Reflections - The Nature of Things

Rills and the Gray Squirrel

Spence is for the birds. I’m against the bears. This sparked lively debates when winter rained into spring.

Visions of bears swirling through my head made my voice quaver. “It’s time to take the bird feeder down.” 

He watched a tufted titmice swoop in for a sunflower seeds and soar off. “The birds enjoy the seeds.”

“Hungry bears will roam soon. They’ll smell the seeds and traipse up the ramp.”

“Not yet. Don’t worry.”

This annual debate happens because we live in bear country. Hungry bears wake from hibernation and search for food—bird feeders are handy reservoirs. Neighbors on either side of us had spied bears drinking sugar water from their hummingbird feeders. A neighbor further down the road saw a bear rip off the top of a plastic garbage can and paw out her entire year’s supply of birdseed. I didn’t want bears smelling the sunflower seeds and making Wells Wood a stop on their circuit.

Our debate didn’t occur this year.

Winter dumped snow but warmer than normal temperatures melted it within a day if not hours. A bear could have left its den multiple times. When we went for our daily health walks, I only strapped on boot cleats once to totter over an ice-covered road. A month before calendar spring, Spence brought the bird feeder in at dinnertime.

The four times we had bear visits, black bears came at night. One came so quietly we wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t left poop in the pansy planter. The second bumped around, left a swatch of hair, and broke the gate which Spence had built to keep our old cats George and Emma in. Another bear, Spence observed lumber across the deck on all fours, round the corner to the porch, and search through buckets—for seed presumably.

The fourth, a huge black bear, scared me. He strolled up the ramp while Spence and I were sitting in the great room. Paralyzed in my chair, I hissed, “Turn off the lights.”

Much slower than I wanted, Spence walked to the switch by the front door, turned off the inside lights, and turned on the porch lights.

The bear didn’t amble to the porch. He stood on his hind legs, put a paw on either side of the empty bird feeder, and licked the perches with his long pink tongue.

Because Spence brought the feeder in at dinnertime and took it out at breakfast, I didn’t worry about sniffing bears.

I hadn’t counted on a different intruder.

The first week of March, our three tabby cats raced to the sliding glass door. Rather than stare at the chickadees swooping in, they glared at the deck floor.

An eastern gray squirrel scooped dropped sunflower seeds off the deck with its paws.

Thud-thud. The cats slammed their bodies against the glass.

The squirrel slammed back.

Having tested the solidness of the glass door, the squirrel continued its dining.

Gilbert and Ande wandered off. They would check on the squirrel from time to time, but it wasn’t their priority.

Rills, however, sat his ground. Ears alert and tail tucked, his eyes never left the seed-scarfing intruder. Days passed and Rills watched the squirrel by the door even when Spence cut chicken in the kitchen. Usually, Rills jumps on the counter, pokes his head around Spence’s hand, and snatches a chunk. With the squirrel on the deck, the smell of chicken in the kitchen didn’t cause the cat to budge.

Carrying two handfuls of cut chicken pieces, Spence crossed to the tile by the sliding glass door and yelled, “Rillzie, Gilbert, Ande! Chicken.” He set the piles of chicken on the tile near Rills.

Ande and Gilbert scampered up, hunkered down, and gobbled.

Rills, small but feisty, would normally pounce on his brothers and hog the treat for himself. He didn’t. Instead, he kept his eyes on the squirrel. Rills didn’t trust that intruder.

His instincts were right.

While I was washing breakfast dishes one morning, I heard, scratch, scratch. BANG! I dropped the saucepan, wiped my hands, and hustled to the sliding glass door.

Curled over its back, the gray squirrel’s tail pointed toward the house. Scratch, scratch.

Rills threw himself against the glass door. BANG!

The squirrel scampered across the deck and hid behind an empty flower pot.

“Good boy, Rills.” I petted the house protector.

Rills crouched. He didn't relax.

 

Rills Observing Squirrel on Side of Door

The squirrel, unsatisfied with the seed droppings, climbed the log wall beside the sliding glass door. Rills leapt and slammed the glass beside the pointy head peeking out parallel to the feeder.

The squirrel scrambled down. It eyed the cat, eyed the feeder, and climbed again. Using the door handle as a perch, the squirrel stretched toward the sunflower seeds exposing part of its belly.

Bam. Rills smacked the glass, sending the rodent scrambling for cover once again.

Whenever the squirrel climbed and reached, Rills countered with a leap-bam-smack.

Despite bears in the neighborhood and this year’s early spring, I’m arguing with myself that I don’t need to fret about leaving the bird feeder out. Rills is keeping the log house and the feeder seeds safe from the eastern gray squirrel. The squirrel is removing extra sunflower seeds from the deck floor. Spence is bringing the feeder in every evening. I can probably trust Spence’s judgment.

Or not.

Spence, after all, delights when I get out of bed in the morning. “I love your hair!” I have to believe him. His eyes sparkle, his cheeks glow under his beard, and he gives me a hug.

My hair must be a mess. “I worked on it all night for you.”

“You look so cute.” He steps back. “A bird could nest in that hair.”

 

Janet's Morning Hair

 Reflections - Parable of the Glass of Water

Glass of Water

Doris gets the credit.

She—a kindred spirit, retired teacher, and ally in the Meadville Vicinity Pennwriters group—bonded with me. I could count on Doris for lifting my spirits through frequent morning emails. Some made me smile at spelling inconsistencies (tough, cough, through, though). Others made me laugh at silly photos (a science project of eclipse stages illustrated with Oreo cookies). Her latest email made me think. It came the Tuesday after I posted “A Stressful Process.”

The story in that morning email described a young woman—most women are young compared to Doris and me—holding a glass of water over her head. The young woman twisted the half-empty, half-full explanation her audience expected by asking, “How heavy is this glass of water?” For her, the answer depended on how long the person held the glass. If I held the glass a minute—no problem. Holding it an hour, I would need Tylenol and a heating pad. A day? Impossible. I would have triggered an arthritis flare up long before the twenty-four hours ended.

In the parable the glass of water represented stress. Auditing French Creek Township’s finances had filled my glass. Grateful Doris sent me a health tip, I reasoned with myself. Put the glass down at night and rest. You won’t get overwhelmed. And put it down every fifteen minutes during the audit too.

Feeling my abdomen muscles unclench, I tapped computer keys to answer the email. “Love this, Doris. Thanks.”

“Thought you and your team could use that wisdom,” popped into my inbox.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Doris’s wise words cleared right off

I shut the computer down and drove to auditing determined to follow the advice of setting the glass of stress down every fifteen minutes or so. 

The complicated credit card bills altered my intentions. I thought we’d nearly tamed the messy paperwork last week, but I couldn’t find several purchases that Tuesday morning. Yikes! Maybe they were on the bills I left with Jill, the secretary-treasurer, when I met with her the previous night. Jill worked at home for a bank during the day. Would she have time to answer the phone let alone hand the bill to me? Panicked, I called her.

Her calm voice reassured me. “I’ll put the papers in the screen door for you. I got the Berkherhimer tax deposits for you this morning. I’ll include them too.”

After gulping lunch, I gripped the steering wheel and raced across County Line Road. My eyes scanned for state troopers and leaping deer. I turned onto Route 19 then crunched the gravel on Jill’s driveway. Slamming the car door, I hustled up the steps to her side porch, snatched the folder wedged between the screen door and frame, and grabbed the railing to plunge to the stone walkway.

A clucking chorus halted my descent. A turkey, her feathers tucked neatly, and a flock of hens strutted to the porch. The two roosters, that Jill warned me got aggressive, and the tom turkey must have stayed by the coop fifty yards away. The vocal birds stopped strutting but continued their serenade. 

In awe, I crept down the stairs and edged to the car. “Hey, ladies. Nice to see you too.”

They followed me on the grass by the path, across the gravel, and surrounded the Subaru. 

“Careful now. Stay clear of the car.” Wondering if one would flutter inside the front seat with me, I opened the door. “You don’t want to get smooshed.” When I started the engine, the turkey led the hens across the field. I gazed in wonder at the disappearing cluckers. They not only helped me put down the glass of stress, they emptied it. 

Turkey

Humming along with a CD of soothing Japanese folk tunes played on a koto, I drove back to the church. I didn’t need to watch for state troopers.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Turkey and hens cleared right off

Later that afternoon, Kathy, a neighbor and township supervisor, called. “Jill said yinz needed paperwork for the truck license. I drove to Michelle Brooks’s office in Greenville and got it.” Kathy panted as if she’d run part way. “It’s only a copy of the check and a letter explaining the expense. Is that good enough?”

“That’s perfect, Kathy. Thank you. I appreciate you making the extra trip.”

“Well,” her voice had a blush in it, “not everyone is so easy to please.”

“Being a supervisor has to be stressful with people complaining all the time.”

“Heck yeah,” her voice came through the phone line as a shout. We exchanged stressy work stories until I shared Doris’s glass of water email.

“You know, I try to do that,” Kathy said. “I relax with a movie or something else at night. But sure enough, I wake at three fretting about someone’s complaint.”

That evening, I decided to use the first half of Kathy’s routine. I snuggled under my princess blanket to watch Love by Accident. Then I fell asleep dreaming of Daphne and William pretending to date leading to real dating in the rom-com. 

Glass of stress raised aloft

Kathy’s evening movie cleared right off

Unfortunately, I adopted Kathy’s whole routine. At three o’clock I woke with my mind searching through the township’s credit card bills. And the waking up moments increased in frequency. My glass of water seemed to be a gallon jug. I scribbled notes on these”alarming” issues and took them to Jill the following Friday evening. 

She and her American Leopard Hound Rocky met me at the screen door. She smiled and stepped back. He wagged his tail and wriggled his brindled body. We gathered at the round dining room table—the computer by Jill, the file boxes by me, and Rocky stretched between us on the floor. Together we fixed miscoded expenditures and resolved item after item on the night-bothering list. Her comments, “Anyone can make mistakes,” “the credit card bills are so confusing,” and “I’m learning so much from doing the audit,” gave a brighter perspective to the paperwork strewn before us.

Midway through the evening, she walked to the kitchen. A clink-clink of ice cubes dropping into an empty glass woke Rocky. He trotted off to chomp on a cube. Setting a glass of water on the table for me, Jill provided a physical reminder to put down stress. I hadn’t needed that cue. The warm welcome she and Rocky had given plus the positive attitude toward the audit had already lowered my stress.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Jill and Rocky cleared right off

A week after Doris had sent the stress managing email, I returned to the church with every document in place and every transaction checked. The township books should balance. But our total differed from the bank’s by nearly four thousand dollars. Illogical. Frustrating. Nail biting. Contemplating pulling our hair out, we auditors pondered why it was fashionable for men to go bald but not women. I couldn’t put the stress glass down.

Scanning the ledgers for the umpteenth time that afternoon, Sandi yelled, “I found it.”

The ledger listed and expense twice, but Jill had paid it once. We tossed rulers into the air, pumped fists, and stamped feet. A similar error drew us even closer—but auditing isn’t a game of horseshoes.

March 1, we checked through the ledgers for the fifth time with no progress. Over lunch break, I spooned in chicken barley soup and called Jill. “Would you have time to email a pdf of another trial balance with the duplicate items removed? That might help us narrow it down.”

“Sure.” Her confident voice raised my hopes. “I had to make a cash deposit for the sale of the scraper at the bank. I’m driving home right now. I’ll email the balance sheet as soon as I get back.”

With Jill’s report in hand I met the other two auditors. Their faces drooped. Sandi shrugged off her coat, grabbed a file from the boxes, and searched yet again. Carol slumped into her chair and asked, “What do you suggest now?”

“Jill emailed a new trial balance.” I handed the papers to Carol. “Let’s start with the bank accounts. Heaven knows we checked the code totals enough times.”

Carol called off numbers.

I stared at our totals for bank reconciliations in my notebook. “Check . . . check . . . WAIT! What was that last one?”

Sandi set down her folder. Carol straightened in her chair and repeated the number. I threw my notebook into the air. “The general banking account is off!”

Normally that event would cause auditors apprehension.

With joyful hearts, however, we whipped out our calculators, decided we needed to find $147.49. A half hour search later, we found the culprit. One of five online fourth quarter debits hadn’t been listed in the ledger until January. The amount? Exactly $147.49. We had balanced the books to the penny.

Carol’s shoulders lowered. She smiled in relief. 

Sandi and I wiggled our fannies and whooped.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Balancing to the penny cleared right off

I’d wiggled and whooped the final stress away. That night, tucked under a warm flannel sheet, fleece blanket, and log cabin quilt, I drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep until 4:30 a.m. No ledger lines, no dollar amounts, no document search disturbed me. I just had to pee.

Doris gets the credit. She made the difference by sharing the parable. Raising and lowering that proverbial glass of stress, like performing dumbbell overhead presses, taught me a lesson I can apply to township audits in years ahead—even if the stress feels like a rain barrel of water. And I have eleven months of the lowered glass to relish.

Balanced to the Penny