Hummingbirds in November

When they dug the hole to repair the sewer pipe early this month, we had to uproot three of the winter-flowering jasmine that grace the stairwell railing by the back door.  They'll be replanted, but meanwhile, one remains in full health, and full bloom.

The jasmine's yellow blossoms brighten a drab corner of the yard, the only cheering color in these wet, mid-November days.  This morning I saw another flash of color--a brilliant, green hummingbird feeding at the jasmine. 

In the 46 years we've lived here, I'd never before seen a hummingbird there.  As I posted earlier, one was feeding at the scarlet crocosmia that I was painting in August.   And the feeder I'd filled day-before-yesterday near the kitchen window already is down an inch, a sign there's been hummer activity there. 

We've put the ashes of two of our late dogs--Sebastian and Mozart--beneath the daffodils planted in our sidewalk gardens out front.  I'm certain their spirits inhabit the spring blooms that bring cheer to our passing neighbors.

Not to seem macabre, but the blooming jasmine is right next to the grave of Maggie, the sailor dog I wrote about last week.  I wonder--are some of Maggie's no-longer-needed molecules feeding that hummingbird through the jasmine's roots and blossoms?

Re-planting Maggie . . .

Maggie the Sailor Dog, veteran of North Sea storms and winter Pacific crossings, was laid to rest in our back yard for the second time this afternoon.

Maggie died of congestive heart failure and old aqe two years ago last July.  We buried her corporal remains beneath the jasmine near the back door, marking her grave with her luminescent collar on the stairwell railing overhead, and her battered orange chase-ball atop the soil.  I carry her spirit with me, so it is convenient to greet her each morning as I return from hoisting the American flag out by the garage.

Her sleep was interrupted a week or so ago when I returned from a hospital stay, where I had gone to free up a gastrointestinal blockage, to find our house's sewer line also blocked, some celestial irony.  The plumber needed to dig a car-size hole to install an impervious liner in the pipe to the alley, and when the glacial sand sluffed from the side of the hole, it carried Maggie's bones with it.  Recovery was swift--the Bobcat operator lowered his bucket deep into the hole with a gentle touch.  We hoisted Maggie's bones into my wheelbarrow and covered her with some fabric from the dregs of the garage.  There she lay for a week.  This afternoon I re-dug her resting place, and lay her bones in it.  Her collar once more marks her grave;  the orange ball is back atop the soil that shields her from this changing world.

Goodbye, Maggie, for today.  Resume your sleep.  And tomorrow, I'll say hello again.

Farewell, Shipmate
by John Lane

Posted on Facebook on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 7:13pm

In dog years, she had her measure of three score and ten. Maggie, circumnavigating sailor dog, ended her journey today.

I met Maggie on my first blue water voyage. I had turned my back (I thought) on cold Bering waters, and I was headed to Africa on a steamship older than me, taking food to the hungry. I rode the train to meet the ship. Maggie went, too. She was a shelter dog from Iowa, just a pup, escaping the likely fate of shelter dogs aboard a corporate jet that delivered her to the ship, which was loading grain on the Columbia river. For years she would have steel decks under her feet, and live in the company of sailors. Our first trip was in the fall of the fateful year when the world changed, and the image of falling buildings would be etched into memory forever.

She roamed the deck of the 900-foot ship, keeping an eye on the deck hands, sometimes borrowing a glove left carelessly in reach. At night she would sleep in a stateroom, or on the bridge, as the mood would take her. One of the mates finally wrapped her collar in reflective tape, because it is hard to see a sleeping black dog on the darkened bridge of a ship in the middle of the ocean, and no dog likes to be stepped on in her sleep.

She had the run of the house. I remember sitting with her watching TV while the ship was wallowing in swells. Maggie would jump on the couch, and drop her ball. As the ship rolled, the ball would roll away. She would watch it, then leap down to catch it, and climb back onto the couch to start over again. Not every dog knows how to play fetch by herself.

Maggie traveled across the Pacific, north of the Aleutian Islands into the Bering, through the Sea of Japan, the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, the Mediteranean, the Atlantic, the Carribean, up the Mississippi River to New Orleans, all before New Year's Eve. Before her sailing days were over, she would go through the Panama Canal, visit the Philipines, Singapore, Yemen, and both Koreas. She was a terror to North Korean officials, little men in big hats afraid of a black dog.

After a few years, there was no work for the ship. The order came from the head office to tie it up and leave it sitting empty next to a scrap yard. The crew would all go home, but what about Maggie? My father drove three hours to the ship to pick up me and Maggie. By then I was living in another state, and didn't have a place for a dog in my life, but he did.

It was a strange experience for Maggie. For so long her home was a busy, noisy place. The boilers were shut down, the crew went away, and she seemed frightened, confused. She left the ship for only the second and last time (the first was a visit to the vet). A new life waited for her.

Dogs were foreign and confusing. Lawns, trees, squirrels all new things. After a few skittish days, she settled into a new life. I would sail again; she would not. She would spend the rest of her years living with my parents, in command of a large yard. When my father repaired the fence, he cut portholes into the boards, so Maggie could look out and see what was going on.

I lived away for some time, but whenever I came to visit Maggie always leapt on me with joy, familiar friend. I moved closer to home, started a new life, and eventually brought my children to visit Maggie. She knew what to do with kids--lick them. As the years passed I never noticed my parents aging, but I saw the time in Maggie. Black fur and white toes added grey. She slowed, she widened, but she stayed joyful.

In the end her heart grew weak. Old dogs earn their rest. Hers came with quiet dignity, and now she rests forever under the winter flowering jasmine in the yard that had  become her home.

Doctor's Choice

Bob Lane spent five days in St. Joseph Hospital, correcting a blocked intestine.  Upon his release, fellow ex-news reporter Jim Erickson wrote the following poetry (with some slight editing):

Four out of five doctors recommend
The very best patient to attend
Is none other than R. J. Lane,
So cooperative, hardly a pain.

Nurses like Lane a hundred per cent.
They think he's somehow heaven-sent.
(In reality, his devilish soul
Dreams nurses dancing pole to pole.)

Lane had a week-long hospital run
After stomach issues had begun.
A tube was thrust inside his nose,
Something he never would have chose.

He desperately needed rehydration
So he could once again feel elation.
That would help end his hospital stay,
If his insides got a positive X-ray.

From his seventh-floor window he could see
Mile after mile, tree after tree:
Colorful leaves drifting to earth,
Making his view something of worth.

'Though he'd rather shout out cheers,
Lane's overcome instead by tears.
A changing moment in his life:
He vowed to rid himself of strife.

To show seriousness about his plan,
Lane shed mustache, beard: A new man.
No more coffee; ice water he'll drink,
Using his time to write and think.