About That Floor

 

            Spring continued to unfold. The snow was gone. Sunlight came earlier every day. Every day there was more birdsong in the Great Forest, not just the harsh calls of crows, or the knocks of common ravens.
            One morning when Ralph opened his eyes, the Project came to mind. He reviewed their progress, his and Ooog’s, so far. Those alder trees were cooperating well. It had been a couple of months since he had sung to them, asking them to grow together at their tops and interlace their branches. Every time he went out to check on their progress the dome effect was stronger. Even Ralph was amazed. He really needn’t have been.
            As he lay there, dozing beside Ramona and her delicate snores, he thought, “We are going to need a lot of sand, and a lot of nice flat rocks!” This was manifestly true.
            Another pleasant thought that came to his mind was Ooog’s garden wagon. Why, the plan was forming up in his mind as he lay there! Ralph smiled, there in the morning darkness.
            “Da! Are you awake too,” whispered Cherry from further back in the cave. Blue raised her head and made an inquisitory wuff.
            “Well, yes I am. I’m thinking about the floor in the Alder Tree House,” said Ralph.
            “Can I help?” whispered Cherry.
            “I’m not sure what you will do, but yes, you may help,” said her father. “Something will come up I am sure.” He sat up and yawned.
            Ramona woke. She said, “Are you going to work on the floor today?”
            “I’m going to go talk to Ooog about his garden wagon,” said Ralph.
            “I see,” said Ramona. “Well, you better eat first, so I’m getting up.”
            Bob and Berry woke and came down from their ledge, and all of them went out to see what kind of morning it was and to have a little something to eat. It turned out to be boiled potatoes from Ooog’s last year’s garden and butter, which makes a very nice breakfast if you’re fond of spuds.
            It was the kind of morning that makes a person want to Do Things. Gardeners start thinking of spading soil, that sort of thing. The out of doors people always get subtly excited in early spring. It's like the whole year is spreading its wares before their eyes and their minds.
            The family and beasts in the Home Clearing felt that same tug. It was like a scent in the air. “Nice,” said Bob. “Yes,” said Berry. They all felt the same way.
            Right on schedule Maeve appeared for some potatoes and butter. Evermore!
            “Why don’t we all go see Ooog and Thaga?” said Ralph. “I want to talk about moving sand from the river banks to the Alder Tree House.” It was always fun to visit there, so everyone was eager to go.
            “Birdie,” said Ralph, “Will you go warn them that we’re coming?”
            “You got it, Boss,” she said, and blasted off for the stone cottage.
            So, like a bunch of players in a fairytale, Ralph and his Ramona, Cherry and Blue, with Bob and Berry all set off for the short walk to the Neanderthal’s cottage. It was a magical trek through the awakening meadow. All along the path were tender new leaves, and the freshest grass. Soon there would be shy young blooms. Crows came to see what was up and to make commentary among themselves.
            When everyone got to the cottage, Thaga and Maeve were standing by the open door, with Harold the big tabby Tom cat. “Meow,” remarked Harold, and everyone crowded into Thaga’s kitchen where Ooog was sitting at the head of the table eating biscuits with butter and blackberry jam and drinking hot tea.
            “It’s about that time, Ralph, isn’t it?” said Ooog, once he had swallowed his current bite.
            “Woke this morning thinking about moving sand, and I remembered your big garden wagon,” said Ralph, as they were all getting seated, people on chairs and creatures on the floor.
            “Only reasonable,” said Ooog. “I wonder how many loads of sand we will need.”
            “Four!” said Cherry. Blue looked as if she believed her.
            “You’re probably right,” said Ooog. He was smiling, but seemed to really think so.
            Everybody had some of Thaga’s biscuits. But they ran out and she had to quickly make another batch. Fortunately it doesn’t take long at all to make biscuits.
            When all the biscuit eating was over, and everyone’s tummy’s were quite full, Ramona and Maeve decided to stay with Thaga, and Cherry with her dad and Ooog went out to take a look at the wagon. Ooog had two shovels, so they threw those into the wagon and Ralph pulled it back up through the Home Clearing and out to the riverbank.
            When they arrived at the shining, silver river, whispering its way along between the banks and the stones, Ralph and Ooog cleared an area, setting the stones aside for possible use later. Then they filled the wagon with sand. It was heavy now, but no problem for Ralph. He pulled it back through the Home Clearing and up into the meadow to the alder trees. They shoveled the sand into the center of the trees. They did this three more times, just as Cherry had said.
            “I think that’s enough,” said Ooog, the builder, as he was.
            “We can spread it out later. I think we should build a little stone wall among the tree trunks to hold the sand,” said Ralph. “Before we do more we will need to bring in loads of stones.”
            Ooog looked up at his friend Ralph. He smiled a tired but happy smile. “That’s enough working today.”
“Yes. That’s enough,” said Ralph. “It’s going to be great, a floor built like a beach!” Even Cherry was tired, just from floating along and watching every step of the work. Blue was tired from watching too.
            Ooog nodded, then they took the wagon and the shovels back to Ooog’s house.
            Dinner was ready when Ralph, Ooog, and Cherry, and Blue, got to the house. Ramona and Thaga and Maeve had talked about everything they could think of during the day, and worked on dinner. It was a big pan of sausages baked with onions, and apples, and sauerkraut. There was milk for Cherry, and coffee for the adults. The cats and the wolf drank water and had plain baked turkey for dinner because they wouldn’t have liked the sauerkraut dish.
            “Another day, Ooog?” said Ralph.
            “Another day, Ralph,” said Ooog.
            Since evening was just about there, Ralph and his family walked on home to the Home Clearing to sleep in the cave behind the clever green door.
            And all during the night, the wind and the stars spoke mysteries.

🌿🍀🍃

Suz Reporting & Open Thread

 

Greetings
Meow!

            She said she was busy, though I doubt it, so that I should write something. Alright. I'll try. My toes don't reach the keys very well. It's kind of a dance of the toes. Here and then there. One key, then another!

            Oh, I'm sorry. I got distracted.

            The question of the day is a question of kittens. I'm still considering the wisdom of the whole thing. I mean, I just assumed leadership around here and now a usurper may appear!

            I expect that she will return to her regular schedule today. 

            

Suzy Q.

🐾

Happy Catfurday Open Thread!

             It was a lovely gloomy PNW day, Feb. 8, 2020, when my Navigator took this shot of some flooded farm fields up in the Skagit valley.
            We didn't see much snow that year either!

            Flooding is just a part of life around here in February!

🍁

What's A Girl To Do?

 Meow Alert!

Danger!

    

            Behold the nest of kittens that temptation has thrown in my way. Temptation by none other than my granddaughter!

            The one in the center at the bottom is talking to me, or maybe the big one with the spots who is looking the other way.

            Right now, they are located at Smokey Point, which is too close to me! 

            

🤍🤍🤍🤍

It's Always Bears!

 

Bears come in all kinds, styles, and configurations. But you may be assured,

That it’s always a bear!

 
 
            That was Ranger Rick, of the Mt. B.S.N.F.’s story,, and he was stickin’ to it. This bear, putative or not, was going to solve all of his troubles on this very annoying day.
            After talking the situation over with Ralph, on the sly in his truck, Rick had gone back into his office, and was setting up a new pot of coffee, when Hannah Tucker arrived to discuss the situation with her boss. She had a cute little wrinkle between her eyebrows.
            Rick had been getting ready to write up a requisition for the repair of the restroom doors. A delay was welcome, though iffy.
            “Rick,” she said, “I’m worried. What are we going to do? Something very large was on that roof, heavy enough to break through the stuff up there. I thought this job was supposed to be safe!”
            “I’ll tell you what, Hannah. When the handyman comes to fix the roof, tomorrow, I called him, I’ll have him level out that little berm of earth behind your mobile. I am sure that’s how that bear was able to get up there! It must have been a pretty big bear! I’d like to have seen him!” said Rick. “It won’t happen again.”
            “OK, Rick. If you say so. But if it does happen again, I’m outta here for good,” she said firmly. “Nobody said anything about great fat bears out here!”
            “It’ll be fine, Hannah,” said Rick, as she gathered herself up and went back out of the office door just as Dexter was coming in.
            Dexter held the door for her and watched her go. His cheeks were pink.
            “I told her it was a bear up on her roof. Did you get the tarp up there?” said Rick.
            “Um, yeah. I weighted it down with some rocks. It looks tacky as heck,” said Dexter.
            “You know it wasn’t a bear, right?” said Rick. But he was smiling. “But I had to say that because the truth would clear this place out, even though the problem has been solved.”
            “What are you talking about,” said a confused Dexter.
            “Ralph took care of it. Now all I have to do is smooth the troubled waters and set everyone’s heart at ease,” said Rick.
            “Ralph took care of what, Rick? Something killed a fancy pet dog. Something tore the doors off the restrooms, and something walked on Hannah’s roof. What was it?” said Dexter. “Yeah, and that guy in the tent swears he saw a big thing like a werewolf in the parking lot up there during the night! Are you going to tell me, or not?”
            “Well, truthfully, I didn’t see it. I don’t really know what it was. Ralph said it won’t be coming back, so it was a bear. A really big bear. That’s all anyone, including you, needs to know.”
            “Alright, Rick. You’re the boss. What are you going to do about the people whose dog met this bear? Last time I saw that guy he was talking about getting the Sheriff up here, and suing the National Forest,” said Dexter.
            “He can try to sue the National Forest, but no one is stupid enough to take the case. There is no guarantee that a dog on the loose won’t get into trouble in the forest. I’m pretty sure the Sheriff will tell him the same thing,” said Rick, looking hopeful.
            “I wonder what Ralph did,” said Dexter.
            “He didn’t say,” said Rick. “There’s coffee in there. And some chocolate chip cookies my wife made for us. Help yourself, Trainee.”
            Everything was peaceful in the office for about five minutes.
            There was a very timid knocking on the door, and someone turned the doorknob, but couldn’t seem to push the door open. Both men watched the door.
            Finally, Dexter went to the door and pulled it all the way open.
            “Oh!” said the little old woman standing there. She was about five foot, nothing. She had white hair cut off like a boy’s. She was dressed like a child in jeans, jacket and like size 5 high top tennies. Blue. She went maybe 95 pounds.
            “Hello, Ma’am,” said Dexter. “How can we help you?”
            “Um, hello, Mister. He said to come here,” she said. “He said people were looking for me.”
            “Madam, would you care to come in and take a seat?” said Rick, getting up from his chair and coming around his desk. “Would you care for a cup of coffee, while we talk?” He still had his mug in his hand.
            “Yes, Sir,” she said. “Please, yes, I would like coffee. Plain, please.” She settled down in the chair where Dexter had been seated. He went out to the kitchen to fetch one of the mugs kept for guests for her.
            “What’s your name, first?” said Rick, trying not to loom over her by going back behind his desk.
            “Maggie White,” Maggie said dutifully. She accepted the mug from Dexter, took a little sip and set the mug down on the desk. She sighed and blinked.
            “Ms. White, Maggie, who told you to come here because people were looking for you?” asked Rick, sensing upcoming drama.
            “A big bear found me in the forest. I was lost. Bob and Carla are lost too, I think,” said Maggie.
            “What?” said Rick. Dexter rolled his eyes at no one in particular.
            “He was very kind, and he spoke good English, for a bear. He took my hand in his, which was the biggest hand I ever saw, and he led me to your parking lot and told me to come in here because they were looking for me,” said Maggie, getting a little teary.
            “Oh! I see,” said Rick. But before he could think of what to say next, the office door slammed open and a man and a woman ran into the room. Rick hoped that they were Bob and Carla.
            “Maggie!” said the man. Bob for sure!
            “Mom!” said Carla. “Where were you! You scared us to death!”
            “I took a little walk in the forest and then I couldn’t find you,” said Maggie. “But a nice big bear brought me here and told me that you were looking for me.”
            Carla hugged her mother, saying, “Thank God!”
            Bob walked around the desk to have a word with Rick. “She has a little dementia. Not too badly, but she does tend to wander and takes notions that make no sense sometimes. Thanks for hanging on to her for us!”
            “Um, of course,” said Rick. “I’m glad you all got here about the same time she did. Solves a lot of problems for all of us!”
            So, Carla took her mother by the hand and Bob opened the door and they all left together.
            “Some bear!” said Dexter, giggling like a kid.
            “Yup. He is some kinda bear!” said Rick. “I bet that big raven found her wandering in the woods.”
            “Makes sense,” agreed Dexter.

🐻

A Bad Morning in the Mt. B.S.N.F. Campground

 

            Normally, Rick lived a pretty serene life as a National Forest Ranger. He had Dexter for annoying trainee tasks, and a new camp host to help the campers with problems which were beneath his dignity.
            But now, Rick had a problem. It was a doozy.
            There had been actual bloodshed. Not deep in the forest hidden from campers. No!
            Nor was this death the death of a mere deer. It was a camper’s fancy pet German Shepherd. Max. By now, Rick knew that name well, and it made him cringe inside.
            Max had been let out of Richard and Magda’s camper to go potty early in the morning of a spring day. A lovely morning. When Max didn’t return, Richard went looking and calling for him. Oh, he found him all right. There had been Max, in an empty parking spot, eviscerated and quite horribly dead.
            Richard was talking about getting the sheriff’s dept. involved. Magda wept. They mentioned suing the National Forest. Rick didn’t even know if that was possible, but he didn’t relish them trying.
            “There is no way some bear did that!” insisted Richard. “It must have been a person with a knife!” Honestly, that’s how it looked.
            They wrapped their poor dog in a blanket, put him in the back of the camper and left, promising that it wouldn’t be the last Rick heard from them.
            A guy named Fred walked down to the station to file a report. He wasn’t happy either. Fred said that the night before Max had died that he had seen something lurking in the campground.
            “Now this is silly,” said Fred. “I don’t believe in cryptids. But tell me, what looks like a dog, but is seven feet tall, all black and walks on two hind legs like a man? Are you sure you don’t have a crazy person running around in a werewolf costume? A very tall madman?”
            “There are no cryptids,” said Rick, weakly. “They don’t really exist.”
            “I know,” said Fred. “So, it’s your problem. What was it? You don’t want the news up here looking around do you?”
            Rick most sincerely did not want that!
            The next marble to drop was Hannah Tucker, his new camp host. She had been working out fine. No problems. No drama. She liked the job, though it didn’t pay much. He could see her, from the kitchen nook window, all bundled up like it was deep winter, heading for his door. Maybe she had baked something good, he hoped. She did that sometimes.
            But no.
            “Good morning, Rick,” Hannah said when she got inside the office, just getting warmed up. “Or it would be a good morning except that I had visitor last night. Nobody you know, I hope! Something that weighed about a ton was walking all over the roof of that tin box I live in up there and now there’s a leak in the bathroom ceiling!” She stood looking a him, waiting for an answer.
            “Do you have a bucket?” Rick said, feeling cornered and outmaneuvered by circumstances.
            While Hannah was still looking at him, Dexter showed up. He’d been checking things out as he always did in the morning. He had more bad news.
            “The doors are ripped off of the restrooms. Both of them!” he said, looking stunned. “They weren’t locked. Why would anybody do that?” said Dexter.
            “Dear children,” said Rick, “That is the question of the day. Why would any of this happen?”
            He sent Dexter to town to buy a blue tarp for the mobile roof.
            He told Hannah he would get someone up there to repair her roof in a day or so. He said he would put a camera up there in case anything like that happened again. He promised to keep any eye out for strangely behaving animals. There really wasn’t much more he could say.
            When they all went away and left him alone he went out to the parking lot and sat in his truck honking out SOS on his horn. Rick was unsure whether Ralph knew Morse Code, but it seemed appropriate.
            Soon Ralph loomed by Rick’s open driver’s side window. He didn’t appear surprised.
            “Good morning, Rick?” said Ralph. He wasn’t grinning.
            “Can you sit in the other side of this thing?” said Rick.
            “I’ll make it happen,” said Ralph, and he did. It’s a thing he does. Rick knew that too.
            So when they were sitting there together in the front of the National Forest Service truck, Ralph said, “You look like it’s been a bad day, and day just got started. What can I do for you?”
            “Something that looked like a werewolf, according to one camper, cut open a prize dog belonging to a litigious couple of other campers, and something scared Hannah the new camp host by stomping around on the mobile roof, causing a roof leak.
            “I don’t believe in Dogman, Ralph. Tell me there is no Dogman!” said Rick, piteously.
            “Well, Rick,” said Ralph, “Yes, there was a Dogman in your camp. I’m sorry he made such a mess for you. I really don’t like those guys!”
            “Was? What do you mean was?” said Rick.
            “Was, because something happened to him,” said Ralph. This was not the jolly old Ralph Rick knew. This was something else. Something implacable and regal. For a moment Ralph looked terrifying, dark and feral.
            “There was, but is not anymore?” said Rick, rather shaken.
            Ralph nodded, looking more like himself.
            “I gotta say it. You’re the man, Ralph! You are the man!” said Rick.
            “That’s what they say, some of them at least,” said Ralph. “But thanks!”
            “No, thank you!” insisted Rick.
            “Now all you have to do is to make everybody happy again!” Ralph laughed. “Better you than me, old boy!”
            The sun came out, shining a hopeful light on everything, and Rick started think about how he was going to do that very thing. “No problem!” he told himself happily.

🐺

A Minor Cat Tale for Tootsday

 

My plants never got that big!

            Rather than posting a plain old boring open thread, since I ran out of time yesterday. I thought I would tell you a small story about a cat. Now, that’s a surprise I bet!
            This story occurred in the 1980s.
            This was during the Tulalip years. However, my parents wanted to go live for a while at their place in Shawana, WA on the Columbia River. So we rented the old homestead from them for a couple of years. It was fun to be home and to have the big garden and lawn and so on. None of that existed at our cabin on leased land on the Res.
            As it happened, my old friend Winny, the Poplar Sweetheart, as she was know by some, a member of the Assiniboine Tribe, which is basically Canadian Sioux, had an old friend who died, leaving her cat behind. He was a white Tom. I have no memory of his original name.
            Winny asked if I would take this white cat and give him a home. He had never been outside in his life. He was a confirmed old bachelor house cat. So, it was assumed that I would keep him indoors for the remainder of his life.
            Well. The first thing that happened is that Bubble Woman, my eldest daughter, and very fond of David Bowie named this cat Major Tom. It stuck. Seemed like a good name for a white Tom cat. 
            I looked at Major Tom, and he looked back at me, and I thought, what the heck, and I took him out into the front yard and said, “Here ya go, Dude! Have fun!”
            And I think he did have fun being an indoor/outdoor cat. He knew enough to come home to eat and all. He took to it right away.
            At the time I was growing catnip plants in the front beds for the cats. I had to cover them with glass bottles, or the cats would eat them down to the ground. So what I did was to expose one for a while, and then cover it to grow back. Cats really like the fresh stuff!

            My son and I also made a fish pond in the front yard and stocked it with gold fish. It did entertain the cats and they actually caught some of the fish!
            So, onward. He lived with us for a year or two. Don’t remember for sure. And then he was gone. Goodness knows. Out there it could have been anything from a raccoon to a coyote, or a tougher cat. Never saw him again. But I like to think that the last days of his life haunting the yard and bush next door were the best days of his life.
            Ground Control did call him, but he didn’t respond.

🤍