The female cat was sleeping next to me on the couch, as I watched a movie. Sleeping, I thought: suddenly she sat bolt upright, stared out the window, and started that guttural growling of hers.
I know better by now than to doubt that growl. I put my head down next to hers and followed her gaze. Nothing.
“So what’s up, Minstrel?” We sat unmoving for half a minute, intermittent low noises of disapproval from my little companion.
“What are you growling at… ?” Then, a small movement in the grasses up the hill. Then a slowly emerging head. (Unpoken thoughts written in italics:) That’s too low for a bear. That’s too small for a bear. (How the hell did you notice that, Minstrel?) That’s too big for an opossum. That’s…
It lumbered like a bear. Not too hasty; a spiny little fellow; apparently unconcerned for its safety (unconcerned about most anything, for that matter, as I loudly “snuck” out of the house in an attempt to capture him on “film”, using what precious little was left of daylight). The movement was no better than a waddle, really, and the large porcupine that inhabited it waddled — yes, like a duck — along the top stones of my herb-garden wall.
[aside: what IS the cast of characters up here, anyway? they seem to be calling in new extras every few days… or maybe I am the extra…?]
~
I’ve seen porcupines before. Sometimes in trees, some time ago in the Wisconsin woods where my parents kept a cabin; twice as a handful of leftover quills in the Brazilian nose of my German Shepherd (twice, dog? you needed to sniff again just to make sure?). So Master Porcupine wasn’t too surprising in himself. What was surprising, however, and then humorous, was the lazy trajectory of this local ball of quills.
He tired of the herb-garden wall, then slooowly made his way up the hill, slooowly past the Catalpa which isn’t quite ready to bloom, slooowly nuzzled his way up to the Wisteria and chewed on a few leaves… then he aaambled across the short avenue of grass between that old Wisteria bush and: MY COMPOST PILE! And rooted around for a moment, found something small to nibble, then continued on his lugubrious way into the tall grass and the night.
Well! It just might be that my compost is a bear feeding bowl; and then again it just might not.
The plot thickens! And the butler may have done it, after all…
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