Cactus Blooms

"Cactus Blooms" copyright 2011
Adele Castillo

I began this about 4 years ago, give or take.  I don't remember, but it's been hanging around with a number of unfinished paintings.   

One canvas at a time. 

My Porch

This has become my daily battle.  

Robins vs. Adele. 

They are staking claim to my territory.  

I don’t like it. 

If I didn’t have dogs, I would have my yard designated a wildlife sanctuary.  You can do that.  It’s called a Certified Wildlife Habitat.  Create a Certified Wildlife Habitat - National Wildlife Federation

My yard fulfills all of the requirements and I have a great deal of respect for sharing my space with animals whose ancestors were here long before I was.  Rather than kill a snake, I’ll direct my dogs indoors until it moves along.  I’ve wrapped fencing around many a rabbit nest to keep my dogs at bay until they wean and scatter. (I spend a great deal of my summer preventing those nests, however, since my dogs typically find the babies before I do.) Skinks, squirrels, bats, birds, rabbits, skunks, possums, raccoons, turtles, butterflies, and even the rare deer have all passed through or taken up space in our garden.  I have no problem with moles; they hungrily keep our Japanese beetle population at bay by eating the grubs.  Plus they aerate the lawn.  I don’t get why people want to kill moles - they are an asset to my yard. 

However. 

I have boundaries.  

This is the current state of my front porch entry. 

This is the mess I clean up every day.  

Twice, three times a day. 

Robins.  They insist! they are going to grow a family above my front porch light.  

I insist! no, they are not. 

They bring the strands of grass, twigs, and wet mud to build - I take it down, if it doesn’t fall down.  

First it was cute.  The dry grasses fell off the lamptop anyway.  Then it was annoying.  Heaps of grasses were piling up on my porch.  I burn the lamps at night - this is going to be a fire hazard with the dry grasses that remained. They’ll stop.  

No, they just innovated.  The grasses became wet.  They brought mud.  How on earth do they do that?  Do they eat dirt and regurgitate?  Do they roll bits of grass in the mud to collect it?  Fascinating.  Still. Not gonna happen. 

I remove grass; grass returns.  

Now they are weaving the longer grasses they’ve decided they need in and around the globe of the lamp.  And gluing them in with mud.  Don’t ever tell me birds are stupid.  

I think they are quite determined and creative. Still.  It’s been four weeks.  FOUR weeks.  Daily. 

I will share many things with my wildlife neighbors.  I will support them when needed and ignore them mostly.  But I will not give up my territory.  Apparently, they won’t give up what they consider to be their’s, either.  This battle will remain peaceful, but I will win.  

Dear Robins, if you turn around and look about 5 feet away, there is a perfectly good tree, also sheltered by the porch.  What?  You want me to go live in the tree?  

For the Life of Gracie

May 3rd, I thought was going to be her last day with me. 

Gracie was ill.  She’s already about 20 pounds underweight and although I’ve managed to keep enough calories in her to prevent further loss, she will never gain any back.  Her bones feel skeletal, although with her gorgeous hair you don’t see it right away.  I don’t know how she manages to walk, with what little muscle still graces her body.  So when Gracie is ill, it’s a huge deal.  She was not keeping down her force-fed breakfast, did not want to eat, slept all day.  By evening, she was completely restless, alternating with completely passed out. She insisted on being outside,  (not normal) laying in the grass, (not normal) and when she laid her head down, ears back and wouldn’t lift her body or head for me, there was only one choice.  

As I hovered over her asking her, the Universe, myself, “is it time?” the panic began to rise in me.  I told her I would happily let her go, in our peaceful yard, if indeed that’s what was happening, BUT I would not say goodbye until I knew her body was shutting down.  I lifted her up and carried her to my van, crying over the potential outcome and the stress of having to tell her human daddy what was taking place.  We headed to emergency vet care.

This story isn’t about death.  It’s about listening. It isn’t about power and decision making, it’s about honor.  Honoring the life of a creature in my care and doing what is right for her, not what is easiest for me.  I feel the same about humans.  No one has the right to decide for another when it’s time to die. We all pray that nature decides for us, but that is quite actually rare when it comes to our pets. I hate that word.  Pet.  It indicates my fur-family is property, which in legal terms they are.  But turning them into property gives me permission to do all sorts of things to them, if I were so inclined, that no living being should be able to do to another.  Right now, it certainly would make my life easier if I simply took her to my vet and had her euthanized. 

Gracie came home with me that night, walking into the back yard as if I had made a big deal out of nothing.  Over the next week, antibiotics helped kick a nasty stomach virus. Blood work and her behavior 2 weeks later returned to normal.  I am ecstatic that I listened, that I did not leap to conclude that she was dying because of her age, condition and listlessness that early May night.  If there is anything I’ve learned collectively from my furkids, current and former, it’s about honoring life even in it’s final, not-so-easy stages.  My Gracie stubbornly kicks ass!  and I believe she will always. I chuckle in fascination at her stubborn ability to do anything, everything, her way, so when she does leave it will still be terrifyingly difficult, but it will be on her terms, not mine, if I can at all help it.