Tuesday, Jun. 15, 2004 - 10:44 a.m.

Triker babe

Yeah, that's me. 2d and I have gone biking twice now. Longer and longer. Soon I'll be able to make it around the mile, which is about 4 miles. I could do it now if it were all flat but the hills wear out my thigh muscles right now. Last night we rode to the corner which is almost 2 miles, and maybe next time I can make it to the docks. That would be a nice ride and then a nature walk. At the corner, we did guard duty for a mamma skunk and 4 babies. Had to stop a pickup and then a car from the other direction until the babies scampered back across the road. Mamma had finished crossing before the pickup came, but 4 babies got distracted by juicy little tidbits squashed on the road and then refused to go forward or retreat for a while. Needless to say, pickup driver and 2d were not about to argue with them; they may have been packing ammo.

2d didn't have her good cam but may not have been able to zoom close enough to get a pic. Sighting the little family makes up for another family tragedy that happened here recently. 800 sets a trap cage out often to capture whatever, and caught a skunk one night. Since the cage has a spring latch, he couldn't open the door without getting too close. He did try, with expected results. The only solution was to shoot the black and white intruder which made everyone including 800 very sad. Trap hasn't been set since.

The one shot wasn't the one that followed 2d out each night to eat the catfood she was setting out. That was last summer or the one before. But we know there are skunks around by the little dig holes around the house in the lawn. Still have fresh dig holes, so the loss of one did not annihilate the local population.

Our acreage is rapidly turning into a preserve. Animal and bird food is regularly set out and there is not much to prey on either species. Each year the magpie population increases and the robins and other migratory birds have used the trees around the house to nest heavily in this year. Wild pheasants come to visit the caged ones, and an occasional badger lumbers through the place on his way to drink at the river. When the geese, ducks and pelicans leave the water, they fly over our place to get to the open fields because there are no guns firing from the property. Not that 800 is averse to potting a couple, he just prefers to go elsewhere and give everyone an even chance, including himself.

I think I am slowly losing my desire to retire to the ocean. My plan now is to get several of the posters showing an open window looking out on the beach, playing a CD of ocean sounds on the bedroom CD player, and running the sprinkler on the outside wall. Ah, the best of both worlds! Right now the car tape is playing my Thunderstorm tapes, full of rain and storm sound effects along with classical music and poetry. Xanadu is one of the poems. Perhaps I shall copy it here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Kubla Khan

OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.

A FRAGMENT

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round :

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !

A savage place ! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover !

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced :

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war !

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves ;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !

His flashing eyes, his floating hair !

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

EE's devotional

newAutumn Leaves

previous - next