EDMONTON EXISTENTIAL

Nature’s (Un)Domesticated Ways

Ann and I are those types of people: weather permitting, we leave our yard in the fall pretty close to the state we wish to find it in the spring; a few hours of work in October pays off five months down the road in April or May. Once the snow melted this spring we were horrified by the condition of our back lawn. The turf was riven with vole veins, cat yarn trails of grass consumption.

Every Wednesday I collect our recycling and trash for Thursday morning pick up. I place a blue bag and a black bin in the alley. Something brown and silent glided between my feet last week. I screamed at the infestation hallucination. 

The Crooked 9’s north side is a shaded, Shakespearian strip of private property which denotes the demarcation between two warring households. Neighbours, eh? It’s no small hardship, my being a white baby boomer cisgender smoker. Our DMZ is not fenced. Years ago I uncovered a platoon of toy soldiers in the sandy soil up against the Crooked 9’s foundation. I position them every spring and point their weapons in a particular direction. Their field of fire ranges over groundcover, moss, an askew and uneven footpath of cement patio tiles and thistle.

A couple of old washtubs are stacked upside down. Sometimes Ann uses them as planters; sometimes they hold ice and beer. There’s a blue and red, spoke-wheeled cart that Ann’s father flung together from spare parts many summers ago. Its plywood panels are showing the indifferent care of time. Beside it is an upended wheelbarrow, its tire is inflated but the barrow itself could use a fresh spray of rust-proofing paint; we’ve been meaning to get around to that chore.

The woodpile has been a curious constant. The wind never seems right for a backyard burn. And anyway, throughout these years of drought, the annual fire ban is akin to daylight savings time, implemented sooner and left to linger longer. Fussing about on the north side recently I noticed a gnawed pile of sawdust in front of the pile’s right side anchor log, an un-split cylinder of birch. Its angle of repose forms a perfect pyramid. Something brown and silent glided between my feet.

It’s been two years since our eccentric south side neighbour, Forest, a self-described “lapsed Buddhist,” sold his property which included an elaborate and strikingly beautiful Japanese meditation garden. While his mind actively searched to identify the universal and cosmic Christ figure, time and disease had ravaged his body. He came to realize and accept that his solitary and unassisted living was hazardous to what was left of his health. The buyer was a hobby developer, a retired fireman who lives a couple of streets over, near the bus roundabout and the elementary school. The subsequent demolition for Forest’s former lot’s ensuing sub-division was, for Ann and me, heartbreak, noise and dust.

Population density, progress, comes with a price and without a warranty. The hurt for us was a suddenly homeless pileated woodpecker kak-kak-kakking at the destruction beneath from atop a telephone pole, the churned earth and the mud, the trees and shrubbery torn up. An entire habitat, Forest’s mini-ecosystem, had been destroyed. With every action or transaction there is always a hidden cost. Rodents migrated next door because our property’s prowling predators, littermates, have both slipped their ninth mortal coil. Their archenemies, a dairy cow patterned bruiser and a sleeker marmalade model, have also vanished - lost patrols. And doesn’t nature abhor a vacuum?

I do, do, do spend an inordinate amount of time looking out our back door. Of late, I’ve been gratified to observe a new player in our ever-evolving tableau. A smoky grey tabby from I have no idea where seems to have annexed the Crooked 9 to its territory. I watch it make its morning rounds. It does a full circuit but seems to prefer our somewhat neglected north side. It is stealthy; it never sets off the insane neighbour’s mangy Burmese-poodle cross who always barks at me. There’s good eating at the woodpile buffet, good hunting with no competition. Even the local squirrels have made themselves scarce.

Go, cat, go: Ann and I are perfectly fine with rodent carnage on our lot, the crows and the magpies too. And should you need to vomit or piss, may we suggest the lovely commode next door? 

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of back door musings since 2013. My novella Of Course You Did is coming soon. Don’t miss out on the literary sensation of 2021. Bookmark this blog for breathless updates.