THE LIFE AND TIMES OF US GRANT
KINFOLKS AT
THE DESERTED CABIN
My name is US Grant I’m a banana squash. When I first began to
understand crow language correctly, there was an incident that happened across
the street in a log house that sits on the rise just above the Weber River in
Weber County, Utah. The log house has
been empty ever since a neighbor, the original owner of the cabin, was on his
way to work, having recently been promoted and given a large salary to move out
of the Mormon scene to Chicago and the Irish Catholics, locked shut the door,
closed the curtains. It has a plank roof, above a dirt floor. Just one room, no
more, and zillions of big Red Army Ants inside and out. A handy tip to remember
is tuck in your pant legs, if they see you,
because they will immediately start
streaming across the room toward you. You’ll know trouble is afoot on many,
many feet. You know this partly because seconds after stepping into the room
you’ll likely see a raiding column of female ants on the hunt for prey. Trailing
behind are the males. Clearly this is not going to have a happy ending. Army
Ants are predatory, fast, numerous and they are living a purpose driven life.
The purpose being to kill. Within a few minutes they can kill hundreds of
termites.
On the Army Ants list one this particular day was
Soybean Aphids, another day chiggers, or maybe ticks most anything will do.
Protection against these ants is absolutely necessary or you end up a color
plate in the textbook of dermatology. At all hours you can step into a swarm of
the Red Army ants boiling out across the floor and even underneath the floor in
the Nazis style goose-step march. Gone, gone are a tomato horn worm, and a
large green caterpillar that if it hadn’t been eaten from the inside out, would
have grown up to be a Carolina Sphinx Moth.
In
the dour room of the cabin there is often to be seen a spotted Ant Bird staring
at the dirt floor. If you happen to be in the cabin, start
looking for the characteristic flitting and popping of the thrush-size ant bird,
listen for its vibrato peeee-ti peewee, because whenever there are big red army
ants out on a hunting raid, puckish Ant Birds are sure to follow across a
landscape. They have good camera binoculars eyes looking for insects their making
orphans thereafter never seen in church. Ant Birds skim off a percentage of the
Army Ant’s predatory labor by snatching up grasshoppers, beetles, and other
leftovers.
It’s the reversal of the commonly held notion
of parasites being little tacky things that plague little poorly dressed hosts.
Here the big vertebrates are being killed off by insects a fraction of their
size, and the parasitic strategy is so irresistible, that according to research
in the Bug Journal, the Spotted Ant Bird antics, may be soon recognized and is
voted into the Hall Of Fame.
Whereas, the spotted
bird has traditionally opted for a mixed approach, filching from ant swarms and
finding food on its own, it is increasingly dependent on army ants to scare up it’s
every meal. Man, this is really a weird gig; weirder still is the fact that the
gig isn’t even a live action movie.
Life in a gutter thrives in less than pristine
urban water, including the Hornworm, which is exactly what it sounds like. In the
entry way a horrifying number of parasitic wasp larvae, tiny translucent wormy things
can be seen tunneling through the skin of their host, aimated reality. No music
is necessary for all of this to ruin your lunch but the cheery Latin Brass and
Drum Rancheros music does somewhat enhance the pageantry of the parasitic Army
Ant infestation.
If you
stumbled upon this cabin site by mistake, of course, the availability of an
exterminator might be comforting. The Ace Exterminator Company does promise
same day service. You might want to pay a little extra to the exterminator to kill
the Armadillos. Armadillos transmit the pathogen Mycobacterium Leprous.
From the
beginning the cabin has had quirks, for instance, an outhouse, a three setter
with a mini hole for a child, and a knot hole in the center of the roof where
you could dangle a hand down in it and scare the heck out of guests.
Well, one fine
Sunday day morning I was out sun’ with Cry Baby in my yard with, named her
after my X. I was takin’ in the sun, looking at the beautiful orange colored
Wasatch Mountains, listening to the quakes rustling leaves, a few blue hazy
clouds hanging above the mountains, and thinking of my childhood home yonder in
Denver, when suddenly a crow by the name of Doug Allen came flying by out of the
blue. He lit on the roof of the cabin and says.
"I reckon
I've struck something."
As he spoke, a
walnut dropped out of his mouth and rolled down the roof, but he didn't seem to
care, his eyes were glued on the knot-hole in the middle of the roof. Soon, he
cocked his head to one side, shut one eye and put the other to the hole looking
like a cross-eyed raccoon peeking down a chimney. Then he glanced up with
bright eyes, gave a wink or two, gave his wings a little flutter which means
satisfaction in crow language. Then he says,
"It looks
like a knot-hole, it lies like a knot- it must be a knot hole."
Then he cocked
his head down and took another gander, and then he glances up, perfectly
joyful. He walks around the knot-hole three times to the left one eye on the
hole, then flapped his wings, glided down to the ground picked up the walnut
and hurried back , and dropped the walnut in. All of a sudden he was paralyzed
into a listening countenance, and the queerest look of surprise took his face.
"Why, I
didn't hear that walnut hit the floor."
He cocked his
eye again at the hole, and took another look while scratching the back of his
head with his right foot. Then he says,
"Well, it's
too much for me, that's for sure...must be a might long way down. However I
haven't got time to waste, I'll go fetch another walnut so as to see what's
what."
Again he dropped
a walnut in and tried to flirt his eye to the hole quick enough to see what
become of it, but once more he was too late. He held his eye there as much as
five minutes, then raised up and sighted at the sky again, and says,
"Darn, I don't seem to understand this
thing no how, but, I'll try her again. “
He fetched another walnut, and did his level
best to see what become of it, but he couldn't.
"Well I never seen a hole like this one,
must be a new kind."
About this time
his feelings began to get the best of him, and he broke loose cussing and stomp
‘in about on the rim of the roof. He finally settles down and near had control
of himself, and walks up to the hole peers in again for a minute or two.
“Why, I know how
to take care of this little problem. You're a long hole, a deep hole, a
singular hole all together. I've started in to fill you and I'll be dammed if I
don’t fill yu, if it takes a hundred years."
With that said,
away he went for more walnuts. You never seen a bird work like that. He laid
into it like an illegal Mexican with a family to support back home. He throwed
walnuts in that hole for four whole hours or more never stopped for lunch or
took a break. He'd just hove'em in and go for more.
At
last, he couldn't flop his wings. He was all tuckered out. He slid off the roof
on his back, exhausted, falling to the ground, sweating like a sun-burnt midget
in the out-back.
To top it
off he lit in a patch of medusa grass. It’s all over the place causing big
problems, getting terrible, crowding out native grasses and grazing land. Controlled
burning, and grazing during the annual weed’s early life helps slow its spread.
It stays on the ground for years posing a wildfire risk; it’s a losing battle
all over the West.
Doug
still sitting on a medusa head pad barely had enough strength to lean back
against the log house. Then he mumbles, "I'm going to need some
help."
Just then
another crow was going by, Stan Jacobson. He noticed Doug lying there half
conscious. Stan hurried a landing and asked if he needed a doctor. The suffered
told the whole circumstance.
"There
yonders the hole. If you don't believe me go look you yourself."
So Stan flew up
and took a look, then comes back and asks,
"How many
did you say you put in there, Doug?"
"Not less
than two ton."
Stan went and
looked again. He couldn't make it out either so he gave a few loud caws and
five or six crows came. They all stood around in a circle, while Doug told the
whole story. Then all the crows discussed it Roberts Rules of Order like, and each one got
off as many knuckleheaded inconsistent opinions as congressional incumbents do.
A motion on the floor to accept the majority vote was made by Bill Arnold, and
seconded by Glen Anderson. The majority vote decided to caw in more crows to
gather walnuts.
Soon the whole sky was black. There must have
been 10,000 crows brawling, jawin, disputin, cussin, and making my place a
poopy mess. For two whole days they dropped walnuts in the knot hole trying to
fill it, but had no success.
At last one old
wise crow by the name of John Stone started snooping around. The door was
standing a crack open caused by all those walnuts. As he happened to light on
the rusty door knob he took a look in. Of course, that solved the 64 dollar
question right then and there.
“Come here,”
John says, “Come here everybody."
They all come
swooping down, and as each lit around the door, they took a glance at the
half-filled room of walnuts and army ants. The whole absurdity hit home. John
fell over backward almost suffocating with laughter and the lady crow next to
him. There's no sense in saying a crow doesn’t have a sense of humor, or crows
aren't on an equal to squash, except they have feathers and don't go to church.
Two days
later, while everyone was still fun ‘in, down the street came a neighborhood
butter cup squash Nosey Mary who lives in Dirt City just a few blocks up the
road, as do other critters. Nosy Mary
took a look inside and said,
"This
isn't funny."
Bye and bye all the crows agreed, and one by
one flew back to Mountain Home or from whence they came.
To be continued…
DR.KARL WALLACE DDS
to read more Karl Wallace short stories go to:
karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
