I am getting lazy in my old age; the complications of nasty weather and the lingering darkness in the morning has led me to sleep in a little later than I usually do.
Not often do my feet hit the floor much before eight, and I am seldom downstairs prior to nine. I never set my alarm – I just pop out of bed whenever the mood strikes me.
I usually start off my day by reaching first for my glasses and visor. This is followed by shorts, socks, shirt, jeans and slippers, in that exact order (Yes! You may have already gathered no mention of pyjamas, I sleep naked. Nude can be blamed on a lingering habit that stems from the comforts afforded by my Little Lady).
While dressing I usually take a glance out of the window to take a boo at our perpetually furled flag on the tall white pole out next to the barn. It tells me which way the wind is blowing and how hard.
If there is no flip or flop, and a red sky behind it, I can tell that rain, if not already here, is on its way. It always puts me in a good mood when I see a fully furled flag gently waving against a white cloud spotted sky. There seems a warm spot in my heart each time I see that red and white maple leaf waving at the world.
Then I usually reach for a banana from the top of my little fridge and head out to the alcove at the head of the stairs where my computer awaits the regurgitation of several evening-acquired emails. While answering these, I nibble on my easily peeled banana. “Get some food into your gut,” my mother used to say. “Then you won’t be so hard to get along with.” She was right! My Little Lady never once let me leave the house without a big breakfast.
From there I trundle the curve of the stairs downward to the little porcelain parlour which offsets the west side of the kitchen. It is here, too, while performing the procedures known as the “triple S” for which the porcelain parlours are designed, that I also often look out of a window. That is one of the features of rural route living. Far back off the road where two lanes meet, frosted glass is not necessary in the bathroom.
As our back lawn, spattered with trees, stretches far and wide, with a wild unkempt area tucked in a hollow alongside, it is not often that I don’t see something weird and wonderful taking place out there in Mother Nature’s arena.
In addition to multiple species of birds, which flitter and flutter, some sing, others just twitter. Some of which are wild turkeys that gobble and geese that gabble, I have seen tail-waving, white-striped skunks, raccoons wearing black masks, and beady-eyed, quill-swaddled porcupines that wiggle their nose when they waddle. And I’ve seen squirrels that quarrel with tails that curl, and chipmunks, with stripes, that sit cockily on our windowsill.
But what I saw this past morning were a couple of cotton-tail bunnies who were skipping in little hops back and forth through the light, fluffy snow.
It was evident that they were digging for the cones of white spruce that had recently tumbled with the ice storm and lain randomly scattered across the wide lawn. The bunnies were only about half grown so I suspect they were born, in a fur-lined nest, sometime late in the fall.
All of a sudden, from somewhere above, a pair of blue jays tumbled. With an awkward downward flight, accompanied by a couple of screams, each aimed directly at a separate bunny. They then clipped the rabbits on the ear with their wing and grabbed the cone from under the startled bunny’s nose, then immediately dropped the cone and took off screaming.
I strongly suspect that they had mistaken the small cones as unshelled peanuts that had blown from the bird feeder across the yard. It’s quite obvious that the best made plans of mice and man, go askew with birds and bunnies too.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105