Come on, I know your mind is working a bit overtime with the stress of life or kids or prison but you have to remember Marlon Perkins. I mean that is if you are my age or older or really loved old wildlife TV shows. He was that sweet old white haired man from Mutual of Omaha who showed us the ways of nature and later, when he had a young Brit to set outside the cage so to speak, the dangers of being in the wild. That poor Brit had to have been chased up a tree by more animals than any one else, and then of course there was the anaconda incident that just riveted the holy heck out of me.
Any way, I am not Marlin Perkins or anywhere near him but I do seem to be entertaining some weird moments with the local fauna. For instance, last Friday I made the long trek in the dark to the Cave to catch a ride at 445 AM to Metz, France. Metz, pronounced, “mess” and it was a mess, is the last stop before Luxembourg and I was set to do another salon des vins up there. That is why I have done no posts for the better part of a week, no Internet and no time. So I round the bend and the moon is full so I feel I can easily see anything or anyone that might be out and about. Now I grew up in the country. I feel that I have a pretty good sense of when something is around and I had a feeling I was not alone. I thought about what kind of animals I knew in the area and the only thing I could think of that could cause me harm was the wild white boars that frequent the area. I just didn’t think they’d be out at this hour but I can’t shake the feeling I am being watched.
I finally convince myself that it’s one of the stray dogs that inhabit the area which settled me a bit but not knowing what the F is always the hardest part. So I find the Cave and wait and wait and wait and slowly I get the feeling that what ever was out there is now here and as I turn slowly in the black the form of something rather low and long appears before me and then wham!
“Er! Errrrrrrrr!”
It’s the damn peacock and if it had given me just another second to figure it out I wouldn’t have left my shoes. This is the third time this damn bird has snuck up on me and let one go. I mean, if you’ve never heard a peacock let loose then you have no idea what I mean, but if you have then you know that it’s nothing like a rooster. I really wish it had been a dog. Speaking of dog…
Before Paris I was getting ready and was lost in my thoughts and duties for the day and don’t forget the ever-present French words that stream constantly in my mind. Apparently I was so focused that I didn’t hear Prince, the devil dog of death, push the front door open. He’s a stealthy bastard he is. So there I am, getting ready when I turn around to find his huge black frame standing directly behind me. I think my internal scream went supersonic since his ass immediately hit the ground as if the hand of God had smacked it.
The reason I bring this up is because you would think, especially after I told myself to check and recheck the door when I come and go, that it wouldn’t happen again. But there I was, that night of coming back from Paris, exhausted, sorting out my backpack and such when I turn to find him again. With a quick trip I caught the side of the bed and found the floor. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Prince hadn’t savored the moment so much by coming over and putting one paw on my chest with his nose pressed to mine. All that was missing was the cage and a rabble of carnies.
Then to top it off this morning, the morning after returning from Metz I find the answer I had wondered about the night before. When I walked in the door I noticed that Josette had propped my window open, which is nice since it’s been gorgeous here, but there was twigs and weeds on the floor, which didn’t make sense. I told myself that the cat had broken in again, it did it once before and woke me up by kneading my chest at 3 AM, and had tracked in the foliage. No big deal I reckon so I close the window and sweep up the left over.
The next morning I grab my box of cereal which rests high on the cabinet and guess what I see? A freakin’ bird’s nest. I just stared at it as if my mind couldn’t comprehend the whole thing. Once I got past that though I realized, uh oh, eggs or worse, chicks. So I push my head into the cabinet because I don’t want to disturb anything yet. Nope, no chicks or eggs but a wonderfully built nest that is fabric lined which I’m pretty sure I’ll be pissed about once I find out where that fabric came from but I leave it and head on down the hill for some work that needs to be done.
I consider just leaving he window open and to let the bird do what the bird had intended but I realized that it is just a bad idea, especially since I’ll have to close the window sometime, which would cut mom off and that would just be horrible. I take the nest and Josette shows me where they usually nest and set it there and I can only hope, after all of their work, that they find it. Now if I was Marlin Perkins I’d set up the camera and leave the damn window open but I’m just a silly American in Alsace.
Wikipedia - Because Walt Disney had fabricated footage of a mass suicide of lemmings in its film White Wilderness,[6] CBC (at that time) journalist Bob McKeown asked Marlin Perkins if he had done the same. Perkins, then in his eighties, "firmly asked for the camera to be turned off, then punched a shocked McKeown in the face.
He’s a hero to us all.
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