Spring. Every living creature is building, renovating, shedding, mating and eating. And stuff is disappearing.
I talked to my mother this morning, and she’s missing stuff too. She enjoys an evening meal and a beer on her front porch under her blue-striped awning. Last night, she was doing just that. She went inside to get some mustard, came out and saw a chipmunk helping himself to her hamburger. After he hauled that off, he came back for the pickle.
Yesterday, I was giving our cat Van Gogh a new spring ‘do. I removed about half a pound of fur from his winter coat with his new brush — The FURminator®. The ad says it’s the “deshedding tool for cats that reduces up to 90% of loose hair (how did they measure that?), and prevents dangerous hairballs from developing.”
Van Gogh dropped on the patio like he’s narcoleptic — in the sunniest spot, of course, and rolled from side-to-side to give me ample access to his ample coat. His coat is so thick I had to clean the brush after just four hard drags along his sides. Hair was flying everywhere. Here’s a lesson I learned: never apply lip gloss before brushing your cat; furry lips I don’t need.
Anyway, I removed his hair from the clogged brush and tossed it in the air and let the wind carry it off. He thought this was a new game and chased his hairballs for a while until a minute movement elsewhere caused him to do his own disappearing act.
Other stuff started disappearing last winter. And a hard winter it was.
We had record snowfall and wind. Between the shoveling and the filling of bird feeders and suet holders, well, I could hardly keep up. When I returned from the store with a fresh supply of peanut butter suet, I left the suet cake in the bag outside the back door to run inside and get my scissors to cut through the heavy plastic. I returned just in time to see a fully wrapped suet cake disappearing up a large maple tree. “Gee, sorry the service is so slow,” I yelled.
That evening I found the suet cake wrapper at the bottom of the tree. Hmmmm. What else is up there? It reminded me of a book my granddaughters loved when they were young: Gooseberry Park. The furry protagonist — a squirrel named Stumpy — has a working Timex watch in his nest that glows at night.
Which reminds me; years ago I left a small bag of garbage by the back door overnight. In order to spare the septic system, the bag contained some superabsorbent female products. The next morning the garbage was strewn all over the back patio and picked over. That evening, as I was relaxing on the patio, I looked up and noticed a new Robin’s nest with a string hanging out. That was one superabsorbent nest.
Just now a Tufted Titmouse flew by carrying a tuft of Van Gogh’s fiery orange hair.
The building, renovating, shedding, mating and eating show no sign of letting up.
Hey, where’s my left garden glove?