I once owned a cat that was obsessed with acorns.
The beast in question was my late and much-loved Siren Stumptail. I've written about her her love of fresh fruit elsewhere in these diaries, but there was so much more to her than an appetite for strawberries and bananas (and blueberries, and grapes, and kiwi, and raspberries, and.....).
Much of this was the ordinary life of the domestic house-puss. Siren was a fine huntress who loved to kill them little mousies (and moths, and cat toys). She slept a lot, either on my bed, my leg, or sometimes my head. She picked fights with Malfoy-the-cat (who gave as good as he got) and Arrow (who held her head to the floor until she behaved). Naturally she begged for food (fish was a favorite, although she would beg for any and everything, including maple syrup). She even engaged in the traditional feline sport of "roll around batting at a ball of yarn to annoy/amuse the hairless apes" more than once.
For all this very typical behavior, though, Siren had her moments. Leaving aside her lifelong tendency to stuff herself on vegetation of divers types, Siren also engaged in the following less than normal behavior:
- She drank my bath water, usually while I was using it, and kept doing it even after she lost her balance and fell in one day.
- She attempted to seduce Beata's husband Hot Toddy during her one and only heat.
- She crawled under a claw footed bathtub while the tub was in use, with only her tail sticking out, and purred so loudly it was like taking a dip in a Jacuzzi.
- She climbed a doorframe and almost got to the ceiling before someone noticed and stopped her.
- She trashed the fur trim on the hood of my parka, made a nest in a quilt batt, and went completely berserk over fine wools.
- She yowled like she was possessed in an attempt to force Roomie into giving her collard greens (Roomie, who's from an African-American family with deep roots in Alabama, shook her finger at Siren and replied, "No, cat, you're not getting my soul food," much to Siren's disappointment).
- She once ate a daffodil, complete with a little “mraow?” and a side-eye when I noticed and said “If you get sick it’s your own fault, cat” (note: she was fine).
Some of these fall on the normal spectrum of feline behavior, no doubt; Gil the Wonder Cat also likes to drink the bath water (and the toilet water, and from the kitchen tap, and ....) But collard greens? Strawberries? Making a blatant and most lascivious pass at a human male?
Can we say "weird," boys and girls? Can we?
For all of the above, however, Siren's most unusual moment may well have been her obsession with acorns.
It was the fall of 1997 when the noisiest cat in Easthampton, Massachusetts, developed a fixation with oak tree embryos, soon after Wingding and I had just moved to the Last Homely Shack East of the Manhan after several years in a deteriorating urban neighborhood in Springfield. Our somewhat decayed Victorian, Ranney Manor, had its charms - listening to a local preacher whooping and shouting to his congregation a block over was always entertaining, even if we couldn't necessarily make out what The Reverend was on about this week - but after the third burglary we basically gave up. Easthampton is much less diverse, and having a garage band on the next block over instead of a home church is pretty cliched, but at least we could sleep at night as we adjusted to life in the suburbs instead of the decaying city core.
The Shack itself could not have been more different from Ranney Manor. It was a relatively new split level ranch with a two car garage, a half-acre lot, and a finished basement with a full bath. The bedrooms were on the small side, and the kitchen boasted that horrid dark "Mediterranean" woodwork so beloved of 1970's contractors, but the house itself was clean, in good repair, and in a safe, quiet neighborhood.
It also had something we hadn't expected: a deck off the dining room, with a big sliding glass door that gives a fine view of the backyard.
As you see from the above, the setting is impressively woodsy. There are plenty of trees: white pines, cedars, sugar maples, several oaks of divers types, and a huge, mature hemlock. All of this can be seen from the deck, which is a most pleasant place to have a morning cup of tea or observe a meteor shower on a clear dark night.
It's also a great place to feel the delicate plop of an acorn onto one's cranium thanks to the pin oak tree that overhangs the left side of the deck.
The pin oak, which is nearly as large as the hemlock, is a most fertile tree, at least if one judges by the astonishing quantity of acorns that it bestows each fall upon the deck, the yard, and the human occupants of the deck. There are enough that if I had a mind, I could probably gather enough to construct clever little acorn people for sale at church craft shows, bake a loaf or two or bread, or possibly even fatten a living piece of future bacon (note: this last is not happening thanks to local zoning laws). They drop to the deck without warning, hit the silvery wood, and trip merrily across the boards with a little tock...tock tock tock tock that's become as familiar to me as the spring peepers every April, the coyotes yowling in the next town over on hot summer nights, or the sound of the snowplows leaving miniature glaciers at the bottom of the driveway every winter.
That first fall was a bit different. Our old lot at Ranney Manor hadn't had any trees at all, let alone acorns, and of course there wasn't a deck. There was a long, low radiator in the living room where the cats used to nap, but gazing out at the illegal mechanic's shop our neighbor was running out of his garage wasn't quite the same as observing Beautiful New England up close and personal. Every once in a while I'd have to pinch myself to remind myself that this gorgeous view was real, and that we actually owned it.
So, it seemed, did at least one of the cats.
Arwen, Wingding's prickly but beautiful longhair, preferred being near him at all times. Arrow, my sweet, plushy brown tiger, would sleep in whatever sunbeam he could find. But Siren, elegant, talkative, big-voiced Siren, preferred the area next to the slider, where she had a great view of the backyard, the squirrels, the leaves drifting through the air -
And the acorns going tock...tock tock tock across the deck.
She would sit there for hours on end, ears pricked alertly, face rapt as she watched one acorn after another detach itself from the pin oak, fall through the air, and tumble across the two by fours. Once or twice I caught her curled up asleep, baking in the golden sunlight of autumn, but most of the time she would be awake, attention focused solely on the tree's bounty. Food, catnip, cuddles, even wool or toy mice or strawberries, was as nothing to her. All that mattered was her very intense, and very personal, research, into the dynamics of falling nuts.
We were amused, and bemused, by this obsession. Siren was not usually a creature of habit (unlike Arrow, who had a fine little case of obsessive-compulsive syndrome) so we weren't exactly prepared for her new hobby. And it wasn't exactly as if Siren only did this once of twice. Oh no. She did it day after day for several weeks, or approximately until the pin oak stopped shedding acorns.
Poor Siren was very disappointed when that finally happened...at least until it started to snow, and she could sit for hours watching the flakes drift down from the sky onto the deck.....
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My dear little Siren may have been unique in her fixation on acorns, but she was scarcely the only member of the household to love the season called "autumn." It's probably my favorite time of the year, and the combination of clear days, cold nights, and brilliant foliage is a major reason why I love New England so much. A hot cup of tea, a good book, a comfy sweater, and bracing air so clean and fresh it's better than wine - these are some of the many, many things I love about October and November.
Alas, I cannot share these delights with you personally unless you're willing to travel to the Pioneer Valley, but I can tell you about some of my favorite fall things. This is why tonight I do not bring you books, but instead a quartet of seasonal, regional delights:
Foliage - yes, I know that other areas have deciduous trees that turn pretty colors in the fall. Yes, I know that Vermont is particularly blessed in sugar maples and other species that look quite spectacular in September and October. Yes, I know that a lot of those "Beautiful New England" calendars offered for sale at fine rest stops and tourist traps have been digitally enhanced to look just a teensy bit brighter and more colorful than reality. Yes, I know that tourists (especially from a state little to the south of us with the initials N__ Y___) who show up to stare at the pretty pretty trees can be incredibly annoying, especially when they drive at a brisk 15 mph on the self-same road I use to get to work.
I know all that. I really do. But come on. I live about a mile from this glorious sight. How can I possibly not revel in its beauty?
Quilt Shop Hop- for those who haven't been on a quilt shop hop, these mini-festivals are designed to get customers to travel from shop to shop in a particular geographic area. There's food, door prizes, fabric specials, and plenty of fun, plus you get to see the fabrics, notions, patterns, and classes that the individuals shops offer in one grand, glorious, orgy of travel. I first went on the Massachusetts version a few years ago with Beata and her husband Hot Toddy, and have tried to go for at least part of it every year since.
There are some excellent shops on this year's hop, including a couple of wonderful establishments in the Berkshires and a terrific store in central Massachusetts where the owner's husband dresses up in a doorman's uniform and greets every visitor in fine style. My favorite, though, is the Charlton Sewing Center, a converted Methodist church:
Atkins Farms Cider Doughnuts - Atkins Farms Country Market, formerly Atkins Fruit Bowl, is a local institution. Owned by a family that planted its first apple orchard in 1887, Atkins is now a gourmet food store, ice cream stand, deli, bakery, and purveyor fine quality comestibles for most of the Five College Area. They bake their pies and cakes (and bread, and cookies, and scones, and everything else) from scratch using only the best quality ingredients, and their fruit, meat, and dairy products are as good as you'll get anywhere.
Best of all are their cider doughnuts. Made from a blend of the dozen or apple varieties that Atkins grows in their own orchards, these doughnuts are light, sweet, and so delicious that they've been written up in (among others) Yankee, Saveur, People, and even the New York Times. The Times even dubbed them the best cider doughnuts in America, and though I can't share them with you personally, take a squint at these beauties and just imagine taking a taste:
Fiber Festival of New England - this enormous, tempting, oh-so-warm and cuddly celebration of sheep, wool, alpaca, knitting, weaving, and spinning is relatively new, but it's now firmly fixed on my yearly calendar. Fine yarns in fibers and weights to delight any knitter, many hand-dyed...patterns galore...roving that just cries out to be spun by clever fingers...books...felting supplies...lamb burgers and lamb sausage...even when I've had almost no extra cash I've gone, petted the pretty yarn, and come away richer in spirit for the beauty I've seen.
This year I may be demoing for the SCA rather than shopping, but be assured, I won't be skipping this one. How could I possibly miss out on the opportunity to see pretties like this:
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What are the autumnal joys of your area? Book sales? Church suppers? Concerts? Harvest festivals? Halloween costumes? I've shared mine, so take up the talking stick and share.....