Chapter One

Looking out over the railing of the deck you could see the rolling landscape. It was March and it was typical schizophrenic weather, even in the same hour. Winds switching, gale to calm, brilliant sun to clouds. The decay may not have been obvious to anyone who was not in the circle of the knowing, but to me, certainly,and to all the others close enough to know, it was blatant. To the outsiders, I would imagine, it was a situation you could guess at with some accuracy. A sense of neglect. The ground had a look of undulation confirmed when you strolled across its length, revealing depressions that held pooled water, muddied with the fallen earth of mole constructions. Large holes, carpeted with weedy grass gave no clue to a passerby that danger was at hand. Water whirlpools were their architects during the rainy season when the swollen creek rose and receded, above and below ground. The outbuilding had lost its roof. Blown right off and left to stand in the woods to the north. Nothing was ever done to correct the situation. A lone corrugated pylon buttressed with splintered beams too old to hold their station. Together, standing in a wood, shamed, for what seems an eternity. The post left behind only adds to the shame by displaying the tops of gargantuan flora teased by the sun, feeding and taunting them, without a roof to secret their seeds in the dark cool of the barn. Anyone passing by on the distant road could see this debacle. No sensing here required. The old tractor was pretty well hidden now from roving eyes, by the weeds and trees and mulitflora rose. Tentacles, so barbed and painful when met, no one would resurrect that tractor now without the most modern of weapons. Garbage had been collected at the back of the barn as well as inside. Things that were once valuable were now residents of rust and ruin. The petrified waste of horses, goats,sheep, pigs and chickens made for a aromatic potpourri that permeated the air and mixed with the fresh and wholesome scents of hay and grass and wild raspberry flowers. There were beehives that once were paragons of industry, producing heretofore, buckets of honey every season. Now these are dandy hotels for the field mice and an occasional stag beetle. Although the honey is now long gone, there is, no doubt, a lingering cast of sweeter times past. This all makes for a very lovely home for whoever chooses. The surrounding woods, where the pylon lives to the east, are littered with the bones of its natural habitat. Rabbits, skunks, groundhogs, fox and deer. Life played out and left to bleach under the leaves of the years gone before. Once, I picked up a piece of plywood to find a writhing nest of garden snakes, surprised at my audacity to spy on them. I did not want to see them then and wish I could stop seeing it still. There was a time when I went out to collect the eggs from the chicken house that was attached to the back of the barn. It had its own entrance on the side and the back, closest to the wooded area just mentioned. I know now, since educated, is the worst place to house your chickens, in close proximity to the wilder life forms.
I opened the door to find all of the chickens decapitated. The ones that were left anyway. It was obvious that some were dragged into the woods by the blood and feather trail. How horrible is nature ! Tell me what does everyone see in it? Sure, there was a fox and her family being well fed somewhere on the periphery, but, at the cost of my fragile circumstances. Eggs were now a commodity from my past but my nightmares were fed and lolling, waiting to moan again.
I feed the countless birds that hear-tell of my feeders. They come from far and wide and they return year after year. I don't know how I know this but I do. I wonder at my motives here as well, since I have found myself purchasing feed for them at the same moment I was purchasing food for the feline population I have in my care. Am I setting up these flights of fancy for my cats? I say no. It all adds to my worry trying to control the situation outside the doors of my home.