The Toolshed

The Toolshed
Copyright Steve Emery - all rights reserved
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The shovel, hung high on the wall beside the sleeping rake, looked down in the gloom at the trowels.

"Shhhhh, young ones," he hissed softly. "You'll wake your elders."

The trowels fell nearly still, with only an occasional muffled giggle to betray their location in the shadows.

"I wish I'd been properly cleaned before being put to bed," complained the spading fork for the hundredth time.

The shovel rolled his eyes. "If it's any comfort, the only clean tool in the shed is the unused Dutch bulb planter."

"And at least we're dry," added the fifty year old edging tool.

"Thank goodness they found me and cleaned me up before the snow set in," added the hedge shears, which had been left out for weeks beside the beech thicket. "I can still taste the sharpening stone and oil. Mmmmm."

The trowels all giggled at this, and mimicked the shears' sound of delight followed by a quiet belch. This set half the tools in the shed chuckling at the crude humor.

"Shhhh," said the shovel again, cautioning them all to whisper. He gestured towards the old rake.

The rake continued to snore softly, dreaming of small potatoes caught between her tines. The earth was warmer than the air, and smelled of the complex commerce of worms and microbes. Above the bed the wind whistled in the nearly bare maple branches, but below the rich loam it was still summer, a dream of warm days past, a dream within a dream. With a start she woke, and began to cry.

"Don't cry!" "What is it, dear." "Tell us your troubles, old woman."

"It was such a lovely dream," she said, drying her eyes.

Outside the winter wind whined over the shed roof. Inside, in the gloom, the rake told her dream. Then each tool reminisced in turn about their favorite sensation of the previous year. The axe spoke of the first bite into the sour flavor of walnut wood and the startling explosive feeling of splitting tulip poplar logs. The shovel mourned the loss of another quarter inch of edge, rubbed off on the concrete drive while moving tons of dirt and manure. The trowels compared all the different hands which had used them that summer, and what those hands had worn. The mower growled about grass which had gotten too thick and tall, remarking that more frequent mowing would have been better for everyone, including the gardener, who had often ended up holding his back and groaning. All the tools agreed that the gardener had done a deal of moaning, complaining and cursing in their midst.

"As if there were no one listening," sniffed the red handled trowel. One of the others made a rude noise and did a perfect imitation of the gardener's spluttering manner, running on about the shovel which had broken a third handle while digging up day lilies for dividing.

"Shhhh!" said the shovel on the wall. "Don't remind him."

On the potting bench was the head of the other shovel, with his neck still choked by the butt end of the broken handle. None of the tools knew whether the gardener would try a fourth handle or give up on the shovel altogether. It was a sobering thought, and they all pondered it in silence.

Eventually they all drifted off to sleep, the old rake snoring softly, the trowels restless as children, and the tree saw grinding his teeth. They dreamed of spring and the gardener's warm hands and warm words when he reached for them for the first time in the new season. The watering cans dreamed of cool water sprinkling hopefully on rows of newly planted seeds and into holes in preparation for perennials. The work gloves drifted in and out of dreams of mulch and wheat straw. The shovel fell asleep last, looking at his fellow on the bench. He dreamed that the gardener fitted a smaller handle and gave the other shovel over to his children, to start another generation of gardeners. His smiling snores joined the others in the earthy cold of the wintry potting shed.

Bug Walk II

Older son and I went for another bug walk. I had been seeing cicadas on the ground on day walks, so I suspected we would find them on the ground at night. They don't eat after they emerge - they live a week of song, mating, laying eggs, and then they pass away.

At first the walk yielded little but a tiny grasshopper, several field crickets, and a big Saturnid moth up in a street lamp's glow. I was wondering if it would mostly be about the exercise. But then we found this big creature. One of the largest toads we've ever seen, just sitting in the road, enjoying the heat of the pavement. We took its picture and shoo'd it off the road. It hopped short distances but surprisingly fast.

Then we found several cicadas, pictured here. They make a racket when you pick them up (if they are male, which three out of four we found were - oldest son is holding this noisy fellow). The last one, with the white markings, was by far the largest and loudest, and his stridulating organs (noise makers) were differently shaped and on a different part of his back than the others. He may be a different species.

The cricket is a camel cricket (cave cricket). There were many of them, hard to even see by flashlight beam, all in one small section of the neighborhood, about a quarter mile stretch of road. Normally these guys stay in places like the crawl spaces of houses. We have photos of three different individuals, this was the largest and most marked.

Finally the huge find of the evening was the luna moth. It was on the road - they also don't eat after they emerge from their cocoon. It let us lift it off the road, then it flew off my hand and onto my back, climbing up to my shoulder. Finally it flew up into the street lamp nimbus, where it flew round and round, with us trying to get photos of it in flight until our batteries ran out.

We'd have happily done the walk just to see either the toad or the luna moth alone.

Garden Startle

Gardening is not always restful. In fact, sometimes it can swing us rapidly from flight to fight and back again.

Once, several years ago, I was weeding (surely seen as one of the most tedious and dull activities on the planet - I remember getting quite eloquent on this score when discussing weeding under my breath as a child "laborer"). I've mentioned before that our gardens are made almost entirely of raised beds, held together with dry-stack stone - no mortar. With my mind in a numbed state from the job at hand (ever notice that weeding can be a totally non-verbal task? It is, in fact, best performed when you allow your mind to slip into a more right-brained mode, not identifying things by name. In this way you can see the plants which are "squatting" in your beds (no right to be there) more easily. They just "pop" out at you. Is the suspense building as I take all these tangents?) I find weeding can be like valium. (Children can't appreciate this because life has not yet put them in need of tranquilizers; kids believe adults have over-rated tranquility.) I noticed a bit of buried soaker hose had moved in the bed so that two bends of it stuck out from between the stones.

Wait a minute. I don't use soaker hoses. And why does this black hose have scales? Hardly believing what I saw (and with my pulse already doubled in the usual human reaction to long creatures with NO LEGS) I picked up a nearby straw and gently poked the hose. As expected it swelled up. I did not actually hear a hiss (where was the snake's head anyway?!) but I felt as if I had. I involuntarily took several steps backward and let out a loud, "Woh-ho-ho-ho!" Here in front of me was an isolated piece of live snake, just five inches or so, with no head or tail. Like a sentence fragment.

After the brief adrenaline rush, my reason stepped back in and reminded me that glossy black snakes, in this part of the world, are beneficial.

Then I thought of our beloved ugly toads! (We sometimes go out at night and find several of these so-ugly-lovely beasties in the driveway and under the street lamp. We love them.) Was the snake eating them? A brief wave of passion flowed over me. ShouId I kill the scaly trespasser? Was he poaching toads on my preserve? (Oh my, I picture poached toads on toast.) A shudder ran up my spine at the horrible and too tactile thought of trying to pull the interloper out of the stones.

But reason again prevailed (or was it cowardice?) - let nature take its course!

Moomin Light long ago stopped stepping into the dense centers of the flowerbeds to deadhead or pick. Too risky.

Travel - Sigh - Home Pie

We don't do so well when I am away on business. From the early days of our romance, in our teens, we've really been two parts of one person.

For Moomin Light this has become the flag of my absence. She explained it here.














And this sort of thing has become my symbol of getting back. I made this the night after the end of nearly three weeks of trips.

Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman

Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman, was my latest concentrated listen, over 10 hours, while driving to and from Knoxville, TN. It was read by the author, which was just right. The two dozen or so short stories, poems, and one novella, work a linked and continuous sort of magic on you. The idea that stories are important to us as people, in many complex ways, appears frequently, as do a few characters that span stories, and a number of other important motifs.

Those of you who liked Stardust will find this is quite different. Some of these stories venture over the line into light horror (often just over a hedge from fantasy). Some have despicable characters. Some get explicit sexually. All are compelling and get under your skin. All made me think. Some I will carry with me a long time. None, even the tough ones, ride uncomfortably in my mind - though some are harsh to recall. I'm glad I listened.

I would caution that anyone head-over-heels in love with the Narnia books should avoid the tale The Problem of Susan. This is one of the most explicit tales, and while I loved even the darkest of the others in this book, and I understand some of the motive behind this tale, I wish it had been left out.

Beyond that, though, most of the tales are told from solid flesh and blood perspectives, have fascinating premises, and are satisfying bits and pieces of various worlds. There is plenty of humor of various kinds. Many of the stories turn reality inside out in interesting ways. Others are odd twists on classic short stories. Study in Emerald, for instance, is a parallel tale to the Study in Scarlett by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - which I had fortunately read recently, so each tale echoed in my mind. The poems need to be read aloud to appreciate them properly (as with most poetry).

The book begins with the lighter, sweeter tales, and then gets more meaty and serious, with the most potent (and difficult) stories later.

The novella at the end will have you rethinking your definition of "monsters." And, since it also plays games with who and what are fragile, and it revisits some characters from earlier tales, it's a fitting place to part from this interesting collection.

Kittywink, Cwab, Tumsel and Linsel

My car (the Kittywink, or the Winkycat, or just Wink) has a pet. I got it for her years ago, in PA.

Cwab used to be bright red with metallic threads, but the years have mellowed him to this slightly pink shade of gray. He has always been this flat, lying behind the back seat, looking through the windshield.

It used to be there were so many green 98 Camrys in parking lots that I would check for Cwab inside before inserting my key. Time has altered that.

As for the Kittywink's name, when I got her, about 9 years ago, she reminded me of the graceful lines of a sea bird at rest on the open water. A kittiwake, I thought. Mentioning this to our kids, daughter got it mixed up in her six year old mind and it came back out "kittywink." It stuck. The other names have grown up around it.

Names have a way of changing, the way our cats started out Tamlin and Santolina, and have ended up Tummy and Lina, when they're not being called other things like, Turkey and Sleeky, Tumsel and Linsel, or Chuffly and Missitymuff.

Fish and Portulaca

Ever notice, reading books written over 50 years ago, that there seem to be a lot of flowers and plants no longer in cultivation? Ever seen a moss rose? How about purslane? Both are flowers I've read about but never seen.

Or have I? Turns out both are just earlier names for portulaca, here shown growing like an unruly hairpiece on my birthday fish planter. Moomin Light got these (fish planter and plant - she took this photo, too) for my birthday, which I moved to April this year.

Oldest son used to call these flowers "buttercup coppers," still my favorite name for them.

Second photo was taken by me two weeks later. Still blooming.







And this one over a month after that.










And this one a week later still...