2-14-2012 Maha's Valentine

 He Stihl Loves Me
by Kristine Lavender Love 

Wondering what the Maha has been up to lately?

I’ll tell you.  The other morning as I was eating some toast out on the doorstep in the sun -- a much healthier alternative than seated in front of the Market Oracle on the computer reading about Babylon going down -- I happened to glance into a large planter and noticed some strange markings.  Like something sat or stepped in there.  Something catlike, but bigger.  Mostly smooth in several spots, but in one area there was definitely a paw print of some sort.  


Maybe, maybe not.  ON MY DOORSTEP?



Oh, that's why.  Behind it stood a tall metal flower can with something smelly and agricultural I was using.  And my cat stick.  Previously left down at the greenhouse for a couple weeks, at what is supposed to be the door.  It's a wreck, there is no such thing.  Left there, after ceremony on Hallowmas, because I discovered a dead fox on the cement slab next to the greenhouse.



I had seen this little fox a couple of times in broad daylight, prior to finding him dead.  He was in the front, outside the fence.  The PG & E lady saw him one day too she told me.  Thought it was a dog or a cat, and was shocked to see it was a  little gray fox, just hanging around...

He was cute.  But I did fret a bit for the cats.  Wondering how a predatory animal like a fox could wind up dead on my garden slab?



Arrrrrrrrrrrghhhhff!!

Guess he couldn't tolerate another predator on the premises.

             So I left my cat staff down there. 


It actually may have had the opposite effect and attracted him, as the other evening at twilight I went down to pick some tetragonia from a large hardy volunteer plant growing in the greenhouse floor.  It was nearly dark as I hunted for leaves, when all of a sudden I went:


“EEeeeeouuuw what is THIS??”  Right next to the plant was the half-eaten carcass of another dead fox-like animal, surely too big to be a squirrel.  Guess he brought me another one....

Oh  yuck, dead fox!

What the animals see

Well at least he leaves my cats alone.  So I took the staff back up to the house on Candlemas, after ceremony with the smelly organic stuff --  put it all on the doorstep and went about my life.  Now we’ve got the stick, the vase of stuff, and the paw print, all right there outside the door.  Sounds a bit like The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to me.... 
+
Those Primal Forces and Animal Powers, dwelling in and around my house!

So how’s the Maha?  He IS!!  

He loves me, he loves me not ??


And how’s the chainsaw doing?  Great.  I love my Stihl chainsaw.  
What a great tool.  
I sharpen the chain.  
I keep it filled with good quality bar oil.  I clean the gears and run it with the right chain tension.  
Cutting tools, implements of the East.   Swords.  
Discernment.  Knowledge.  The mind.  Knowledge is power.  “Double edged sword”.  And you better pay attention to what you’re doing when running a chain saw.  It’s hard work, requiring fully focused presence.  


And it smells.  BAD!!!!  Now I know why the Maha gets so upset.  I just read recently that their sense of smell is some ridiculous amount more sensitive than ours as humans.  No wonder he goes YUCK and acts up.  But I think he’s getting used to it.  He lets me know if I leave a chainsaw mess where he walks, but is noticeably less upset.  And he thankfully hasn’t messed with the cats lately.




 Recently I ventured just on the other side of my back yard fence, where the vibration abruptly changes to THE FOREST....  I was actually quite surprised at how differently it vibrates at such close range to my house.  I can look through the trees and see my little dwelling.  But whoa, we know who else looks through the trees and walks around back there.  All the wild animals.  

The oaks have really worked the fence and made a perfect catwalk for anything that can climb or jump, right into my back yard. And I know the cats use this area too, to come and go into the woods. Who am I kidding, he doesn’t even need the natural catwalk, Mahas jump 18 feet vertically.

And if he doesn’t want to come in that way, he and the deer can walk another 20 feet around a corner and jump the Monty Python fence that is slightly more than Kristine height, definitely not 18 feet.

 

 Or he can just saunter over my silly gate.  The cat has many options depending on what he wants to do.

Its funny, for weeks I kept looking at that hole in the trees from my living room window,going -- I KNOW that is a doorway for animals.  


And when I went back there, I saw just what sort of super highway it really was.  Really wild back there, as the land stretches way down through much forest, to the Jesus Maria creek.  

View through the trees behind back yard fence

Lots of poison oak -- that’s  P.O., we calls it.  Or ‘Oak’... as we say, with a look that says ‘oh yuck, oh no, oh dear’...  Want to hear my poison oak story?  Later...

So I cut some firewood back there, cleaned up a bit to improve the animal trail, found an old pile of cut wood lying forgotten about for years because it had originally been lying in a patch of P.O. now dead, chucked it all over the fence into the backyard, and definitely pondered the possibility of meeting a griffin back there if one happened to wander too far down into the trees.  And knew I would probably be hearing about it from the Maha, after leaving all those fumes about.  At least I made their trails nicer for them all. 



That was some weeks ago.  In the meantime I’ve found a dead fox in the green house and a large pile of lion poop right where I walk down the lane to the trailer area; several paw prints in the mud in the driveway; and I think I heard him around 5 one morning recently, like a drunk yowling in the distance.  Hard to say with closed windows, it also could have been Lil Maha the bobcat, who is quite vocal once in a great while.  Apparently he is tolerated.  

And now today the paw print -- or whatever that is --  in the planter, and a prominent scrape on the trail that goes behind the backyard fence where I had been cutting wood.   I noticed it on the way out this morning.  Yep.  He loves me. This is how he says “Hi I’m definitely here.”  He’s not causing a stir with the cats.  But he’s around.  

But really?  On the doorstep???  Hard to say....  In my world, quite likely.


Well he is right about one thing -- that fossil fuel surely does stink!   Why can’t they make these machines run on vinegar or sunlight.   Funny, the only time I feel I smell really bad is after using a gas-guzzling motorized gadget.  And I’m sorry, the answer is not an electric powered chain saw, how utterly silly and impractical.    Sounds like a great way to electrocute yourself, in addition to hacking off a body part accidentally.


So I always treat myself to a nice long hot herbal bath with lots of eucalyptus and lavender after cutting a bunch of firewood.  I like to put all kinds of mud and plant goo on my face and hair.   In my claw foot tub.......  Animal Powers and Creature Comforts, they are most delightful.


Happy Valentine’s Day!!  Don’t forget to Kiss all your Animal Beloveds too!