Bender's Pond

Sprung, it has.

I spent my past weekend at the cabin working, among other things, on a commission piece for the National Eagle Center. The piece has been hard coming, but that's another show. I will write of it and post an audio file when I feel fully triumphant in the matter.

As for my little place in the woods, I am reminded of spring as the new shoots of green grass are poking foreheads skyward. Another week or so and the first mow of the season will seem logical. The bank behind the cabin is overgrown with lovely vinca minor...delicately in bloom right now with the tiniest of little violet-colored blossoms. Someone once called this periwinkle, and it's a name I very much favor. Nice name for a fiddle tune...or a pet goldfish.

My phoebe is back, making a mess of things on the west entrance landing. She and her mate have been coming back for nine years, or so it seems. I doubt a phoebe could actually last nine seasons in the wild, but every spring, the same nest gets remade with a face lift and the first of at least two clutches of flycatcher babies gets raised. I have oft wondered if the grown babes of previous phoebe generations have returned to carry on atop the familiar real estate.

Between musical notes, I resolved to give both the cabin and the outhouse a good spring cleaning. Riley is coming next weekend and we are entertaining some potential business contacts who might bring more work. Riley's going to show them the trout water whilst I unearth my most devious culinary skills in an attempt to impress them with good old Shady Grove hospitality.

(Sidebar: Alas, once again, I must enter the dark, sleazy world of food porn...my sinister alter-ego personality comes to the surface...another insecure little man trying find love and acceptance through bringing culinary orgasm to others. I mean, never mind what my mother did to make me feel this way, sometimes a bratwurst is just a bratwurst, Doc.)

But anyway... Boy!... The spring cleaning was surely needed. I really ripped everything apart and gave it the once over. Looks like a million bucks now.

Perhaps there is nothing more a reminder of spring for me than the gifts that waft across the valley from Bender's Pond. Dr. Bender lives up the valley a short distance. He and his wife have never been particularly gregarious, let alone friendly. I once formally invited them by hand delivered written invitation (along with all the surrounding neighbors in our three or four square mile neighborhood) to an old-time music party down in our little shady grove of trees, our camp down on the river. Live fiddle music, cold beer, grilled burgers and brats. They didn't come. No one else from the valley did either. Too bad, we had a great time.

Once, after a major flood, I loaded up a nice lawn chair that had washed downstream onto my property, and putted my lawn tractor and wagon up to Bender's to return it to them. That was the first time I was introduced to his wife, who said,

"Oh, you're the guy with that damn loud generator over there?"
"Well, yes, but we only used it to build the cabin," I responded. "It hasn't been run for three years."

Nothing like making a good first impression.

No matter. All oddities aside, I do like one very special thing about them...their pond. It isn't a natural body of water. It's something Bender wanted to hire made so he could watch wildlife out of his big, expensive picture window. I haven't a clue whether it required a DNR permit, what it cost, how long it took to make, or whether or not the two of them even enjoy it. All I know is that I certainly do, even though I can't see it from my own place.

But, in the nights of early and mid April, the peepers come alive in a breeding frenzy, and I am reminded that my little place in the country is once again in the rush of spring. Because of Bender's pond, ducks and geese frequently fly over my space, singing their own familiar songs. The music of Bender's pond is as much a part of my own property as anything else. It's the sound of what's up valley and just out of my sight...but not beyond the ear.

I've written songs about my cabin and the peepers, although none mention Bender's Pond. My favorite begins by telling the listener that every year it's the peepers that remind me of spring. I make a lot of music on my cabin porch and at the kitchen table there, but none of it sounds like the music up the valley on that little, pitiful, shallow pool of fishless water.

I have posted this video before, but I feel that it is most relevant at this
time of year, when the peepers are at their finest:

The Wheel Comes Around

Recaps And Late Tales

With all the distraction this past week or so...the saga of my daughter's friend, getting ready for my concert this Friday, finding time for Merle's well being and good health...there is much that I have simply neglected to blog about.

Last weekend at the cabin was the very end of March and it was snowing when I got there on Saturday. It snowed lightly through the night and there was a good inch of heavy white stuff in the morning, which thawed with a cacophonous, dripping racket once the sun emerged. The view from the cabin porch was transformed from white back to brown by 10:00 AM. It was pretty cool.

I really went through the upcoming set list for my concert with a fine tooth comb, practicing all the tunes and even coming close to blowing out my voice by Sunday afternoon. I nearly sang myself hoarse. Gary Powell dropped by on Sunday evening on his way back from south Wisconsin to St. Paul. We visited and he spent the night and made his way home in the morning. We didn't talk much politics. Good idea. I'm not too awful hot on the congress these days...and despite having given him the benefit of the doubt, I'm not feeling too crazy about the guy he voted for either. But, Gary and I seem to have found a way to keep politics out of our time together, for the most part. We sort of agree to disagree, and don't let conversations get too heated. He thinks my perpective in naive; I think his perspective is naive; and we respect each other's right to be as naive as we want to. It's kind of a beautiful thing.

I have again discovered that love can be a large can of Alpo. The cabin is always a treat for me, so I thought it appropriate for it to also be a treat for Merle in as many ways possible. Why feed him dry when I can use the opportunity to spoil him with canned? It's just once and a while, you know, and I certainly make him earn it with calm, submissive patience. It's a very joyful thing to see his eyes when he knows that pile of stuff is coming his way.

He's pretty amazing. The other day on the walk, he dropped over the bank to get a little drink of the spring as I was hearing the sound of ducks. Ahead of him in a small hole sat two pair of domestic mallards. He didn't see them for a time, but he eventually heard and then visually noticed them. His ears perked up and he froze. I said nothing. He slowly, curiously inched forward toward them, nose in the air, trying to get a sniff. The ducks had no fear of him at all and he wasn't projecting any kind of threatening energy, so they allowed him to get within just a few feet of them. Once he had his fill of how they smelled and looked, he just calmly turned around and left them there, coming to me with an invitation to play some more. Gentle soul.

Matter of fact, I have only heard him make something of a growl once. It was later at night when I had let him out for a last pee. I was on the deck in the dark and suddenly heard the tiniest growl. I walked toward him saying "Merle, what in the world?" And there, in the neighbor's yard about twenty feet from him stood a big doe, frozen, her ears at full mast. She took a snort of his smell and bounded of, and Merle, well, he just watched her bobbing of out of sight and then went to the business of taking his last pee of the day. Prey drive? What's that?

Speaking of wildlife, we all saw a big black bear on the way both to and from LaCrosse last week. Pretty rare, and the first one I've ever seen locally, despite the occasional report of a sighting. This big guy was rooting around in a cornfield, and cars were parked all up and down the highway, people gawking and taking pictures, as I was on the way into LaCrosse to teach music. Three hours later coming home, same bear, same spot, different gawkers. People say he was back the next day, too. Amazing.

That's about it for the recap. I have to go feed the birds now. C'mon Merle, wanna go outside?