doctoring | chasing piggens

That ol’ midnight sun through the tent roof

As of Thursday, the driveway is in and solid. Geoff and John had a great time taking turns with the skidsteer and the roller. They claim it was exhausting, getting jiggled all over the place by that vibrating roller machine, but I think it was just the heat. It’s been in the eighties all week, and we’re all so slick with sweat that the mosquitoes haven’t hardly been able to get enough purchase to bite. We quit early the day we finished that project.

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“You doubted us, Keely.” John brought a little drawl with him when he moved up here from Florida.

“I know it, I’m contrite.” Their work on that driveway must have saved me thousands of dollars. They have lifetime parking privileges, for sure.

Shoopie was a big help, obviously.

While they were doing that, I was working on digging out a privy pit (earning myself lifetime pooping privileges?). Digging is heavy work, especially as I get deeper, but the hole is refreshingly cool, so it’s not as bad as working above-ground in the heat of the day. I hit permafrost about four and a half feet down, and we’re experimenting with some strategies for thawing it out and keeping the hole going.

This is not a picture of me digging out an outhouse hole, but it’s a cool picture.

The three of us played with the laser level one day this week, figuring out how much higher the back end of the deck will be than the front (answer: about five feet). We must have looked a treat, the three of us tiptoeing through the strings and holes and 2×6 forms all over the building site, holding up a piece of white paper to catch the faint red lines, squinting and dodging and trying to cast helpful shadows without blocking the laser.

Some of the pads were easier to prepare than others. This one was a stumper.

It’s starting to take shape. I can almost see it in my mind, now.

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I split the cost of a wood-chipper with a friend, so I’m spending a lot of time (when I’m not hanging out in the cool privy pit) chipping all of the slash from the trees we had to fell. The chips will go to protect the trail from compaction so that, hopefully, I won’t wind up with a mud mess next spring. Chipping is loud, dusty work: my sweaty arms and neck get all gritty, but I smell surprisingly nice thanks to all the fresh spruce tips I’m pulverizing.

Part of the trail won’t need chips, since Geoff is building me this nifty set of wagon tracks, soon to be a boardwalk proper

For a minute yesterday, while I was using the wood-chipper, I zoned out, probably thinking about Hot Licks, the local ice cream joint, and the chipper chowed down hard on a sapling with a horizontal branch that I wasn’t quite ready to let go of. My right hand got slammed into the top edge of the hopper-feeder-tube thing with tremendous force. It felt like the ring finger had been split horizontally, even through my leather glove. The pain was blinding black for a second before I actually felt the adrenaline wash in and throw a fog over my brain. I was instantly muddled. I couldn’t think of what to do first and just stood there in the roar of that crazy machine, kind of in shock. I knew I couldn’t scream because the guys would freak out, so I bit my lip and sucked air, stumbling toward the truck, then stopping to rip off the glove and look at the bit at the end of my arm that was throbbing so horribly. It was surprisingly normal looking, considering. I stared for a few seconds, then turned back to be responsible and turn off the chipper, then back toward the truck again, wobbly and disoriented. I climbed awkwardly into the bed and ripped the lid off the ice chest, cradling my right hand, then pulled all the beer and boxes of grocery store sushi aside (yes, this is correct, because we’re cool like that) and plunged my hand into the cold water at the bottom, rattling the floating ice cubes against the plastic sides.

After a minute, I scooped up a handful of ice in my still-gloved left hand and made my way down the trail, cradling my numb right fingers to my belly-button and wobbling, still kind of drenched in adrenaline and not totally in touch with my surroundings. I was starting to get a little more clarity, starting to wonder whether the finger was broken and how much it would hurt when the adrenaline wore off.

Geoff spotted me coming. “Hey, Keely, if all three of us work on concrete it’ll go a lot faster. You up for helping out here for a while?”

“Nope.” I sat in the one blue camp chair we keep down there, taking deep sobby breaths.

“Nope?” Geoff took note of the wobble, the tear tracks in the wood-dust on my face, and the cradled right hand and did an excellent job of suppressing panic while he got me to show him the hand and flex the finger, all three joints. He is handy with hugs and aspirin, when he needs to be, and I calmed down enough in pretty short order to just feel pissed that I’d be out of commission for a while. And guilty for leaving the lid off the ice chest and not putting the beer and sushi away.

We had decided to take Saturday off and after the finger catastrophe it seemed especially appropriate. We grilled all kinds of meat out on the deck all day. I made a blueberry rhubarb crisp with the last of last years blueberries and some fresh rhubarb. Happy solstice weekend, everyone! I wore a dress to celebrate.

“That dress really shows off your mosquito-bites, Keely.”
“Just because I don’t have the fullest figure…”

In the end, the finger injury wasn’t even all that bad. I am typing with that finger now, and it’s not hurting much. I can’t completely close my right hand, but I bet I’ll be in good enough form to use shovel tomorrow, and that’s all that matters. The biggest disappointment is the unremarkable look of the finger. The bruise hardly shows under the tan.

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I didn’t think that I would ever know the end of your story, but I do, and I want to share it.

In the evening dusk, hours after your flight, I looked for you on the steps and in the trees around the driveway. I went to bed, and when I got up in the morning, you were nowhere in sight. I gave you up, and smiled at the thought of you. I imagined you in a green light, glittering like your bright eyes.

The truth is that, huddled flat-footed on the linoleum, you looked up at me with those bright eyes when I found you, even though your wing sagged and your feathers were bent. Perhaps the cat thought he was bringing you back to me, and that’s why he didn’t make your soft, featherweight body into a toy as he’s done with so many birds. I imagine he tried to be gentle, but your beak was broken and you had a deep gash in your breast.

I picked you up from the floor and you relaxed in my palms like you had done so many times before, and your eyes were bright circles. I cleaned and bandaged the wound, and looked for superglue to splint the beak. When you tried to eat with the cockeyed bill, it was comical. You chased seeds across the floor, slapping your feet with each clumsy, sturdy step. I thought surely you’d get better, like you’d done before. I thought of how your will to live astonished me: all that heart in such a little breast. All that desire from a creature that couldn’t have any idea what there was out there to desire.

When I came home tonight, you were collapsed and panting under the light, liquid oozing from your bill. You opened your eyes to look at me when I picked you up, and, as I watched, you blinked matte black eyes and dribbled a clear bubble and my palm was wet. You heaved and gurgled in the tiny world of my hands, a lost cause, and my cheeks were wet.

I asked Sean to put you down, and he did. I trust his hands to kill with compassion. I asked him to leave your body in a tree and he did. Little one, you’re a bigger meal for the woods than you would have been if I’d never picked you up. In the little world of my hands, I said goodbye to your eyes, glad that they had seen what was out there to desire, and goodbye to your wings, glad that they had known what it is to fly. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

Ultimately, I am responsible for the life and death of the dove. I fed him when he would have died, and when he might have lived, my cat dragged him in. Keeping cats is a small hypocrisy that this event crystallizes: I know that domestic cats are responsible for diminishing songbird populations, yet I keep two indoor-outdoor cats and refuse to declaw or bell them. Coyotes prey on housecats in this area, and I want my pets to have all of their stealth and weaponry intact when they are outside. I let them go outside because I’m too lazy to clean a litterbox and I don’t want to confine a creature that doesn’t like to be confined. They are happy cats.

Stray and feral cats are a problem in our area, and we often find ourselves caring for unwanted kittens that have been dumped out here in the country. My cats are both neutered, but that’s unusual in this region. From now on, I commit to see to it that every kitten that passes through my care, however briefly, is neutered before it leaves me. It’s not enough, but it’s something.