Scene from a Mexican restaurant

 Morning comes early in the Springtime desert. Before the glow of dawn becomes raw rays of sunshine, the scent of the portulaca and roses fill the air. 

No one wants to cook inside today. It's going to be hot. In the pre-dawn hours, breakfast, lunch and dinner preparations are taking place under the wooden-roofed open shelter. The big clay stove crackles with the first logs of the morning ablaze. Smoky mesquite wafts in tiny streams over the rusty tin roof. 

The big clay pots on the stove are already starting to bubble. In a little while, the red teapot that looks suspiciously like a tin chicken, will begin to whistle. With water ready for tea, my morning can start. The late sleepers can have their percolated coffee... I need the quiet for my milky tea and I to greet the dawn.

The low stone and adobe wall provides the perfect place to rest my tired ass. No amount of sleep satisfies the deep need for more rest. The smoky tea, sweet enough to cut the bitter, is just enough to pry my eyes awake. Long shadows roam across the open yard, chasing slow chickens and sleeping dogs. 

I would hold this morning in my hands forever, but the memory is sand and my fat fingers cannot hold the slippery grains. 

Back in the open kitchen, onions are being sliced methodically. Fresh peppers join the onions in the huge open cast iron pans. Simmering in leftover fat from the chorizo, the onions take on the rich red oil. Once the garlic has been added, and the soaking guajillo peppers are ready, everything will simmer on the cool side of the stove for a while. Tia is peeling tomatillos for the salsa verde that will cook most of the morning. Later today the pork will be added and tonight we'll have my favorite tacos. 

This morning's breakfast will have to wait. With only a few of us awake and working, the kitchen is slow to get moving. Even the dogs know that there are no scraps to beg for yet. I helped Tia bring over the big comal to the adobe stove. Once everything warms up, we'll all have fresh tortillas that smell like fresh air and toasted corn.  

Before the percolating coffee has finished, I am already being told to go scatter feed for the chickens. No one wants them underfoot in the kitchen. The dusty dogs stir and let it be known that they want breakfast too. Two of them join me to help fetch water from the standpipe. Nothing wrong with each of us catching a quick drink of cold water from the faucet. With the bucket full of water, I head back to the kitchen. 

The water joins the other pots on the stove and starts heating up. There's always something that needs boiling water. Rattling lids echo the soft knife cuts against the wooden cutting boards. The happy chickens murmur and purr their contentment. It is this place where I can fall asleep again. I close my eyes just for a moment as the sun peaks around the low walls. For a moment the light is warm and the kitchen is warmer. Slowly they combine like a silty canal and I am left with my closed eyes feeling hot to the touch. 

When I open my eyes, everything is gone. 

The dusty yard is there, but the dogs and chickens are gone. The kitchen is bare and cold. The light is gone, night is here. Everyone and everything is gone. The last smell of the night is the Cerus, blooming in total disregard to everything else.

Invitation from a raven

 The grey skies are wet sails full of ice and wet.

Ravens swing low over the garden, inviting me to join their frolic.

Trees are reduced to coat racks.

By early afternoon the sun is tired and weary. 

It must be difficult to bring warmth when all around is chilled to the bone. 

Inside the house the floor's chill sucks the comfort away. 

Now and again,  I hear the raven's invitation, and again.

If I were a better friend, I would join them. 

The bathroom cleaning can wait. Dinner can be late. 

Flying is the order of the day,  at least that's what the ravens say.

Cold hands tie me down with rotten shoelaces. 

Gritty snow slips inside my boots, leaving me colder and wetter. 

One last look to the west and the final sliver of sun snuffs out,

Leaving nothing to hold back the cold wind.

Timing is everything when it comes to ravens and the Emergency Room

 This morning I watched pine cones pretending to be autumn leaves. They did their best parachute impersonation. Splat, crunch. 

The morning light was a wan yellow haze. Glow permeated everything, even reflecting off the ever-browning leaves. No rain this month has left the air filled with dust and debris from autumn detritus. Milkweed and cattails have spilled their guts to the air. 

Three weeks ago, I came home from the hospital. This time it was a short visit; only four days. Congestive heart failure caught up to me at last. My grandfather died from congestive heart failure not long after Mt. St. Helens blew up. I remember reading the National Geographic issue with the eruption as the lead story. Timing is everything. I was heading into fourth grade that fall. After his last call to my mom, he had explained that there was ash falling in Wyoming... miles and miles from Washington where the eruption occurred. As a kid, that seemed impossible. Bit by bit, as I watched the news and saw whole towns where day was turned to night by falling volcanic ash, I came to realize how enormous this eruption was. And then my grandfather died.

We never had all the talks we were meant to have. Only the brief talks kids have when they know there will be more time later on. 

Six weeks ago my nephew Jack was murdered by the police on the road that led to where my grandfather had lived, and where recently Jack had lived too. Off the grid. Off the beaten path. Jack had been stopped for an outstanding warrant, but when he came out of his vehicle with a gun, he was killed. No judge or jury. 

I learned about Jack's death from another cousin in Montana who I hadn't heard from in years. A few days later, I heard from David Hall, eldest son of my uncle Ed Hall. The last time I saw David I had just gotten married for the first time and was on my honeymoon road trip across the country. I think David was probably in high school. His call was a huge surprise. He and I talked about family stuff that we should have talked about over the last thirty years.... but we hadn't had those conversations. Timing is everything. 

David told me about his younger brother Benjamin having had a heart transplant the same day that Jack was killed. Timing. Oy.

We talked about how David had experienced a heart attack when he was in his twenties. Ben had lived with an LVAD device until his heart replacement. My mother has congestive heart failure too. We all inherited it from my grandfather. 

When I was in the hospital emergency room, my brain was on full alert. I hate our local hospital. They nearly killed me 13 years ago. This in the same hospital that kept me in a coma for 6 weeks waiting for me to die nearly every day. Going back to the ER was difficult. I had chest pain and trouble breathing. I had been told by my asthma doctors a few months ago that I just needed different asthma meds and my breathing would get easier. When I called the doctor that Thursday, they prescribed more medications. By Friday morning, the doctor's office called and said I should go to the emergency room. I spent the day trying to understand why I needed to spend hours and hours in the ER. What was wrong? They just kept telling me to go to the hospital. I finally relented at 3pm. 

Over the next 9 hours, I would go from struggling to catch my breath after walking across the parking lot, to barely being able to breathe at all. My blood pressure sky rocketed. My anxiety and PTSD exploded in my chest. Leto was kind enough to join me in the ER. I was completely unable to get my panic under control. After the first eight hours of waiting to be examined, I finally was able to meet with a doctor to discuss my bloodwork, x-rays and EKG. He explained very gently that the x-rays showed dentritic formations, so they had been able to rule out pneumonia. He had asked that Lasix (a diuretic) be given. He was working under the impression that something was very wrong with my heart. The last time I had been in this hospital, thirteen years ago, I had been tachycardic for a few seconds while my body was septic after the anastamosis had failed and I was becoming septic. 

The ER doctor finally said the words: congestive heart failure or cardiovascular disease. 

Knowing that my mother had lived with congestive heart failure for the last thirty years, I figured it wasn't an emergency. As the doctor continued talking about the various tests that needed to be run, I asked if I should just go home and schedule these tests for another time. The ER doc was a fairly tall fellow. He stretched back on the examination stool, and looked at me. He adjusted his mask, cleared his throat and explained that if I went home, I would likely die. 

Timing is everything.

Panic washed over me like a tsunami. After the doctor left the exam room, Leto resumed playing Robin Williams on YouTube over our phone.  The ICU department brought down the big black standing fan so I could have moving air in the closed space. As soon as I saw the fan, I broke down. Tears streamed down my face. It was like seeing an old friend. That fan, that EXACT fan, had gotten me through the worst of my coma and my subsequent recovery. That fan had been my best friend while I sweated my way through pneumonia for over a week with a 104 fever, and had needed my trach tube suctioned every five minutes as it clogged with phlegm. The hospital allowed me to bring the big fan with me when I left the ICU and moved to rehab. It was my constant friend in the hospital. And here it was again! 

As the night dragged into the next day, I was assigned a room upstairs. The staff moved me from the ER into my own room and they brought the fan up too. By now, I had been in the hospital nearly twelve hours and it was nearly dawn. I met the night nursing staff. They patiently set me up for the night, explaining about how my urine output would be measured due to the Lasix, and how blood would be drawn again at 5am. With the fan pouring over me, and the air conditioning on high, I slept for a few hours while Leto snored in the bed beside me. Yes, they let Leto stay in the room. I think they figured out early on that I would have someone by my side until I left the hospital.

Over the next three and a half days, I would have a dozen blood draws, six different nurses and six different aides, six different hospitalists, two cardiologists... and finally a trip to the cath lab. The catheterization was why I had needed to stay in the hospital over the weekend. Rural hospitals dont do catheterizations on the weekend. No staffing. They couldn't even do an echocardiogram. 

Monday morning, 7am, I was wheeled down the dark hall towards the ICU and the cath lab. I thought I had forgotten that hall. Nope. It was just as horrifying as the last time I had been wheeled down that hall. 

As I laid in the prep room, and my arm and groin were shaved in preparation for the catheterization procedure, the cath nurse started explaining the procedure. What they could and couldn't do at this hospital. Since they didn't have a heart surgeon on staff, there was not a ton they could do if I had complicated blocked arteries. Leto asked what would happen if they discovered complications... and she said that I would be flown to Rochester to Strong Memorial. I nearly shit myself. We were no longer okay. Everything spun. My heart rate went through the roof. I think my blood pressure might have doubled. I remember being given some Valium. 

I was surprised when the echocardiogram started. I didnt realize they would do it in the prep room. After fifteen minutes of trying to get a good image of my heart, they gave me a dose of contrast agent. The tech performing the echo was quick, efficient and patient. She said something about my ejection fraction but the rushing in my ears kept me from understanding. Next thing I knew, I was being wheeled into the catheterization theater. Operating theaters are awful places. Especially if you are laying on your back. You are one step away from the abattoir. The room was chilled down to about 60F and I was suddenly much more awake than the Valium should have allowed for. They started to transfer me from the gurney to the exam table, and I asked if I could just get up and walk over to the table myself. All of a sudden, they realized I was fully capable of moving myself into position. The cath lab nurse and I continued to talk about chai, yes chai tea. We had been talking about where to get good cardamon seeds for chai. 

One of the things they had told me before my procedure was if they needed to put a stent into my arteries I would be spending the night in the ICU. If that wasn't necessary, I would be returned to my room and would go home the following day. 

Before I knew it, I was being cleaned up and wheeled back to my room. Apparently my arteries were clear as a bell and big enough to drive a truck through. My ejection fraction though. They kept using that phrase. 

Later on Monday afternoon, I got my first visit from the three cardiologists. One was the ghost of Christmas past, one was the ghost of Christmas future, and the other remembered I was a Jew and don't celebrate Christmas or believe in ghosts. The first cardiologist said that I could go home tomorrow, Tuesday. The second cardiologist said so many things, but her favorite word was "mortality". If it had been a drinking game, I would have been laid flat on the floor with the number of times she said: mortality. Then she explained all the new drugs. They had stupid names. Like names of designer clothes or perfumes. Made up fancy names. Then I met my "new" cardiologist. 

My new cardiologist looked at me and started right in with saying the same things that everyone else had said. Arteries clear but ejection fraction below 35%. He said I would be going home the following day with follow up, blah blah blah. I asked if I could resume my normal activities. He said something about avoiding typing for a few days to keep the wrist area where they had inserted the catheterization device from having any issues. I asked if I could work in the garden. This would be the first of our many misunderstandings. 

He thought I meant pick a few berries or zucchini. I explained that we move multiple wheelbarrow loads of compost every day. We plant dozens of plants every single day. He said something about how we were actually farming. Leto and I both laughed... oh, no. We are definitely gardeners. We started explaining about how we garden for our critters and birds. He was very confused at this point. We explained that we have multiple ravens who fly overhead each day to check on what we're doing. He immediately said that there were no ravens in our area, they only fly singly, and what we saw were crows. I laughed and explained how we had watched these ravens for three years, knew them by their calls and he kept interrupting to say that he was sure they were crows. Finally, Leto sat up in bed and said "what black bird in North America has the wingspan of a red tail hawk and a beak over three inches long and croaks?" The cardiologist said "who are you?" Leto explained their relationship and then explained that they were an animal behaviorist. They went on to explain their research into the behavior of cichlids from the African Rift lakes that they had researched at Reed College. Needless to say, the cardiologist finally acquiesced.  

On Tuesday, the let me walk out of the hospital. No wheelchair, no supervision. I explained that I drove stick shift. They suggested I take it easy on the drive home. Yeah... impeccable timing. 

So here I am three weeks later, having seen the cardiologist yesterday. I have appointments for more tests and another echocardiogram in two months. In the meantime, I will be outside at every opportunity, conversing with our resident ravens. Moving wheelbarrow loads of compost and woodchips. And having conversations with my grandfather in my head.

Trading stories for feathers - a working title

 Waking up is the hardest part. 

Not the leaving sleep part, but the part where the inside your dreams is abandoned for whatever is happening outside your body. 

When I found myself warm on one side, cold and wet on the other... it wasn't unexpected. The shallow scraped out hollow was warm where I had laid. My backside was pressed firmly against the ewe, who was also solidly asleep. My eyes were just about ground level, scanning across the rough dirt. There was a frost last night. Not brutal cold but still cold. 

Every warm bone in my body argued with the chilled side that faced out of the byre. There was work to be done. In a few hours, the sun would be up. But first it was time to go and talk to the birds. I had been mocked for talking with the birds. Folks generally didn't get it. The conversation went both ways. In the hours before the dew saw the first rays of sunshine, we would gather near the hedge. Some mornings it was just a few of us, the birds and I. Other mornings it would be so crowded with everyone trying to get a word in edgewise. 

I sat down atop a flat stone near the hedge, forgetting for a moment how cold it had been last night. The rock was quick to remind me. With my eyes closed, feeling for the last stillness of the not-quite-broken-dawn, I reached out. It was really nothing more than listening with more than my ears. Holding the silence close while spiderwebs sparkled and held nothing more than diamonds in their webs, I waited. 

The first warm beam of light came over the hill gently. I felt it first as the leaves behind me turned to listen too. Even the flat rock craned to listen. 

Waiting is always the hardest part. There is always that fear that today will be the day when no one comes. The day when the birds act like people. Worse, maybe today they will mock me too. I never really understood why people in town felt like they had to tease me. If someone had told me that they couldn't hear what birds and trees were saying, why didn't they tell me that? So instead I assumed innocently, that other kids would want to share their stories they had heard from the birds and leaves and stones. Maybe other kids' parents told them not to talk to birds or maybe they were afraid of the things the trees had to say. I just didn't know.

By the time the light mist had started to lift, the smallest of birds had found a spot to perch beside me. At first, they were content to just stare across the field with me. We exchanged a few looks back and forth, but after each glance, we would return to looking out into the wet grass of the field. A sharp chirp from behind me made me turn around. A chipmunk had decided to come join in the conversation but will still trying to work up the courage to explain everything they had seen this morning. 

MORE TO COME - 

Revisiting Thirteen Years Ago - another introduction to the coma dreams

 It is such a strange thing to reflect on. Thirteen years ago, I was dying in the ICU. The surgery that was supposed to fix my diverticulitis had gone sideways. The anastomosis had failed, allowing fecal waste to enter the abdominal cavity. This led to sepsis and peritonitis along with about a dozen other catastrophic issues. I was dying. They had done an emergency surgery, performed a lavage, and given me a colostomy. They sent me back up to the ICU knowing full well that I was still dying. 

How do you reflect on reading the notes from surgeons who you trust/ed with your life, when their very notes clearly indicate that survival was not guaranteed. By the time I read the surgical notes five days post first surgery, the notes from the surgeons and ICU intensivists read like a very confused teenager being asked to write a book report that they forgot to read. Thirteen years later, it does not inspire confidence.

So I was dying. 

I guess we all are, whether or not we choose to recognize our mortality as being far off or imminent. It is the other side of the monotony of living. The abruptness of dying. 

I hadn't done anything wrong. I wasn't in the ICU because of a car crash. I hadn't overdosed on drugs. I hadn't fallen from a ladder. Nevertheless, I was dying. That's what the notes all said. Five days post-operative emergency. Yesterday I sat here when I should have been off to bed. I put on music I hadn't listened to in thirteen years. I let myself get carried back into the eddies in the current of time. I pushed against the double doors that opened onto the ICU, where the lights were all set low. And there I saw my dying.

I have looked at my death from myriad perspectives each time it has come to greet me. Always curious, slightly confused, always hyper-aware. Those memories have stuck like tar on a hot day. When I was in first grade, I was riding my bike to school. I was crossing one of the busier streets in Hialeah, in the crosswalk, with the light red and cars stopped. A white Camaro ran the red light. There was no sound of brakes until after I felt my bike torn from under me and I was on the hood of the car, pressed against the windshield. My mom had followed me to school that day, driving just behind me. I don't know if I imagined it, or if I really saw her over my shoulder... but I remember her face in a rictus of screaming fear as I entered the crosswalk. I was dying in that instant. By the time I came to rest on the asphalt, my bike nowhere near me, I was alive. I've been told (or maybe I remember) that I wanted to get up and go to school so I wouldn't be late. My legs refused to obey. My shoulder hurt. I couldn't find enough air to breathe. I don't know if I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I remember being in the hospital, on a gurney... waiting for x-rays. Might have been my first x-rays. I was sure that I had brain damage. Brain damage was what my child mind was certain had made my brother David unable to communicate. We didnt know anything about his autism at that point. We didn't know that he was a chromosomal anomaly and that his failure to speak wasn't caused by any damage done to his brain after his birth. But I didn't know it that day. I was sure that my injury was going to make me like David. 

I didn't die. I injured my collarbone. Nothing broken. Just the spell of childhood innocence. 

Reading the surgeon's notes from my failed surgery is similar in many ways. 

In my mind, there is the last memory before the coma. It is a strange disconnected memory. The heated air was being pumped through the gown I had put on in pre-op. I was so upset that the air was hot. The nurse was trying to explain that I was going to be cold otherwise... but I hate being hot. I remember being wheeled into the operating room and being so unhappy about the hot air blowing through the stupid gown. 

After that, there was blackness for a moment. Much like the time I spent in the air after connecting with the white Camaro in the crosswalk. It was a time when I was released from all the tethers that tie you to here and now. For everyone else in the world, the day continued on. I stopped. Due to the insane concoction of drugs (fentanyl, Propofol, and morphine) that they used to keep me in my sedated comatose state, I was gone. I stepped off of the merry-go-round and fell into a different stream. I was dying. 

If I am honest, I knew I was dying. I just couldn't figure out why it was taking so long. Let me back up. For the next thirty years or so, I experienced time pass just as I had for every day of my thirty-seven years up until that moment. I know now, that they didn't happen the way everyone else talks about time. But I also know that my body and mind experienced thirty years of strange, horrible, boring, wonderful, lonely things... and I also know that I was dying. In many of the coma dreams (as I euphemistically call them) I tried to die. There were all sorts of weird stories about me trying to find a way to either die or to be released so that I could die. Each time I would fulfill the task, some new revelation would make it such that dying wasn't possible. 

But I knew I was dying. I just didn't really understand how to do it properly. Through the perspective of thirteen years, I think the hubris is slightly more amusing. In the coma dreams, I tried to do just as I do out here. I tried to fit in... to blend. I tried to follow the rules as I understood them. No one explained shit to me. No different than out here. 

To this day, I think the most interesting aspect of the coma dreams was the idea of waking up somewhere, fully formed, at a seemingly random age, sometimes not even male, in a place I had never been, as though it was just another Tuesday. Sometimes I woke up in a barn, asleep against the side of sheep. Other dreams had me waking up in old abandoned houses whose basements connected to underground caverns where people raced illegal cars. Each time I woke up, I was there. But most importantly, I had never been anywhere else. I didnt carry with me any of the memories that we all carry. I wasn't Alex from Miami. I didn't have my parents or siblings. I hadn't been married. No history at all. Whenever TV or movies depict a person suffering from amnesia, there is always that mythology about how memory vanishes. Far stranger for me was to lose that entire sense of self that connected to past self. I was fully there, just as real as today... but I had no day before and somehow, that was just fine. Would you remember yesterday if you weren't trying to remember it? Life without rear view mirrors and windows. Just straight ahead. None of the experiences in the coma dreams carried from one dream to another. I was always someone different, somewhere different, a different age, and usually lonely. 

And because my body outside (in the ICU) refused to let me forget, I was also dying. Periodically the coma dreams would toss me into a blended Frappuccino of hospital and Salvador Dali. If it was an easy coma dream, it might almost make sense. Other times the coma dreams would take a real-world physical setting in the hospital and just play havoc with it. I'll get to some of those stories soon. I needed time to write this preface (again). Probably just for my own sake of understanding. 

I was dying thirteen years ago, and I did it badly. I failed miserably. Instead I ended up living thirty years or more, in ways, places, times, and people I could never have been. Those experiences have changed my understanding of what it means to be alive. So many of the negative associations I had previously held about death, don't apply anymore. There was never a "white light at the end of the tunnel" moment. It was so much more mundane and prosaic. I was dying inside a Burger King where I couldn't find a bathroom to pee. 

Like I said earlier, I really struggled to die any differently than I have lived. 

Between now and October 10th when I first woke from the coma, and which we celebrate as my second birthday... I try to reflect on the bizarre experiences I went through. When I can free up my hands to type and convince my mind to untangle some of the threads of the coma dreams, I will write more of those stories. 

Writing in my Sleep

 A few nights ago I found myself writing in my sleep. I woke up at 4am, unwillingly, but convinced that sleep wouldn't return unless I managed to get some of these crazy ideas down. So I got up, dressed and came downstairs. By the time I had turned on the light and powered up my computer, the urge had passed. Much like waiting at the toilet to pee when nothing manifests... this felt like a false alarm.

So what was so compelling?

I first half-woke with thoughts that it was imperative that I write an article about various methodologies I had used for testing glazes in our studio. No idea why... but it was imperative that I write it immediately. I quashed that idea, or I thought I had. The next idea sprang into my head with wet feet. I was sure that I needed to jot down the latest ideas for the garden. (To date, I havent written a single thing about the garden... don't know that there are any readers out there that would give a rat's ass). 

Sitting in my shorts downstairs at 4am, staring at my computer screen with a profound case of writer's block was ironic considering the imperative nature of the impetus. But there I was. Dry as a bone. Empty as could be.

I've been contemplating the nature of writing without an audience. Not sure how I feel about the idea. In some ways, I have always written for someone. It started in school with classmates who I wanted to "feel" whatever it was that was racing through my head. If I couldn't bash their heads in with a guitar (I couldn't even play spoons!)... then I would use my words to flood their minds with tides of surreal imagery and emotions I was struggling to contain. It didnt endear me to my peers. It never occurred to me that it might not be very approachable. Hmm. 

Tonight I am writing with half-baked ideas, late enough that I should be in bed. I had been listening to a Newfoundland band called The Fables for the last hour. The last time I dug out these tunes was before the coma (pre-Sept2009). I had forgotten how rich and intimate these songs are! It feels like they are playing right here in the kitchen. I wish they were still making new music. I struggle with finding ways to play my "old" music (stuff on MP3 on the hard drive) as opposed to the convenience of listening to streaming music on Spotify. Spotify goes everywhere with me on my phone and connects to all my bluetooth devices. I wish there was a simple way to push music to an app on my phone from my server in the basement. Seems like it should be an easy thing... but I havent figured it out.

So, as the written equivalent of breadcrumbs, I leave these notes here in hopes that I will be able to come back, another time to flesh them out. I think some of the ideas about the studio might make for interesting articles for one of the ceramic magazines. Who knows? Maybe as I start getting those ideas out of my head and onto paper I will find myself better able to write about the garden. After reading other gardener's works, I am loathe to write "another" gardening book. I have ideas, dreams, about our garden... but it isnt like other gardens. We'll see if writing about it helps illustrate just how different it is. 

Explaining the Vixen in my Life

 If I start at the end, I might catch my breath. If I start at the beginning, it might make more sense. My dilemma is that I dont know where the beginning is. 

Her smell: Let's start with her smell. In winter, when we walk the trail through the woods, her musk fills the air. Not burn-your-eyes as bad a musk as a skunk, but still pervasive. We learned that she was using one of the downed black walnut trees for her den. In early spring, her tracks became more evident, presumably because she was leaving the den more often to find food for her litter. 

Spring turned into summer and the trail through the woods became deep with weeds and ticks. Our neighbor started seeing young kit foxes playing in her yard. I thought to myself, "what a great thing to see looking out your window!" Time passed.

Every now and then, I would catch sight of her fluffy tail and hindquarters dashing across the road, into the ditch and across the field. Weeks passed. The month of June began quiet and cool, but rainless. Early one morning, as I wandered through the garden, I found a little tuft of black and grey fur. When I bent to pick it up, it was the tail of a squirrel. No sign of the rest of it. 

The very next day I found a dead mole in our yard. Not eviscerated, so not killed by a cat. Interesting though in part because I have never seen a mole in our yard.

The following day was like someone opened the doors of the abattoir. One dead juvenile robin, one baby starling, one chipmunk. 

That night I could once again smell her faint musk on the air, almost skunk-like... but my eyes didn't burn. I closed the windows when the smell became too much for Nancy to bear. Somewhere in the early morning hours I heard something that can best be described as the sound of a kid screaming. It was obnoxious and loud. Loud enough to be heard through closed windows. At three in the morning, I assumed it was one of the local coyotes tormenting a fawn as often happens after the spring births. 

Early the next morning I went out and began string trimming the fence line. I had been running the machine maybe 20 minutes and was getting close to the corner of the fence that borders the woods. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I can see a flash of red midway up our deer fence. I stopped the machine, lifted my facemask, helmet and safety glasses off my face to find a red fox stuck, half way through the fence. Probably three feet off the ground, fully half of her body was through the fence, but her hips couldnt get through the wire fence. She was dangling off the ground, suspended by her hindquarters. She was doing everything she could to get out. Twisting up and through the fence, getting more and more stuck the harder she tried. But she wouldn't go backwards.  

I ran inside, trying to figure out how to explain what had happened. Leto was awake and starting to head into the shower when I caught them. I think I said something about call Wildlife Rehabilitation and maybe mentioned a friend of ours who cares for injured animals. Not terribly lucid. 

Then I put on my thick Carhartt jacket I save for when I need to prune the roses. Grabbed my heavy gloves and went back outside to see if there was a way I could coax the fox back out of the fence. 

By the time I got back to the corner, it was apparent that any effort I made to help her back up was going to be met with teeth. Not a happy patient. I called out to Leto to bring me pliers and maybe wire cutters. They came over to the corner with an armful of implements of destruction. Best of all, they brought the bolt cutters! Nice long reach to keep those teeth at bay!

I walked over calmly, speaking softly and reassuringly. I kept hoping that maybe she'd get the clue and just back out of the hole she was stuck in. Nope. She made one last twisting effort to get free which resulted in her bending backwards up and over herself, twisting almost 180 degrees so that her head and back feet touched but she was now looped through two holes in the fence mesh. Sigh.

The good news was that her bity end was now facing away from me, allowing me to get in closer with the bolt cutters. One swift cut and one tiny welded wire popped, and she was free. She left a tiny blooded tuft of fur and was gone! I stood there shaking for a good ten minutes. Then I started to cry. I was overwhelmed with the feeling of shame and guilt that I had left her in such a horrible precarious position all night long. I should have come out to figure out what the noise was all about. I should have checked on her. 

Now she was gone. Safe.

The next morning, I was out tending to the early summer growth of the thornless blackberries. It was time to start tying new canes into the trellis. I was occupied and my eyes were looking down when I heard a swift motion coming through the woods. Looking up I saw her climb halfway up the fence and then dive through the gap in the fence like it was a window. Swoosh! She was inside the yard. Walking towards me at a fair clip, sniffing everything as she ambled my way. With the blackberry brambles partially obscuring her view of me, she came within about six feet before she smelled me. Looking up she and I made eye contact. Held it. Then I asked her how she was doing. She tilted her head just like Georgia Rose used to. We called it Wookie-head-tilt. I think that was the moment she realized I wasn't a blackberry shrub. And without so much as a goodbye, she turned and was back up the fence and through the fence like it was water. Poof. Gone.

Once again, I stood there and shook. Just astonished to feel such great fortune to be a part of such a marvelous experience. Stillness. My heart beat so hard in my chest that I could hear it in my ears. I kept watching the woods, waiting to see movement in the undergrowth letting me know where she'd gone. Nothing. She was gone. 

 A few days later, I was sharing these stories with our neighbor on the other side of our little woods. Turns out, the fox had four kits this year. Even better, my neighbor had been taking photos and videos of the kits playing in her side yard. (These are Rebecca's images above)  Apparently tossing around the dead critters that the older fox had brought back for them. 

About a week later the foxes found their way into the chicken enclosure at Rebecca's house. Not a single chicken survived. No corpses. Nothing. A few days passed and I was working on digging out our new pond and I came across a few chicken feathers. Setting my eyes low into the brush, I found multiple half-eaten carcasses cached for later eating. All of which is to say, the foxes have all grown up nice and healthy. They are off on their own, learning to hunt throughout the fields and woods around us. Hopefully next spring, we'll see another litter of kits.