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In Isolation on Beer Can Road
As Garrison Keillor might have said, before he got all Lefty and petty, it has been a quiet week here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension.
The economic situation has been cruel to many businesses, but obviously not to the beer industry, whose cast-off cans sparkle in the spring sunshine up and down the road past my rustic rural retreat. And then there’s that old couch someone dumped weeks ago. I don’t suppose there’s a dead body in it, but I’m not going to look.
The guy speeding in the hot red sedan seems to be trying to make it launch, and that is possible, but without wings and controls the car would land in a tree – or tree in a tree – and that would be an unhappy ending. But maybe all the beer cans would cushion the impact.
This spring’s weather has been unusually pleasant. Soon enough the withering heat and humidity of summer will fall upon us, but for now sitting under an oak tree in the late afternoon with a refreshing beverage and the poems of Robert Frost is a joy.
Joining in the merriment are woodpeckers, cardinals, mourning doves, one tiny Carolina or black-capped chickadee, and a few insolent squirrels. They all gather at the water dish and the feeder to feast on chicken scratch from the feed store. Clouds of humming bees monopolize the water dish but will permit the birds and squirrels to take a sip if they act nicely and behave themselves. These are perfect occasions for reading Robert Frost, and the critters don’t seem to mind either him or me.
The setting sun permits a visual display of the bees as they speed between the water dish and their hives a few hundred yards away. Without those late sunbeams a human could not see them in transit and marvel at their speed and navigation. That they don’t hit each other head-on is a great mystery.
Without bees we would have very little to eat; their transfer of pollens from and to all sorts of trees, crops, grasses, and other plants makes possible the generation of fruits, grains, and vegetables season after season.
Thus, providing water for the little fellows and avoiding dusting the garden against pests until after dark is, as the old farmers always remind us, an essential in life.
As the sun sets the book must be closed and the seat cushions brought inside. After dark the raccoons, flying squirrels, ‘possums, feral cats, and an occasional deer will begin their night patrols in the front yard. Flying squirrels are so tiny that all the security camera catches of them are their bright eyes. If a bit of kitchen scrap has been tossed out then sometimes the Darwinian struggle – well, okay, more of a Darwinian hissy-fit – is played out as ‘possum vs. ‘possum, raccoon vs. racoon, and even raccoon vs. possum. The big raccoon always wins the supper against the ‘possum, but the ‘possum makes a good show of belligerence.
In the mornings there is a scent of skunk lately, but this creature hasn’t yet shown up on the video feed. And I understand; if we smelled like that we wouldn’t want to be out in public either.
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