Author: mstturpin

Writer in Texas trying to get the words out of her head and onto the page.

A Lovely Home with a Wonderful View

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Photo by the Author

I dumped a shovel of dirt over the body. The corpse in question, a dead rat, stared at me with a glazed eye before I covered it with a quart of potting soil. Miracle Grow, guaranteed for beautiful blooms. I hope nothing sprouts from this planting.

The rat expired less than a foot from where I’d been digging that morning. I wondered if I’d accidentally clonked him with the shovel as I set out the milkweed plant. Or maybe he’d nibbled on the fresh addition. I’d read that milkweed was poisonous, but I didn’t expect such a fast-acting result.

Of all the solutions to our rat problem, we decided the best answer would be owls. No harmful chemicals, no grisly traps to empty, nothing but the swoop of wings and a quick death to rodents. After Andrew ordered the owl house we discovered it most likely wouldn’t be inhabited until next spring, during nesting season.

“We’ll hang it now in case they decide to move in early,” Andrew said.

My husband is fearless. I’m afraid of climbing heights greater than four feet from the ground, crawling through small spaces, and purchasing things on credit. I admire anyone who is brave enough to scamper up a sixteen-foot ladder. However, someone has to stand at the bottom and hold the ladder steady. I felt the owls would be perfectly happy with a home half as high in the tree, but Andrew disagreed.  

Our vacant owl house – Photo by the author

I stood there, clutching the shaking ladder, while Andrew scurried up, carrying the owl house and a drill. My mother believed that owls were bad luck. When she was a child, her family had lost two homes to fires. “We heard an owl calling on the roof both times,” she told me. I felt the blaze was more likely because of a faulty chimney or bad wiring, and maybe the owl was just trying to warn them.

The owl lodging secured in place, Andrew climbed down the ladder. I had to admit, now that he was safely at ground level, the house looked nice and snug, high in the tree.

We had a little chickadee investigate the structure, but so far, no owls. At night, though, we can hear their trilling hoots as we stroll through our neighborhood. A creek winds down the back of our property, and native trees crowd along the bank. “It’s a lovely home, perfect for raising a family,” I entreat the birds, “with a wonderful view.”

I have a story on Vocal, inspired by owls. As a bonus, there’s also a dead rodent. You can read it here: A Death Redeemed.

Dealing with Triffids and Other Creeping Horrors

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The Devil’s Ivy at home on the hearth – Photo by the author

I learned the other day that Pothos is also called Devil’s Ivy. The poisonous nature of its leaves inspires that name, surely undeserved. Pothos are very hard to kill. I can testify to their hardiness. During the lock down days of Covid, I abandoned a pot of ivy. Left to fend for itself in my office cubicle, the plant went two months with no water. I found the poor thing shriveled and dusty, its dry leaves scattered across the windowsill. I had at least left it with a decent view of the parking lot.

True to its name, the plant resurrected, and it is now determined to take over our fireplace hearth. Five years ago, I had one Pothos. Now I have eight. All started with clippings from that original pot. The vines can grow one foot every month. If my plants were sentient, they would take over the world. 

I think it is trying to reach our front door. Photo by the author

The recent rains have revived our garden. The roses are once again blooming. During July and August, they wilted in the heat like a southern belle at a cotillion. Throughout the summer, only the okra and a strange weed flourished. I identified the odd specimen with the help of a phone app—marestail, also called horseweed. Flamboyant and exotic, it sprang up to bloom in clusters of delicate flowers on a tall, leafy stem. It became the center point of our flower bed. The sight of it, upright and waving its limbs in the breeze, brings to mind a horror movie of the 1960s – Day of the Triffids. 

Horseweed standing tall in our garden. Photo by the author

The movie’s plot involves a meteor that crashes on earth, spreading alien plant spores and striking everyone blind. In the ensuing darkness, sentient ambulatory plants called Triffids take their creepy revenge on humankind. Although it would be ridiculously easy to outrun a walking plant, this film terrified me when I was a child.  

My pots of devil’s ivy unfurl their vines like arms. Perhaps they reach for me as I sleep. Would they curl their lovely, poisonous leaves across my face and into my mouth? I hope my gentle Pothos has nothing but concern as it stretches across the hearth, down the bookcase, along the windowsill. It needs me. Who would water it if I was gone? The roots carry the memory of that lonely isolation.

I have replaced my fear of Triffids with other creeping horrors. Old age, pain, dementia, debt. These are the terrors that keep me up at night. I’d gladly exchange them, not for blindness, but for Triffids. Even my stiff hips could outrun a sentient, ambulatory plant.

A Mischief of Rats

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Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

The bunnies were cute until they began dining on my asparagus. Squirrels raided the bird feeders but they were cute and their antics fun to watch so we forgave them. A creek borders our back yard, making us a way station for all sorts of wild life. We’ve had raccoons knocking over the plants on the patio, flower beds disrupted by armadillos, and an aloof bobcat hiding behind the planters to spy on our birdfeeders. The neighborhood box turtle visited often enough that we researched her gender and named her Myrtle.

We enjoyed our status as open air zoo – tossing out sunflower seeds for the jays, peanuts for the squirrels and an occasional lettuce leaf for Myrtle. Then the rats arrived.

A clatter and rustle from the dark yard prompted us to flip on the patio light. There, exposed in the brief flash before they melted away in a wave of fur and long, skinny tails, we spied at least a dozen rats enjoying a late night snack on our birdfeeder. A plague of rats, a pack, a swarm – enough to send us stomping and yelling back to the safety of our living room.

Further horror ensued when my husband spotted one burrowing under our house. “They probably have a whole rat tunnel system under our foundation!”

We purchased pebbles and rock and filled in the holes while blotting out the image of stranded rats slowly decomposing among our plumbing pipes.

I wondered if we would have found them so despicable had they had the soft, fluffy tails of squirrels. The sight of those rats clinging to our birdfeeder reminded me of the movie Willard. It came out in 1971, when I was eleven years old. I saw it at the movie theater, probably on dollar night and with my friends. I don’t remember much about the plot, except that it involved revenge, and a lot of rats. The main character, a young man named Willard, formed a friendship with a pair of intelligent rats. There are many directions the movie could have taken from that point, but this is a horror movie, so I’ll just tell you the final scene involved a rat army led by their commander, Ben.

The odd thing about this movie, when I look back on it, is that I remember feeling sympathy for the animals and not the human characters. Strange how our perspective shifts when we identify with the monster.

We solved the rat issue by bringing in the bird feeder each night. I picture them gathering at the base of the pole where the feeder hung, wondering who took away their buffet dinner. The collective noun for a group of rats could be pack, plague, colony, swarm but they can also be called a mischief.

You can read about the movie Willard at the AFI Catalog site.

Willard inspired a sequel two years later – the movie Ben. This film featured a song by Michael Jackson. Try to listen to it and remember he is singing about a rat.

Communion with Cornmeal

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I come from generations of gardeners. When we moved into our house last year, it was too late in the summer for planting. I vowed an early start in the next season. This year, however, brought mostly failed experiments with container gardening. My tomatoes grew weary in the dry heat, dropping leaves and blossoming worth with small, wrinkled fruit. I tried summer squash – remembering the butter yellow vegetables my mother grew. My plants protested confinement in pots, however large. But one hardy vegetable flourished in the ten square feet I allotted it. Okra, that heat-loving Southern staple.

It’s one of the easiest plants to grow, and it makes an interesting addition to your garden. The yellow blossoms with their deep red centers reveal the plant’s place in the mallow family, a relative of the hibiscus. A little water, lots of sun, and you’re rewarded with hardy, heat-loving stalks and enough okra pods to share with your friends and family. Okra is best right after it is picked. The stuff you see in a grocery store most likely will be soft and wilted. If you don’t have a spot to grow it yourself, pick it up at a Farmers Market. Okra is delicious roasted. Boiled it makes a tasty thickener for stews and gumbo. My favorite way to cook it is to bread it in either corn meal or flour and fry it.

Okra

The blooms open in the early morning sun, around the time I set aside for harvesting the pods. Bees circle the plants, landing and picking up their fill of pollen while I brush aside the broad leaves and search for the tasty green okra. I’m growing Clemson Spineless – a kinder variety from the one I picked as a child in my mother’s garden. Those plants and their pods were covered in prickly spines that raised red welts on the tender flesh of my arms. The rash, however, was payment for the reward – plates of crunchy, cornmeal breaded and fried okra.

Okra plants in my garden

As I pick the pods, I can imagine the taste of the crispy chunks. Okra has a flavor that reminds me of cool green grass. It tastes like summer. I remember my mother, setting the table with fried okra and red slices of tomato. She pan-fried her okra in shortening with a little bacon grease mixed in for flavor. I cook mine in canola oil and skip the bacon grease. Like my mom, I use a cast iron skillet. Each bite I take I taste the past.

New Year New Goals

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Unlike my friend here, I don’t have an excuse for not writing more.

The past year has been a series of “if only” – If only I didn’t have to work full time, if only I had more time, if only I had a dedicated writing space, and on and on and on.

It’s the end of the year and I’m still working a full time job. We have bills to pay, just like most people I know. Whenever I begin to feel sorry for myself and wish for more time, I remember reading about Ray Bradbury toiling away each night, writing short stories after he worked to support his family. He wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a rented typewriter, in the basement of the UCLA library. I have a laptop I could take anywhere to write – including my office in the house we bought this year.

I’m grateful to the group of writing friends I’ve made. I wouldn’t have completed the works I have done this year if it hadn’t been for their support and encouragement.

With 2022 upon us, I’m wishing for a more productive year for everyone. In the meantime, here’s a link below to an older short story of mine that I think turned out well.

Old Long Since

Happy New Year!

Thankful for Small Steps

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I turned 60 this year, and for the first time in my life I’ve realized I have far fewer days ahead of me than behind. It’s a startling revelation, one that leads me to portion out my days like a miser hoarding gold. A very small stack of gold. One that I should have appreciated much sooner.

There is no good time to live through a pandemic. I wonder if I would have felt the theft of days as acutely if Covid had happened when I was 50, 40, 30. Be thankful, I tell myself, you don’t have small children at home. I’m fortunate that I have a job that can be done remotely. The only health damage my husband and I have sustained is the extra pounds that have crept up on us. I’m not replacing the batteries on our digital scale. When it dies we’ll stop monitoring our gains. That, at least, will have a finite ending.

We decided to forego any gathering of friends and family for Thanksgiving and instead reserved admission to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas. It seemed safer to spend the time outdoors, passing strangers on trails.

Outside, with the clean scent of juniper and cedar surrounding us, it was simple to tie my shortness of breath to the steepness of our hike, and not to the irrational fear of illness. Worry dissolved with each step over tangled roots, each rustle of leaves blanketing the trails.

We stopped at an overlook to admire how high we’d climbed and I ate an orange, impossibly sweet, from my pack.

I snapped a picture at a spot I’d stopped at a few years back, intending to look up that photo and compare it to the present, but I decided I’d rather keep the current image in my mind without regret for the changes brought by time.

The trek downhill was harder, perhaps because it marked the winding down of the day. My knees complained and my ankles, not to be outdone, insisted on wobbling with each step. Someone had installed a small wooden step at a particularly steep portion of the trail. As I tested the sturdiness of the steps I clutched the trunk of a cedar tree leaning over the path. The usually shaggy bark was worn smooth, polished by the thousands of hands that had gone this way before me.

At the end of the trail, as at the beginning, we had to cross the slow-moving Paluxy River. Andrew hopped across the stones laid in rows in the shallow water while I, not trusting my balance, decided to take off my boots and go barefoot through the crossing.

I tested each step, carefully navigating over slick, moss-covered stones worn smooth. Cold water up to my knees, I felt both a child-like joy and the very adult fear of falling. If I made it back to dry land safely, I decided I would devote time each day to the yoga tree-pose.

I find gratitude in nature, for the ability to set out on larger journeys with small steps. I forgive myself for the ennui that has gripped me this past year and I realize that instead of wasting time I’ve been healing. So that when this pandemic is over I can go out and face the world like the bad-ass, mature woman that I am.

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” Henri Matisse

Leave the Right Trace

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Whispering Pines Nature Trail at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author

I’ve been wondering, lately, what I’ll leave behind. What mark will I make on the world? Not that I’m planning to kick off anytime soon, but recent events have certainly brought that to mind. When you have to gear up for a Target run like you’re preparing for the apocalypse, it brings home the certainty of your own mortality.

Mushroom Along the Trail – Photo by Andrew Shaw

Andrew and I have determined the safest space for us is outdoors. We might encounter a snake, have to brush off a tick, or bring home a rash from poison ivy, but there’s little risk of inhaling a deadly virus, as long as we keep our distance from our fellow hikers. There’s plenty of room for all outside.

Loblolly Pines at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author

We traveled down Interstate 20, to Tyler State Park. As we grew closer to our destination, the earth beside the highway changed from the blackland prairie soil to the red clay dirt of East Texas.

Hiking Trail at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author

Like many of our beautiful national and state parks, Tyler State Park was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression. Andrew and I hiked along a trail and climbed steps laid into the ground over eighty years ago.

Steps and Waterfall Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1938 – Photo by the author

Outdoor etiquette instructs us to be careful, to leave no trace when we hike. Our footprints on the trail, stamped into the dust, will be swept aside by the next traveler. We take nothing but peace from the space. As we trekked along, under a canopy of green, I thought what a wonderful trace the young men of the CCC had left behind.

Whispering Pines Nature Trail at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author

How fortunate our land had Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president during that trying time. When FDR established the Civilian Conservation Corps, he created hope and opportunity, not just for the men who would lend their labor to creating a legacy that would live on past their lifetimes, but for all who would visit the parks in decades to come. The challenge then, for each of us, will be to examine our steps and determine what trace our actions will leave for future generations.

Tyler State Park, Tyler, Texas – Photo by the author

Finding Fossils in Ladonia, Texas

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Sign outside Ladonia Fossil Park in Ladonia, Texas, Small Town Big Future
Ladonia Fossil Park – Photo by the author

On a sunny Sunday afternoon Andrew and I drove to Ladonia, Texas to look for fossils.  They’d been waiting for discovery some eighty million years, so we were in no particular hurry to arrive. Small towns with quaint names peppered the map along the path we traveled – White Shed, Honey Grove, Allens Chapel, Pecan Gap, Wolfe City, Birthright, Ben Franklin, and Flat Prairie. I ignored the blacktop road beneath our tires and focused on the fields flashing past. I imagined we were retracing the route of an Old West stagecoach.

The North Sulphur River
The North Sulphur River

We turned off Highway 34 and into the gravel parking lot at the entrance to the park. There were no facilities – no restrooms, no ranger station, and most important – no ticket booth and no admission charge.

To reach the riverbed we clambered down a steep concrete staircase, more suited to goats than late-middle-aged women.

“I can hold your hand,” Andrew offered.

“I’m afraid I’d just pull you down with me, and we’d tumble off together,” I said.

The steep stairs descending to the riverbed
The “Stairs”

Erosion had carried away the bottom portion of the staircase. We were able to sidle along the side of the embankment and reach the riverbed. The buzz of passing cars and trucks sounded beside us, on the bridge spanning the river. Once we reached the bottom the noise filtered away.

Partially dry riverbed of the North Sulphur River
The View from the Bottom of the Stairs – North Sulphur River

We brought a garden trowel and a plastic grocery bag to carry away any treasure we unearthed. Visitors are allowed to collect anything they find along the banks or in the riverbed. While Andrew sifted through the loose shale that lined the bank, I strolled along beside the shallow water.

Shale banks of the North Sulphur RIver
Shale Banks of the North Sulphur River

The clear water carried the boiled-egg stink of sulphur, so I resisted the urge to wade in the river. We found fossilized oyster shells and imprints of pre-historic plants, immortalized in the soft, grey rock. The shale crumbled, like cake too soon from the oven.

“We’ll have to come back, and bring more tools,” Andrew said.

I imagined the trek down those stairs, while weighted with shovels, trowels, buckets and brushes. “Maybe,” I said.

Right before we left, a group of people – three adults and a dizzying clutch of children – stopped to chat. One of the men told us he’d heard the park would soon be closed. “They’re going to open the dam upriver,” he said, “and this place will be underwater.”

Pausing at the top of the staircase, I gazed back the way I’d climbed and imagined, instead of the thin stream of water below, a vast spread of sea.

Here We Go A-Wandering

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Photo by the author – Ammonite fossil on the hiking trail at Cleburne State Park, Texas

There are times when you just have to go somewhere. I imagine every unmasked stranger carries not just Covid-19, but some alien spore that will launch from their chest like a special effect in a John Carpenter movie. We are living in a badly plotted horror flick. When I heard the Texas state parks were open again with limited capacity, I signed up for a day pass to Cleburne State Park.

My husband Andrew and I arrived at the park just before noon. Texas in June is more suited to early morning or late-night hikes, but we had packed plenty of water in our CamelBak hydration packs. Andrew chose the trail. Although it was marked on the map as “Challenging” it also appeared to be the one with the most shade. Equipped with boots, hat, and hiking staff – I felt I could handle the route.

At the start of our hike, as we trod smartly along the tree-lined path, I hummed the tune to The Happy Wanderer.

Photo by the author

If you went to school in the 1960s or early 1970s, I bet you know this song. We sang it at every choir practice or music class. It was written by Florenz Friedrich Sigismund (1791–1877) and since I’m sure the copyright has long since passed, here are the lyrics:  

“I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.

Chorus:
Val-deri,Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Val-deri,Val-dera.
My knapsack on my back.”

We passed a little stream as I reached the second verse.

Photo by the author

“I love to wander by the stream
That dances in the sun
So joyously it calls to me
Come join my happy song”

The trail Andrew and I climbed, while not exactly mountainous, did have enough elevation change that I felt compelled to stop every few feet and rest. Panting might help dogs to cool off, but it did not work for me. I would have collapsed on the juniper needles blanketing the path, but for the green poison ivy poking up in every level spot.

“How much farther?” I asked Andrew.

He pulled out the map and considered it. “I think we are a little less than halfway to the scenic overlook.”

“I hope there’s a bench there,” I said.

We continued along, Andrew in the lead and me following. I stared at the trail, carefully avoiding anything resembling a stick that might turn out to be a snake in disguise. We spotted a lovely ammonite fossil and I stopped to take a picture.

The fossil reminded me the area we hiked was, in prehistoric times, the floor of an ocean. The limestone we walked on was made up of the skeletal remains of marine life that inhabited that sea. If only we were wading through that cooling water now.

“Do you still have plenty of water?” Andrew asked as we paused and I soaked a towel with cool water from my pack.

“I’m good.”

“We don’t want to get heat-stroke,” Andrew said, “but I’ve heard that’s a pleasant way to die. You just pass out and go.”

“I’ve never thought of any sort of dying as pleasant.”

“Well, yes, but of all the ways to go,” Andrew continued, “I think if you kick off first, I’ll just head to the desert and walk until I’m gone.”

The trail leveled out along a stretch of wildflower filled, sunlit fields. I sipped my water and mentally checked off the symptoms of heat-stroke. I occurred to me that worrying over heat exhaustion had so consumed my thoughts that afternoon that I hadn’t thought once about dying in the pandemic. Not even when we passed other, unmasked hikers on the trail.

At one point we scrambled down an incline of loose scree, our feet sliding almost from under us. I grabbed at the cedar tree branches bent over the trail, in order to slow my descent. Andrew waited for me at the bottom, then held my hand and helped me climb up the other side. I studied Andrew’s back as he pushed on upwards. His hiking boots kicked up tufts of dried leaves and gravel.

“If I die first and you decide to go off hiking in the desert,” I said, “box up my ashes and take them with you. That way you won’t be alone.”

“All right, I suppose that could work.”

Right after, we discovered we’d been on the wrong trail. We ended up at the point where we’d begun the loop, not a bad thing as we were near the trail sign that pointed to the exit.

I’ll be back inside next week, waiting out the pandemic. I’ve never liked crowds, or crowded places where large groups congregate, so I don’t miss those types of gatherings. I do like my solitary pursuits – reading and writing, but I’m always glad of Andrew’s company. When you’re on a journey, I think it’s nice to have someone by your side. Or leading the way, watching for snakes.

Did I Say That Out Loud?

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Photo by the author

My husband Andrew and I have both been working from home the past few weeks. There have been some adjustments related to space. We’ve agreed all pooping is to take place in the bathroom farthest from where our desks are set up.

It’s funny the things you notice when you spend 24 hours a day with another person. Andrew discovered I have a “work voice.” It’s like a secret identity where my superpower is cursing.

I binge watched Tiger King last week. I’ve decided Carole Baskin did kill her husband, but it probably didn’t have anything to do with them working together. Maybe. There are no tigers at our apartment complex.

We do have squirrels. They’ve grown used to the both of us being home everyday and they march right up to the glass door on the patio. Like they’re ordering food at Jack in the Box. We’re giving them names. I call the one that knocks over my plants You Bastard.

While we’re in quarantine I’m trying new things. I’ve got a sourdough starter going. Everything I’d read made the process sound pretty easy, but I’ve found it’s like raising a third child. I have to feed it twice a day and keep it warm. I’m knitting it a scarf.