Hearing Our World

My husband and I took a short walk this past weekend to the end of our street and back. We fought a blustery, chill wind and a sundry of aches and pains. What’s more, we had to be alert for the minefield of tree pods and sidewalk cracks that can so easily send a distracted person to the ground.

Even so, I tried to stay aware of the natural world around us. I pointed out a new bird I’d been seeing in the neighborhood—a tiny, colorful creature who belts out a big tune unlike any other. We heard another bird new to us and spotted it in a tree. It was larger than a robin, but we were too far away to discern any details.

We were almost home when I heard a call that sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

“Listen,” I told my husband. “What is that?”

“Geese?”

We looked skyward for the flock to fly over. None did.

The call went out again. If it was a goose, it was saying something I’d never heard before, and it sounded like it was coming from behind a semi-empty house that’s undergoing renovation. Naturally, my urge to see the critters trumped any worries I might/should have had about trespassing. I cautiously stepped toward the backyard, not wanting to scare off the big birds.

I blinked. Hard. There were no geese, though there were birds, yet the sounds we’d heard didn’t jibe with what was in front of me: chickens.

Yup. Chickens were running around between the yards and the bushes. If my husband hadn’t seen them too, you can be sure I wouldn’t be telling you about my freefall from reality.

What were they saying? Were they lost? Or were they acclimating to their new home? There was evidence that the owners of the house had been moving some items in already. I knocked on a few neighbors’ doors but couldn’t rouse anyone.

A fellow who just moved into our building told me that his previous home in Downtown Lexington was next door to a backyard full of chickens, so the new cluckers in our neighborhood may not be the anomaly I thought. Time will tell how my other neighbors view the new residents.

[Art by Gustav Klimt.]

Finding Acceptance in a New Neighborhood

Stranger In A Strange Land – No. 18

“Ow!”

I was in the yard, just about focused for a great photograph of a bird, when something pinched my arm.

“What?” I could almost hear it say—“it” being the tiniest and roundest of hard-shelled bugs digging into my skin.

Actually, I was grateful the bug had alerted me to his intentions. That hasn’t been the case with most of the other bites scattered across my body. The bugs of the Bluegrass love me and I sorely (literally) resent their Welcome Committees.

Granted, one may safely assume that my move from an urban area to a smaller city would mean a proportionate increase in mosquitoes. However, I didn’t anticipate the range of their biting brethren lying in wait for me. And each new bite revives the itch and ooze of every older bite.

Yes, yes, yes. I’m applying Cortizone cream, refraining from scratching, wearing clothes that don’t aggravate the situation. All the same, I have angry welts of varying sizes all over me and I’m not happy about it.

My dear husband, on the other hand, has been bitten only once, but it caused such a frightening reaction on him that I guess the bug community decided to leave him alone thereafter. His elbow swelled and hardened and reddened and hurt for months. That said, I should probably be thankful I have just a hundred small bites and no signs of swollen limbs. But this is slim consolation.

I suppose that by sacrificing my skin to insects I’m truly living in harmony with them. However, if you know of a histamine-less way to be a good neighbor, please let me know. SOON.

[Art by Balthasar van der Ast.]

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, select Stranger in a Strange Land from the right of Lull, under “Choose a topic that interests you.”

The Weed of the Manicured Lawns

Stranger in a Strange Land – No. 16

uite by accident, we live in a quaint, upscale neighborhood here in Horseyland: curvy streets, old shade trees, tiny stone homes built in the 1930s, and two churches at the top of the hill.

We strolled through this temple of civility the other night and came upon four young children sitting in the street with what looked to be fireworks paraphernalia. I wasn’t sure because the sun was long gone and there were no streetlights on this particular block. All I could make out were what kids in my day called “snakes”—small black pellets which, when lit, magically grew into snakelike creatures, jolting to life and oozing and slithering along until the heat died, leaving a trail of black ash on the pavement. If that, indeed, was what these children had been lighting, they’d been through dozens of them already. Mounds of snake debris stretched across the circle the children had formed in the street.

Across from the pyrotechnists were a few adults talking with one another on the sidewalk, and beyond them in an open yard was a gleeful Golden Retriever—off-lead and playing nicely by him/herself in some imaginary world.

Just as we passed all this evening bliss, we smelled “it.” We looked at each other, grinned.

Weed. Unmistakably weed.

It’s not that we’re uppity about smoking the stuff. It’s just that even in our old Windy City gangbanger ’hood, people weren’t usually so brazen. Sure, the fragrance might waft out of someone’s living room window or from a hidden spot on the beach, but rarely from an upper-middle-class, nearly middle-aged clutch on the sidewalk.

Hmm. Our assumptions have been challenged. Shame on us for having any in the first place.

[Drop cap by Jessica Hische.]

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, just select Stranger in a Strange Land from the right of Lull, under “Choose a topic that interests you.”