PICAYUNE —
It was a chunk-floater, the first good rain in months, and it went on for most of three days. The low spots filled after the “moisture had met,” the runoff went to the ditches, which went to the deeper ditches, which ran off into the canals and creeks, which drained into the quickly-deepening rivers of the Delta. Johnny Cash used to have a song that went “How high’s the water, Papa? Three feet high and rising.” That always comes to mind when it rains like this.
I was headed out for the office in town, when I glimpsed movement beyond the front door. There’s a stray cat who’s been tracking up the car hoods at night, and I thought that’s what I saw out front fixing to come up on the porch, so I headed back to the den for the shotgun – only cure I know for car-walking strays.
But when I tiptoed up to the front door to snatch it open, I peeped around to get the exact position of said feline, but it wasn’t a cat — it was a mink! And it had two bedraggled kits in tow — obviously flood refugees from a now-submerged den.
We are no strangers to visiting mink, otters, coons, possums, skunks, and other common night critters out here at Brownspur, and praise the Lord for it. I leaned against the door and watched Mama Mink clean her kids up, then lead them off toward the persimmon thicket across the driveway, where I hoped they’d end up finding another close, but higher, den.
We never had a baby mink for the kids to raise, but we’ve had numerous coons, possums, screech owls, great horned owls, barred owls, a barn owl, shrews, flying squirrels, a migrant grey squirrel from NC, wood ducks, pintails, a one-winged-from-birth dove named “Nub” after our Ole Miss football manager, even a spreading adder named George, in addition to all the beagle and Labrador puppies, plus a few kittens. My own mother never permitted wild pets, so I have hoped that my own kids fully appreciated a mother like Betsy, whose standard reply was, “Sure,” to every little thing they’d bring in, with the exception of baby skunks. What a treasured childhood, to grow up learning about wild things from the wild things themselves!
Sometimes the wild things are a little large for pethood: deer stroll by on an occasional basis and water at the Swimming Hole; packs of coyotes can be heard hunting up and down the Mammy Grudge once or twice a week; bobcats stroll along the ditchbanks alert for an easy lunch or perhaps to join the crowd of smaller critters when the Brownspur Fruit Buffet is serving; we learned by hard experience that a six-foot eight-inch chicken snake is too large to keep around the house. But the most recent awe-inspiring outbreak was just a couple of weeks ago.
I’ve had malaria a couple of times in my life, with its accompanying shakes, chills, fever, night sweats, and bone-crushing aches, and something like that has come back recently. Therefore I was up about 2:00 a.m. one Saturday night when I heard the most terrifying scream. I have four neighbor ladies here at Brownspur within a quarter-mile of my home, and I briefly had time to wonder which husband had just fatally whacked his bride, when the scream was answered by a chorus of wolf howls, from the same location, which seemed to be across the Mammy Grudge ditchbank, less than 100-150 yards from the bathroom window.
We’ve for decades had a den of “Our” red wolves within a half-mile or so, and it’s been a pleasure to sit on the balcony and listen to their howls. But these were not the high-pitched red-wolf howls, nor the sharp-tongued yapping of coyotes – these were obviously the deep-throated howls of heavy-chested canines like gray, or timber, wolves, which we’ve also had around for decades, one black lightning-fast wolf for 25 years, or his progeny. The whole late-night cacophony didn’t last more than 30 seconds, and all I could figure was a panther was headed east on the Mammy Grudge and met up with a band of big wolves, headed west.
I don’t think you hear stuff like this in town! Want to buy my house?
Columns
Minks on porch spark memories
- Columns
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Hood’s ‘open carry’ ruling strikes important balances
Attorney General Jim Hood’s office issued an opinion this week that went a long way toward establishing some order and applying some common sense to what has become a contentious and confusing debate both for proponents and opponents of free exercise of the Second Amendment.
House Bill 2, which becomes law July 1, was authored and led to passage by state Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton. Gipson has told the press that he believed the legislation was necessary to clearly define what a concealed weapon is under the law and to distinguish between “concealed carry” and “open carry” rights. But many law enforcement officers charged with enforcing the state’s “concealed carry” law and other contradictory statutes, the bill created some confusion and Hood’s AG opinion brought some clarity to the ongoing debate. -
The Loss of Trust
Amid all the heated cross-currents of debate about the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program, there is a growing distrust of the Obama administration that makes weighing the costs and benefits of the NSA program itself hard to assess. The belated recognition of this administration’s contempt for the truth, for the American people and for the Constitution of the United States, has been long overdue.
- Vocability Words can be both familiar and extremely confusing when taken from their usual context. Ask any wine enthusiast about legs, fat or bricks and they may assume you are speaking “Vinonese.” Ok — I made that word up; but the language of wine does indeed include legs, fat and brix which have entirely different meanings from what you might assume. Working with definitions from http://www.wineschool.com/vocabulary.html, try your basic knowledge of “Vinonese.”
- Vocability Words can set a tone for a situation, alter someone’s perception of an individual or group — in short, there is power in them. The Bible cautions, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue...” — Proverbs in 18:21, ASB. With that in mind, I will be focusing on words, some recently used and some obscure, to test the readers and build on what you already know. There will be theme weeks, for instance next week will focus on words involving wine — for no particular reason! So try your vocabulary skills with the following and see how you score. I’m always open to suggestions for material.
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A hard rain is gonna fall...
By Kathryn Jean Lopez/Syndicated columnist
After disappearing during his term in office and bringing scandal to his family and state, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is going to Washington, having won election to Congress. And that’s far from the worst story reflecting the current character of our nation.
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Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
I haven’t seen the Ladies’ Home Journal in about a million years, except maybe in the dentist’s office when I was trying to avoid a television permanently set on Fox News.
Somebody’s grandchild was selling magazines for a school project, and Ladies’ Home Journal was the only one on the list I recognized. Now it comes to the house.
Let’s just say: It’s not my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal. This month, right behind a feature called “A Country of People Who Never Stop Eating” is one called “Nice Girls Do Get Tattoos.” -
Health care market needs oversight
By Gene Lyons/Syndicated columnist
Sometimes the best journalism explains what’s right under our noses. In Steven Brill’s exhaustive Time magazine cover article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” it’s the staggeringly expensive, grotesquely inefficient and inhumane way Americans pay for medical care.
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VA’s appalling failures not recent
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
While recent national press attention to ongoing problems at Mississippi’s G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Administration Medical Center in Jackson is welcome and needed, the failures of the overall VA service apparatus in Mississippi are not recent problems.
In short, former U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery — Mississippi’s “Mr. Veteran” and author of the modern G.I. Bill that bears his name — must be spinning in his grave. There have been significant failures and poor service to veterans documented by state and local media since 2008. -
Dolley Madison politically savvy
By Cokie and Steven V. Roberts/Syndicated columnists
When Dolley Payne Madison became first lady in 1809, she instituted Wednesday evening gatherings at the White House where political rivals could meet and talk. They were called “squeezes” because so many people showed up and crowded the room. As Cokie wrote in her book “Ladies of Liberty": “All were welcome as long as they were appropriately dressed. And all went — skipping a Wednesday night might mean missing a vital piece of political information or being left out of a crucial deal.”
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Mississippi isn’t immune from national college tuition trends
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
Higher education in Mississippi has not been immune from national trends cited in a recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report which concludes that over the last five years, the global economic downturn and a “no new taxes” political climate have increasingly shifted the burden of higher education finance to students and parents at a time when enrollment is increasing and the percentage of state support is decreasing. - More Columns Headlines
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Hood’s ‘open carry’ ruling strikes important balances
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