Perfect Balance

I suppose this picture will hike a few eyebrows. What is a nun doing showing an, um, amorous embrace between slugs on her blog?

Raciness aside, I think this is one of the more lovely pictures we have. That is saying more than you might imagine; last summer slugs were the bane of our gardening endeavors, easily consuming as much food (and I wouldn't be surprised if it were actually more) than six humans did. We confess to dispatching a goodly number of them using the tried and true beer method. They entered eternal slug-life as happy little critters; I was sure if I listened hard enough I'd hear drinking songs and raucous laughter from the strawberry patch.

But then Sr. Helena Marie took this amazing picture, and my attitude made an abrupt about-face. How can you not like creatures that mate in the yin-yang position? Suddenly I thought strawberry shortcake came in a poor second to the artistry of these amazingly beautiful creatures — and who would ever think that about a slug?

Natural conversation

Living on the farm is teaching us firsthand what lies behind some of the sayings humans use freely. Brooding. A sitting duck. To squirrel away.

It was the red squirrels' squirreling this fall that caused Sr. Lilli Ana to predict a really, really severe winter. Those little clowns laid up a supply of pine cones that would keep all the horses on our neighbor's farm in feed for months. This is just one pile; there were a lot of 'em.

We've lived close enough to the land to respect the conversation available continuously from Mother Earth. In Colorado I used to watch the height of the skunk cabbage to predict the snowfall for the coming winter. Here we "listen" to the squirrels by noticing what they lay aside to keep them going until the riches of next spring become available. Huge piles of "squirreled away" pine cones predicts a tough winter.

But with global warming, we began to wonder if the squirrels had lost their predicting touch. October. November. December. By the middle of January we'd had one snow shower and an average temperature of about 50°. Not good.

Sr. Lilli Ana stuck with the squirrels, though. "Just wait," she kept saying. "This winter's going to be severe. Trust the squirrels."

Well, it's hard to trust a little tree imp. I'm human, you know, and we have thermometers, graphs, dew points, Doppler radar, and an overdeveloped frontal lobe that helps us believe we're the brightest and most skillful creature around.

What I forgot is that all the creatures have amazing abilities, and each one has at least one skill I can't even comprehend much less accomplish myself. Global warming has certainly stirred the climate pot in dangerous ways, and one result may well be uneven weather patterns with extreme fluctuations. But whatever is behind this strange winter, the brutal times have arrived for those who live in nature's housing. Tonight, tomorrow, Saturday ... temperatures near zero and enough wind to drive them down to fifteen below.

Those squirrels were right. Brrrrrrr ....

Out of Control

You know how it is when someone does something funny in a situation where no one should be laughing?

Today during our daily conference, where we discuss the nits and lice of daily life — who needs the car, shopping needs for the day, house repairs needed and so on — one of the sisters jumped back and clapped her hands together loudly, then resumed talking as if nothing unusual had happened. Startled, the rest of us reacted. "Wow. That's quite a tic you've developed there ..." was probably the best one. We all laughed.

But somewhere deep inside each of us, the funny bone had been tickled. Snickering evolved into guffaws. This was really, really funny. Of course there was a reasonable explanation: the sister was trying to dispatch a bothersome gnat, buzzing around her head. Not all that strange, really.

But funny.

We resumed our meeting, and the day went on. I turned a newly made cheese every hour. A phone appointment occurred. A dog coat was constructed to protect Simon from the frigid weather to come. The duck houses were gussied up with tarps, straw bales and new hasps and hinges so the -12° temperatures to come wouldn't harm those fragile feet and caruncles. Plans were completed for the trip to upstate New York and the NOFA conference.

At 5:30 we headed out to the chapel for Evening Prayer. There we were, beginning one of the most solemn and lovely offices in the daily round of prayer. "Now that we have come to the setting of the sun, and our eyes behold the Vesper light ... " Solemn. Beautiful. Serious.

Until the first snort of laughter exploded.

I don't know what triggered the connection to that gnat-killing hand-clap, but there it was. And all of us were laughing and crying at the same time, unable to stop.

As far as I can tell, this was the first time in the seventeen years I've spent in this Community that we thought we might have to memorialize an office due to hysterics. We just couldn't stop. We tried everything: saying rather than singing; laughing uncontrollably for awhile, to see if we could get ourselves under control. It got better, but it never disappeared entirely, even when we sang the final respond for a double feast. Poor Paul; not an entirely respectful honoring of his conversion.

We meant him no harm, of course; we tried our best to reign in the snickering. But sometimes you just have to let laughter have its way. Time will fix it eventually.

Our apologies for this unorthodox celebration of your life, dear Paul. We hope that you, too, had an occasionally quirky sense of humor that carried you away from your speaking goal on the wings of silliness. Or at least some tolerance for those of us who do.

Winter woe, springtime promise

The ducks are out again today, and we're all glad about it. For the past two days they've had to stay in their houses, protected from the bitter cold. That means that two of us haul five-gallon buckets of water down to the duck houses, along with two dishes of duck feed and the empty water pans. While one of us sets up the food and water in each house and collects the eggs, the other keeps the ducks from escaping.

That is not quite as easy as it may sound. A twelve-pound duck with talons who wants to fly out of the house can pretty well do it. Imagine an un-neutered feral tom cat with wings and you'll get the idea. The whole procedure is reversed at night. We have to re-hay the houses then, too; if we don't, the ducks' fragile feet could suffer from spending the night on wet (and probably frozen) hay—the inevitable result of their feather and nose hygiene, and the very disaster we're trying to prevent by keeping them locked up.

Duck house-arrest happened quite a bit last winter, but this is the first time this season. Strange. I guess that's good for the ducks, because they certainly prefer to be roaming free, noshing on whatever tasty greens they find and soil-dwellers they can dig up. For the ducks, being cooped up, literally, is miserable—to say nothing of stinky. The sisters aren't too happy with added labor the confinement requires either.

On the other hand, those cold, cold days are necessary to maintain the health of the whole environment around here. Maple tree sap needs to "rest" in the roots for long periods of time to be fortified with nutrients from the soil. Good for the tree, good for making maple syrup. The cold maintains a balance among the tiny critters, like virii, bacteria, deer ticks, slugs, beetles and ground bees. Cold triggers hibernation in some of the local animal community. Cold sends the geese south each year. Cold keeps some of the more "challenging" plants, like poison ivy, from growing dangerously large and powerful. Cold is our friend.

So, I'm sorry Basil, Henrietta, Clementine, Petra and Macrina, that you have to suffer days of confinement. But the payback comes this spring, when you'll each have two strong, healthy feet and those amazingly strange facial decorations (caruncles). That's when you'll really have a great time, rooting around in the mud and finding the most delicious tender greens. Hang in there. It's coming ...

A Word About Bob

I think I mentioned awhile back that another drop-off critter had joined our ranks: a (mostly) snuggly black cat. Buzz Lightyear is his official name; but over the months since his arrival his true nature has been revealed, and it is clear that he is a Bob.

Bob was a fine companion during my recent illness, spending most of his days purring loudly as he wrapped himself around my sore throat, cuddled on my chest under the quilt, or sat on my head so he could claim most of the pillow. I found the comfort of his warmth worth a few cat-hairs in the mouth. He purred a lot, and was extremely nice to me, even when I repeatedly rolled over on him in my sleep.

Now that I'm back to normal, so is Bob. He doesn't like it when I work at the computer; he sits on the tablet, makes phone calls with his feet, knocks my pen on the floor and swats it under the cabinet, rubs his face all over the keyboard (always dangerous to the work in progress), and stands in front of the monitor. He has a limited tolerance for the petting he begs for. He uses the latest rows of my knitting project to clean out the litter from his paws. Occasionally he yowls at a decibel level that sounds like he's being declawed without benefit of anesthesia, but all he's saying is "It's time for cookies, woman!" His main mode of communication, though, involves teeth and claws and usually draws blood. Mine.

I think Bob misses being outdoors, now that time has erased the memories of starving, running from coyotes and raccoons, and yearning to sleep peacefully (and safely) in a human lap for an hour or so. Mercifully, all he remembers now are the birds, the warm sun, the thrill of the hunt.

We struggle to understand each other, and are both grateful for those moments when we seem to have figured out what the other wants and is willing to give. So I try to be tolerant of his crabby moods; I work hard at "reading" him, which is of course impossible. I try anyway, because I love him, and to the best of cat possibility, he loves me.

And when you love something, you learn to cut it a lot of slack. After all, they do the same for you when you need it most.