Our little Trickster Girl, two years gone.

Photo copyright Aji, 202; all rights reserved.

It would be the last photo I ever took of her, although we didn't know that at the time. Today is hard day for other reasons, too, specifically a marker of yet another human loss, but the one that breaks us both is this one: our little Trickster Girl, two years gone.

She was one of the first of the ferals, she and her littermate who we called Crow. Littermates to Cricket, too, apparently, and tricksters all, starved, abused, neglected, and near death, and they all wormed their way into our hearts. She and Crow brought Cricket and three others, and then all but one stayed permanently, or as permanently as can be with ferals used to wandering at will . . . with too often inevitable results. Crow and Blue had vanished, as though into thin air, a little over 2 months prior, although we know, as surely as it is possible to know without having witnessed the act itself, what happened to them, and at whose hands as well. Coyote had stayed behind that day, and she became velcroed to us in spirit as well as in fact.

Crow and Cricket got their names in part from their black coats, but Coyote, Ashawinoodese in my language, was the beautiful golden-buff shade of a coyote pup. She was fierce, and just as predatory, too; we lost a chicken or two to the fact of her early starvation before she found us, and she nearly got two more (Bent-Beak, whose beak was bent nearly from hatching, not from the dog, is now the infamous zombie chicken who resurrected herself, regrew her entire lush Americauna tail, and is now thriving as one the alpha matriarchs in the coop). But it was not Coyote's fault, and we knew that; starved from birth, by the time she found us, at probably four months of age, the need to hunt for baseline survival was long since ingrained.

But the vanishing of her sister changed her, kept her close to home. Thereafter, she never ventured beyond the gate, ever, and so on this day two years ago, we still don't know who, or what, lured her around and beyond it to put her in the path of a fast-moving vehicle. We never saw or heard a thing, only found her some minutes later. She was sufficiently tied to us in spirit by then to have managed to stagger back up the drive and inside the gate, where she simply lay down in the snow, a few drops of blood leaking out with her last breath. And when we found her, I howled at the sky, cursed all the likely suspects roundly, did my damnedest to make them pay. Because she was innocent, and a most beautiful spirit.

We have our own theories, our own suspicions, just as we do with the two who vanished just as mysteriously last June. This county is a hard place for small spirits, full of evils brought here from without, and every day visits new horrors upon them. So if you're reading this, yes, we know we will never be able to prove it . . . but we know.

But none of that brings this sweet girl back; nothing does And so this morning, at the appointed time, I did as we always do with our dogs and our horses who are no longer here, who gave us the greatest of gifts while they were with us and so we can do no less by them now. I took her her cedar and tobacco and a little fresh water, and while I was there, Sunny and Stormy came barreling up behind me to fling themselves both at me and at the resting place of the sister they never knew. 

Except I don't think she's quite a sister. We see so much of Coyote and Crow in both of these new pups, in appearance, yes, but mostly in spirit. There was an attachment there from the very beginning that neither of us, in all our years of dogs, has ever seen before, a sense of familiarity on their part, a very clear sense of finding home. We know that the other dogs come to visit us occasionally through them, but with Coyote and Crow, it's perhaps something a little more. And so in a sense, they are still with us, the honey-colored fierce bundle of love and her smaller but still-fiercer sister with the raven fur.

We love you, little Trickster Girl. You're always in our hearts.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

     

Even one year on, everything loves the little Trickster Girl.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

Ashawinoodese (Coyote). She left us at 10:15 this day, one year ago.

I hate this day.

She was one of the ferals, one of the first two of their pack to show up, along with Crow. She was the eternal puppy, her growth stunted by starvation in her first two months of life. Once she found us, she recovered fast, although she never lost the starvation-induced prey drive that led her to hunt the chickens periodically. Bent-Beak and Dahlia managed to survive her depredations, miraculously.

Except for that one fault, not her own but induced by early abuse and neglect, she was the perfect pup. Her love was unconditional; you can see it in her amber eyes in this, the last shot I ever got of her, taken three and a half days before something lured her outside the gate. And yes, she was lured; she had long since learned not to go beyond it. I have my suspicions, but as with Crow and Blue, they will never be proved. Whatever hit her on that sleet-ridden day made a good job of it; she had managed to stagger back onto our land, her home, before her spirit left. It was gone when we found her. She'd gone outside only some fifteen minutes before.

Because I screw up absolutely everything, I looked at the clock wrong, and I was late this morning taking her her offerings. We give them cedar and tobacco and water, a thank-you for all that their sweet spirits have given us. In her case, the treats she loved, too, and some beautiful purple flowers: the grocery-store flowers Wings brought home for me about 3 weeks ago, lily of the incas — one of my favorites, and they last seemingly forever. There were a few live blooms left in the vase; they belong to her now.

And I wept. We could plan for most of the others; this was a sudden break, a hole ripped in my soul that will never heal. 

Since her tiny body was laid to rest in that spot, the giant blue spruce has grown fuller, with many more cones than usual; the mint and the wild raspberries thrived this year in an explosion of leaves and fruit. Even one year on, everything loves the little Trickster Girl.

We love you, too, Coyote. Your sweet spirit is never out of our hearts.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Oh, my sweet Trickster girl . . . .

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

I didn't know, the other day, that this would be the last photo I ever got to take of her.

The problem with dogs that humans abandon, abuse, starve, and leave to go feral from infancy is that you can never domesticate the wildness out of them completely. On a lot of fronts, that's not a bad thing. When it comes to chasing things human can't see, it can be deadly.

About 10:15 AM, as nearly as we can tell (just after Wings let her outside, with the admonition not to wander), she followed one of those spirits onto the road. Whomever hit her never slowed, never stopped, apparently. I hope their ski day is ruined. She managed to make it back inside the gate, lay down, and that was it. It seems to have been mercifully quick, and after the initial impact, the shock was probably such that she didn't feel much.

We, on the other hand, will never stop feeling it. Our baby girl, 14 months old, who slept on the bed at night curled up against my knees, and against Wings's shoulder in the mornings after I got up. We buried her, in the snow and sleet, with her beloved squeaky hedgehog and her treats. And this rift in my heart keeps growing and growing, and it's never going to heal. She channeled Griffin sometimes, and he'll be guiding her now, but I cannot understand why the spirits continue to send us these wounded half-dead creatures and then rip them away as soon as they're healed.

We love you, Coyote. You'll never be out of our hearts. And my heart, at least, will never be whole again.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Tricksters and Horses

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

The first of the aspens budded out today. We may not have cats, but we have catkins early this year. We also have pollen. Which means I took a fraction of a pred this afternoon so that I could breathe around the asthmatic effects.

It's been . . . a day. Last Thursday, we got a call from our horse vet, wondering where we were; she'd sent me an e-mail that I didn't get, scheduling a dental appointment for all four horses. This connectivity issue was supposed to be resolved back in October, when we were supposed to be able to switch to the other ISP's new FIOS; the wires were installed a year ago. But no; now they're telling us that it will be at least two more years, despite the fact that down the road three-tenths of a mile, they've had it for months. Yes, where the rich folks live.

Anyway, she rescheduled for today. Four horses, two of whom are rocking boots for foot problems, and the other two of whom are rescues with equine PTSD who have never in their roughly fifteen years of life had dental work.

Coyote Always Gets His.

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Early yesterday morning, Raven chased away a coyote who was eyeing the chicken coop. [No, the photo's from a November visit.]

But Coyote always gets his revenge.

It apparently was not enough to have to replace our secondary standpipe and much of the plumbing last week. And, no, it's not lost on me that we had no choice but to sink four figures into it during our last winter in this place; once the house is built, this standpipe will probably be wholly extraneous. [Oh, and last week? Two more brute-force attempts on the Web site, along with dealing with Cree, and a few other things I'm not even going to get into now.]

But no. Now both the washer and the dryer appear to have gone of the blink, along with the small fridge (the one inside this place). The fridge craps out periodically, defrosting on its own; normally, a full day or two on the max setting remedies it, but so far, nothing.

The other two concern me more. Wings bought our initial washer and dryer, lightly used, about seventeen years ago. The dryer has continued to function, but the washer gave up the ghost around Christmas, 2012. We had to buy a new one, and it has never worked as well as the old one. Every winter, we have problems with the rinse/spin cycles, which I have always attributed to the freezing weather, but this time, it's going to require a service call. We're waiting to hear sometimes today, and praying that we don't need a new washer.

The dryer? [Shrugs] who knows? I walked into the studio yesterday to check on the washer, and smelled the unmistakable odor of something electrical overheating. I would've thought it was a belt in the washer, but it seemed to be emanating from the dryer — or, rather, upon closer inspection, possibly from the hook-up.  I'm now in the unenviable position of hoping it's only the dryer and not the hook-up, which would be disastrous. More, I'm hoping that I'm simply wrong about the source of the smell, and it really is just a belt on the washer.

Here's the thing: Laundromats are not a feasible option for us. It's been years since my body has been able to deal with the physical labor involved in lugging loads of laundry to and from one, and there's not time anyway. And all that elides the fact that I simply cannot drive that much anymore, thanks to the PCS; driving even a short distance is a guaranteed migraine by the next day. This isn't like going to the post office (and that's bad enough, believe me).

And all this at a time when we're waiting to hear from a guy on the blueprints for the house, in hopes of launching the next phase in February. 

So . . . . No, not donations. Sales. We need folks to share the links to Wings's site. With all your networks, online and off-. If you have testimonials to offer up, that helps, too. Here's the main page. I'd really like to be able to find homes for some of our inventory in the days to come. Wings's newest work would cover it all and let us put some more toward the house.

Thanks.




All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Coyote Waits

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Actually, Coyote stares you insolently in the eye and says, "Whatchoo gonna do 'bout it?"

He's afraid of very little. I saw him just as I finished with evening chores, sauntering northward along inside the fenceline up by the gate. He wheeled to look at a passing vehicle, then turned around and headed back south, which took him past us on the western boundary. I just got the camera in time, and as I walked out to try to find him and grab a shot or two, he halted and stared straight at me.

I'm sure he was hoping for an easy chicken dinner, but he was too late; all the girls were already in for the evening. Of course, toward the southerly direction he was headed, there's ample evidence of nocturnal visitations by elk. Yesterday I heard a report of a cow [elk] nearby, possibly the mother of our little yearling visitor at year's end. 

If she is the mother, Coyote will be waiting a very long time.

It is, incidentally, the first photo I've ever gotten of Coyote. It's nowhere the quality of those Wings gets, of course, but that's why he's the professional and I'm the amateur. I haven't done any editing for the bright light of sundown, either; these are strictly as taken. But I was surprised to see that he was willing to stand still for me to get a couple of shots. Looking at them, he's had a good winter — sleek, well fed, and very, very beautiful.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

He and the rest of his clan will be singing all night.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Coyote Climate

Photo copyright Wings, 2015; all rights reserved.

Coyote returned today.

Actually, the whole extended clan, in-laws and outlaws alike, showed up last night to taunt the dogs with falsetto cries. The large family gathering is probably part of the reason why he came in search of an easy meal today.

He didn't get it.

Wings saw him on the north side, not far enough away. So did one of the reds, who he said stretched her neck like a periscopic Slinky and sounded the alarm, sending all dozen of her sisters scurrying back to the safety of the near area, running headlong like little old ladies holding up their skirts.

They've learned.

They've learned a few other tricks, too. Anyone tells you chickens are dumb, they don't know chickens. 

Inside the free-range coop, they have two, count them, two chicken condos. One entirely of wood, with dual hinged doors and a ramp entry, regularly refilled with hay; the other built on two-by-fours set on the ground, with a ceiling and hay bales atop that. They nest in the former, especially; they peck at the bales on top of the latter. But they'll only sleep on top of the big condo. Thirteen chickens, all in a row, no matter how cold it gets.

And so, needless to say, the top of the place gets messy fast. To that end, Wings keeps a battered paint bucket and small shovel on top of it, in the corner, to clean it off regularly. It's about one-third full at the moment; when filled, he spreads it in the garden plots.

Knowing their penchant for finding new and creative places to nest — today, while we were mucking out the stalls, one of the reds built a nest in the hay piled in the V of one of the hay troughs before deciding to go lay elsewhere — I checked that bucket a few days ago, just in case.

Nothing. One less place to worry about.

Today, done with muck duty, I went to check for eggs. 

There was a red in the bucket. Neck and head were all that were visible; she'd clearly settled in. So . . . .

Nine eggs underneath her.

[Sigh] they probably saw me looking, and decided that I had the right idea.

In the time it took me to go retrieve a bowl to put them all in, the red had laid a tenth. I went back later to find #11, plus two more inside the coop in their usual spot.

It was a smart move. The magpies like to eat the eggs, but they tend to go for the easy targets, the ones they can see.

Of course, the raggedy girls shouldn't be laying at all right now. They're in full molt, straggly feathers everywhere, skimpy patchy looks with white down showing through. Barely decent, layered petticoats notwithstanding.

But Coyote has taken over the climate, too. Sixty-three degrees today, barely a week into February. And then, supposedly, more snow on Wednesday. Then back into the fifties on Thursday.

And the chickens are still laying.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Coyote . . .

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

waits.

Just so he can eff with me, like he's done all week.

There are a dozen [at least] posts in the pipeline. Every time I sit down to write, I get interrupted. Every time I go back to it, TaosNet crashes. Typical trickster stuff.

I'm tired.

And I think I need to swear off whatever it is that used to be Air American Radio. Ed Schultz, that fucking DINO hypocrite, is seriously bad for my blood pressure.

I mean, really, Ed: In one breath, you [former(?) Republican, current overprivileged bubble-blinded jerk] tell listeners that they need to "call Obama on the carpet" because you've decided he's insufficiently sympathetic to the working poor — and in the next, you spend fifteen fucking minutes extolling the virtues of your boats and regaling us working poor with tales of your exploits hiring private guides for your boating trips?

Here's a pro tip, Ed:  We working poor can't afford boats, much less private tour guides. We can't flip them. We don't spend our spring hours paging through boat catalogues, as you've said you do.

And it's really obnoxious to rub our noses in it while demanding that we persecute the first Black president for . . . What? Your ratings?

I know what President Obama has done and is still trying to do for us.

Tell me again what it is that you've ever done for us?

Yeah.  That's what I thought.

You make Coyote look like a saint.