Up North, the Statues Wore Pigeons

This statue is outside our vet's office, where I had stopped to drop off a "gift" from Red. And I learned not long ago that we have snakes in the freezer....

The snakes, Mary explains, are for when she plants the oaklings she's been raising from acorns she'd collected about a year ago in the mall parking lot. The oaklings have been growing on our couch, set in trays beneath an upturned yellow laundry basket whose slats afford them southern exposure and protect them from Red. If he had his way he'd chew them down to the dirt.

Mary had planted a particularly robust oakling outdoors in the spring; that one's been thriving inside a tomato cage. At that time she'd cut up pieces of dead snake and set those in the ground as fertilizer, hence the snakes filling the freezer now. When she finds a dead one in the street she collects it in a plastic bag and puts it on ice.

I haven't yet asked her how many we have chilling out. The topic came up after I pointed out the ice-filled spacers I'd removed from the freezer and placed in the tub, to make room for groceries. The spacers help cut down on energy costs.

Mary said, "We'll have more room in the freezer once the snake bags come out."

News to me. Though not particularly surprising.

She'd done the same years ago with a pigeon roadkilled in a corner mall near my workplace up north. After she brought it home the cats hung around her all day, flehming. She hadn't cut the bird up, just buried it in our community garden plot, I think by the pepper plants.

She'd explained, grinning, "I'm planting a pigeon so we can have chick peas."

Dead animals are nutrient-rich. Native Americans had buried fish heads around corn plants to aid growth.

No snakes joined the canteloupe seeds extracted from our "brain". Those have finally gone into the ground, planted along with dead slugs. The seeds still looked viable despite the hefty layer of mold growing on the bottom, now relegated to compost.

We'll see if anything sprouts. Stay tuned.

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