Vacation from the Motorhome!

At home for a change does count as a vacation. Riley is happy. He would be happier if the tiny Chihuahua that belongs to my parents would quit yapping and growling at unexpected moments. It makes Riley’s hair stand on end (literally) and then he gets embarrassed because nothing is actually happening. When the smaller dog yaps, Riley leaps out of sleep with his own yelp, and then comes to hide behind my chair.

I got to sit on our deck today with my Dad. We watched a thunderstorm brewing over the mountains several miles away. The sun was behind us, so the clouds were brilliantly white, with several muted shades mixed in.

I always see faces in the clouds. Rarely do I recognize them. Dad saw a spaceship. Mom saw a wolf. Then Dad saw the wolf too. Later he saw a poodle.  I wonder what a psychiatrist would make of the three of us?

The woods are magical to me. With every change of light I see new faces on the trees and imaginary people and animals flicker here and there. We were happy to see a real fawn again. Alone this time, it wandered up from below the house and found a shadowy place to lie down in the trees beyond the utility shed.

It has been a pleasant week, here with Mom and Dad and my oldest son. Warm, but not too hot. Last night we lay out on the deck and watched the stars come out, happily arguing about which star was the North Star and where the Little Dipper was. We saw a few meteors and several bats and went to bed content and full of popcorn and hot cocoa.

A story for my grandkids - make believe

Riley and I drove to visit my son and his family. On the way there we drove through several large wind turbine farms. We were taking some wire fencing and posts to them so they could put a fence around their backyard. I thought of a little story for my grandsons, 4 (almost 5) and 2 (almost 3). Here it is:

THE LAND OF THE WHIRLIGIG

I ventured into the land of the giant whirligig today with my friend Riley. I was a bit nervous. I don’t know any of the whirligigs personally.  The huge inhabitants of this land seem to spend all their time standing in the sun twirling their three arms around as fast as they can go. They took no notice of us as we moved among them. Either we are too small and insignificant to catch their attention or they simply do not care what we do here in their land.

My reason for traveling here is to visit a small family living in the midst of the giant whirligigs. Their tiny home is in the middle of a grassy meadow just beneath the feet of several of the whirligigs. The tall grass grows right up to their walls. It is beautiful. It is also full of many small animals and creatures. All of them are friends of the family except for one. The Dreaded Hairy Lolipa.

The Dreaded Hairy Lolipa is about eight inches tall, has round furry ears, brown fluffy fur with black and grey stripes. It has a short tail and seems to be so nice and cuddly. Until you try to pet it. Then it shows its shiny teeth and growls a terrible growl. (Very scary.) It gets its name from the funny sound it makes as it runs through the grass. (Lolipa lolipa lolipa…)

In the back of my magic wagon, I have a special gift for my friends. It is a fence to go around their little house. When I get there, the father unloads the fence materials. It is a magic fence that goes all the way around the yard. He pushes posts into the ground, and hangs the fence on the posts. My friend Riley takes a nap in a wet spot in the grass. In a very short time the fence is up and the family is completely safe from the Dreaded Hairy Lolipa.

Before I go, my youngest friends come to me and say, “But Fairy Grandmother, we are afraid of the Dreaded Hairy Lolipa.” I hug them and say, “Don’t be afraid. If you see one, all you must do is sing its name and it will run away. Like this: lolipa lolipa lolipa…”

©Cindy Erickson

A Week at Home

Sitting at my kitchen table, the view of the meadow is sunny and serene. My dog Riley and I are taking a break from the motorhome this week. It is quiet here at home, the only sounds coming in the window are the wind in the pines, some squirrel chatter and a robin singing somewhere. I am working on a young adult novel, and it is getting to some really good parts. I hope it will be finished next week so someone else can read it. This is my first one and I am surprised by how protective of it I feel. It's like a child, I don't want it to get hurt out there in the "real world".

I installed one of those magnetic screen doors on the deck and Riley really likes it. He goes in and out constantly. I like it too, no more whining to get out and scratching to get in. (Riley whines less too.) Earlier he was on the deck, just laying there, minding his own business, when a doe below the house caught his scent. She exploded into snorts and started stomping around with her legs all stiff. It went on for quite a while. He just lay there and ignored her.

A couple of days later, she was back at it. Now, Riley loves toast. He gets the last bite of toast every morning at breakfast. Usually it quickly disappears. This day, he apparently was thinking ahead and as soon as he was handed his toast, he darted through the magnetic screen and headed out into the meadow. He was very focused, holding his head high and strutting through the long grass to a little group of bushes where he dug a little hole for his tiny piece of toast.
Carl had come to stay for a day or two, and we both watched Riley, laughing at him a little, when suddenly the deer came out of nowhere. She was very militant, and not sneaking at all. She pounded the ground with her little hooves, and snorted, her tail up and ears waving. Riley, his head down in his little hole, didn't seem to hear or smell her at all. She stomped right up behind him. He finished his burial, and looked up and saw her. He must have jumped a foot off the ground. His ears and tail went down and he dodged her, trying to head back to the house. She herded him all the way, cornering him near the stairs. I finally went out and rescued him. She spent the next hour prancing around and around the house. We finally went inside and closed all the windows and doors, hoping she would calm down.

It was pretty obvious that she had a fawn somewhere nearby, so we kept peeking out the windows on different sides of the house, hoping to catch a glimpse of it. We finally gave up. We had to run to town. We got outside on the porch, and suddenly the fawn was there, bounding down through the ferns to the north of the house. No sign of the doe. The fawn stopped in a shadow. It obviously did not see us. It looked around for a moment, then lay down, completely disappearing into its new hiding spot. Big smiles all around, Riley excluded. (He doesn't have lips.)