| |
|
The Memories of Irene Whitfield Chisholm |
|
In 1979, I gave my mother a hardcover blank book and asked her to please write down all the stories of her childhood that she'd been telling me. She claimed she couldn't think of which stories I could possibly want written down. So, I sat down and made a list. I gave her the list and then she gave up and started writing. She didn't write everything on the list, and she wrote a few things that weren't. But she wrote down things in more detail. At first, they were merely interesting. But now, more than fifteen years after her death, they are a treasure trove of history and family knowledge.
I have seen a variety of animals on this place. We do live in the woods though
almost surrounded by houses. They are mostly out of sight. We can hear people
though and cars, dogs and other sounds of civilization. There is a housing development
just across the highway. Boys used to be able to throw rocks that far.
But I started to tell about the animals.
Presently we see mostly squirrels. (Actually Chickarees.) Tamius scurries Douglasii.
There are three of them sometimes. That is the most we have seen at a time.
They do scoot around so fast it is hard to be sure but did see three at one time.
They, or some of them, live in the woodshed. Jack puts nuts on the woodpile
and one of them comes after awhile and sometimes we watch him eat. We do not try
to tame them because of the dogs. A dog we once had caught a squirrel when came up
close to the house to eat.
We used to have chipmunks, too, but I have not seen one for several years.
They used to like pick huckleberries. We still have plenty of huckleberries but
no chipmunks.
We often see deer. They go stomping through the garden and nibbling the kale
and eating apples and stepping on baby carrots. They love to walk on freshly
dug up places.
We have seen bear also. They like prunes and apples and berries
very much.
Porcupines are more unusual, but do come occasionally.
One came into the basement one time. Craig helped shoo him into a keg
and he and Jack took him outside where he ambled off and climbed a tree,
way up high on a teeny tiny limb where he stayed all day.
Another time one came up on the porch. He and Lady (the dog) glared at each other
through the glass pane. He was a friendly looking little beast but he did try to climb
my red lily which permanently wrecked it.
There were skunks, broth striped and spotted. Sometimes they would be in the basement
when they were disturbed. Jack dropped an armful of kindling on one once, and the dogs
never seemed to learn to not to chase them.
Mice come all too frequently, both the common house mouse and the cute little 'white
footed' mouse which is much better behaved and not so smelly.
One of the dogs caught a rat once and once one of the cats did. She was defending
her kittens. Both times were in the basement.
Once I saw a weasel in the basement. I shot at it and it disappeared. I was too close
up to miss and I certainly did not hear it leave, but it was gone and we never saw
it again. Penelope has seen them down near her house. This summer a big weasel
killed one of her hens and five baby chicks. One chick escaped. The next night
Jack set a trap for the weasel and caught him. The trap did not kill the beastie
so Jack finished him off with a twenty-two. We gave the chick to Higgledy-Piggledy
(Not the original Higgledy-Piggledy) who was hatching some of her own. She took the
extra chick reluctantly. He was useful to her though. He taught her chicks to eat.
NOTES:
In the porcupine incident: It was an empty wooden nail keg, which was open on one end. They put a board over it after the porcupine was inside to carry it outside safely. What she didn't tell about the porcupine incident, because she wasn't among the people in the basement trying to get the forty pound porcupine to please leave, was that it communicated with one signal I'd heard the wild mice do frequently. The white-footed mice have a territory call ("mine/my nest/out of my face/get lost") that consists of scratching their claws on something, preferably something that will amplify the sound. It's a very fast "scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch" and is usually repeated. Anyhow, after Jack had been trying to coax the porcupine out from under a chair with a broom (Jack was standing ON the chair, not wanting to get next that tail), the porcupine started making that same scratching pattern. From my porcupine-proof location behind a pile of old furniture, I told him "It's getting peeved. Stop poking at it." (Craig was standing on a table, also armed with a broom.) It was after that that they finally got it herded into the barrel and out of the basement. We were relieved to have it up a tree. We discovered later that it'd hit an ancient, well-cured and very hard wooden box with it's tail and driven quills in a quarter-inch. Porcupines are of a generally peaceable temperament, but are too well able to defend themselves to be allowed in the house.
Douglas chickarees are a small squirrel with a reddish coloration that live up the giant Douglas fir trees. When they start announcing predators, they sound like they're having a temper tantrum. They torment the much bigger grey squirrels (recent addition when more people moved in) by going out on the tips of branches where the grey squirrels can't go safely, and then leaping to another branch. The Latin name is correctly spelled Tamiasciurus douglasi (prounced tam-i-ah-scurr-i-us dug-lass-ee). I always remember that because three juvenile Douglas chickerees moved into our woodshed and we named them Tammy, Scurry and Doug after the Latin name.
Huckleberries: She means 'red huckleberries'. The blue berries/blue huckleberries don't grow naturally here. Not until she planted some, that is.
The 'place' she refers to is the property she inherited (via her mother) from her grandfather J.E. Howe, and is where she and Jack Chisholm made their home. (It's now my place because I inherited it from her.)
The "Penelope" she refers to is me, by the name I grew up with even if I didn't like it. I go by Rowan now, thank you. I like it much better.
Diary: Irene Margery Whitfield Chisholm
Photographer: Jack Chisholm
Author/artist/designer/programmer of page: Rowan Ainslie Chisholm
This website and all contents copyright 2009 Penelope Chisholm aka Rowan Ainslie Chisholm
This page first posted 8 May 2007
Latest revision: 23 January 2010
