All before the coffee

I was greeted this morning by a tremendous ruckus in the garden. Wings flapped and raucous voices squawked at each other. Fia, who I was letting out to do pipi down in the bottom garden, took off like a shot. I heard wings beat harder and looked in the direction of the noise, somewhere down by the (completely empty!!! Argh!!) pool, and not far from the tulip and birch trees, in time to see a massive feathered body with long, long wings rise nearly vertically into the air and settle on a high branch of the birch. A pheasant. 

I stood stock still and thought about the wonder of a pheasant choosing to visit our garden. 

It is behind walls, along a cultivated field and trees by the Seine. The local hunters release birds, like pheasants, grouse and partridges into these fields to hunt. I have become more familiar with these birds from my long rides with Fibs along the fields and bosquets near where I board him with a grain farmer. Their specialty is taking fright as easily as my Thoroughbred, and suddenly flapping up a storm in the  wheat, the barley or the cornstalks just by his feet, where they go unseen until they lift up in a burst of flapping wings and scare the life out of him. 

It’s always fun.

And, now, here, in my garden, on our enclosed property, a pheasant had just nearly done the same to me. Fia ran about, the usual aviary residents were taking off in all directions, including a second pheasant, also rising nearly vertically to make his escape over the garden wall. I looked back at the one perched in our tree and noted a large nest just above the pheasant, where the turtle doves have been busy without my noticing them. Another sign that I have been neglecting everything that usually occupies me. 

Yesterday, I had a clear sign of that neglect when I opened my box of grooming brushes. It was a mess in the box. I knew the “booboo” cream has leaked all over the toothbrush I use for — I forget what now (see???), but the hair from the end of his tail that I had trimmed and bound with a rubber band was all picked apart. 

I did not do that. I absolutely definitely did not do that. I picked off a bit and threw it into the wet hay at our feet, noting it was kind of less clean and had to have rained hard there. I absent-mindedly opened the little compartment near the tail hair, and there was a nest. It was unmistakably a nest, beautifully rounded, and made of the rest of the tail hair, bits of chewed off plastic (the same color as the surgical gloves in their box I also keep in that box, but I didn’t verify), some white fluff from one of the greys and a little hay.

I felt like shit.

I had been absent long enough for some mammal to locate my grooming box, manage to get into it (how?!?!) and determine that it was the perfect place to nest. As if the damp and pitiful state of the curry glove, the sheepskin glove and the brushes weren’t enough. 

See? I brought it home to clean. 

I looked back at the pheasant and realized that I needed a photo. I ran to the house, Fia in pursuit -- we were going to DO something! No --, grabbed my iPhone, and returned. The branch was empty. 

On my way back inside to return to feeling a bit depressed in the let-down from my months of work on the house plans (waiting is the worst), I stopped to take more photos that I don’t need of a couple bright orange-pinkish red Christopher Marley blooms that had opened, the verbena in the angel hair grass, a bee in the lacey, daisy-like flowers that bloom in the autumn like the lilies in the the fish pond, where I disturbed a frog where he had been sitting in the yellowing reeds and grasses, hearing his plop into the water, and I thought about how smart these pheasants were, to find a place where they could be safe from my neighbors with rifles and a license to kill. I have no problem with that, really. They eat what they shoot, and there is much worse in the world. 

But, when I miss a photo, it bothers me. I needed to find the pheasants. They don’t travel, to my knowledge, based on my intimate, but still pretty limited, observations, very far. Also, I can deduce that in releasing birds, for which you have paid good money, the hunters have a reasonable expectation of finding them nearby when they go out with their rifles. 

I opened the gate, neatly avoided a dog poo (someone lets their dog crap right in front of that gate, and it’s very annoying), and saw the chestnut horse in the pasture look up at me, surprised by my emergence. 

“Hi,” I called out, raising my arm in greeting, as if he couldn't hear me and need help understanding that I was addressing him, “It’s me.”

He returned my gaze. Friendly, but not very impressed with me and — there was a slight, very rapid — nervous even? — movement in the grass between us, not far from where I stood. Something was trying to hide. It was a roundish thing, deep chestnut. The pheasant’s head? I trained my phone on it, and BOOM!!! An explosion of feathers and wings and he flew off over the field. I hit the button that is not a button as fast as I could, hoping for one decent photo.

They really are such beautiful birds. I am not even sure they have a reputation as such. Kind of like how I think people think of turkeys. Food. 

Turning back to the gate with my photo of a pheasant in flight over a field of canola flowers, the petite maison caught my eye. 

God, it’s really, really narrow. How can something SO petite be worth the investment of rebuilding?

Those are the forbidden thoughts. It exists. It was useful. It will be rebuilt. 

By the way, I remembered how to ride, and for all his doing nothing, he held himself up pretty well. I hated myself even more when I saw him, with a noticeably reduced top line. He cut his turns on the right reign and needed help, but he was born that way. I’ll do what I can.

I don't know which is worse, the heat pump unit or the embarrassing overgrowth. I can camouflage the heat pump. The stuff never stops growing.  

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