Maeve and Myrtle Duke It Out Redux & Open Thread

 

🌸🖤🌸

“Say, Maeve,” said Myrtle one day, “do you know what it means to make a leg?”
Maeve glanced dismissively at the lady Crow sitting on an alder branch nearby. She didn’t answer either.
            “It means,” said Myrtle, “to place your leg out prettily, to attract attention. I bet you didn’t know that!”
            “You are a ditz and a feather head, and the temptation to call you Moytle is almost overwhelming,” huffed Maeve. She felt as if her dignity as a Raven was being a little tarnished, conversing with a mere Crow being beneath a Raven. She hoped that no one had seen them talking together.
            “Well, Maeve, you are a proud old bird and not as smart as you may think you are,” returned Myrtle defensively.
            “That remains to be seen,” said Maeve softly out of the side of her beak, because she could not resist saying something to answer that. She considered intelligence to be her main attribute. She did not appreciate being quizzed by a Crow on obscure English language usages.
            “We could ask someone who is very smart whether it is a sign of intelligence to refuse to answer a civil question,” said Myrtle. “It makes it seem as if you don’t even know the answer.”
            “Alright, Myrtle, my girl,” knocked Maeve, very ominously, “let’s us find Ramona and ask her. She is a good friend to Ravens, and no doubt, to Crows also.”
            With that, both ladies flew to Ramona’s fire circle where she was building a fire for the evening cooking and telling Twigg stories about his father’s adventures in the forests and streams of the Baker National Forest. These stories comprised his elementary education. Uncle Bob, even reformed, and Maurice were not included in the curriculum.
            Be that as it may, when the two bird ladies got to the clearing, Maeve said, grandly, “we, this Myrtle Crow and I have had a disagreement between us on the matter of which is the smarter of the two. We have come to you, oh wise Ramona, to find out the answer.” Maeve walked back and forth importantly, with her tail feathers switching from side to side.
            Myrtle, at the same time, was picking up little bits of interesting detritus, pebbles, leaves, funny shaped sticks or whatever, and showing them to Twigg. She wasn’t paying much attention to Raven and Ramona.
            “I don’t know how to answer that, Maeve,” said Ramona, looking from bird to bird, in amazement. “You’re both clever birds.  Everyone knows that!
            “Perhaps we could have some sort of contest…”
            “Exactly,” cried Maeve, triumphantly. She was very sure of her superiority in all matters bird.
            “I know what,” Maeve continued, “let’s see which of us can fool Ralph. He believes everything I tell him. Of course, I’ve never lied to him before, so he should believe me. I wonder if I could get him to pose for a photograph after all, or at least agree to.  I wonder if I am smart enough to trick him? I could make up a real juicy whopper, in which he would come out looking like a hero if he cooperated!
            “As for Myrtle, she could try to convince him that I am lying! Oh, what fun! I love it,” croaked the naughty old thing.
            Ramona seemed to be having a hard time believing her ears.

      Twigg was gathering up a little pile of pebbles given to him by Myrtle.
            Myrtle had actually been listening for a while. She spoke up then, “to make a fool of the boy’s father in front of the boy seems to me to very unkind and unwise, Maeve. I yield the point to you, after all. You are the smartest of us two.  It would never occur to me to test Ralph in that way.”
            Maeve stopped her strutting.
            Ramona stood with her head tilted to the side a bit and her hands held together before her. She smiled at the bird girls.
            “Maeve, what do you think now,” asked Ramona, in a coaxing manner.
            “I think that Myrtle has shown wisdom, which is a finer thing than all of my self-important cleverness.  I am ashamed,” admitted Maeve. She emitted a couple of muted knocks.
            She walked over to Myrtle and made a proper Raven curtsy.  Myrtle did one back and they became better friends right then and there.
            Ramona shook her head and went back to fire making and telling Twigg stories and talking about counting and such things. Soon Ralph would appear wondering about dinner….

Dinner With The Family

 

            Ralph had taken a quick trip down to the park at Concrete to check out a kid who was making waves at the park among the visitors. Some of them thought he was cute, but not all of them did.
            Sometimes he stacked the trash cans in the lady’s room. He liked to play peekaboo with the kids. He hid anything that a guy left hanging around loose. Then they had to turn the place upside down to get their belongings back. That was Benny. He got just enough positive feedback to keep it up and not take the complaints seriously.
            Ralph sat around on the beach, sort of cloaked, until Benny showed up. Benny was burying somebody’s shoes in the pebbles, for a laugh. His laugh, of course.
            “I bet you’re Benny,” said Ralph, when he saw what the kid was doing with the shoes.
            “Oh, hi. Pretty much Pops,” said Benny.
            “I can see that you’re a guy with a lot of energy,” said Ralph. “Some people I know asked me to come and see if I could find out what all the excitement is about around here. Seems like maybe it has something to do with you.”
            “Really?” said Benny, feigning disbelief.
            “So, who are you anyway, Pops?  Why’d they send you?” said Benny.
            “You’re young. So, I’ll just tell ya. I’m Ralph. Some call me the king over the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Now, that’s not what we call the forest. Yeah, I know. But, my human friends call it that.”
            “Oh,” said Benny, just then perceiving whose nose he had been tweaking.
            “Yup! That’s how it looks, kiddo,” said Ralph.
            “Sorry, um, Ralph,” said Benny.
            “This is what I’ve got in mind Benny. I want you to dig those shoes back up and go put them right where you found them. I see they are a female’s shoes. Hmm!” Ralph rumbled a bit here and gave a the kid a summing up kind of look.
            “Then I have a proposition. I’d like you to come home with me for a couple of days. Meet the family and we’ll talk it all over,” continued Ralph, watching the kid for any reaction.
            “I’ll go!” said Benny! “You bet!” Then he kind of scooped the pink size 8 runners out of the pebbles with his big right foot, grabbed them and took off. He set them right beside the tent where he had found them, associated with some girl scouts or some such. The girl never knew that her shoes had left her for a jaunt down by the river. Some mysteries remain mysterious.
            It’s not that great of a trip on foot from Concrete to the Home Clearing somewhere off Highway 20 up in the park. Forest Keepers have advantages over us when it comes to travelling on foot. They are smooth and fast! Fantastic muscle tone, apparently.
            Ralph and Benny moved along the banks of the Skagit until they just about got to Marblemount, then they took a hard right into the forest. Nobody pays any attention to large brownish creatures in the river. Could be bears! Could be moose? Who cares? Not anybody cruising up or down SR 20 at highway speeds.
            Now, Benny had never been this far away from Concrete, so he was all excited. The forest was different here, deeper and steeper. It was altogether more legit, in his eyes, which were shining like stars.
            “When we get there, you’ll meet my Firekeeper, Ramona, Twigg the boy and Cherry the baby girl. Then there are two friend Pumas. Berry and Bob. They aren’t what people call tame, but they are good boys, and they won’t hurt you!” Ralph told Benny, to prepare him. “Then there is Maeve, the Raven.”
            “My mother died,” said Benny. “My father died before I was born. I’m mostly alone.”
            Ralph nodded and they kept walking. “Oh, you’ll meet the Raven soon enough, she always welcomes me home. I don’t know how she knows, but she does.” They walked deeper and deeper into the forest. The trees got bigger and the path darker.
            Benny looked skyward in alarm, when someone croaked “evermore!” very loudly and came barreling down out of the sky. It was someone with wide shiny black wings, who landed on Ralph’s left shoulder with a thud. This was not like hanging out in the county park with human visitors to tease. It was a whole bunch more interesting!
            “Hi Maeve,” said Ralph. “This is Maeve, Benny. She’s friendly too.”
            “Hullo,” said Benny, very impressed.
            “Who’s the kid, Ralph,” said Maeve. “Never saw him before. Might be a spy!”
            “Oh knock it off, Black Leg. The kid’s alright,” laughed Ralph.
            And that is how they arrived at the Home Clearing. Ralph and Benny stepping along the last section of trail, with Maeve bobbing along like a roosting chicken on Ralph’s shoulder.
            It was evening. The kids and cats had eaten their dinners and were running around one last time before bed, waiting for Ralph’s return. Ramona was sitting, serene and composed on one of those logs around the fire, facing the opening in the trees where he would appear. Her brow was unwrinkled. She was peace personified. The firelight showcased her beauty.
            As Ralph and Benny walked into the clearing, Benny noticed Ramona and stumbled because he had forgotten that he had feet to pay attention to. He hadn’t realized that the mother and Firekeeper he was to meet would look like that. The boy was smitten.
            Ralph is very good at reading the writing on the water, which he did, and he grinned a little. She had had that effect on him too once, in a pool of water in the moonlight.
            “Benny, here is Ramona,” said Ralph. “Ramona, this is Benny. He’s from Concrete!”
            “Hello Ramona,” said Benny weakly.
            “Oh, I’m glad to meet you Benny. Are you two hungry? I have saved a lot of fish for you,” she said.
            “We haven’t snacked on our way here, Ramona,” said Ralph, "yes, we are hungry."
            So they had dinner together there by the fire. Even though Benny caught and ate fish all the time, he had never had it cooked over a fire. He liked it very much.
            Twigg and Cherry came near the fire to meet Benny, a stranger to them. Berry and Bob came to check him out also. They smiled their enigmatic cat smiles and just watched him with golden eyes.
            The children and the cats went to bed. Ramona followed soon.
            Ralph told her, “Benny and I will sleep old style out here by the fire. We have to talk.”
            They sat out there as the fire died down to coals and the stars began to wink at them from way up above the tree tops. The moon peeked into the clearing for a while and then moved off on its appointed path.
            An owl inquired of the night, a few times. The mice shuddered in their sleep, staying carefully underground.
            The wind came by and took a look at the clearing and the fire and decided that everything looked fine, then slipped off to the north, as the wind will do.
            They talked of many things and made some decisions.
            “What I have in mind is this, Benny. I need a smart guy like you to keep an eye on things in the park. You know that park better than even the rangers or the visitors. You’ve always been there. It would be useful to me if you wanted to take up the position of a kind of guardian over Rasar park and the little town of Concrete. Then we could get together and talk once in a while. You could come and have dinner with us!” said Ralph.
            Sleepy Benny said, “I can do that Ralph. You bet, and I will too.”
            “I’ll knock off the funny stuff, Ralph,” said Benny.
            “Good deal,” said Ralph. And in a minute they were asleep there under the great deep sky, sleeping as their ancestors had before them.

January 29, 2025. Charley Cat's Open Thread.

 

            All the cats at my house will soon be celebrating. Because whether they know it or not, their friend Charley will be here soon.
            As you can see, from the serious look in her eye, she is ready to reassume her position in the family. You can also see that she has been travelling with a small fat dog. It’s a real dog. Not a ghost, thought it looks a bit insubstantial. This actual mutt belongs to the lady Bubble Woman is travelling with.
            I expect the happy reunion to occur perhaps on the 30^th. It takes a couple of days to drive from Sierra Vista, Arizona to Milltown, WA.
            Having read over my shoulder, ahem, Mr. Baby Sir says, “oh bother! I thought she moved to Arizona.”
            “We’ll just see about this,” says Suzy.
            “I’m a little hungry,” says Willie. “How does this impact the cat buffet?”
            Well, such is cat psychology. The dog owners who say all cats are the same just aren’t paying attention, are they?
            Safe travel, and happy landings for the two ladies and the dog and the cat! 

How Did Benny Get To Be Benny?

Scene of all of this action, the Skagit River and Mt. Baker.

            Benny’s mother never had an English name. Nor did she speak English. She was old school, speaking only Saslingua. This is the language she brought her son up in also.
            His original name was something guttural and soft. But then, Saslingua is a soft, guttural sounding language when used at home and among friends.
            He was born in a forest dwelling up north of Newhalem. The birth was attended by his mother’s mother and his father. His father was mostly a witness.
            There isn’t too much fuss and drama surrounding a Squatch birth. These mothers don’t seem to be prey to the fears and insecurities that sometimes haunt human births. Maybe it helps that most of these mothers have witnessed other’s births. Not so among us, for the most part.
            It had been a fine cool, misty day. His mother, let’s call her Lila, had been thoughtful and slow all day. Her own mother, who had been staying close to her daughter for the last couple of weeks, knew the signs. She figured that the new one would come during the night, and she was right. It was a quick arrival, and the whole family was very pleased to meet him.
            So, there he was, cast new upon the world. Some seem to be born with their personality already set. This one saw everything funny side up. Some infants laugh a lot. This child was one of those. If somebody dropped something and it broke, he cracked up. If someone suddenly popped into view from behind some branches or some such, it was hilarious to him.
            And so his life went, until he was old enough to go out on his own.
            He liked the area around Concrete. It’s a small town with almost nothing going on. He loved the river and spent much of his time in the park down there on its banks.
            He named himself Benny. Not because he had heard it anywhere, but just because he liked the sound of it. “Benny!” It sounded jolly to him.
            Benny really liked to make others of his tribe laugh and when he learned to speak English, the same way others did, by hanging around and listening to humans, he liked to pull pranks on the hairless also. Some of the hairless found this entertainment to be a charming part of visiting Rasar Park on the Skagit. Benny was a bit indulged and became a local celeb. Almost.
            Benny had expected the grandmother, Mary Smith, no kidding, to laugh at his prank of eating their lunch. But, she didn’t. In fact, she was irritated enough to call the Fish and Wildlife people and demand that something be done about Benny. Even though she lived right near the park in Concrete, she didn’t seem to know that he should be laughed at and indulged.
            Of course, this led to his meeting with Officer Mark Schwartz….

 

Be Here Now

 

At Rasar State park.

          When Mark got home that night, to his fourth floor apartment, he was thinking about making a phone call.

            His living room window faced the bay. He stood there with his phone in his hand, watching the sun go down, making up his mind. He felt foolish about the subject matter of his call.
            Mark knew a guy who worked for the county named Colin Kelly. A park ranger, married to a newspaper reporter. “The interesting thing about this reporter is that she writes, among other things, about these forest people as if she has met them,”  he thought, standing there holding his phone.
            Mark thought maybe Colin could talk to Millicent, his wife, about the big kid Squatch, just to see if maybe the head Squatch could put a little bit of a hamper on that Benny.
            As an aside, Mark wondered about that name. Why should a forest dwelling cryptid affect a human name? Was it a fad, like, well, any fad there ever was?
            He realized that he was dithering and punched in Colin’s number. He hoped Colin’s phone knew his number. Nobody answers unknown numbers. Not Mark anyhow.
            “Mark,” said Colin. “Been a while!”
            “Hi Colin. Thanks for picking up,” said Mark.
            “Is this business or BS, Mark,” asked Colin, good naturedly.
            “Funny you should ask, Colin. I’m not sure I can decide between those two,” said Mark. "Maybe both."
            “Interesting. You may as well spill it. I’m already hooked,” said Colin.
            “I can’t believe that these words are going to come out of my mouth, but they are. So, today, at work out on the Skagit I had a run in with a big goofy kid of a Sasquatch.
            “It took him some work to convince me that he was a real thing, but he was. Oh, yes, he was. The situation is that when he messes with picnickers, stealing their sandwiches and eating their cookies, well it becomes my problem. I am expected to fix the problem, without actually admitting what happened,” said Mark.
            “I think I see your problem there, Mark.  How can I help?” said Colin, with a sneaking suspicion that he knew perfectly well how he could help.          
            “For the sake of quiet and peace in the woods, and me not having this little problem, I wondered if Millicent might be able to instigate some sort of correction. You see? Could she contact that Ralph she writes about. Geez, Colin, I had no idea that stuff was true. I didn’t!
            “But she’s the only person I can imagine who has any contacts out there, yanno? I feel like I’m making an application for help from someone with an account in fairyland, but heck, I have to try,” said Mark.
            “I can’t think of anyone else, either,” said Colin, who didn’t admit that he himself knew Ralph as a personal friend, but not for as long as Millicent had.  “Why complicate things,” he thought to himself, very sensibly.
            “Mark, I’ll explain the situation to her tonight. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind passing the word along. I can’t guarantee anything. You know that, but I’ll let her know. OK?”
            On that note they ended their phone call. The sun finished setting, and soon it was night.
 
            Colin told Millicent the whole story after he shut his phone off. He made sure to mention the kid Squatch’s name. Benny. Benny the big joker, cutting a swath through Concrete, WA and Rasar park. Purloiner of picnics. Etc.
            Millicent thought about it overnight. She realized that, yes, this was something for Ralph to deal with. His domain, after all.  
            Therefore, when Maeve, who was back on her route after the accident and recovery, stopped by the newspaper office window the next morning, Millicent did have a message for her to carry back to Ralph. Neither Ralph nor Ramona could read, even though they speak good English, so it had to be word of beak messaging. Farfetched? Well, there it is. Maeve took off to find Ralph and pass the story on.
            He was in the river, enticing steelhead. So she had to wait, up on a big branch, keeping a close eye on the river.
            Eventually, all 9ft and 700lbs of Ralph emerged dripping from the water, with a string bag containing a dozen or so outraged steelhead. As he was still dripping Maeve lighted on his shoulder and started talking right into his ear.
            “Hey Boss, Millicent says her Colin knows a Washington state game guy named Mark Schwartz. Let me think. OK. Mark called Colin and told him a story about a young male Forest Keeper in Concrete who thinks he is a comedian and is making trouble at Rasar park with the visitors. Millicent wonders if you could speak to the boy in a way that would reach him.  Mark talked with him, but you now how it is. Mark is just human.
            “The kid’s name is Benny, the kid says,” said Maeve. “Who knows.”
            “Oh, a kidder huh?” laughed Ralph. “We’ll see about that! Benny, my rather large foot!”
 
            We must pause here for a moment. Recently it has come to our attention that Ralph got to Darrington by hitching a ride. Surely this couldn’t be right! What about those portals? Don’t he and his people get around by means of portals?
            It was posited, by this writer in fact, that there was a Time Turtle stuck in a portal making it unusable until it was dealt with. A charming conceit, no doubt, in its rustic way.
            In fact, the portals described by the compiler of the Ralph histories is inaccurate. Yes! They do not resemble elevator doors. They are not like a cave, or a closet. In fact, my dears, they have no physical manifestation at all. It is shocking, but true!
            The truth of the matter is that he hitched to Darrington for the fun of it. An adventure. A bit of an internal wager with himself. Could he get a ride? So he tried it, and you know the story.
            No, when Ralph needs to go somewhere, he has a different method. In a sense, he is already there. He does sing a little song, but not because the words are magic spells or anything like that. It just settles his mind, and “PING” he materializes where he wants to be! He does have to be careful to see a good place to land.
            Portals, as we have imagined, them are much easier to believe in. But then, that’s the whole thing, isn’t it?
           
            So, then, Ralph told Ramona he was going to find a kid and would be gone for a while. Hours, not days.
            Ralph appeared in Rasar park and wandered down to the Skagit there. It was broad and smooth in that location. He suspected that it was Benny’s favorite lurking spot, if what he had heard was anything to go by. This was borne out in fact.
            When Ralph found Benny he invited him home to meet the family and stay for a couple of days to talk things over. Benny was tickled to death to be invited home by Ralph. It was quite a privilege.
            Of course Ramona had seen which way the wind was blowing when Ralph left on his mission. She cooked all fifteen big fish, fed Twigg and Cherry and the puma bros, and waited for him to reappear with whoever he was sure to bring back.
            When she saw Ralph and Benny come down the trail towards the fire circle she was not one bit surprised. She just smiled at their approach.

           

Sunday, January 26, Greetings and Open Thread

One of my favorite things to photograph are home made signs. I have a collection of them.

This one is great I think. I found it on January 25, 2014, somewhere on a rural road around here.

I wonder who did it, and why?

It's not a paragon of grammar, but never mind! lol

It's almost as good as the one about "Pres. Obama don't drone me."

As a bonus here are a couple of photos from about the same time showing the stuff they use to keep the Skagit from jumping its banks and running down the road! They are from the same year.

Who Goes There?

 

The beguiling Skagit River from Sauk mountain.

            Life had been looking good lately for Officer Mark F. Schwartz of the Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife Police.
            Some mornings he had to report to the North Puget Sound Regional office in Mill Creek. But most of his working days were spent on the Skagit River itself. A name denoting a people, a language, a place.
            Officer Schwartz loved it. He didn’t encounter very many people out on the river or the small two lane highways. He checked licenses and responded to calls for some kind of wildlife related assistance. It was so much better than an indoor job. This is where our story begins.
            There was a call to the Mill Creek office. Some lady with a weird and probably highly subjective experience to report had called. They took her information and relayed the story to Mark who was parked at his favorite county park, communing with the river.
            As it happened, the call came from the small town of Concrete, location of the very park where the officer was taking his lunchtime break.
            This lady was a long time resident of Concrete. She lived near enough to the park that an animal problem was a WDFW problem. It had to be an animal problem, he thought, though that was not what she said.
            Mary Smith, not an alias, had been at the park having a picnic lunch with her grandchildren. An eight year old girl and a six year old boy. Mary insisted that a huge hairy bipedal extremely sassy hominid had approached the picnic table and had taken the sandwiches, after eating the cookies right in front of them. She had been forced to take the children back to the house to fix them a lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.
            Mary, outraged, said that this “manlike critter” had aped all sorts of ladeedah gestures and giggled a lot like he thought he was just devastatingly funny. Then he wandered down to the river, sat on the gravel, ate all six sandwiches and then dove into the Skagit river like it was the most natural thing in the world.
            The office told her that they would send an officer to take the report and investigate.
            An occasional call like this made him miss the army where, most things were as they were described.
            So Officer Schwartz contacted Mary at her house. He took notes with a deadpan look on his face, but he didn’t believe a bit of it. She had to be crazy or lying in his opinion. Perhaps she just wanted some attention. Bears steal picnics too, Mark thought. "Think of Yogi!"
            She said the encounter had frightened the children so much that the girl had gotten hiccups, and the boy had wet himself. She wanted something done about this big joker.
            Since the mystery creature was last seen down by the river, that is where he decided to “investigate.” He knew he wouldn’t find anything.
            It wouldn’t be long before it was time to go home and be done with this charade. The afternoon was getting on. The river flowed by smoothly over its gravel bed and the sun twinkled off of the water. Some crows were arguing about something up in a tree. He yawned.
            He walked along the gravel riverbank in the late afternoon light looking for footprints or whatever. He kept his nose pointed at the ground as he searched. He didn’t see any footprints because he knew they didn’t exist.
            He heard gravel shift and landed on his butt. He looked around. But you can’t see something which doesn’t exist. So Mark saw no reason for his fall and position there on the river bank. He assumed that he must have stepped on a rock that twisted and dumped him.
            He decided that he had had enough investigation for today and headed up to the parking lot and his state SUV. Sometimes he thought he might have heard something, but he sure didn’t see anything. A pungent odor drifted by about the time he got to his car.
            He opened the passenger side door because it was the first one he came to and threw in his little laptop computer and his hat. When he went to slam the door shut it wouldn’t go for a few seconds, like it was stuck open for some reason, but finally he was able to shut the door.
            He walked around to his side and hopped in. He didn’t remember throwing the laptop or his hat on the floorboards, but there they were. Also, he smelled more of that strong biological scent. Mark wondered if he had stepped in something, maybe a dead mouse or bear fewmets. He couldn’t see anything on his shoes while he was sitting there, so he decided to just drive home. It was a pretty good drive to get back to Milltown. It would take most of an hour. Highway 20 was busy these days, slowing things down.
            Someone was humming a little tune. Mark didn’t think that it was himself, but it had to be. He drove on. It was funny. Hallucinating sounds?
            “I’m here,” said Benny, since that was his name.
            “What?” said Mark. “No one is here but me!”
            “Wanna bet?” said that annoying voice.
            “I’m gonna make you see me, yes I will, yes I will,” yodeled that voice that wasn’t really there, and was getting kinda noisy.
            Mark drove on.
            The steering wheel jerked to the right and he couldn’t put it back! Not knowing what else to do about it, Mark started braking as his SUV went racing onto the shoulder of the little highway. Before heading totally off the road he managed to stop.
            “See?  I’m here. You might as well see me,” said Benny, the big joker.
            “OK, fine. You’re there, dammit,” said Mark the WDFW officer reluctantly.
            Mark looked over to the passenger side. Yup. He was there. Big, hairy and grinning.
            “You know, I ought to arrest you for theft of a picnic and endangering an officer,” said Mark.
            “Oh, that never works. They wouldn’t see me either and your rep. would be shot to hell, officer” Benny was really enjoying his revelation.
            “Do you have to smell like that?” said Mark, rolling down his window.
            “Hm. I did it special for you. You like this better?” Soon the cab was full of the scent of roses.
            “You’re so damn weird. What’s your name? Do you have a name?” said Mark.
            “Benny. You’re plenty weird yourself. I knocked you on your butt and you didn’t even get it!” said Benny.
            “It’s a definition thing,” said Mark.
            “Hey, leave the old lady and those two kids alone, alright? Pick on somebody that wants to see Squatches. There are plenty of them. They make TV shows about those characters. Why don’t you go give them a thrill?” said Mark. He could see, now that he’d been beside him for a while that Benny was just a huge kid himself.
            “Oh, yeah, that would be fun. They’d probably love it. Say, do you have a name, officer?” inquired Benny. “If I see the old lady and the kids again I’ll just sing love songs to them!”
            “You do you, Benny. But go give those bigfoot hunters a thrill. And yeah, I have a name. My mamma and daddy called me Mark Elliot Schwartz.”
            “Maybe I’ll run into you again when you least expect it, Mark,” said Benny as he climbed out of the SUV, leaving nothing but a scuffed up hat on the floor and the lingering scent of roses.
            Mark watched Benny walk into the forest and vanish.
            He shook his head. But he still liked his job. It was a great job, and usually quite easy.
            Not so easy was the report he was going to have to file. Well, he’d figure that out tomorrow.

Rasar Park, scene of the action.

You Know How It Is Some Days

 🤍

⭐EVERMORE!⭐

I will just join with Maeve and the Forest Family in wishing you the finest of Evermores, but in addition a most Joyous Configuration.

May your Friday be crowded with happy happenings.

May all cats represented here receive everything their little hearts desire. And may they all keep in touch with each other, as they should! For the good of all!

™

Heh!

The Recovery of Maeve

 

🌸🖤🌸

            What can a Raven do while recovering?
            In a way, all she can do is return to the days of her youth and lie in a nest, being fed and tended, in this case, by Ramona or Twigg or Cherry. Or even Ralph.
            It was quite a change. No messenger bird flying with Ralph’s words, or Ramona’s either.. If Ramona wanted Thaga she had to send Twigg with a message which was slower and allowed more room for random motion. As it happened, Ramona did want Thaga to bring a basket and to confer on medical treatment of a broken wing and foot.
            Ramona didn’t say so, but she wasn’t absolutely sure that Maeve would ever fly again, which was an awful thought. She wanted to talk to Thaga about the case.
            So, Ramona sent Twigg to Thaga with her requests. She said an old basket would be just fine, and maybe some old towels or something.
            In about an hour, though Ralph and family are innocent of such contrivances, Thaga returned with Twigg carrying an older basket which had been used for potatoes in the garden, and some of that anonymous fabric junk that collects in the back of closets for nesting material.
            Thaga also brought a liniment of her own recipe to anoint the broken bones with. It was based on some of that pitch that Ramona had given Ooog a year or two before, which was dissolved in something, and it had added fat of some kind. It might not really do anything, but it smelled like it would, and sometimes that’s all it takes.
            First they arranged the fabric into a nice soft bed for Maeve, who was watching from Ralph’s arm where he was still holding her. Her black eyes followed every move.
            That done, Thaga splinted the wing bone, which fortunately was not displaced. She didn’t use tape on Maeve’s feathers. She used strips of soft cloth torn off of the nesting materiel. The ointment went on before the splint.
            Ralph said, “why don’t you make a little ball of cloth, and put that underneath her foot with her talons around it, and then tie it all together?”
            Ramona and Thaga thought that was a good idea. So, with Twigg and Cherry watching solemnly, the ladies helped each other to wrap Maeve’s foot, being very careful of the placement of each toe.
            Ralph laid her carefully in her nest on her good side.
            “Thank you. Thank all of you,” said Maeve, rather drowsily, because she had had a few hard days, and she was pretty tired.
            For about three weeks they fed her by hand. She liked Ramona’s cooking, so that went well. The family tended to all of her needs, bringing her little basket into the cave at night. If you think about it, it was a pretty full cave these days. The big bed, with Ralph and Ramona. The children in the child bed with the quilts that Thaga had made for their Christmas gifts, and Bob and Berry, who were full sized pumas by now. And then, Maeve in her basket was included.
            After about those three weeks Maeve was able to sit in a more normal position. Ramona noticed that Maeve was moving around better so she decided to take the splints off and just check on the breaks. She could always wrap them back up if necessary.
            It seemed to Ramona that the breaks were healed. But she left Maeve in her basket, just to see how she would act without the bandages.
            In a couple of days, Maeve climbed out of her basket and started walking around the Home Clearing, but she didn’t try to fly. She seemed comfortable, but to have lost something, the knowledge and exultation of flight.  It appeared to be absent from her mind. She just walked.
            Ralph watched Maeve walking. He knew it wasn’t right for Maeve to be earthbound, not up in her tree canopy world hollering “evermore.”
            She had not uttered “evermore” once since her collision with the lookout tower a month or so ago.
            He began to think of a song for Maeve. He worked on it until it was just right.
            One day, the right day he thought, he told her, “Maeve, old Black Leg, I want to sing you a song. How about that? Would you like to ride up on my shoulder and listen to the song?”
            Maeve said, “yes. I would. Why haven’t I been riding on your shoulder lately?”
            “I’m not sure,” said Ralph. Then he picked her up and set her on his left shoulder, just to see if she could hang on like she used to, and she did after a minute or two.
            While she was up there, Ralph strolled down toward the river and as he walked he began to sing the new song to her. She listened carefully, without remarks.
            The river was kind of a special place of renovation and even healing for some reason. The water murmured; the sun flashed off of the running current. A soft wind fiddled around Ralph and Maeve.
            She began to feel the wind under her wings, and it reminded of something, of old days, of the sky and forest top. The wind tugged at her heart. She began to listen, to hear it again.
            Suddenly she left Ralph’s shoulder as she had always done before. She bolted into the air, a creature of the sky once again.
            Ralph shielded his eyes with his big right hand, then he waved to her as she flew. He laughed a little, pleased as he could be. Then he went on home.
            He was getting a little hungry, and wanted to give the good news to Ramona and the kids.

Happy Wednesday January 22, Open Thread

 It's been an exciting couple of days, hasn't it?

What an interesting time in history!

We'll just stay up here keeping an eye on things!

All the best today!

🤍

The Heybrook Lookout Tower

 

Photo by Yasobara

 

            Neither Ralph nor Ramona, or either of the kids had seen Maeve in two days. This was not normal.
            Some less than generous souls might have concluded that Maeve was a pest. But the inhabitants of the Home Clearing, even the cats, who, though they wouldn’t admit it, loved the old bird.
            When two mornings went by without hearing her ravenesque cry of “evermore!”, Ralph began to worry, and count days backwards just to be sure. He decided that he had been right. It was two mornings and two whole days with no Maeve.
            “I don’t even know how to begin looking for a missing raven, Ramona,” said Ralph on the third morning with no Maeve stomping around on his shoulder and giving him the news from her point of view.
            “We don’t know any other talking winged creatures. There isn’t much these cats can do but run up and down the same paths that we would,” he said additionally.
            Twigg and Cherry were sitting by quietly listening, as children do when the parents sound serious.
            “I hope nothing ate her,” yelled Twigg, jumping up from his seat. “I like her even when she's bossy!”
            “I can fly, daddy,” the small golden urchin said seriously. “You know I can. I could fly up into the tree tops and go find her nest and see if she is sick!” And she flew up to his knee where he sat as if to prove her point.
            “OK, daddy?”
            Ramona and Ralph just looked at each other, momentarily out of words, trying to figure out how to say “no,” without just saying “no.”
            Finally, “hey, Cherry, little one, think about it. I’m already worried about Maeve. It would be terrible if I didn’t know where you were also!
            “I want you to promise me that you will stay right with your mommy! If anyone must search for the old bird, it’s me, sweetie. Some people or other creatures call me king here in the forest. Well, it’s the king’s job to take care of everyone!
            “So I will go. I don’t know exactly how long I will look, but I will have to do my best.’    
            “Will you stay here with mommy, Cherry?” Ralph said. “Promise?”
            “I promise,” said Cherry, very seriously.
            What could Ralph do but go on the march? He whistled his special whistle that he used to call her, and she would hear it no matter where she was. This got no results.
            In his wanderings he approached the old town of Index on the Index Galena road. He looked into the Index river as he walked along, but looking in rivers for ravens is a losing game. If she had been in the river she would have been lost. He was very near to giving up the hunt when he remembered the old lookout tower, not far from where he was. It was no longer in use as a lookout tower, but it still stood high above the forest on a very steep hill.
            Ralph climbed the very steep hill. Hills don’t slow him down very much.
            It’s a big tower, with a lot of steps, but the steps make it a lot easier than climbing up the outside like King Kong with Faye Wray on board.
            He climbed all the way to the top platform, and it was true he could see vast deep swaths of the Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest from up there, including many local mountains, and roads, but he couldn’t see all the way to the salt water. It was phenomenal. There was even a waterfall. Ralph thought that this was the closest he would ever get to flying.
            But then he remembered his quest and started whistling again, hoping that maybe Maeve could hear him better from up here. This was a bit silly, but what could he do? He whistled and whistled.
            “Ralph, I’m on the floor. I’m down here,” said a very familiar voice.
            “Maeve! What are you doing up here?” said Ralph in amazement.
            “Well, for one thing, listening to you whistle,” she said.
            “I mean, why are you here?”
            “I was waiting for you to find me,” said Maeve, as if that were obvious.
            “Well. I did find you. I still don’t see why you are up here,” said Ralph.
            “OK. I guess I’m doomed to sound stupid, Ralph. I flew into the tower while I was chasing bats a couple of nights ago. Yes. That was stupid. When I hit the beam here on the platform I broke my left wing and foot, so I couldn’t even walk out of here. Go ahead, laugh at me.” She gronked a bit. Sadly.
            “Nah. I won’t laugh at you, Maeve,” said Ralph. “I’ll just carry you home with me and Ramona and Thaga will mend you somehow.”
            So, he gathered her up carefully. He tucked her right wing in close to her body, letting the broken one droop loose so he didn’t cause her more pain. He just put one hand under her breast bone, kind of like a football carry, and they started the long walk back to the Home Clearing.
            It did take a while because he had to walk carefully. But for his old Black Leg, he was willing to go slowly and as smoothly as possible.
            At home, Ramona said, “oh this break isn’t too bad. Some splinting, some time, and no flying until healed and you will be just like you always were. Same for your foot, Maeve.
            “You’ll have to sleep in the cave with us too! Lol. I hope you don’t mind listening to Ralph snore!”
            “I love you, Ramona,” said Maeve.
            “I love you too, Maeve,” said Ramona, looking at a rather long and intensive period of nursing in her future.

            "Evermore," agreed Maeve.