It's early. Well, for me it's not early or late. I'm in the twilight zone these days, me and my knee. But the light is still young, the kind that falls at an easy angle and quickens what it touches. Nevertheless, before leaving to work out, Mr. Lee closed down the house, shut night's graciously flung open doors and windows, and lowered the blinds in preparation for the oncoming heat ... closed all but my window that is, the one by my bed. We compromised on that. My window gets to remain open about a foot, blind to the opening, until he gets back. After that it too closes. It's enough. I am delighted. I see the quiet light, and hear the occasional bird. Just so you are prepared, I did a little movie of the light this morning and will post it later. No, it's not 5 minutes long. It's about 30 seconds long. This one is made for Americans, my concession after Mr. Lee bitched so much about having to watch the 5 minute video of
cold tubbing pigeons.
Speaking of birds, my poor Bird Park is all but shut down since my knee operation. Mr. Lee has a very different philosophy about birds. It goes something like this,
"They're wild and should stay that way". I freely admit that I lure birds here for my own selfish pleasure. I'm not a "bird watcher" like people who know the names of all the birds, their habitats and interesting quirks. Perhaps it is even true that I am disturbing the balance of nature. Perhaps there are generations of birds coming here who would not otherwise have survived. Good! Anyway, I'm not so sure that the "Balance of Nature" doesn't include a friendly hand here and there. Anyway, I need a little life around me and birds are easy to bribe. I also freely admit that I have a rather obsessive idea of keeping feeders filled and water fresh. I mean FILLED, twice a day when it comes to the seeds and clean, scrubbed tubs and fresh water as needed. Sure birds drink dirty water but so would I if I had to.
So my Bird Park has fallen on hard times but it's happened before. In fact, the little bastards don't have much loyality in the first place. When things get low, off they go back to Dwayne's. He is my neighbor with the big trees and lawn. The birds prefer his place to our scrubby, desert not-landscape but I don't blame 'em. Worms and bugs hang out in nice, moist areas. Dwayne even has a quail family living in his giant, sprawling, nest of a Navaho willow. The babies are too little to make the fense yet but their parents come over here for a little of the sunflower seed action, but I know they're just slumming.
Minerva is different though. In the first place, crows don't mind harsh terrain. They're big and tough and just hop over crap. Quail are sweet but they are putzes who don't even
like to fly, what to speak of hop, if they even
could. Maybe they would be more inclined to hop if they wore baseball caps instead of those haute Paris creations but no. Quail insist on being dapper at all times. But back to Minerva. She is loyal and has been coming around for more than a year. She dropped in the other day and I actually hobbled out to give her some peanuts while she watched from the top of Dick's house. You may wonder how I knew that this particular crow was Minerva. I wish it was because I have special crow mojo and know their language etc. etc., but I don't. Minerva has a whitish feather on her left shoulder and a funny, irregular feather sticking out of her right wing. She travels alone or with one friend and comes in the afternoon, not with the squawking brunch bunch. She's older and has aged noticably since last year. The hard winter, I suppose. She is an irregular regular at the Bird Park and gets special treatment. Otherwise, things have grown pretty quiet here. Not much kibitzing in the tiny trees, although a little black bird did sit on one of the 2 foot junipers the other day. That's initiation for a tree. They'll be back though. Oh yes. Once I can get outside and start pumping the seeds into the system, the little bastards will be back.
One last thing about crows and loyality. The other day Mr. Lee was mountain biking up in the Pine Nuts when he came upon a flock of crows circling above a particular spot in the desert. They weren't disturbed to see him so he got off his bike to see what they were hovering over. Usually it's something tasty like a dead mouse or bit of rabbit but this day it was not. Mr. Lee tells me they were circling around and around a particular, small, black, pyramid-shaped stone. He said they told him they wanted me to have it. They also told him to make clear to me that it's on
loan.
But before the film, a bit of background on the jaguar. Mr. Lee bought him for me last fall when we were in the Yucatan. We were kind of hijacked into spending the night with a Mayan family who lived in the jungle along the road to Bonampak, a fabulous but once extremely bloody Mayan pyramid and city. I say hijacked because their hospitality was mainly a way to hold customers hostage for the night. It was really awkward because the adults just wouldn't let up. They kept bring out more and more stuff for us to buy. We bought a lot. The kids were great, especially the beautiful Leonardo. He was about five and really wanted to communicate with me. He and I stood by the jeep for hours making signs and faces, talking with our hands, drawing pictures for each other and trying out our few words and finding and reading them from my handy, pock-size translation book. He did somersaults for me and climbed up and picked oranges for us to share and I gave him one of my favorite pens and notebook and all the other kids who were standing around staring at me, energy bars.
Monday July 10th as the submissions deadline for the first issue of Driftwork. The release date is July 13th. This publication is digest-sized and saddle-stitched with a card stock cover, like most little magazines. Page count will depend on amount of quality work we have by the printing deadline. This issue will be, like any other, from one to multiples of four pages.
