Critters
Sharon Hoffman
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Decades ago, we let the back lawn go wild, and now the marsh oaks dwarf the house. There are loquats, sweet bay, red bud, cherry laurel, saw palmetto and Spanish bayonet. The Cape Girardeau has long since swallowed up the fence. It’s become a dense thicket that invites the birds and who knows what other animals.
My husband, a college instructor but a country boy at heart, calls them critters with only the slightest touch of irony. He’s fond of the mice, raccoons, and possums, and no doubt there are snakes, but he knows better than to mention that to me.
However, he has had an ongoing war with the squirrels because they steal all the bird seed from the feeders. No matter which “squirrel-proof” bird feeders he buys, they manage to outsmart him, skydiving from the oak tree’s branches, launching themselves from the rooftop, rappelling down the wire that holds the feeder up, or sometimes merely perching on the ground to hoover up the seeds the cardinals drop.
Recently, he created a Rube Goldberg contraption meant to hinder squirrels climbing down the wire. At the top he’s placed an aluminum pan – the kind that you roast turkeys in – and then a plastic top from a Publix veggie tray, and under that, the bird feeder, which supposedly is now squirrel-proof.
He thought that would be enough to keep the squirrels out.
It was not.
He used to stand at the screen door, and if he saw a squirrel attempting to conquer the feeder, he banged the back door open, cursing loudly. Then one day he noticed the boldest squirrel seemed unusually fat, and he concluded it was a female who was, shall we say, in the family way.
Suddenly, he was all solicitude.
He decided she was entitled to all the seeds she could eat and, in fact, needed more nutrition. He began to leave bits of fruit for her, the sliced-off tops of strawberries, grapes, blueberries, orange slices, apple cores, the skin from sweet potatoes. Every morning he carried out fresh water in a little bowl. We never saw her drink from it, but the birds did – in fact, they bathed in it. If eventually there were baby squirrels, we never saw them. But every night, something ate the fruit, and every evening my husband made another offering.
He began to care about these beings that he feeds but never sees, and he continues to do it religiously, morning and night. I think for him it is a form of prayer.
The late Pope once reassured folks that our animal companions will be with us in paradise, so if we manage to get to heaven, I expect to see our little dog, as well as the six cats we’ve outlived. And perhaps some critters may be at the gate to offer us food and water after our long, long journey there.
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Sharon Hoffmann is a writer based in Atlantic Beach, Florida. Publications (past and forthcoming) include The Hooghly Review, New York Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives (Harvard University Press), Magazine1, Paddler Press, South Florida Poetry Journal, BURIAL, City Wide Lunch, Wild Roof, Sho Poetry Journal, Blood+Honey, and other magazines. Awards include fellowships from Atlantic Center for the Arts and Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs, three Pushcart nominations, and a nomination for Best Spiritual Literature.
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Posted in Third Annual Pet Writing Contest and tagged in #CNF, #boudin, #creative nonfiction, #nonfiction