New neighborhood denizen: a Scottish Highland Calf

I've been waiting (in vain) for a new calf to make the scene.  We've had a succession of young bulls come and go.  Maggie and Iris are so obstreperous that they must intimidate bulls who are not, well, bullies.  There are two other cows who came in the fall or maybe a year ago last fall and still seem tentative in their relationship with the two queens of the pasture.  Now one of the diffident cows has become a mom.  In all the commotion of going and returning from Nantucket we somehow missed the big event and the calf must be at least a couple weeks old.  He/she likes to lie in the tall grass with his ma. 

The little critter looks just like this but without the muzzle.  Don't know what that was all about.  Here is a poem I wrote a couple years ago about my favorite calves.     It's called "Calves Together."

That summer, we were calves together in the tall grass.

You came first, to brown Mary Anne.

Golden Iris is my mother.

They dropped us in the tall grass.

We grew together, gamboled together,

Licked each other, slept together,

Lay flank to flank in the tall grass.

The milk we suckled tasted of summer and green apples.

In the heat of the day we found shade

The rain kept the flies at bay.

We frolicked in the pasture, bleating and kicking our heels,

Calves without a care.

Glad animal spirits, nursing and nibbling the tall grass.

Drinking from the creek.

Seeking the green shade

Calves together.

 I just love the cute little critters.  August is not such a great month to be born, as the flies really bedevil the cows.  I saw all my fruit and vegetable scraps for the cows, as well as any stale bread.  No meat.  No dairy products.  Their hunger is insatiable.  Mooooo.

They're Baaaack!

The birds are back, as mysteriously as they left. With a turtle dove added. The flock of robins is happy in the cow pasture. I fed the cows the last scraps of fruits and veggies this morning. There's a new young cow (half-grown) bringing the little herd up to five. Iris and Maggie are still rambunctious.

It seems like a week that I've been getting ready to leave, longer than that if you calculate pants hemmed, dry cleaning, lists, cat care and all that good stuff.

The cats know something is up and are bearing up pretty well. Always sad when one's adult's desert one for an unknown period of time. I feel sorry for Thisbe, so sad and sensitive.

My writing group isn't crazy about the last scene. In a sense, it's become drudgery. Last week was fun. Rewriting in store. I'm just feeling my way through the novel, even though I know what's going to happen.

I should hear from a publisher, an agent and ABNA while I'm gone. Could there be good news? Maybe the census will call and tell us we're hired.

Or will sucking it up be required yet again?

Back on the 20th. Stay tuned.

Red Snapper, Pork Roast and Shopping

Holy freakin' crap! I've been cooking up a storm, starting with a 4 lb. red snapper that our house guests brought. Fortunately, this was not a surprise and I had a simple recipe with garlic, lemon and thyme printed out. The fish was huge and we didn't have a platter that big, so we served it in the baking dish. This was Friday, and for lunch today S.O. and I had cold fish with a mustard-mayonnaise sauce with capers. With the fish Friday we had cherry tomatoes provencal, tiny new Yukon gold potatoes and a fancy salad with iceberg lettuce. I made pumpkin tarts for dessert, with wonderful flaky crust and light as a feather filling.

Did I mention that due to the ugly storm we had, the power was off almost all Saturday morning? I had to use a match to get the burners going, and chilled the tarts in a chest with ice. Was dreading beating the egg white by hand when, yowza, the light blinked on again.

Saturday we visited the Wrentham Mall, and I'm happy to report that the parking lot (acres and acres) was full, the stores were full, with lines to checkout, and people had bags and bags of purchases. Now this is a discount mall, but nonethless, there were crowds of shoppers. Good sales, too, and we left Eddie Bauer and Williams Sonoma with big shopping bags. The Lindt Chocolate store had ever-so-yummy offerings.

Came home and made the New York Times old standby pork roast with lemon, garlic, and thyme, carrying on a good weekend tradition of seasonings. More of the same salad, 4 more tarts for desserts, but I made the Thanksgiving hit of a gratin of cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.

Our friend brought a cranberry orange cake that we had for breakfast and in mid-afternoon. Very tasty and seasonal with red berries. We watched an old (1980) Walter Matthau movie called Hop Scotch. He was a spy in from the cold who went back to work and caused grief to his old employers. Much fun and cleverness.

This morning I made oeufs au beurre noir. Again from the New York Times Cookbook, always a trustworthy source.

In the afternoon we read the Sunday papers and are watching the Patriots, who are winning.

I love the weekly NY Times Style section. In spite of former aspirations to style, I have become totally unstylish. This was brought home by a perusal of some 1977 photos of a vacation trip where I wore one cool outfit after another. Can't imagine the size of the suitcase, and this was on a small boat yet, and moi size 4 and legs a mile long. Could this be me? In the Terrific T-shirt. Man, that was some cool shirt. Hard to believe,doing the Hustle with some guy in a bar on Fisher's Island. Ah, the days of our youth. . . .

So. We fed the cows yesterday and Iris's baby has definitely been shipped off to other pastures. Iris is still distraught and bawls and picks fights with the other cows. Baby is probably even more distraught. Poor little thing. Such big trusting eyes.

Thisbe is out from under the bed now the our company has gone. I stuck my finger giving her insulin shot and hope it wasn't me who got the insulin. Nursing is not my strong suit.

Back to the kitchen to heat up many yummy leftovers. The upside of cooking. Yep.

Onward,

Grapeshot

In a Key West Hot Tub

Literary characters are a breed all their own. First of all, Maxine, who insisted on being called that name, appeared just as I had completed the first chapter of my 1928 California book. She talked to me and began telling me her story. Naturally I began writing it down, and Maxine and I are off on a little adventure, maybe even a big adventure involving drug lords, lost sisters, murder and mayhem and even a little romance.

Maxine is in Key West now, in June of 2008 and she's come to see a woman who can tell her about . . . well, never mind. Suffice it to say that these two need to have a little heart-to-heart. I could have done that scene with everything hunky dory, just sitting on the patio having this nice friendly chat, but that's not what writing is about. The chat is not friendly and there's a bottle of champagne and a hot tub and a lot of angst and unexpected happenings that move the plot forward.

Everything is subservient to the forward motion of the story. There are surprises and many aren't very pleasant. Maxine, and now Nicole, are both surprising me, and all I do is tell their stories.

God, it's weird.

And in the meantime, poor Carla Curby sits on that Santa Fe train heading to California and I sure hope that when Maxine and I are finished, Carla will be as eager to tell her story.

I'm making pumpkin tarts tomorrow and a very fancy iceberg lettuce salad, and our guest is bring not the bacon but the fish, a whole red snapper that will be baked with garlic and thyme and lemon.

The rain has been general over the South Shore and environs, and we are just glad it's not the white stuff, except for the kids, who crave the white stuff.

Iris is bereft and bawls all the time because her baby is gone. The herd of eleven has been culled to seven. Some old cows, some new. Mary Ann's baby is undoubtedly sad, too, as her playmate is gone. All summer and fall they were calves together and hung out and did calf stuff. So sad.

Sone Thoughts of the Cow Culture

Iris's tiny baby is so small I wonder if it wasn't born a bit early. She acted so weird after it was born. Off sulking in the trees leaving the newborn alone in the pasture.

The breakup of the little herd must have been traumatic. Maggie's five month old calf was sold down the river, so to speak. The brown cow and her calf are both gone, as is the poor young bull that none of them liked. Iris's old calf is gone. Maybe she misses it. She was always such a good mom with the first one. I'm wondering if the half-grown black calf is perhaps a bull. He ? has cute little horns.

Meanwhile, there's hardly any cars at the farm house, and the windows are dark at night. The kids don't get on the school bus, so I'm wondering if some human trauma is at play. God, there's nothing like a writer's overactive imagination to start me stewing. I always have people at death's door or some great crisis when there is an easy logical explanation.

But I feel sorry for the cows. A herd that small is a self-contained unit, and losing 5 members must cause a certain amount of bovine anguish.

Can you invent something to worry about?

We've off to Montreal, the Paris of the north to see the big Cuban art exhibit at the Montreal Fine Arts Museum. I have been looking forward to this for sooooo lonnnnng. Something different for Memorial Day. We usually visit burying grounds.

The cats freaked when the suitcases appeared. I told them it's only for 2 1/2 days, but how do you explain "time" to a cat? Or a cow?

Be kind to your fellow creatures.

Grapeshot

Frisky Scottish Highland Calf

This one was born a few weeks ago and is very independent and full of glad animal spirits.

Yet Another New Calf

For some reason, mostly because the bull was gone, I had resigned myself to a season of no calves. Well, the bull was busy before he left. First came Mary Ann's calf, brown and adorable. Old Maggie still had her Christmas calf who hadn't lost his babyish ways.

The women in my family will always find something to worry about, and they'll do the worrying for others if need be. Yesterday, ye gods, there was a little dark brown blob in the pasture off my itself. Could it be?

Another new calf. Lying very still with no mother in sight. Oh dear! The calf flicked at ear. Alive, at least. Where was the mother. Iris was off in the woods away from the little herd. Why was she in such an odd place? Alone?

Had the mother rejected the calf? Was the calf deformed, dying, unable to nurse? Worry genes revving up. Finally, after dinner I could stand it no more. "We've got to go see about the calf."

Drove over. Calf not in lie-down spot. Iris nursing calf. A huge sigh of relief.

Still pondering about Iris' desertion. A rough birth and she just had to recover a while? Waiting for calf to stand? Had she washed it? Yes, from the looks of things. Iris was a new mother last summer and did a credible job with her blond baby.

Will there be yet a third calf from the black cow with crooked horns? For the five years in which we've lived here, this is the first time the calves have been born in the spring.

If I can get photos, I'll post them tomorrow. In the meantime, mooooo.