Unnatural habitat

The backyard of Om Shanty on Summit Street in Methodistville was abuzz with biotic activity on an unquiet evening in late July. Not only was amplified music blaring from the Fourth Friday Uptown Commercefest, but birds, bees, squirrels, insects, flowers, vegetables, and other carbon-based lifeforms are out force. I blame it on the weather.

I can't begin to name the species of birds that make this quarter-acre their home and/or feeding ground. Some are flying solo, some with a partner nearby, some in competition with a rival for a partner, and some in a collective wave of mass movement from one tree to another. A squirrel was attacked by a nest of yellowjackets, the unintended consequences of foraging for its own nesting material, and you should have seen him jump sideways when he got stung by those aggressive little beasts. None of your beeswax!

I wouldn't call it a feeding frenzy exactly, but it is the dinner hour after all, the end of a workweek, and the din was frenetic. I did my part, inadvertently helping the houseflies reproduce by watering indoor plants from the rainbarrel, so lots of tiny wiggling larvae were given a sheltered place to incubate and hatch. Now the tolerable outdoor insect population has colonized the back room of the house, where they have become intolerable. I spent hours on Saturday swatting and disposing of the gross little piles of fly carcasses, depositing them in the compost where they could at last fulfill their destiny and do some good.

The flies were especially thick around the night-blooming cereus on the corner table in the den, where the long, curving stem drapes over a lampshade, keeping the leathery leaves from hanging down to the floor. Just this week little tassels began to appear on the tips of three or four leaves as the cereus began to bloom. I was careful not to swat flies too close and ruin everything.

While I stayed home alone for the weekend, Gven and her sister Nyet went to a small family reunion near the Antietam battlefield in Maryland. There had been some years of estrangement in their youth between the sisters and their father, and it has taken the better part of a lifetime to make up for lost time. Some things are still unresolved, unsaid, and unacknowledged. He made some life choices as a relatively young father, and it seems as though others have suffered the consequences. The small, casual weekend gathering with their half-siblings seems to have gone well. With no aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozens to make it into a Big Event, they achieved a comfort level where they could speak and be heard more openly.

Sunday was a long, emotionally exhausting day for Gven. I am grateful that Nyet was there to keep her big sister company, bear witness, and provide support. They got a late start coming home, so it was dark by the time they got to western Pennsylvania and collided with a deer that leaped across two lanes of I-70 in front of the white Honda, bounced off the hood and right-front fender, and fell into the ditch. Gven slowed down and pulled over to the shoulder while other cars steered around the flying deer. A witness stopped and called the police, who did not issue a report because it was an Act of Nature.

No humans were injured, but Gven was pretty upset. The car was drivable, so Nyet drove the rest of the way home to central Swingstate. I was in touch by phone but largely uninvolved. I came home from work the next day and pulled weeds in the side bed along Plum Street that get neglected until it begins to look like nobody lives there. Gven and Nyet spent more quality time together processing their weekend with their half-family, discussing the deer incident and how close they had come to a much worse ending.

What to do about the car would ultimately rest with the insurance claims department, and it was taking State Farm and their friends at Collision One several days to come up with an estimate of the damage, repair costs, and the fate of the Honda. Nyet caught her flight home to Atlanta on Wednesday. Gven returned to her regular work schedule while we traded off the use of one vehicle. Good bicycling weather made that easier.

I took a vacation day on Friday, so I was out in the yard holding a shovel when Gven gave me the news that the Honda was totalled. Okay, if that's what the number crunchers say, then that's what it is. It had been a good, reliable car for a little over five years, and Gven was somewhat attached to it, even more so after it warded off a big deer from crashing through the windshield, punctured a radiator and battery, and still made it home in one piece.

While we pondered our options regarding a new car, I was busy transplanting lamb's ear from a crowded border in back to a bare strip in front, pulled a few weeds, and mowed the little trapezoid of grass. When I bumped a railroad tie between the lawn and the bed with the mower, I disturbed the nest of yellowjackets, and they were on me within seconds. I backed away swatting, but they kept coming, persistent little buggers.

Is it because of the dog days of summer? Later that afternoon I was weeding a bed of daylilies near the house and disturbed another nest of yellowjackets. This time one of them got me good, a direct hit in the meaty part of the base of the thumb, and within minutes my hand was swelling halfway up the wrist in a perfect rectangle of puffy flesh. I wrapped it in a cold pack, took some ibuprofen, and sat down in the rocker for a nap. Weeds or no weeds, it was clearly time to retreat on that front.