3-6-12 Maha's March Blessing

Downed oak, perfect!

Coming in like a lion bearing gifts in it’s jaws, it is.  March.  It’s a delightful month out here in the Sierras.  Guaranteed to be absolutely raucous and wild in spots, weather wise.  Just in time for all the fruit trees and flowers to open.  

Orchard, starting in

It’s a great month.  I used to hate spring out here.  It’s a very difficult season energetically.  It is very jagged.  It arises with a lot intensity and often the most extremes of weather of any mountain season.  Snow, cold, wind, rain, hail, hot sun, scary dry.... it can all happen.  It does often all happen.  This year it will all happen as we’ve had a scary dry winter, with very little of anything coming out of the sky but those icky chemtrails.  So I fully expect to get hammered this month.  My orchard is just starting to flower.

Just the right size for my little saw

In spite of it being so dry, it’s still winter and cold at night, and I’ve been out cutting firewood. The other day I woke up to light snow unexpectedly coming down and didn’t have a lick of dry wood other than a few sticks for kindling. I am so non-chalant about it now. It’s just how it is sometimes.

Cha!  No problem she says.
The chain even fell off this time.

And I said to myself -  Cool, I’ll go cut some, no problem, remembering a winter a few years ago when I didn’t have a chainsaw and was cutting most of my wood by hand with a little band saw.  Now that was difficult.  There were days during that time when I had to go out and find it with snow coming down, haul it back and cut it up in the living room.  It took a good part of the day’s energy to cut wood by hand.  Now you see why I rave on about the chainsaw.  I am now barely a part time slave to firewood.  Not complaining by the way, I love it.  A good portion of self sufficiency can be had for a gallon of gas and some 2 cycle engine oil.

Woodcutting in living room

I found some really nice downed oak in a spot that is wheelbarrow accessible and in the right direction -- meaning uphill when the thing is empty, downhill full of firewood.   A great spot where there is a pretty wide trail, up the little lane past the funky trailer. 

This wood was just perfect!

 And what did I find just on the back side of the trailer, going up the slope where I wanted to cut wood?  A huge new pile of fresh lion poop, just like the one on the front side of the trailer.  Huge pile.  Now I know you are all probably tired of hearing about lion poop but that’s what’s going on out here.  


That’s how he says HI, Here I am, My Space.   

Newer turds in back of trailer

 I’ve seen lots of poop and scrapes in both these areas.  He has for a long time let me know that he likes the trailer.   I’m not sure if he holes up under there now and again or what, it looks like something does.   He marks the area around it so prominently, that usually means MINE.  And I remember how upset he got a few months ago, when I left the saw down there.

Slightly older turds, in front of trailer

Well we’ve worked it out I guess.  He knows now it’s just me running that thing.  At one point I contemplated making some kind of herbal offering mix to smooth things over, but then in characteristic simplicity and directness, I’ve opted to just grab a handful of lavender when needed.  

And the Maha likes it too

He knows about lavender, he walks right by it.  I’ve seen lion poop by my bushes.  So here’s what we now do.  If I cut wood somewhere that he also frequents, like around the trailer, when I’m done I go and get a handful off dry lavender and sprinkle it about.  I also sprinkled some on his turds.  Just saying Hi, I’m here.  It’s kind of a little game we play.


And it brought me a result recently!  I did this on Saturday after cutting a bunch of wood. Went and got a big handful of my best lavender and strewed it all around back there, and then went about my business for a few days.  I didn’t go back down there until 2 days later.  I was just finishing up, wheeling the wood back home, when I spotted something weird near the first pile of poop.   When I bent down to look I went EEEOUUUUUUGH!!!!  Now what’s this???!  It’s a rat!!!

Dead wood rat, next to my camera case.  Still quite fresh.

Lion Poop!

Dead rat.  He brought me a rat.   Left it as an offering on the trail.  No kidding.  How SWEEEETTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!  Just what I was wanting! 


It was fresh, like not even 24 hours dead.  Looked like it had been in the jaws of something way bigger than my little kitty cats.  And my kittehs have been funny lately.  They don’t follow me down there.  They usually like to come with me.  Not lately.  So I called them down there to come check out the rat.   They were not responsible for the dead rat, I could tell.  My cats would NEVER leave such luscious prey lying around!  They always have to bring it in first to show me.  No, they didn’t do this.

Really? For us?  Dead Rat!!

Think he'll notice we ate it?

When they finally came over to it, they sniffed, and they SNIFFED...... and kept looking around nervously.  It was obvious they were smelling something besides dead rat.  Finally one of them decided it was his and he was going to devour it.  So I know my cats didn’t kill it.  They would have had it gobbled down already.


When Choclit flipped the rat over, I could see big teeth marks in it’s abdomen.  Big punctures.  That’s Maha.

Notice the puncture marks from big teeth

So Choclit ate the rat I guess.  Dragged it off into the bushes. 

Fight you for it!!

Well, Maha likes that trailer.   I’ve known it for a long time.  He’s always marking turf down there, it lies along several of his routes.  That spot in the back he’s used for a couple years, at times it has looked like a big ol’ cat box.

Crunchy!

Mine all MINE!!!

One spring evening a few years ago I was in the house with the windows open and I heard him outside, coming from the direction of the trailer, Arrrrrrrrggghhf, Arrrrrrrggggghhhhff!!  

So I called to him. I do that often when I hear him. “Pussyfoot??!!  You Lion!!!!”   I don’t know what was going on for him that night but he went into an absolute frenzy!  He was yowling around like a nut, all around in the woods near the house, I could hear his cries coming from different places.  This went on for some minutes, continous yowling and dashing about.  At one point I got some really odd- feeling ... sensations and visuals -- I could see-feel the manzanita, the forest, blood, and felt ... strange...  My awareness hit on the trailer somehow and then I realized:  I’m picking up Maha mind!  He wants that trailer!  

Maha scratches on Manzanita

That was a funny incident.  By the way I wasn’t fearful or anything.  It wasn’t like he was making all that ruckus in my yard or jumping on the roof of the house.  No, he was in the woods, but very near the house, and he definitely made quite a stir that night.  The next morning when I went out, he immediately yowled from the direction of the trailer, still in the woods somewhere.  That entire day it was like he was circling all around my dwelling and grounds -  at a safe distance.  Periodically I’d hear a little arrrrrggghf, and say to myself ‘Oh, now he’s over there’.  Then a little later I would hear it again from another spot.   All day.

a Maha

I don’t know what all that was about, it hasn’t happened since.  Just a little spring fever maybe.  Or it could be that he couldn’t figure out why there was a Maha call coming from inside my house, but surely he heard me do that before.  


I know how to imitate their calls.   When I hear him out there in the night, calling out his greeting -- which he does with great regularity -  I immediately am jarred out of sleep by the sound.  Usually I get up and either go out to the rooftop, or at least to the open window, and call back.   I talk to him.   Sometimes we have conversations and he talks back to me too.  Occasionally with great intensity.  

You know, they respond to charm.  I’ve never been afraid of him, other than maybe a little during the first meeting.  Of course I’m not stupid about it either.  You don’t go out and say Hey Man what’s up? when he’s in frenzy mode.  And even the next day, when he was all around the house and garden and I knew it, it felt absolutely necessary that I go about my business like usual.  And I did, unafraid.  He knows that this is my space.  Animals absolutely understand territory.   

So cute. All Maha images
came off the web

So we play this little game with each other.  Hi I’m here.  Hi I’m here.  So what’s the big deal, nobody is bothering anybody.  The Native Americans lived with these creatures just fine, and so do I.

Mom with young one (pulled off web)

Well if I ever have anyone come and stay in the trailer again, that will be interesting for them.  My 2 apprentices lived down there some years ago.  They had a couple dogs, so Maha was not even on my conscious radar at the time and definitely not around like he is now.  I had no idea then....  Even though Tim actually saw him once, from the window down there.  He said it was a young one.  It HAD to be Pussyfoot.  

My antique tamborine

Bear print in pond bed

I had 2 friends stay here a few years ago, for a week or so.  They were in camping mode and had a tent.  A young couple.  They hauled their tent inside the trailer’s awning and set it up.  I had to give them my tamborine and a conch shell to make noise.  Keep the animals away....  They were concerned about that.  But thought it was cool anyway.  And they actually did see the bear that was hanging around at the time.  I took them into the woods where I met the Maha, they loved it.

Muffled Arrrrrggggghhf!!

Yep, March coming in like a lion. 

Season’s Blessings!  Happy Spring!

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!