Looking through past photos, I found this one, taken by my daughter Maurya. She would have been…hmm, twelve or so when she took this picture of early spring at our Last House in Washington. Maurya was a newly emerging photographer/talk show host at the time. Aka Minnie Guinea, championing the transient beauty of flowers and sunsets. Also interviewing the chickens (“and what do YOU think about the Animal Protection Laws?”). Yesterday she reminded me that once, she got locked in the chicken coop. The door latched on the outside, and the wind blew it shut during one of her chicken interviews. “I was locked in there for an hour at least, and nobody missed me!” she remembers. It happened to Frank too that year during a family Christmas party (oddly enough). We didn’t miss him either…luckily, he had his cell phone with him. Imagine our wonder when someone answered the phone and learned that Frank was calling from inside the chicken coop.
Speaking of Animals, our kitties (Larry Gray and Alice Black) followed my kids to school yesterday. A friend called to let me know that they (the kitties) were trying the Crossing Guard’s patience. He’d get them out of the road and on their way home, and they’d come traipsing back to him, dodge across the street, and lounge around the front doors of the school. So I called them home (across a snowy cornfield). Their progress was slow and dainty as they picked their way through the snow. They’re the sweetest kitties, always purring when you pick them up. They were hired to hunt mice, but I don’t think they’re interested. I should have Maurya interview them. Or at least send them a memo.
I ordered fruit trees and berries from Raintree today. I can barely contain my excitement. Ok, I can’t contain it at all. Among the various treasures I await with unbridled anticipation: heirloom pears (White Doyenne), heirloom apples (Ashmead’s Kernel), aronia bushes, currant bushes (Crandall–with fragrant yellow blossoms in the spring, plump fruit, and gorgeous foliage in the fall!), Western elderberry bushes (that would be the kind that grows in the West), a midget mulberry tree, Prune d’Ente plums, and a black apricot (dark purple, really), with love from Russia. Happy, happy days ahead.
