The Mob Rules Our Garden

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An adventure in unintended consequences

Photo by Andrew Shaw

We installed the owl house with the goal of attracting a predator to our yard. Months back, we’d been overrun by a mischief of rats. They flooded our backyard every evening – a scurrying gray sea of rodents. Winter arrived and the tide of rats receded. Then, in late spring, we received our first resident owl. At first, Andrew and I rejoiced, happy to have our own rodent assassin on hand if the little buggers returned. Would we be blessed with owlets?

Excited, we broke out the binoculars. Andrew grabbed his camera and zoomed in for a portrait. With a creek bordering our property, we never want for wildlife. We were blissfully unaware of the consequences of inviting a bird of prey into our little sanctuary. After all, we had observed bobcats, raccoons, and possums wandering through our garden. I rely on a squadron of little green lizards to keep unwelcome bugs at bay.

Photo by Andrew Shaw

Along our sidewalk, toads alert on night patrol wait for juicy June bugs to stumble into their path.

Photo by Andrew Shaw

Not long after the owl first revealed itself, a chorus of squawks, chitters, and shrill whistles rose from our yard like a concert from an out of tune orchestra. Our visitor ducked back into the cover of the wooden house.

“What are they doing?” I waved at the flock of jays – a blur of blue feathers dive bombing the owl house.

Andrew stated the obvious. “They don’t like the owl.”

And no wonder. I realized we had placed the bird house directly overlooking our feeders. The ones where every morning a queue of owl-bite-sized wrens, chickadees, and finches appeared. Not so good for the victims, but a perfect opportunity for the bird of prey. We had installed a hotel room with a complementary breakfast buffet.

Photo by the author

Andrew and I joined in the ruckus, jumping and waving our hands while yelling “Shoo! Shoo!” The owl, unimpressed, poked his head out now and again to glare at us. Our songbirds – blue jays, cardinals, and chickadees – continued to squawk and dive bomb the bird house. This behavior is known as “mobbing” and occurs when birds feel threatened by a predator. They band together to harass the intruder. This continued throughout the day. The mobbing behavior reminded me of the short story The Birds by Daphne Du Maurier. Most people remember the Alfred Hitchcock movie based on the story. “We better remember to keep the feeders filled,” I told Andrew.

At last, at dusk, with the mob dispatched to their night time roosts, the owl emerged. He flew to the creek for a quick drink, then disappeared into the trees. We haven’t seen an owl since then, but we hear them sometimes. Possibly they are sharing the bad review of our noisy bed and breakfast.

Abandoned, But Not Forsaken

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Exploring the Old Zoo Nature Trail in Cisco, Texas

Entrance to the Trail – Photo by the author

There is something about deserted spaces that draws out the explorer in me. Horror fan that I am, I know these are the spots where the paranormal linger. I would trespass into every vacant house if it weren’t for the threat of arrest. Instead, I feed my curious spirit with estate sales, circling rooms recently emptied of their human inhabitants and filled instead with the bric-a-brac they have left behind. No ghosts linger there, the only thing wafting through these places is the scent of mothballs and menthol.

I’d love the chance to wander through an empty asylum, a shuttered convent, a derelict hospital building. Any place filled with spiders and memories. I first heard about the abandoned zoo in Cisco through a YouTube video. “We have to go there,” I told my husband.

Zoo Trail Marker – Photo by the author

We arrived in Cisco at noon, early enough for a picnic lunch, then headed outside town to the zoo. The zoo had operated in the 1920s and closed in the 1930s. In 2021, A nonprofit organization, SAFE (Students, Athletics, Families, and Education) stepped in to clear the trash and build hiking paths.

The Start of the Trail – Photo by the author

The trail wound through the crumbling remains of the concrete structures built to house the animals.

Photo by the author

We wandered past rusted metal bars, peered into cave-like structures.

Photo by the author

Had our path been lit in twilight instead of bright, mid-day sun, I might have imagined the sad calls of the creatures who had lived in these enclosures.

Photo by the author

I wondered what had happened to the zoo’s inhabitants once the place closed. Even though I listened closely, I heard no whisper of ghostly growls – just the occasional whistle of a song bird.

Photo by the author

We continued along the trail, past the animal pens.

Photo by the author

Despite the sign’s promise – I spotted neither spiders nor a spider-shaped rock. As we passed the remains of an old foot bridge, the high notes of childish laughter drifted to us. Other hikers, not the specters of visitors from a century past.

Photo by the author

We climbed to an overlook, to a spot marked “Cougar Rock.”

Photo by the author

We left before sundown, before the spirits of past inhabitants appeared. No ghouls, just a lovely place for a spring stroll through the reminders of a past reclaimed in Cisco, Texas.

Everyone’s Taste is Not Your Own

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Photo by the author

The past has flavor. It tastes like cherry popsicles melting red down your arm on a hot summer day. It might taste like Saturday night at home, watching the movie of the week and eating pepperoni pizza. The kind from a box kit, with tiny circles of spicy pepperoni swirled into the sauce. Sometimes it tastes like love and joy, like Friday night dinner out with your family – tacos and enchiladas and queso and salsa and chips hot from the fryer.

Photo by the author

We drove up to Wichita Falls one Saturday, to explore the downtown and see if we could find something interesting in the antique shops. Along the way we stopped in Muenster at Fischer’s, a small grocery stocked with local products inspired by the town’s German heritage. I bought spaetzle and pickles and chow-chow relish. My mouth watered in anticipation of the tang of vinegar. Then, as we made our way to the cashiers at the front of the store, I spotted a box of Chef Boyardee pepperoni pizza mix. I hadn’t seen this product in the Dallas area in ages. I scooped up the last two boxes. This pizza had been a staple of my childhood and teenage years.

Photo by the author – Downtown Wichita Falls

In Wichita Falls, we trooped through dusty shops and searched for bargains, climbed creaking stairs in hopes of discovering treasure. We had left our drinks in the car, parked two blocks away. As the hot afternoon wore on, I dreamed of a cold glass of iced tea. After wandering through a maze of shelves stocked with foggy glassware, yellowed magazines, and toys with missing parts – Andrew and I decided it was time for an early dinner.

Photo by the author – Miss Kim judges your taste

Photo by the author – the seamstress

I had picked the restaurant based on the Yelp reviews. The place had been in business for decades and had racked up a reassuring 4.5 stars out of 5. Their specialty was something called a “red taco.” I couldn’t wait to try it.

“I don’t know,” Andrew said. “It might be too busy. If there’s a wait we can come back later.”

I agreed, but secretly vowed to suffer the wait. I’d dreamed of that taco the whole time we circled through stacks of broken typewriters and piles of musty books.

Photo by the author

When we arrived at the restaurant, I was thrilled when the smiling cashier told us to sit wherever we wanted. We squeezed into a narrow booth. A waitress popped by to take our order. Andrew decided on enchiladas and asked for queso in place of chili. I had a combination plate – a cheese enchilada and the long anticipated red taco. We added a bowl of queso to start.

When the waitress dropped off our chips and queso, I thought there had been some mistake and we’d been served biscuits instead. Each piece was at least a quarter inch thick and weighed enough to raise a decent welt if I chunked it at someone. The queso sported a suspicious pink tinge, as though the antacid were already blended into the sauce. A pudding-like consistency, it clung to the chips and quivered.

Andrew gave me a stricken look. “I added queso to my enchiladas.”

“Maybe they will mess up the order.”

However, our main meal arrived quickly and was just as we had requested. The famous taco was certainly red. A vivid, siren screaming red that could only come from a lifetime allotment of red dye number 40. The taco shell was thick like the chips, and possibly made from the same tortillas. Where had they come from? I’d never seen anything like that, unless you count the time I attempted to roll out my own corn tortillas at home. The refried beans were lumpy and unseasoned. My cheese enchilada was good, but there wasn’t nearly enough of it to justify the price on the menu.

I pulled up the Yelp app and read through the reviews. Had we stumbled into some alternate universe, one where everyone else thought this tasted fine? Like that Twilight Zone episode where everyone has a pig face except this one girl who believes she’s the ugliest person alive?

This time, I searched for the 1 star opinions. As I read through the ratings, one theme appeared throughout – puzzlement. Then I sorted the positive reviews. Most had one thing in common – memory.

“I’ve been going here since I was a child.”

“I always stop in Wichita Falls for a red taco.”

All around us there were smiling people dining on the chips, dipping into the queso. It must be tradition. So many restaurants closed during Covid. I can count on one hand the stores that are still open that also existed when I was young. How reassuring it must be to have one constant in your life, one place you can go and say you’ve been there for years? The food must taste better when flavored by memory.

Photo by the author

Time Travel in Ladonia Texas

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This past weekend Andrew and I drove out to the Ladonia Fossil Park. We’d been there before, during Covid. I remembered the solitude and peacefulness of strolling beside the North Sulphur River.

I had delayed a return trip, due to my terror of the steps leading down to the river. When we’d last visited, I’d resorted to scrambling along beside them down the slope to the water. Fear of breaking a hip overcame any insult to my dignity.

Now, however, the Fossil Park has moved upstream from the old location and they’ve installed a concrete ramp. If I stumbled on the ramp, I would roll on down the concrete until my journey ended at the mud pit below.

While Andrew set up to dig through a pile of loose rock, I wandered off on my own, enjoying the burble of the water beside me and the warmth of the sun on my back. Every now and then bursts of laughter drifted past from a group of children wading upstream. Scuffing my shoes through the gravel, I hoped to find something interesting. This area was once covered in water, an ancient sea filled with sharks, mosasaurs, oysters, and cephalopods dating back to the Cretaceous period, 145 million years ago.

It takes a sharp eye to spot the fossils, tucked as they are amongst the ordinary bits of quartz, shale, and dirt. But if you take wonder in small things, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

I picked up a rock, worn slick and rounded as a peach by the river.

I discovered other things too, bits of petrified wood and bone, shells and imprints of shells, cemented forever in hardened clay.

I traced the curve of a shell, marveled at the smooth lines of petrified wood, and wondered at the lace-like pattern in a bit of bone. What a miracle that these things have persisted, so many millions of years. Not everything leaves such a trace behind. Sometimes, that’s a good thing.

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