Little Big Pond, Vulirting Fail, Reverse the Curse

Tales of a Biblical flood, a vulirting fail, a stolen skull, and a backyard exorcism!

And then it rained and it rained and it rained some more. We received several inches of rain - more than a month's worth! - in just a few days. Suddenly, we had a "water feature" in the backyard, and rivers of rain behind our shed. My husband went out and dug a trench around the shed to let the water drain. "It's getting Biblical out there!" he announced.

At one point, I was standing looking out the window at the flooding in our yard, and my eyes came across the skull I retrieved from Sandy Ridge the other day. "Maybe it's cursed!" I said to my husband; was it somehow MY fault we got all this rain? "Maybe you need to take the skull back to where we found it," my husband suggested.

So anyway, the Moose and my husband and I went out to see if there was anything we could do about it. The Moose floated on our new "water feature" on his little "boat," and we tried to "Reverse the Curse!" Was the skull bad juju? We didn't know! But we tried our best. 

If we had known any powerful Latin incantations, we'd have whipped one out and used it. But we don't really know any Latin, other than "carpe diem," which we use a lot around here. So the Moose - our hero! - put on a fancy pink hat he borrowed from Tiny Tiger, and he simply said, over the skull: "Bad spirits, begone!" (See photo in extras.)

So what did I do next? There was a break in the rain and I used it to I walk over to the Barrens to check out the ponds. But on my way, I came across what I am calling the dance of the turkey vultures, which occurred high atop an electric pylon. 

Why, yes, the vultures are QUITE active around here, and sometimes it feels as though they follow me on my walks. I have watched them perform several times. I have seen Fiddler on the Roof and the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. I'm still waiting for Evita.

Three vultures landed on the pylon just as I arrived, and the one in the middle (I started calling him Harold) kept sidling up to the others and standing way too close, meanwhile holding out his wings very wide. Eventually, the one other bird he kept trying to make friends with got disgusted and flew away.

Harold, as you can see, was NOT having much luck making friends, or flirting, if that's what was taking place. My friend Jen coined a term for this: "vulirting," for "vulture flirting." So yes, the whole thing was a great big vulirting fail. (Harold might also benefit from a breath mint.)

"It's called SPACE, Harold.
PERSONAL FREAKING SPACE."
(Photo in extras.)

Then I walked up to the Barrens to check out the ponds. I visited the first three ponds, and all three are very high. I took photos and short videos of pond 1, then went way up to pond 3 (porcupine pond!), then came back down to pond 2, and finally returned to the best one, which is to say, the first pond. Even the teensiest in-between sub-ponds were huge.

I had wondered if the first pond - my "little big pond," as I think of it now - might overflow her banks and wash out the trail. Above you may see a picture of my favorite pond. The water is wide and deep, but it did not make it the last few inches to come up over the trail, which was plenty squishy in spots anyway.

But guess what I found on this day: as I left pond 3 and approached pond 2, I spotted something gleaming white among the rain and the trees and the water water everywhere. ANOTHER SKULL! I wrapped it in a plastic bag and hung it from my waist pack. Double or Nothing, I say to the fates! I've got another skull for my bone garden! (Double Indemnity, anyone?)

And then I stood, for just a few minutes more, watching the patterns on my pond, as I love to do, getting ready to head for home. I heard a lady's voice behind me: "Getting any good pictures?" she asked. I looked up to see two of my favorite local people and their dog Molly, whom I often run into in the Barrens.

So we stood and chatted about the weather, and all the rain, and I observed that in my 20 years of living here by the Barrens, I had never seen so much rain. They told me they have lived here 38 years and had not seen this much rain. We talked about Hurricane Agnes, in 1972, which is the worst flooding we have ever seen in our lives. No, this flooding was not nearly as bad as that. But it was impressive, just the same!

And Molly the labrador? Well, dear sweet Molly was reprimanded by her people for jumping up on me, and for sniffing and biting at the plastic bag I had slung from my waist pack. Why? Because MOLLY knew my secret: that I had a SKULL in there! Shhh, Molly! I was transporting illicit bones!

Thus endeth this day's story of the Biblical rains, the vulture romance that went awry (vulirting FAIL), the second skull I acquired for my bone garden, and the heroism of a little Moose in a magical pink hat "Reversing the Curse" by casting out Bad Juju in our flooded backyard. Whew!

That was a whopper of a tale, and since I've got three photos, I've got three songs. First, for our Biblical rains, I've got Johnny Cash, with Five Feet High and Rising. For poor Harold the vulture, who can't get a date to save his life, I've got The Police, with Don't Stand So Close To Me. And for the little Moose in his pink hat, with the power to cast out demons, I've got Enrique Iglesias, with Hero, from the Concert for Heroes, post-9/11.