If You Build It They Will Come

I have recently documented how the creation of the pool out under The Old Man copse in the front of Casa Claire has led to the regular presence of my grans.

They are exhausting!

But they make Lisa happy in her retirement with their relentless distraction and are fun – on occasion – to observe.

Now lately the three urchins have been most interested in the pool,

which gives me a reason beyond Lisa’s challenge to remain supine in my chaise lounge doing my free range style of lifeguard duty.

And since I have spent some time recently developing The Old Man copse into more than just a spot for quiet meditation, enticing creatures and children alike to beneath its toroidal energy vortex, I have noticed that a smaller off shoot copse further afield has developed into a potential toroidal shaded area calling out for further similar development.

Now I have had this small wooden bench since I arrived at Casa Claire. For the longest time, it just sat outside my workshop in the back yard with the hopes that someone would sit on it. Alas, it instead became the front awning for the bunny warren under the workshop, where it collected whatever I needed to drop whenever I was searching for the perfect screw or tool as I passed to and from that workshop.

I felt bad for that little bench, as it reminded me of the Spaghetti bench in the back yard of the McCaffrey family home on Mosholu Avenue, which drew a lot of satisfied asses during the many BBQs and other family events that took place there over six decades in the Bronx.

My front property development have taught me a few things.

I knew Scarlett had staked her primogenitor rights to the pool I was compelled to build as among her siblings.

She is now charging her siblings a toll to enter via the ladder. Like a goblin under a bridge. Capitalism at its best.

I just knew that if I placed that orphan bench out front, it would draw the interest of the remaining urchins. So I humped the heavier than remembered bench from the back of the house to the front, crushing one finger and one toe in the process, placed some seating pads from another long forgotten bench within its armrests and waited.

Within moments of their arrival yesterday afternoon, in their relentless conquering curiosity and desire to claim everything at Casa Claire as their own, the two younger munchkins extended their continental colonialism to the new location under the blossoming smaller cove

Note Stella’s four legged approach. Feral indeed. Like James McAvoy’s character in Glass.

Manifest Destiny in a Microcosm.

And the interesting thing was that Claire and Honey didn’t seem to mind sharing the land with these interlopers. Honey usually takes off out back if I start milling around the front area.

The two mules just moseyed around the front property, grazing and observing the feral little humans as they did their very best to disturb this Old Man’s rest under The Old Man.

The Magical Mules were obviously enchanted by the repeated flurries of F bombs that I released every time the little two legged flesh devils did something to annoy my peace, like when Stella decided yesterday to toss some of The Old Man’s larger perimeter stones into the freshly cleaned front trough because she enjoyed the “bloop” sound they made as they broke the surface of the water. Or better yet, when she returned from inside and dumped not one but two cans of soda into the pool.

Fresca, of all things. Lisa must have found a case from the last Century in a hidden bomb shelter on Casa Claire.

She is a pill. I blame Lisa for giving them free rein.

Smokey the feral cat refused to come out of hiding from her spot among the Fae in the JTS corn field until the monsters had finally left.

I cannot say I blame her.

Well, they finally did leave. Thank god.

This tormenting experience has to count as purgatory in some branch of the Christian Orthodoxy.

I may call to reinstitute child sacrifice at the next Druid grove meeting.

Anyway, by evening I was knackered.

Unfortunately, like the Capistrano swallows, I can count on their return to Casa Claire.

Well, today is Thursday. I await the return of the legal motion papers sent out for vetting yesterday afternoon. I need to finalize them today because I have family plans for Friday.

I suggest that you fine, five readers follow my lead and get whatever work that needs completion done and dusted. You too deserve a long summer weekend during this hot summer stretch. So take it.

I am now distracted with the idea of constructing a giant trap I can install out front, I’m thinking a large wooden box on a rope, to see if I can capture the grans the next time any of them give me any guff. Maybe I can paint the little bench seat cushion with fast acting glue and hang candy from the surrounding tree branches. I’ll read through The Brothers Grimm fairytales for some other ideas.

But no matter what else we get up to, let us all make today a great one.