the incredible therapeutic properties of the irish wolfhound

The wise and wonderful Scout has returned to the fold. Though I knew Rocket would come back I was not sure if she would and was thrilled when she did. Since she strolled into the house my mood has lifted and I can honestly say all the gloom has dropped away.

I've told the black dog that had moved in when she and Rocket left that he must get off the dogs' bed now and stop chasing his tongue around the moon of the dog bowl, stop patting the ball behind the sofa and go and bother some other poor person. 

Go and cock your leg on someone else's sapling I'm not letting you back in. I told him. When Scout arrived back I think he got the message.

Rocket was first back and eyed the black dog with suspicion. Then he just wanted to play with it but actually black dogs don't play - not this kind of black dog. He just made himself smaller and eventually disappeared.

Life is strange without the horses. I've hung onto the tack though and the cart - just in case - you never know what might come trotting around the corner. I did walk along the aisles of the farm store though feeling nostalgic that I would no longer stop and pick up a salt lick or some fly spray or a handy new halter.

I gave Rocket a welcome home chicken which he loves and we have to take it on our walks. It's handy though because when it's misty and I can't see him you can hear the chicken squeaking in his mouth as he tears up and down the hills in the nature reserve.

Pocket likes to accompany us sometimes on our walks. He usually likes to do it in the gloaming but today he prowled out in the afternoon, sometimes ahead of us and sometimes behind us making little mewing noises so that we'd know he was there.

I told Pocket how much I missed the horses and he stopped licking his stomach and told me

to live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

My I said, two therapists in the house now - so you've been reading a Mary Oliver poem have you?He stared crossly at me, told me he didn't know what I was talking about and returned to the arduous task of fur washing.

I love this time of year for the heady scent of the paperwhites which fill the house with their heady aroma.

and here is my wreath balanced precariously on the gate to wish you - dear Readers

 - a very happy Christmas and a better new year than the one you might have already had.

A Blessing

by James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnisota,

twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

to welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

that we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the 

darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

for she has walked over to me

and nuzzled my left hand.

she is black and white,

her mane falls wild on her forehead,

and the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

that is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrists.

Suddenly I realise

that if I stepped out of my body I would break

into blossom.
 

RIP HARRY V11  1998 - 2021

waiting for doggo

Rocket has been in his lovely holiday home for nearly two months now

Here he is like an old buffer in his gentleman's club - relaxing after a long day involving rabbits I suspect. I think the cigar and brandy are probably just out of sight.

Here he is with his new mates in Team Rocket -Nousu and Cheka

I must say they seem very tolerant of him - especially him bagging the best space on the bed. And after all it is their house. I wonder if they'll miss him when he goes. Meanwhile back home we are waiting for his return - well I am waiting - I don't think Pocket is waiting. He does wait for some things. I've seen him wait patiently for a mouse to come out of the quaking grass and I wonder how long he waited for the mouse who'd stored a load of peanuts in one of the walking shoes that hadn't been walked in for a while. When I put my foot in it I was met with a deluge of nuts. I don't know how long they'd been there and don't know if to feel sorry for the mouse or not - he may have been cancelled out by one of the cats a while ago- I don't put all the blame onto Pocket - there is Nancy too who I believe has been leaving me a series of headless rats on the Turkish rug.

Pocket however seems to spend most of his time doing nothing. When challenged with this concept he gave himself a wash and told me that the high value put upon every minute of time, the idea of hurry - hurry as the most important objective of living, is unquestionably the most dangerous enemy of joy."

You've been reading Herman Hesse again I said but he ignored me and concentrated on washing his leg.

We are waiting for more than one dog to return to the fold. Still no news on whether or not Scout will come back but we - if not Pocket - have our paws crossed.

Here is the crow with white feathers landing on a branch in the shade tunnel, She still hasn't left in spite of the open door but she seems happy in her domain, playing with the box of small plastic toys I've given her and hopping up and down the ladder or scuttling along the branches. She has no tail feathers which is why she can't fly. I love watching her - I sit quietly on a chair and observe her select her food - cleverly wedging a piece of toast between two planks of wood so she can snap bits of it off. I've never seen her put it there, but sometime I find the small plastic cow upside down in her empty feed bowl.

I have now planted most of the tulip bulbs waiting for next Spring's delight.
 

                             Now everyone is waiting ........

Waiting

by Emily Dickinson

I sing to use the waiting,

My bonnet but to tie,

And shut the door into my house,

No more to do have I.

Till, his best step approaching

We journey to the day,

And tell each other how we sang

To keep the dark away.

a mare's nest

So farewell Harry and Trude my two faithful and fearless friends.

I don't want this to be a misery memoir and as I've written before I don't normally write about personal things but a few weeks back I had a riding accident and came off Trude at great speed hitting the hard ground and breaking a few bones. This I feel sure was a message. Stop doing dangerous things now. 

I feel lucky - it could have been terminal and I realise it's not fair on other people having to look after so many animals when I either get knocked over by a dog (previous blog many months back) or fall off a horse.

So I've had to make the decision to let my beautiful horses go to another home. This has broken my heart more than my bones of course but as luck would have it they have gone to a wonderful trekking centre in the forest run by the most lovely young woman where they both seem extremely happy. I've heard reports that dear Harry has fallen in love with a little mare called Dora. It doesn't seem as if Trude minds. 

Twenty years ago I bought Harry off the internet!I was told I was mad - that he could have been drugged and when I got him home he'd turn into some wild creature - but when I set eyes on him standing in his stable I just knew he was a kind soul and what a lovely horse he has been over all these years. For a long time until arthritis eventually caught up with him in his joints he'd pull a cart and we'd go off across the fields, sometimes stopping for a picnic other times trotting merrily through the prairie. He was always willing.

Horses have been my life since I first sat on one when I was so small my feet didn't clear the saddle but sometimes in life you just have to let go. I am listening to Rumi's wise words Try not to resist the changes that come your way.Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the life to come?

Of course being unable to walk for a while meant that the glorious Scout went back to the kind people who had given her to me in the first place. But she'll be back! It's strange having no dogs in the house.

Here is Rocket sleeping off the diazepam the doctors gave me which he stole out of my bag. Naturally he ate it and is so chilled he doesn't have a care in the world. He also has gone to a friend and having enormous fun with their pug dog and Jack Russell. I gather the Jack Russell is particularly good fun. I think a rabbit may have been involved. He might get a bit bored when he comes home.

As you can see Pocket is in charge now and informs me that he and Nancy have become apex predators. The dogs'll be back I inform him but he does a sort of shrugging movement with his ears and says "every storm runs out of rain."

Maya Angelou said that I told him but he merely asked if she were a weather person.

Later he tells me he'd written  an ode as he'd had an awful dream about falling into a goldfish bowl. Thomas Gray has written a very similar ode called Ode to the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in  Tub of Goldfishes I tell him but he merely asked if I were planning on getting any goldfish.

The tulip bulbs have arrived for planting up in the pots over the next few weeks.

I don't want to wish away the seasons but I do love it when the tulips wave their magic.

I have written my own ode.
 

An Ode to the parting with a fearless and faithful friend

 

 Inside the stable his back is turned

he pulls on a wisp of hay

and twitches his ears.

The trailer rumbles towards us

down the track.

Eventually he turns to face me,

blowing down his nostrils 

and pushing me softly with his nose.

They slip on the head collar

his brown eyes shut for a moment

his long lashes flickering.

Come on boy someone says.

He stands firmly, his four huge hooves

looking as if they will not take another step.

Come on boy.

He walks forward giving himself a shake

his companion already in the box

We can hear her whinnying for him

I pat him on the neck and he turns for a moment

to look back at me

Then he is led up the ramp

and they disappear along the track.

Linda Coggin

tales from the riverbank

Scout enjoying a dip in the Nadder. She hoped she'd find some sardines in there as she'd very much enjoyed some she found in an open tin on the kitchen work top. She reminded me that she hadn't actually been fed.

A beautiful juvenile kingfisher at the wild life hospital. It had flown into a windscreen but happily was able to return to the river after a week of rest. A real jewel on the river banks.

Dear Harry recovering in the stable from his steroid jab for arthritis. Sadly he's unable to pull the cart any more.

Scout enjoying some leftovers she's found in the horses' field. She reminded me that she hadn't actually been fed for some time

Rocket had such a success as an influencer that he is starting a keep fit channel on the lines of Joe Wicks. He suggests you do this pose continuously until you fall over. He was very much encouraged by Pocket the cat below (even though he thinks that exercise is over rated.)

"A cat in mittens catches no mice," he tells me. Do you catch many mice from that position? I ask. He told me it was a personal technique which he was very passionate about. Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion he says without bothering to open his eyes. 

Hegel said that I said. 

Did he catch mice? Pocket mumbles. Then he informed me he thought he might go to sea and did I have any pea green paint or know any owls he could go with.

Scout out shopping. She has reminded me that I hadn't actually fed her (for at least two weeks)

The dahlia season is upon us - all change in the cutting garden.

Change and Transition

I watch the owl

staring at me from the tythe barn roof

and wonder how I can change from

my earthbound self and appear

at night with silent wings and piercing eyes

gliding over the moonlit fields

plucking the odd vole from the corn

that sways in the silver light.

I watch the vulpine fox rolling in

the dewy grass and wonder how

I can change and scatter the seed heads

as I run through the fields like him.

I stand at the edge and see

the furrows change to green shoots

and yellow corn and brown stubble

and think that one day I will no longer

be me who is earthbound but will go back 

into the earth and become the corn

and I'll be fed to the vole who will feed the owl

and that way I'll reach the skies.

Linda Coggin

psychopomps

 

I have a flock of psychopomps in my bird tunnel. Two rooks without tails and two crows with white feathers. The hi-jacking jackdaw has finally decided to stay in the wild. This is after weeks of him flying away only to return ten minutes later and squeeze in through a hole in the netting to feast on the excellent buffet I lay out for the other birds.

 

Psychopomps are spiritual guides whose primary function is to escort souls to the after life. Ravens, crows and other corvids are famous as guides. I can't decide if my lot are treating this place as a school for psychopomps or like one of those old actor's retirement homes where people sit around  regaling theatrical stories or performing their King Lear or Ophelia from the comfort of their arm chairs. 

"Whose soul have you escorted?" they might be discussing.

"Oh I helped Humphrey Bogart" "Really? I guided Marlon.... he insisted on doing his Macbeth ....." "Orson's rendition of the Good ship Lollypop was most uplifting.."

I just love the word - from the Greek psycho - breath, soul, life and pompos - a guide. Death's cat in my book The Curiosity of the Black Cat was a sort of pre-psychopomp I guess - he brought comfort to those as they were dying but as far as I know didn't escort them anywhere.

Above are twenty nine swifts at the wildlife hospital - each one has to be hand fed every two hours. The hospital has more hours in their day than anyone else to accommodate this.

Pocket the cat has suggested to Rocket the dog that he becomes an influencer. 

How do you do that? I ask. 

He tells me he gets free things by modelling them, like this very smart life jacket. 

I don't think that's a lifejacket I say - I think it's a very expensive harness that I remember paying for myself.

He insists that he was made to wear this hat in exchange for little biscuits made to look like bones.

I have been given a special needs hedgehog who is blind. Inspite of giving him a very smart hedgehog hotel to live in and I thought an extremely large fenced in area he periodically digs his way out only to be found snuffling on the track or my neighbour's garden in daytime. I suppose being blind he doesn't know when it's night time. Hedgehogs shouldn't be out in the day but considering before I was given him he spent nearly a year in a box I think he should do what he wants and I'll try to guide him home if I find him in a sort of psychopomping way.

Pocket the author tells me he's changing his name to JK Pocket and that he's writing a book about a magic school for cats called Mogwarts. I told him I thought he'd find that was already written in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series and was called Hogwarts and was not for cats. He scowled at me and told me that had nothing to do with it and he was writing it for a Middle Grade audience. "Is there such a thing as middle grade cats" I ask. He turned his back on me and said over his shoulder that he had already had a fan letter from a cat in Italy. 

"Ciao meow" he said and then asked if I had the film Roman Holiday on DVD and could he watch it to get some ideas.

Above is a close up of one of the twenty nine swifts. When it fledges it won't touch ground again for two years. As William Blake wrote "He who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternal sunrise."

One of two remaining fox kits growing into her ears.

And here the magnificent Scout is looking at the emerging hazelnuts and imagining them in a rather nice praline biscuit.

The last of the roses - they have been amazing this year, filling the house with their perfume and the garden with colour.

Reflecting on old people's homes I thought I'd put on the poem I wrote ages ago about my parents.(neither ended up in a home fortunately.) Living with my parents was like being in a Samuel Beckett play. This really did happen. (all names have been changed.)

Small Talk

Mr B(who sat in his big leather chair

lost in its wings)

would stare at the set in the corner

and although Mrs B

would bring in the tea

he never felt the need to join her.

Should she speak

(and he could not hear)

he would raise to his ear

a massive trumpet 

made of tortoise shell

whilst she,

mouth full of crumpet,

would quell her irritation

and her lips would move

in syncopation

"What did you say dear?"

Mrs B thought of euthanasia.

Eventually, instead of death

she brought him earphones

and plugged him in

by curly cable from his head

across the floor and coffee table

to the belly

of the telly

as if he were joined

by an umbilical cord

and Mrs B who ignored the screen

did not have to listen

at Christmas to the queen

or commercials for tampons and lager

but could play

as softly as she liked

the Beatles and Wagner.

And when she needed to talk

Mrs B would walk to the porch

and flash signals across the room

with a torch.

Linda Coggin

cogsmogsblog

Nancy my Familiar and Pocket the Author have decided they want this to be called a mog's blog. I have reluctantly agreed as Rocket or was it Beezle had his own cog's dog's blog a while back. We agreed it could have pictures of birds on (I said no to the little mice)

Above are the four adorable swallow babies in the stable. Their parents or relations come back every year and produce a brood. What I didn't know until I watched them closely was that when they fledge they return continuously to the nest. They go on flying expeditions and then when tired come back. They've been doing this for a week now. They are probably consulting a map of how to get to Africa which must be taped inside the bottom of the nest.

The birds in my shade tunnel are doing the same thing. Above is the crow with the white feathers looking like a magpie. There are now three jackdaws and two crows - all other birds have departed. BUT I left the doors open when the time was right last week and one of the other crows and the three jackdaws flew out. I had to encourage them and eventually they soared off into the trees. After a while I heard a plaintive crying from the smallest jackdaw who was sheltering in the hedge so I picked him up and popped him back in with the other two crows who I had moved from their inside houses to the shade tunnel. I shut the door and said good night. In the morning there were two jackdaws sitting on the branch. I shut the door and went away to bring back a bird table and when I returned there were all three jackdaws looking very pleased with themselves in a line on the branch. This has been going on for a week now. I leave the door open for all and sundry to fly away, shut the door at night for fear of predators and in the morning the jackdaws have squeezed in under the door because they can and I offer a very good buffet.

I am chief corvid woman at the wildlife hospital now and most weeks come back with one in a box which eventually finds freedom. Like Wendell Berry's beautiful poem the Peace of Wild Things, I find a wonderful tranquility when despair for the world grows in me, just sitting in the shade tunnel with the door open being with the birds. As he would say they do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

Pocket says he's fed up with writing best sellers. "Works of Art are an infinite loneliness" he said "Rilke?" I said. He scratched his ear and told me he is going to become a diversity reader. 

.He's going to read all the books that have cats in them to make sure they are saying the right things, feeling the right things and behaving in a manner appropriate to cats. The authors, he tells me, aren't from that marginalized group and often don't have direct experience of the topic they are writing about and so a sensitivity reader like him is hired to assess the book. Are cats marginalized? I ask but he chooses to ignore the question and tells me he is working on some Shakespeare. I don't think there are any cats in Shakespeare are there? I say. He stares at me with that look that conveys that I am utterly ignorant. Of course there are and if there aren't any I'm putting them in.  I ask him which ones and he stares into the distance "Well there's Mogbeth, The Merry Cats of Windsor, Two Cats of Verona. The Taming of the Shrew and my favourite A Mogsummer's night dream."

So you're not altering The Taming of the Shrew then I say. He glares at me in exasperation. Do you know how to tame a shrew? I shake my head. Well there we are then perhaps you should read it - it's a self help book.

Here he is discussing the contents of his mog's blog with Rocket

I had a word with Harry the horse about the drug smoking incident (see last post) and he assures me it was only grass.

Dear Scout having a let sleeping dogs lie moment.

This year has been amazing for roses and sweet peas, I love bringing them into the house where their perfume fills the room.
 

So I asked Pocket  what photo of himself was going on the dust jacket of his books and he showed me.

I said that's not a photo and he said he'd commissioned it as they only had paintings in Shakespearean times and I said but that's not you it doesn't look anything like you and it's taken from The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks. Yes he said and the cat shall lie down with the kid. That's taken from Isaiah 11.6. I said, it inspired Mr Hicks to do the painting and it's a leopard shall lie down with the kid. He gave me that don't you know anything sort of look and told me a leopard was a cat and as a diversity reader he could change want he jolly well wanted.

Love After Love by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.