PEACE AND QUIET?

"Spring is nature's way of saying "Let's Party."
- Robin Williams

This morning we all awoke early, before it was bright, enjoying the sun rise over the marsh, melting the glaze of mist hovering just above the placid water adorned with dewy-fresh cattails. When male red-winged blackbirds torpedoed airborne from their marsh to our suet feeder, screaming, "SeeYEW! SeeYEW!" YumYum answered calmly each time with his rapid-fire guinea pig giggle: "eh-eh-eh-eh." This went on for quite awhile  and was so funny mom couldn't stop laughing at Yummy; perched high atop his loft, relaxed yet alert upon his pink, quilted ferret sleeping bag. He's so fun-loving, that one!

It's the first time mom has laughed since finding out we have to move. She's been too quiet lately, just gazing out the window, across "our" wild place, binoculars scoped on one bald eagle perched high in her tree announcing to the Wildlife Nation of Scudder Pond: "I have returned! It is I! It is me! It is she!" Before long, YolandaEagle will be sitting on fertile eggs and, at precisely the time birders most desperately want to view her new family, the cottonwood's bare limbs will burgeon into green-filling leaves, hiding her nest and nestlings from our eager binoculars. She knows it, too, ya betcha!

When Yolanda sees us pathetic humans stranded wingless upon the ground, straining to see Her Majesty, she probably sings quietly to her young: "We have returned! It is me! It is YOU: little eggs, my darling soon-to-be eaglets! WAY UP HERE IN THE COTTONWOOD TREE,
'TIS SPRING!
AND THEY CAN'T SEE A THING!"

That would be the point in her song where, if he could hear it, YumYum would giggle back in whimsical agreement: "Yeah, they can't see a THING! eh-eh-eh-eh-eh eh!" He sounds like furry little laughing machine gun!  All That and Proud to be YumYum, engaging happily with his Wildlife Nation. No domesticated pet, that one!

"HEY,

YumYum, WE can see YOU," observes Bear the Beaver Pig. "YOU'RE NOT INVISIBLE!"

"Oh? Whatever...LETTUCE? CARROTS? WHEEEEK! WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST, MOM?"

We all join in with urgent, loud WHEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeKs and Bear finally unleashes his high-pitched
scream! Neither mom nor we have ever heard, seen, nor even read about a sound so loud, so gut-wrenchingly high soprano, that it makes mom scurry to the fridge like a roach when someone
suddenly turns on the lights at midnight.  It is seriously volUminous: worse than when mom was learning
to sing opera; a horrible chapter in Chai's life that he told me all about when I first moved here.
He said when she practiced her music scales in the bedroom at Edwin's in Seattle, the neighbor below them
got out a broom and pounded on his ceiling with the broomstick to make her shut up. (EDITOR'S NOTE: sad but true.)

Chai and Sami would race each other out of the room screaming like Bob Marley and the Feline Wailers. Nightmarish stuff, mom's defective opera career...
Thank goodness THAT'S OVER! But when she tells Bear he sounds like her, we all shiver. "noooooo."

Chai warned me never to mention it, lest she remember the box where her practice tapes are stored...
ERASE THIS POST NOW!

That was Then and this is Now:

Mom finally began packing for the first time. Our breakfast was late. But it's OK because we recognized she had moved from Shock and Awe to Acceptance and was at peace with moving, at last. To where, you ask?
Not sure exactly...but we have a place picked out, if it becomes vacant. Very artsy, built green,downtown, and perfect for our new HUBA (hip, urban, bohemian artist) lifestyle.

Quietly acknowledging our days here on the Nature Sanctuary really are numbered, mom gently gave each of us extra green and yellow bell peppers, organic romaine lettuce, and a fresh pile of hay.

WE HAPPY NOW! HAPPY US, HAPPY YOU! HAPPY MOVING ON: SURELY A BETTER LIFE AWAITS US ALL! Mom, have faith.  WE DO.

PANDA OUT!

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Photo of mom courtesy of Sandra Yameogo, 2009)