Wild

The kitten is feral tonight. Bright eyed, his fur smells like dirt, moss, tree bark, fog, and most likely, small rodent blood. When we open the screen door where he is hanging by his claws, he charges in under the rug, crazed and purring loud. Right away he wants us to let him out again.  Yesterday in the morning, a deer and fawn were drinking from the creek, and right between them was the half-grown kitten, lapping.

Last night, my husband saw a skunk out in the yard, and said he was going to have to set the trap. Then, a little while later, he walked  down the driveway, in the dark,  with a can of poison spray to squirt in the dirt bees' nest, which they've dug in the ditch next to our mail box. There was the skunk again, its white striped tail flailing around in the dark, in the enlarged bee hole. It was burrrowing deep in to eat dirt bee larvae (yuck) never mind the stings. Dirt bees are mean. Maybe they were asleep. In the morning we could find no bees. Now my husband thinks the skunk is all right.

My excellent husband is also a mushroom hunter, and  found a large clump of wild Hen-of-the-Woods (maitake) mushrooms. Roasting them in the oven fills our kitchen with an intense aroma, which I imagine  is like the smell of burning peat underground in the Great Dismal swamp fire, yet strangely appetizing.

As it grows, this huge mushroom incorporates leafs, twigs, bits of sand, and wood loam, that have to be removed. Our appetite for these mushrooms seems to have become a craving. We both stand near the oven, waiting impatiently for them to be done.

Wild and bitter grapes are all seed, a little pulp, in sour dusky blue skins, but I can't resist eating them, at least a few. I feel like a child again, wild in the woods.

                   new colors for wristwarmers, less the smoky pink silk