Category: Blog

Naked man vs. nature

Who was knock, knock, knocking at our door?

THUD, shock waves reverberate through the house. FLOP. STOMP.  I had heard these sounds before between 3:00 & 4:00 am. My husband John had assured me, “It’s only the house settling. You know like we stretch arthritic backs or roll our heads round and round to get cricks out of our necks.”

Are these just half-asleep musings? a dream? My anxious brain tells me to calm down, go back to sleep. Easier said than done, even though I try every type of breathing exercise I have learned on Insight Timer—box breathing, 4, 7, 8, . . .  

But if the house was just settling, stretching its back or eradicating cricks, then its fierce complaints demanded chiropractic attention. I kept thinking about predictions of California “settling” into the Pacific and envisioned our house tumbling down the hill, past the startled Angus cows, and into tiny Tom’s Creek. Would our house rest on its side as Dorothy’s did in the Wizard of Oz, crushing a fish or even a cow?

The breathing helps. I start to relax—then I feel a slight dip in the bed and hear a hiccup escape from the hardwood floor. I drift off to sleep. John’s up for a bathroom break.

As the sunlight seeps through the sky lights and oozes into the bedroom, I remember those lumbering sounds from earlier in the morning. Had John heard that pounding? Had he felt those thuds and stomps? Or had the ear plugs, which he uses to deaden my snoring, saved him from that interrupter?

“Yeah, I did,” he confesses. “Since the noise was coming from the front of the house, I ran out the front door waving my arms and giving the best Rebel yell that a New Jersey man could give.” End of explanation.

Okay, I thought, why. . .? Was this a ritual that after ten years of marriage I was just now learning about?  A brisk sprint into a frigid January morning was his response to the house settling?

The pawing and prancing of each little (?) hoof.

When prodded, John provided more details about his nocturnal adventure. Yes, he had “sprang from his bed”, au naturel, “to see what was the matter.” It wasn’t the pawing and prancing of each little hoof, but the pounding and snorting of two lively deer having a 4:00 am breakfast. “Our evergreen shrubs were the main course,” John complained. (So that must be the reason for their stunted growth.)

What to do? Do we continue to be Golden Corral for hungry deer?  Must we wear ear plugs every night to cancel out their vociferous munching and belching? Do I surrender my flower beds to their trampling hooves? Must the magnolia tree honoring my dead father be sacrificed as a scratching post for shedding antlers? Aren’t all these problems just minor when compared to the other problems our world faces today?

But we do spray our homes for termites and never think a thing about it. Do you pick up the roaches, the spiders, and the stink bugs and take them outside or do you stomp on them (well, all but the stink bugs)? What is the line and what are the rules between pests and beloved wildlife? What makes the difference?

The magnolia tree aka deer scratching post.

Our local paper tells us that accidents between deer and cars have risen to a critical point this year. County officials have discovered wasting disease in the local deer.

We live in a rather rural section of the county where deer abound along with foxes, coyotes, groundhogs, beavers, etc. I would love to sign a contract with the wildlife—you stay in the undergrowth and pastures, just keep a few yards distance from the house. But, of course, that is impossible.

Yes, I love to see the deer out in the pastures, but not on the side of the road ready to jump out in front of the car. What is more important—the deer or you and your passengers? One of our good friends was riding his motorcycle when a deer hit him. The result? Broken ribs, broken collar bone, and months of physical therapy and lost time from his profession.

Deer in our area no longer have natural predators. Hunters for the Hungry bemoan the fact that not as many people hunt as they once did thus allowing herds to become over-populated and unhealthy.

The painful decision to allow our local police to cull the herd that populates our property was not easy. Hopefully this culling will cut down on deer accidents, help curb wasting disease among the deer, and allow for a healthy population.

Hunters for the Hungry will receive the deer from this culling and test it for wasting disease. If that test is negative, then they will give the meat to families who need food. Hunger is always at these families’ doorsteps, much like the hungry deer at mine. Whom do we spare?

What is the right way to manage wildlife? I love animals. I don’t squish bugs or spiders, have taken in stray cats and nurtured their litters, rescued stray dogs. Even when a young rat snake decided he’d like to explore our basement, John just gently picked him up with meat tongs and showed him the door.

Help me with this quandry. How would you handle disruptive deer? What is the right thing to do?

My daffies

This year’s winter/spring weather has tested my daffodil soldiers beyond belief. Suddenly spring bounded into meteorological winter and winter retaliated with a series of bone-chilling skirmishes that countered Spring’s inappropriate intrusion.

But Spring may have lost the battle but not the war. The last week in February, my daffies started yawning. Intrusive Spring tempted their young leaves out of the protective bulb and into the deceptively warm sunlight. Their buds, encased in bright green foliage, promised that soon yellow blooms would burst free, causing anyone who spied them to break into a smile as wide as our expanding universe.

But the tug of war between Spring and Winter continued longer than expected. One night Winter sent temps plummeting to 29 and the next day Spring was on the rebound with a string of highs in the sixties.  This pattern repeated during March. As the sun rose, my daffies with drooped heads and stems, greeted the noon sun spry and ready to go, perfect posture with their faces to the sun. 

As the sun’s rays slowly faded into dusk, an onslaught of frigid air pushed the proud daffodil’s down, down, down. Did those daffodils succumb to nature’s whiplash? Well some did but the majority did not. By noon the next day, they were back at attention, resilient and tireless in their desire to make me and any passerby smile.

And such is life with its ups and downs, its defeats and victories. I strive to be like the daffodils—rebounding whenever life tries to punch me out. My head will droop, my shoulders ache from that unhealthy position. But in this stooped, humble position, my heart is close to Mother Earth and soon beats in unison with the planet’s rhythm of life. Earth’s force is hydraulic, pumping her strength into my veins, helping me to slowly straighten up and fly right as my father would tell me. 

It takes both disaster and success to make us strong—disasters make us humble and empathetic, success bring us confidence and joy. Of course, the back and forth, the ups and downs aggravate our arthritic joints, inflame our muscles, and just plain tucker us out. But it’s worth it.