Well this is something.
I’m sitting in front of my house on a chair staring at either a possum or a porcupine who just walked right into the front area of my house and parked himself in the gap in the concrete where the cat sleeps and rolled into a ball. I have evicted him or her and the slow moving creature is now pretending to be dead in front of the house. I didn’t want to hurt him or her but I used the stick end of a broom to sort of roll them out of the gap. They went into the position of a ball and just stayed there. I think it’s a possum and not a porcupine. They are playing possum right now, just sitting there like a ball. I don’t think porcupines play possum.
I didn’t say I was perfect at this nature stuff. I just said God was kind of with me.
Well, there’s more to this story. Why am I sitting here in front of my house? I have a slightly expanded understanding about Reggie Jackson, the cat who lives here. I’ve finally found the solution to the sex problem. She has always been a she and now she is the mother of four.
I first got wind of this news when she was muing under my window where I was enjoying my Shabbos layback. This was one of those days where I had no instinct to do anything other than lay back. One or two old movies but really just a lot of silence and rest. My body didn’t bother me to do anything at all. But then there was the muing from the cat.
I stuck my head out the window. I could hear her mewing really loudly but I couldn’t find where she was. I couldn’t see that she was just below me for quite some time. What are you doing there? What is she going to say? I hung out with her for a moment and then got bored of it and went back to doing nothing on the couch. That really is a comfortable couch if you are not particularly in need of moving a lot.
It was a couple of hours later, close to 5:00 and the muing started again. This time it was very insistent. It wasn’t just insistent, it was really light. Too light. It was Reggie’s voice but it was too soft. The idea flashed in my head that Reggie was crashed there because she was injured. I finally was motivated to get up. I came outside and worked my way through the plants to where she was wedged next to the house next to a bunch of poppy plants. She was a little dirty and she was protecting four little orange and umbra kittens.
The possum is still playing possum. I rolled him out into the grass and then left him there. There is a bright red something but I think it’s a flower that she picked up. He’s just lying there. I wonder how long they have been living here. I hope it’s not another pregnant woman. I think maybe I’m taking this fertility business too far if this is what’s going to happen everyday. I’m not going to run a maternity hospital for feral animals.
I thought about leaving Reggie right where she was but remembered that I had made a box and filled it with leaves and grass the last time I thought that she was going to have children. I then reached over and gently picked up the babies two at a time and carefully as I could, carried them over to the front of the house and dropped them carefully into the leaves and grass. Reggie followed and I picked her up and put her in there with them.
I want to say something about feeling bad about treating Reggie so badly lately. She is such a beggar every time she sees me and it’s annoying. She’s going to get fed. I don’t need to be told to feed the cat and especially not by the cat. I just need her to stop demanding and just let me do the damn job already. I’m not really fond of being bothered.
But now we have this event. She seems to know what she’s doing. Of course she knows what she’s doing. At one point she got up and jumped away. I thought maybe we had missed a cat. I was pretty sure that I had all that there were. I went back in anyway. Reggie actually left to tell the father I suppose that he is a father. I know the general direction. The conversation didn’t last long and she was back with the kittens.
I’ve been sitting with them ever since. It’s been a couple of hours. It’s getting colder right now and I don’t think I’m going to do the whole night. I don’t think it’s necessary.
Oh, okay, the possum is up and he is crawling slowly into the garden again. I wonder how long she had been sleeping here. He really walked in like he owned the place. Honestly, I was afraid he or she might want to eat the kittens. I have no idea how this possum business works. Lonely character.
I’ve been thinking of names. How about Michael, Latoya, Janet and Tito? No good? How about some famous infield? If it’s Reggie Jackson, how about Willie, Bobby, Barry and Junior? John, Paul, George and Ringo? Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo? Oscar, Miles, Thelonious and Bird? Frank, Dean, Sammy and count Basie? Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy? Jerry, George, Elaine and Cosmo? I got it. Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan? Oui? Non? Lion, Tiger, Panther and Puma? No? Alla, Eva, Ira and Olya? That’s getting cheeky. How about Rusty, Peachy, Apricot and Pumpkin? Now I think we’re getting Somewhere.
They don’t need names.
Well, something has happened here and I guess things are going to change a little bit. Not really. I still have to do all the things I have to do to keep my life going. I guess Reggie is going to be busy with her own thing now and won’t be focusing so much attention on me. I guess this is always part of the relationship between men and women. I must be lucky. I didn’t really need so much mothering. I’m saying this now looking back. She has been sort of taking care of me the whole time. I understand why I’m so infuriated with it. It’s all about the possessiveness of my neighbors. But still, I didn’t really think she needed to worry about me. I think I’m pretty much okay taking care of things by myself. And she wanted that factory food.
In the meantime, she looked like she was uncomfortable in her little bed box so I brought out a couple of boards I had screwed together and threw one of the blankets that got ruined in the fire and turned the entire place into a soft spot rather than a box. Her bed is in there too for a soft place to climb up into. I think this is what she wanted and there’s a lot more space and a little bit of protection to keep the cats from going too far before they are ready. I also left the leaf box there but I opened it up so if the little ones want to go in there and play or whatever, they can do that too. And of course the cat tree is here so if anybody wants to climb, there you go.
Yeah, that possum was really weird. Possums are weird creatures.
I don’t know what else to say. We did get a little rain today. It always rains on Saturdays. But it was just about the time of that rain that the kittens came.
You can call all of this hand of God stuff. I don’t know how I got into all of that. I was just writing. I was just writing everything that was happening. All of that stuff just kept happening. This thing really has nothing to do with me except that Reggie lives outside and not inside and that big black tom was indeed chasing her around. I didn’t do anything to stop that just like I’m not really going to do anything to involve myself too deeply with this business. Reggie knows what to do. I think I’ve done all I can do. Well, I guess I should keep the food coming.
So let’s mark the date as June 1st. Reggie is officially female and very much a mother. All four babies seem pretty happy and when she wanted to move around, she is about as agile as she always is.
I guess if I need to say something here it would be that I think this is the kind of thing you get when you don’t cut your grass. Reggie has been roaming the jungles of Africa here. The world is nothing but nooks and crannies and interesting places. She walks the top of the fences and climbs in the trees. She hides and snoozes in the soft grass. She owns the place.
A healthy mother means healthy children. I knew that instinctively the first time I had kids. I think we’re going to be okay. I’m not worried too much about it. I’m actually just interested to see what it’s going to look like over the next few weeks. Life is kind of interesting. Wish the neighbors understood this. I am not inviting them for this. They would just start cackling and screaming and making everything worse than it needs to be. I think writing about this moment is as intrusive as I wish to be into Reggie’s life. That and a little scratch behind the ears for a job well done.
Update: Tuesday June 4th
It’s coming up on 9:00 in the morning and I’m sitting on the bench out in front of my house feeding some stray mosquitoes. It is a very charming part of the year. The wildflowers are starting to bloom. We have already been through the bulk of the poppies, big sloppy fools, but now there is one big elegant one that was delivered probably by a bird that sits amongst a bouquet of yellows and it really is quite lovely.
I am not the best naturalist and there are species of things growing here that I don’t know the names of. I have a series of great spiky plants, they come up in shifts and end up with sharp spiky flower. balls that open up into very spiky and aggressive yellow flowers. Yellow is the time right now. There are also some purples and some whites. Even the lavender is starting to send up its flowers now.
I have some homemade salad. I made a box of spinach and I’m very happy I did. I don’t pick it and bring it to the house to make salad. I just graze it as I pass by. I grab some of the bigger leaves and pop them in my mouth. It’s just nothing but beautiful. Do you like spinach? I love spinach. I was spoiled when I lived in town. It’s so difficult to even grow my appetite What I would buy for pennies when I lived in town. For sure I would need to set up a greenhouse and maybe someday I will. But for now, I have so many greens growing wild that doing anything else is pointless. And to be honest, for a few pennies in the fall I can buy bags of onions and cabbage and carrots if I want. I know I’m foolish because of upcoming nuclear war and all of that. Certainly the system is going to fall. I’m not really worried about me. There is not really enough left to worry about.
But the real story is Reggie Jackson. She has settled down into motherhood. She lies with her young children all day. Every once in a while she jumps out and leaves them alone for 4 or 5 minutes. She goes on a hunt through the grass. She climbs the fence and walks the top of the boards. She stretches and leaps and does a cursory glass for something to kill. But then the cries of the children finally get to her and she dutifully jumps back in lies down next to them and draws them close to her belly. When I look in on her, her arm goes up to protect them instinctively. I give her a scratch behind the ears and she lets me touch them. She probably doesn’t like it very much but there’s nothing she can do about it. I think she is much happier in the nest I gave her then the one she would have had next to the house.
I’m thinking of doing some irrigation. I’ve finally put together a stable watering system. I know that some people would have solved to this problem a million years ago. I am sorry for having to do it piece by piece. It’s just a matter of understanding what I need and trying to make things work. I installed a break on the pump so I’m free to turn the water on and off as I like. I changed out all the hose connectors from plastic that would fail within a season to hose clamps and really strong connectors. The hose is now smooth and travels the length of the field. I’m going to build a second one which will have a showerhead or nothing. I’m thinking having a shower might not be bad this year even if it is just cold water.
My neighbors seem to have moved their daughter into the house. I hear the baby scream from time to time and the boy laugh. There is less movement. It genuinely helps. With less movement comes less covid. Maybe they listened to me. Maybe somebody listened to me. Maybe noticing that there are no longer free to abuse me because everyone had already left them for being pitiless attention whores has something to do with it.
But it’s nice having a few moments of less sickness. I’m feeling a little chef-ish. I’m feeling a little garden-ish. I get some energy and my creativity rises. I’m looking at an area right now and I think I’m going to convert it into a salad garden. It just seems so obvious that that’s what it should be and where it should be. The work is not difficult. A bit of plastic for a backsplash, a few boards cut to size and then to dump all of the grass clipping and push them down with some boards. I can put planting soil on top of that. It’s not a lot of space but there will be enough to give me a place to grab some greens. Like I said, I am at unlimited abundance if I’m okay with lemongrass and horseradish leaves. Horseradish leaves are a part of my daily diet I don’t even know how people live without this stuff. It’s not even food if it doesn’t have fresh greens in it. But I do like grazing on easy food. It’s nice to have a little easy food lying around.
But I don’t think I am happy with my garden. I am very happy sitting here and looking at the beauty that my landscaping partner has given me. They are unlimited and not even an inch of ground should be free. Full societies grow up in every square meter and the terrain changes. Some things try to live other things fail and others become wildly successful. I have more plum trees than I can count and they will continue to spread. I’ve taken a few down If I absolutely need the pathway. In the back, you can’t get from one place to another without bumping into trees. It’s very nice. It really does make the place nice.
It occurs to me that this is the first year that I have been alone. I’ve run everybody off. I don’t take help from anybody even though my legs really don’t let me do the job. It’s a fight and a struggle and most of the time, I would prefer to be lazy and sit like I am right now. But I can see what I want and I think I understand how I can get it. I want to perennials. I don’t mind bean planting. Maybe corn and some sunflowers. I could even be talked into doing tomatoes again. It was not that difficult. Onions and maybe garlic. I have too much garlic and I don’t even care about it anymore. I’m growing zucchini’s of course and pumpkins. That’s for food. It’s all for food. Zucchinis and pumpkins and onion are abundant when they go well. These are the things I care about. Maybe some potatoes. Everything else is art and commerce.
In the fall, I’m going to put in maybe five more fruit and nut trees. I understand I need another persimmon tree to pollinate the the one I have. We planted two but one of them died. It needs to be replaced. And I definitely think I will go for more berry bushes. The berries are just now starting to appear. So refreshing to have a berry. Again, I don’t know about this thing where you have a whole bowl with cream in it. All of this food I have comes in handfuls. I don’t think I want more than that. Or I’m not capable of doing more than that. I don’t have the patience and stoicism. I’m not a woman and I’m not free of movement all the time. I’m just trying to enjoy some nice moments and I tell you, visiting a berry bush that you regularly water and reaching in and finding the first ripening berries is a treat. Even one or two berries makes a difference in your body. It’s a taste and an impact. And you salivate like crazy.
In the meantime, I’ve noticed this strange nuisance going on with Reggie and her children. I’m starting to recognize them as individuals and I know at least one is a boy. You can tell it’s a boy when they are little babies. I haven’t examined them. I try not to bother them too much at all and mind my own business. But when I do sit and look at them, you get to know them. But what they have been doing is kicking little bits of hair fluff out from under the barrier. I think it has something to do with Reggie cleaning herself and the babies all the time. There is a buildup of hair and she kicks the hair off of the blanket and it starts balling up at the bottom of the fence I have set up for them. What a strange sight to see little balls of fir appearing under the fence. Strange things.
Other than this, there’s not much to say. My food stores are quite full. I bought five buckets with lids and this is allowing me to keep a very orderly pantry. I can see where the signature of my ex partner is all over the place here. I don’t agree with any of her choices. I keep running into things that she did and I just don’t understand it. The decisions are like someone who lives a million miles away and yet feels completely free to dominate Even if the choices make no sense locally. She just had this idea in her head and thought it would be great to use my property for it. That’s the remarkable thing about this time. There’s no one trying to dominate me right now. It’s very refreshing when no one is dominating you.
I’m listening to Macbeth. I’m thinking about London hegemony. I’m thinking about the domination of one place over another. I’m thinking about all of the laws of the United States and how the elections are being run and why we have the same two candidates as last time even though if we combine their ages, we stretch back to the time of the civil war. Why are we thinking of making leaders out of crazy old men who know nothing of the modern world? Why are we giving our time and attention people who have never set foot on the planet Earth in their life?
Yeah, that’s the thing. I kicked out my ex partner and a kicked out the drunks. I kicked out the neighbors and I stopped calling anybody. I even kicked out my chess playing friends. There was just no one there to talk to anymore. But now that everyone is gone, I have myself and my own eyes and my own opinions. It is rather crazy but I still see exactly what I saw when I first came here and had my idea about making a food forest here. All I wanted was maximum food for minimum effort. What I wanted for my place is exactly the same as what it was. The only difference is all the extra work I have to do to break down the masochistic city idiot systems set up by folks who lives here. They are the stupidest people in the history of history. Never have I ever been apart of dumber decision making. I live with people who just want to dominate. Their entire life is dominate or be dominated and they know nothing else. They have destroyed all of the nature in only a few short years by letting the Russian convince them that machines were the way to go. Everything that was ever fresh and beautiful is now gone and all that’s left is this disease infected desert. Everything is dying. And yet, they just have amnesia. They just smoke and drink and forget and go back to dominating again.
The only thing worse than a bad guest is an uninvited gift who believes they are the host. Worst case scenario every single day. Just turns heaven into hell just like that.
This is the lesson you know. This is all I’m talking about. We don’t really have to dominate our surroundings to be happy. Nobody likes to be dominated. Nobody likes to be made submissive to someone else’s will. It’s nice to catch a break now and again and it’s nice to know that you have something like a social safety network. Most people don’t. It would even be nice to be in a social situation that was reasonable and fair for all people instead of one build time dominance and submission. Hegemony. Brutality. Dominance. I’m not here to dominate anything. I just like grazing and hanging out in a really beautiful place when it’s just peacefully calm and everything is just going about its business of living. That is about as complex as I want my life to be.
Wednesday 5:30 a.m. update
I’m making some rice for breakfast. Here are two audio files I just made.
I’m not apologizing for the quality of my sound equipment. I just have my Chinese phone. But you can enhance the sound if you like. Again, you tell me how to talk to my neighbors or to the Americans or the Europeans or the Russians.
8:00 a.m. acting like a fool update
It’s one of these hot humid rainy mornings. Is there anything better in the world than a rainy day when it’s hot and humid?
I’m just moving around because I feel like moving around. Maybe I should put some beans in the ground in the three sisters but I’m not sure that’s really going to happen. The corn is too slow. The land is not really that attractive. But I don’t have to burst into flames. I don’t have to do aggressive and physical things. I can take my time. I can just maybe clean up because I need to clean up a little bit. But right now I’m outside and this feels so good. The world just feels so good right now. The physical sensation of living is pleasurable outside right now. It’s a very hot and humid day and it’s raining.
I took a quick shower. Not from the groundwater but from the roof. I gave myself a quick wash. The rain water is not so clean but it does wash away what’s on top of you.
I’m really well fed this morning. I made kind of a multigrain risotto or something like that and ate the whole thing. I’m stupid drunk on rice and beans and greens. I think this is as derelict as I get but the sensory experience is so good.
Look, I’m experiencing a moment of life. It means I go outside and I’m not being attacked and the weather is beautiful and my body feels good in it. Thanks.
8:30 a.m. update – I am a mohel
Of course I didn’t get lazy. I just enjoyed being outside more than I thought. As long as I was out enjoying the rain, I do have lots of light jobs. There’s always jobs if you want them. There’s tons of stuff to do outside if you want to be outside other than killing of course.
The job that was necessary to do was to cut the flowering ends or tops off of the garlic plants. If you let this little sexual apparatus achieve its full height, the energy of the plant will go to making little garlic seeds. Some people like these things. They make little garlic plants. Most people however prefer the bulbs. The bulbs are under the ground and they will grow larger if there is no flower stem. So, if you want garlic bulbs, you circumcise the plant.
I believe that the Torah is agricultural in its heart and soul but just can’t stop being influenced by all of the stuff that has nothing to do with agriculture. I’m saying this in many different ways because I can’t figure out the way to say it other than to say that I believe the Torah was written by a guy who believed in plant-based living and people would be much happier than the world itself much healthier if people would adopt a plant-based/agricultural practice universal culture. You have to quit being a hunter and start being farmers.
The reason I say this is that the essence of topping a plant or, in this case, taking the flower bulb, means that the horizons expand. I believe that marijuana is pretty sacred but again, it will grow into a Christmas tree, a triangle with the point up if you don’t do anything. But if you clip the top, the side branches get all of the energy and now you have a menorah. It’s true for fruit trees and berry bushes and everything. If you stop getting all the energy to the guy sitting at the top of the pyramid, everybody else gets to live. Or, from a Jewish point of view, if you clip the top you have several branches that bring you good luck instead of one. The yield is mathematically better if you want to be bottom line about it.
So I’m thinking about this while I’m cutting away, all of these circumcisions. All of these intelligent moves to let people grow in different directions. It is kind of a mutilation but if you just want a little bit more out of your people, I guess you start with an agricultural gesture.
9:15 mid pancake update
Alanis Morissette, your order is served.
For you Shakespeare fans, I am not Puck. I am not a forest nymph. I’m a frustrated old Jewish man trying to get his pancake to a level of perfection. It’s more like scrambled eggs again.
And yes, I did go dancing in rain. Go ahead and take a picture, I am shirtless. I’m wearing cycling pants with suspenders because I’m listening to my mp3 player. Dancing sometimes comes from listening to music. I like listening to music in my garden when it’s just exactly to that level of perfection.
And one more thing. Ah E Ai E Yaha
9:20 p.m. update
It all came in a cost. I am so sick. My glands are on fire and I can’t climb out of this. So much COVID. Such a pandemic and they keep shipping in more and more and more. Holy shit. How many times?
