot to be thankful for.

UPDATE:
This is an old post that I forgot to upload.
The kitties are all thriving.  The momma moved them again to a new garage (possibly to get away from all the kids playing with them all the time), and the nice Cat Lady that lives there took in the whole litter and the mother, so they are all indoors now, cared for and fed.  We haven't seen them since then, but we know where they are.  Again, it's nice to have nice people around.