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| Come into my house, Gretel! |
Fox and Grouse
by Donna Smith
“Oh, do come right in, come into my house!
We’ll have a great time,” Said fox to the grouse.
“No, thank you, dear fox,” grouse had to decline.
“I think I’ll go home, it’s ‘most time to dine.”
“Stay here for dinner; sojourn for a while!
I’ll make you dessert,” he said with a smile.
“I’ll not be dessert nor put into chowder!”
Groused grouse to old fox. “You crafty, foul fowler!”
I
had to post my Fox and Grouse poem that was on Think Kid, Think.
Partly because we are getting to the time when a couple of years ago in early April, we
were befriended by Gretel (though, now I believe it was Hansel really).
My
husband had gotten out his .22 to sight it in just in back of our house
in the woods, and as he was walking along in the damp, brown "leaved
overs" of fall covering the ground, carrying the rifle in one hand and
some targets in the other, up strutted a brown grouse. The Ruffed
Grouse followed him from the woods to our house. My husband called me
out to see what followed him home. She stayed close to his heels
wherever he went, and then I found that she would also follow me. She
was captivated by my flowing skirt.
From that day on, she was like
a pet, and we named her Gretel. She was very bold and wanted to come in the house, following us up the steps and
to the door. When we'd go in the house she would eventually leave, but
wouldn't stray too far. Later she discovered we had a sliding glass
door in the back (where someday we'll build a deck). It is a bit high
with no steps or deck yet, so she would sit on a fallen tree in the back
yard and watch me at the computer at the kitchen table. A couple of
times she flew up to the door and tried holding on the the bit of the
edge of the door, trying to balance there to get a better look into our
world. The cat was mesmerized on the other side of the glass.
It was a bit intimidating at times, as she'd ruffle her
feathers and stand tall and sometimes peck at your ankles...not too
hard...but aggressively at times. If you are my age, it would put you in mind of the Hitchcock
movie, "The Birds".
As my husband would walk around picking up sticks before mowing the lawn, she would often grab my husband's pant leg and
hold on as she got kind of dragged along. It didn't seem to faze her,
she'd hang on until she got tired of the game and then she'd let go and
run along beside him. And as he drove along on the riding mower, she'd run along behind him. If he was sitting on the rock in the front, she'd get on his lap. We tried to pat her, but that wasn't her thing. So we settled for being followed and having her get on our laps.
It was difficult to leave the house sometimes - well, all the time. It got so
that I'd try to run to the car if I needed to go somewhere. But she'd
appear out of
nowhere and hustle right up to your ankles, making it difficult to close
the car door safely. As the car would start to move, she'd circle it,
and somehow manage to avoid getting run over - we couldn't see her very
well as we backed up. Then she'd race off...no, it was more of a
waddle-run... behind the departing car. The faster she her short legs
moved, the farther out her wings would stretch until she was in flight.
Ruffed Grouse are really neither running, nor flying birds, but she'd
do both to stay close to us, ar least for a bit When the car got onto
the paved roadway at the end of our gravel driveway, she'd land and stop
to wait for our return. Well, we thought she waited anyway. We
learned later that if we weren't home, she had discovered that sometimes
our neighbor across the road was home doing some gardening in his yard
and visited him, too! When we returned though, she was right there to
greet us again. The FedEx man still asks about her.
It was such an amazing year. She stuck around
from the first of April until December. Late in the fall she sustained
an injury somehow and had a limp. Probably a fox in the area, as she
wasn't too afraid of our Golden Retriever. She probably got lured in
for dinner, but escaped that time.
She did not return in the
spring. I miss her low happy purr, her agitated humming. I still
expect her to appear out of the hemlock when I go outside. I miss
looking in my rearview mirror and seeing her flying after the car.
I hope someday one of her relatives comes to live here.
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| December - the last time we saw Gretel |
