State of the [Hiber]Nation

I’m thrilled to report that all of the peachicks somehow made their way back to the fold after last week’s scary unknown-assailant scattering. So we are, once again, 15.

The chicks—Gloria, Laverne & Shirley, and the Abba quads—are getting big, and the flock is getting pushy about food. Maybe they’re like me, and in spite of this beautiful fall weather, they’re laying on fat for Jack Blizzard, as my Aussie poet friend calls the South Dakota winter. I understand their desperation. In fact, I have an overpowering urge to curl up with a blankie, a truckload of Doritos, a gallon of red wine, and a bad Diane Mott Davidson novel until I’m in a deep, carb-induced hibernation. Sadly, however, I must stay awake...

Yesterday and this morning were grey and drizzly. The flock is hanging around the house, as if they know something’s coming and it’s best to stick close to the food. Hurricane fallout, maybe, or just a preliminary slap from Jack—cold winds or a hint of frost.

Other wildlife seem to feel it, too. Two fawns cut in front of my car just before the shelterbelt the other day, then ducked into the plum thicket where there’s plenty of grass and good tree cover. Mice are coming inside, so the traps are set. The dogs are poofing into their winter coats already. The birdroom windows are closed, and the parrots are spending more time fluffed up and sleeping. Hummingbirds usually come through around Mother’s Day on their trek north and spend a couple of weeks here eating at the feeders. Then we don’t see them again until right about now, when they stop for another couple of weeks until they blow south in late September with the autumn thunderstorms. But this year, they’ve already come & gone, at least two weeks early, and we’re just getting stragglers now; this morning, a fat male buzzed between feeders and the fire begonia. Snowball and Snowflake are fat & furry, and we’ve been seeing them more often, spooking around the pyramid or the loafing shed, staying near the cat food & shelter.

Maybe we’re not so different from the animals, whose behavior is regulated to a degree by the length and angle of shadows on the land. Since living in South Dakota, for example, I’ve developed this weird autumnal yen to line a cave with a knee-deep layer of twigs & leaves, or piece together hide robes thick enough to repel ice bullets. A general malaise creeps in, too, with the knowledge that soon we’ll be boxed in for as long as Jack decides to toy with us. But the sun is out right now, Mom and the kids are coming for dinner, and we’ll all pretend it’s just another glorious, lazy autumn day…as we sip our wine and dip our Doritos.