It Was Bound To Happen Eventually

 

            Apples don't grown in the Great Forest. But there they were. Six of them. Dark, very red, looking like something from a fairytale, arranged in a charming basket.
            The charming basket was hanging from the stump of a branch on an alder sapling near the wide spot on SR 20, so not quite within the Great Forest, but at its periphery.
            Naturally, Maeve saw it first, but she didn’t touch it. It looked a little too good to her, felt like a trap maybe.
            When she got to Ralph, he was naturally intrigued. “Oh, really, Birdy? Let us go take a look and puzzle it out!” said he. He headed right over to the highway, and just as she had said, there was what was probably an Easter basket, with six perfect organic deep red apples inside hanging on the little alder tree.
            “Hm,” said Ralph, and he walked all around the tree, looking for sign of any kind. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared.
            “The Plaidies didn’t leave it here. I know it wasn’t them. I kicked their tiny posteriors out of the Forest for good. Didn’t I?” said Ralph.
            “Yeah, you did. They haven’t been back,” said Maeve, from her usual perch.
            “Cool,” agreed Ralph. “I’ll take them to Ramona, they look delicious.”
            Ramona agreed that the apples looked delicious. She and Ralph and Cherry and Maeve all ate an apple, and noticed no ill effects. There were two left, and they didn’t explode or vanish or anything uncanny.
            It was a couple of days later when Maeve came to Ralph again.
            “Boss, there’s something else at that tree by the road. It’s in a jar. It’s brown," she said.
            “That’s strange,” he said. “I suppose I better go look, might be like bait or something. Who knows?”
            And just like Maeve said, there was a plain glass jar on the forest floor with some anonymous light brown substance in it. Ralph picked it up and turned it all around. He sniffed it, then he screwed the lid off. He sniffed it again.
            “It smells like nuts,” he said. He stuck a big forefinger in the stuff and pulled out a glob of it and popped it into his mouth.
            “Take it easy, Boss!” said Maeve, urgently. "It might make you sick!"
            “I’ve never had any of this stuff before. It’s really good!” said Ralph. “I bet it would be good on a biscuit or something. I wonder what people do with it?” He screwed the lid back on.
            “More to the point,” said Maeve, “why is it here? Better see what Ramona thinks of it.”
            So, back to Ramona they went. Ralph waited and watched while Ramona sniffed it and tasted it.
            “I wonder what it’s good for?” said Ramona. She thoughtfully ate a spoonful. “Maybe I’ll put it in cookies. I bet Thaga knows what it is.”
            Two more days went by. Life in the Forest proceeded normally, the sun rose, meals were made and eaten, work was done, the wind blew, then the sun went down just as it should.
            Yet again, Maeve came looking for Ralph.
            “Boss, It happened again. This is getting weird,” said Maeve. “I don’t even know what these things are, but I sure know they don’t grow out there on that alder tree.”
            “This I gotta see,” said Ralph. “What do you think it is?”
            “I don’t know. I can’t tell if they’re some kind of weird flower buds, or something like a fruit. They’re yellow and long and fingerlike, held together in a bunch,” said Maeve, with one eye squinted up.
            “Let’s go, “ said Ralph.
            Hanging from the same little branch was a cluster of things which Maeve had described well. We know what they are, but Ralph and Maeve had never seen such things before. They studied them, Ralph poked them, like maybe they were alive. But nothing happened.
            So, they removed the strange fruits from the tree and took them to Ramona for a consult.
            “I don’t know,” that lady said. Then she squeezed one and it popped open. There was a pulpy whiteish substance inside. She carefully tasted the pulp, then smiled. “It’s sweet. You have to take the skin off of them. I bet Thaga knows what they are,” she said.
            “I don’t know who is leaving us these nice gifts, but maybe we should put something there to say thanks,” said Ramona. “I wonder what to leave though. It’s kind of like a game! Let me think.”
            So, Maeve and the family thought and thought about what to hang on the tree for the mysterious generous person. Ralph suggested a fresh turkey. Ramona vetoed that. “That’s like giving them work to do,” she said.
            “How about…,” said Maeve, but just then Cherry spoke up.
            “I could make one my crowns for them,” she said. “I would make a really good one!”
            “That’s just right,” said Ramona! “It would show intention and it would be the only one in the world!”
            Ramona and Cherry went out to gather materials for the crown. They concentrated on plants that keep well, such as Salal and Oregon Grape, though that one is prickly and she would have to be careful with it. They picked some long grass stems, and a few immature alder cones, little green ones.
            Cherry spent the rest of the day working on the green crown until it was just perfect. She didn’t put flowers in it because they wouldn’t last long.
            That evening Ralph and Cherry went out to the alder sapling and hung the green crown on the branch that had held the basket of apples. Then, they went on back to the Home Clearing hoping that the right person would find it there.
            It was fun, like being part of a mystery. They couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next.
            Most of a week went by. There were no further developments, except that the green crown disappeared from the sapling.
            Cherry was pleased and excited, wondering who had her gift.
            One morning Ralph decided to drop in on Ranger Rick, just to check in on camp news and have coffee and maybe some cookies or something. He was always very careful to be sure that none of the campers could see him. He didn’t want to cause any trouble for Rick.
            As he was standing still and silent among the fir trunks by the path behind Rick’s station dumpster, someone walked through the parking lot. Ralph didn’t move a hair or a muscle.
            The person strolling through the station parking lot was Hannah, the campground host. On her head, worn proudly, was Cherry’s green crown of leaves.
            “Well!” Ralph thought to himself, “that solves one mystery!”
            He smiled, there in the dim light among the trees. “But it sure opens up another one!”

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Just A Suzday Morning Greeting!

 

I hope your Catfurday was as lazy as mine!

Even the Bengal Bros were lazy.

There's one now!

Chock full of latent energy!

🖤

Bless all your liddle hearts!

🐈‍⬛

The Girls Conduct A Little Inquiry

 

 
            I was sitting here communing harmlessly with the internet, typing away at something, when I noticed that Suzie was at my elbow waiting to be noticed as she does. Her eyes were squinched shut, like she was trying to gather her thoughts, and she had those small toes lined up tightly together.
            This looked serious.
            “Hey, what do you hear from Toots lately,” I said, by way of acknowledging her presence.
            “She didn’t need to tell me anything, I was there,” she said, with those green eyes open now.
            “Oh? Was it another excursion? What happened?” I said, turning to her, all attentively.
            “It started out as a very big idea. See, Toots believed in the Wild Man of the Woods. She’s seen things at night. You know, right? But, I wasn’t so sure, even though we are supposed to live in Wild Man Headquarters,” she said.
            “OK, what was the big idea?” I asked.
            “Somebody said the Wild Man isn’t from Earth, but some other planet. Toots was unsure about that. I had no opinion.
            “We decided to find out if that was true, or just more of the stuff people say to feel important. The deal was how to research that. Nobody on that window thing you guys look at all the time knows. They just say stuff. We had to discover a way,” said Suzie.
            “I see. You’re right about that, people just say anything they want to say,” said I. “So, what did you determine?”
            “Toots thought we should talk to somebody who knows the answer, right? Now, who would know the answer? Well, you can imagine who she wanted to talk to! Yeah!
            “She thought that if we got into Purrception Mode™ like we do when we go places, um, planets and stuff, that we could pick up like a signal, a beam or something and follow it to its source,” said Suzie.
            “How did that go?” I said.
            “You know we wanted to talk to a friendly Wild Man. So, um, last night we kind of drifted around, like looking over a lot of America. We like tasted a lot of places and finally we found ourselves in the mountains pretty close to home. There was like a nice friendly message in the air. You know, not really wild, more like a dad or something. It was like an invitation. Come and talk to me, sort of. Look, I know this sounds seriously crazy,” she said.
            “No. If it’s true I can handle it. Go on. What happened then?”
            “We knew we were safe, because nobody can do anything to a point of vision, so we went to where he was. Oh, that’s when I stopped  having no opinion! He was huge, and brown, and hairy! He was sitting on a big dead log in a forest, smoking a cigar! I know how this sounds! But it’s true!
            “He knew we were there! He couldn’t have seen us! How did he know?” she said.
            “What did he do?” I asked.
            “He grinned, kept puffing on his cigar, and said, ‘Howdy girls!’ and ‘What can I do for you?’” she said.
            “So, since he was so nice, and we weren’t a bit afraid of him even though he was so big, Toots said, ‘We are here to ask a question, maybe two questions, depending.’ You know, he could have been scary looking, but he was all warm inside, if you know what I mean?
            “I couldn’t talk, but Toots said, ‘We came to you to find out if you and all those like you are from Earth, or somewhere else. Some people keep saying that you and your kind must have come from somewhere else, like some other planet, through a portal.’
            “He said, ‘As far as I know, from our myths, and old stories our mamas told us, passed down forever, we were made here on this planet, just like every other creature, including Man. I don’t understand why men say things they have no proof for, or authority to quote.
            ‘You two little souls, cats if I’m not mistaken, have done better than all the experts and investigators in the world!’ He puffed some more on his cigar. ‘I wish the big experts would come out here and ask me, if they have the courage! But, I’m afraid they are afraid’, he said.
            “We said thanks, and told him our names, and said that yes, we were cats. Toots told him that we were very glad to have met him, and that he wasn’t scary, like they say. Then, I was right here, on the back of the recliner, and Toots was back with Sammie. We had only been gone for a little while.
            “Does that sound completely crazy to you?” said Suzie. And she did look a little worried.
            “No, Honey, I believe every word! Did you ask this big guy on the log his name?” I said.
            “No! We must have been so excited that we forgot our manners! Why?” said Suzie.
            “Oh, I just wondered,” and I laughed a little.
            Having gotten all of that off of her furry little chest, she hopped down and went over to the nearest chair to snooze a little.
Why, it’s just amazing what those girls get up to! As they say, those who say such things, “Will wonders never cease!” I doubt it!

🍀

A Ticket To Evermore.

It's not really the feather.

It's what the feather signifies.

The sky, if you will it.

Love, Maeve

 🖤

Just Leave Them Alone!

 

            Nobody knows how he got to the Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. It’s a mystery. He didn’t explain. Maybe he was sick of the animosity between Man and Hairy Man where he came from. Maybe he swam. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility. After all, his kind do swim mighty distances, going from island to island up there where he was born.
            It’s a good thing he was solid black. If someone had spotted him in the water they might have assumed they were looking at a very large sea lion, or maybe that they had seen the flash of an Orca in the water. As it happens, we must surmise that he came ashore somewhere remote on the coast and started walking inland and then up hill.
            Did he have a name? Did he know any human language? Maybe that will all come out as his history proceeds.
            He waded upstream in rivers, avoiding highways and houses, slipping silently always upward. Sometimes he walked straight up the flanks of mountain sides.
            One evening, he began to hear music. He was not familiar with music, but he knew voices when he heard them. There was also a strange sound binding the words he heard together with a kind of cord of sound. He was curious.
            As he came closer, he saw a fire burning, and he smelled food. Cooked food such as made in the homes of humans. But gathered around the fire were folk such as himself, however lighter in color and somewhat smaller in stature than himself. To say that he was intrigued is to say nothing at all.
            What he saw was an upright creature somewhat like a large wolf in form, making the sound with his mouth on a small object he held in his hand. He had a bag tied to his waist. The voices he heard interspersed with the music belonged to two Forest people. One was a smallish dumpy-looking guy, and the other was a female, a grandmotherly looking female.
            Watching them, seated on sections of fallen tree trunk were a more imposing looking male, a motherly looking female, and a small light haired child. A white wolf and two big cats completed the group.
            The strange sounds, the odd calling nature of it seemed to be a demonstration of some sort. The people around the fire didn’t speak over it and seemed very happy with what they were hearing. He came closer, doing his best to stay beyond the light of the fire, and to not make noise.
            But, as we know, not much gets by Ralph.
            Ralph knew that the visitor in the dark must be one of their own kind, or he wouldn’t have walked right up on them.
            In the old language, known in some form all over the world, Ralph called out, “Welcome, brother, come and join us at our fire!”
            The visitor, fully a head and a half taller than Ralph, stepped into the light, but still hung back a bit. He was blacker than the surrounding night. His eyes were golden, reflecting the firelight.
            “I come without hatred. May I truly join you?” he said softly in the old language.
            Ramona stood up, motioning with her hands. “Come sit by my fire, wanderer. Please, sit with us.”
            He seated himself carefully on one of the logs. The group of three making the demonstration of sounds had fallen silent. The girl child watched him closely, with her hand on the wolf’s head. The two cats observed him silently.
            “May we have your name?” asked Ralph.
            “She who bore me called me Lorik,” said the visitor in a soft low voice. “My father is Willof.”
            And so, introductions were made between them, and they chatted the evening away. It was determined that Lorik spoke no English, though he had heard it spoken, or rather shouted by the people where he came from.
            Ramona brought Lorik a bowl of leftover stew, and then refilled the bowl when he was finished the first time. He was delighted with her stew.
            Maurice got sleepy, and left to find his bed in the old house. Uncle Bob and Suzie went home next. Then Ramona and Cherry and the animals, all went to bed in the cave, leaving Ralph and Lorik by the fire.
            The moon passed over, the stars looked down, and sparks flew up in the darkness.
            “What brings you to us?” said Ralph at last, talking as men do together when the night is very old and truth is spoken.
            “My heart was broken, Sir. I fled a long war. My people torment the native dwellers of my home, and those men hate us in return, going always armed and willing to shoot,” replied Lorik.
            “Just call me Ralph, we are equals here,” said Ralph. “I see.”
            “I want to see what else there is. That hatred can’t be all between our people and them, not everywhere,” said Lorik.
            “No, not like that everywhere,” said Ralph. “Wiser human voices have said that it’s best just to let us live in peace, as we wish in our forests and mountains. I think it also makes sense for we who inhabit the forests to just leave them alone too!
            “Oh, sometimes friendships grow up between special humans and very agreeable such as ourselves. But it’s rare,” said Ralph.
            “I long for peace between man and forest man. Far be it from me, to beat on cabins, or roar at fishing camps,” said Lorik. “Some of my brothers thought me weak.”
            “To long for peace is not weak, Lorik,” said Ralph.
            “The sun will be coming up soon. Will you thank your good Firekeeper for the food? I will keep walking. Maybe some day I will walk this way again. All my thanks to you,” said Lorik, standing up and stretching.
            And just as he said, the sky began to lighten just a little.
            “Yes, come back and sit with us again,” said Ralph. “Good travels to you, Lorik.”
            And so, they parted as the fire died down, and the wind blew the last of the smoke away.
            Ralph, yawning, went into the cave and sat on the side of the big bed. He reached over and patted Ramona, to let her know he was there.
            “Hi, Baby, where’s Lorik?” murmured Ramona.
            “He kept walking. He’s looking for something,” said Ralph, reverting to English, after a long conversation in the old language.
            “He seems pretty determined. I bet he finds it,” said Ramona.
            “I’d like to  hear that song again,” laughed Ralph. “They hardly got started when Lorik snuck up on us!”
            Ralph slept in a little. Ramona got up as usual and got everything ready for the day. She and Cherry sang a little Firekeeper song together as they worked.
            When he finally woke, there was breakfast and the sun was shining.

☀️

A Bengal Scouts Photo Essay

 

            Recently, I was asked by a relative to provide some photos of the new kittens, who are not so new anymore! 

            I started at the beginning, as far as I had record of it. The above is the photo my granddaughter sent first. I was allowed to pick from this litter. The one on top of the other one is Sweetie now, and the one looking at the camera, top right, is Booker.

            Booker when he first arrived here. Totally boggled by the changes.

            As we got to know them, and they grew, rapidly, we discovered that Sweetie was the most independent, adventurous, and most likely to be awake. He is also the one who hungers to get into the fridge. No one knows why.

          Booker is a totally different guy. He stands back and watches Sweetie's shenanigans, then may decide to join in. He is in some ways, the most affectionate. He will leap into my arms suddenly at any random time.

          Brotherly affection. When they're not grooming each other, or Mr. Baby, they wrassle! Then the thundering runs through the house!

             Booker, just waking.

             Manic Sweetie, guarding the box.

            And so it goes. Lots of snuggling, grooming, and running, and climbing. They are super nice guys, heart mending after Willie left us so suddenly.

💌

The Dancing Man

 

            There was a small lonely empty house. No one had lived there since the 50s or 60s. It was on the same piece of ground where Twigg’s B’s had been living in the old pickup cab. The truck had been removed but the house was still there, largely intact, if you didn’t mind grass on the roof, or a couple of broken windows, things like that. There were a few pieces of old style furnishings inside, stuff nobody wanted. Maybe the owners had died and there were no inheritors. Maybe a few treasure hunters had gotten the good stuff.
            Maurice, when he wasn’t at the Stump House, with Bob and Suzie, had been sleeping there. It suited him. Howlers don’t need luxe, or even very clean. They need a roof and somewhere to lie down.
            He was remembering how to live on his own hunting skills. So, cooking wasn’t an issue. Sometimes he brought his kill to Aunt Suzie, she knew what to do with it, which suited him excellently.
            Many nights, if anyone had braved the brush, vines, and tall weeds to approach the small house they would have heard some startlingly familiar blues tunes played on harmonica. They might even have thought the place was haunted.
            Maybe if they had known who was really there, they would have preferred a simple ghost.
            Many mornings, he would rise when the sun woke the birds. He’d sit up and listen, and maybe try to put some of that into his tunes. Maurice slept on the board floor, on a pad of two or three old quilts and blankets folded over thickly. There was no running water, so if he wanted a drink or something he needed to get up and go out.
            He usually ended up at the Stump House. Bob and Suzie could always hear him coming when he was headed their way.
            On this particular midsummer morning, Maurice was riffing on the robin’s song, and adding just a little Jack Bruce to it. It was getting pretty good. As he trotted along he could smell the smoke of Suzie’s fire and something cooking.
            When he loped up to the fire, Bob was sitting there smiling in his dreamy way. Suzie was poking at something in a pan.
            “He don’t believe in matter much,” sang Uncle Bob, in his husky tenor.
            “Alright,” sang Suzie, in her smokey contralto.
            Maurice took that as a cue to play his robin blues tune over again for them.
            “He’s a dancing man,” sang Uncle Bob.
            “Why does he dance?” sang Suzie.
            Maurice was too excited to sit down. He paced around the Stump House, putting a little Train Time into the tune.
            “When he dances he becomes a cloud, a rock, a river!” sang Bob. “He unwinds himself from self. He’s light as air.”
            Maurice worked on that for a few minutes.
            “But what does that mean?” sang Suzie, looking from Bob to Maurice and back again.
            Maurice played some more.
            “It means he dances for all of us, light as a feather, no mass at all,” sang Bob.
            “I bet he could fly!” sang Suzie suddenly, as the idea occurred to her.
            “You bet he can!” sang Bob. “He flew with Maeve and her feather!”
            “Oh, he did!” sang Suzie.
            Maurice kept playing his robin blues. He was so into it that he had tears in his eyes.
            “It’s all about love,” sang Bob. “The Forest is filled with love.”
            “I see it now,” sang Suzie.
            “He dances for love of the Forest!” sang Bob.
            Maurice sat down then, and kept playing quietly. He was getting hungry now. Then he said, “You know, we could probably turn that into a song.”
            “It is a song, Maurice,” said Suzie. “And it just happened while we were waiting for this bird to cook!”
            “We just have to remember how it goes,” said Uncle Bob, grinning, because he had a good memory for a song and there was no way he would forget this.
            They sat around discussing what had just happened, and how cool it was, and sort of committing it to memory among themselves, while eating wild turkey soup from some more of Ooog’s nice wooden bowls, drinking the liquid and using their fingers on the turkey.
            “We need to practice it a few times,” said Maurice. “Then we should go perform it for Ralph and Ramona! They’ll love it! And you know what guys? It’s just as good as anything Folky Joe ever did, and he’s rich now!”
            “But we can’t do what he did,” said Suzy. “We can’t perform in public!”
            “No, that’s true,” said Maurice, “But maybe I could take it to Joe, and he could make a hit out of it, and he could give us a cut of the profits.”
            “I don’t know, maybe we should just start by doing it for Ralph, and his family, and whoever knows him around here,” said Uncle Bob. “I think it would be OK to invite Ranger Rick and Dexter.”
            “OK, Bob, I’m with you. Let’s just practice and do it for the Great Forest for now,” said Maurice agreeably. “I don’t know what we need money for anyhow. That might be too big of a change. Let’s just stay the way we are, or we didn’t learn anything from the song at all!”
            “We don’t even have any place to spend money,” said Bob.
            “I love it,” said Aunt Suzie.
            “So do I,” sang Maurice, “So do I!”

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