the Walnut Diary

As I passed by the kitchen window Thanksgiving morning I noticed a young coyote  lying in the orchard, chewing merrily on an apple.  Of course I stopped to watch. The critter’s enjoyment of her prize was obvious, as were her poor table manners. I guess a coyote pretty well has to chew with her mouth open, but she certainly shows a lot of teeth while eating fruit. The apple finished, she got up, moved over two trees, selected a wind-fall and returned to the same spot.

Ever alert, she alternated sharp looks in all directions with great and messy enjoyment of her meal. Her head rolled back and forth in pleasure as she chewed. A coyote reacts to even the slightest sound, so I tried chatting to her through the insulated windows. Every word I said registered on her ears, which turned like radar domes to track the sounds, though I don’t think the rest of the coyote paid much attention to me.

Her feast went on for some time. Once again I found myself marveling at the appetite of the eastern coyote. I remember last summer watching a pair consume an astounding number of mice on a trip across a field. This one must have eaten all or parts of a dozen apples before she eventually ducked behind a hedge and disappeared.

As it turned out the coyote was not the only visitor today.  A drunken lout broke the screen out of our front door, disrupting dinner with a crash, only to stagger around the lawn for a bit, then fly away.  The male ruffed grouse must have been hitting the grapes again.  All it takes is a few falling leaves to startle a tipsy grouse and start it off on a path of self-destruction which often ends at a kitchen window.  In this case the screen let go before the poor grouse’s neck snapped.

He must have decided he was in no condition to fly after his crash, because he staggered across the road in front of Bet when she was on her way home.  With one look at the oncoming vehicle, he reeled off into the ditch, most likely to sleep it off until morning, and then begin the grape-game anew.

The final vistors of the day were the least welcome:  the neighbour’s Holsteins have grown fed up with fences, it seems.  While I had thought I had the fence all fixed, the tall black cow was having none of it and she led two of her pals over the rails for a raid on our apple trees.

Charlie happened to be driving the cart at the time with me as a passenger, so I said, “Buckle up!” and we made like a border collie in the open field.  This isn’t fun any more, because I had spent all of Sunday morning fixing that fence. What was I to do now?  A cow with a belly full of apples is happy to go home, and can be counted upon to find the same hole in the fence, but a hungry one feels much less co-operative, and requires a good deal of urging even to get to the fence, let alone to find a way through it.

The human visitors today were a good deal less eccentric.  Charlie and Roz pulled in just in time for a photo session under the maples on the lane – I got to use Charlie’s professional Canon with the state of the art telephoto lens for some soft-background shots of the couple in front of a leafy backdrop.  This required some instructions shouted from a hundred feet away:  inside the viewfinder there is a galaxy of little red squares.  Press a button and turn a wheel and all of the squares go away except for one.  Rotate further and that off-centre red square is one you put on Charlie’s nose for a long-lens portrait.  The trouble was there were two of them —  two noses, and if I tried to balance the picture this camera would focus on the tree fifty feet behind them. That meant favouring one nose or the other.  Oh well, at least the focus and colours were good.  Charlie can crop the pictures later.

Apart from the interruption of the drunken grouse, Thanksgiving dinner went superbly.  Bet had decorated the kitchen with garlands made from the many vines and wild flowers she gathered.  Mom did the vegetables, Bet browned the turkey to perfection, and each baked a pie.  The fresh garden potatoes were also a hit. After the meal, the various desserts and a clandestine raid on the raspberry patch, Roz found a bag of walnuts Neil Thomas had cracked for me.  She plunked down in a lawn chair and started sorting the nut meat from the shells.  Conversations came and went, but Roz still sorted.  It was a big bag.  Charlie suggested it was time to go.  “That’s fine.  I’ll finish sorting them in the car.”  They stayed until the nuts were done.

I must admit that during this superb day I didn’t think much at all about Tuesday’s election.  Regardless of the lies, distortions and statistics of the race, no matter who wins things will likely go along pretty much the same as before, and for that we can be truly thankful.