People with a screened porch shouldn’t leave out garbage bags.

Floydiana holds many a creature—kingdoms animalia or insecta; wild, domestic, or some combination. A cow slapping its tail across the face of young Margie Keith. “The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.” Horse in the road, bear in a tree, newts in a hand, bowl-decorating crow, cat bagged & buried, tag-along Shetland, deer-smashed hood, doeling “bunny”…. The book has mentioned the deer tick, its virulence inverse to its size. The yoga studios of Floyd hold many an animal asena: cat, cow, fish, pigeon, dog (upward and downward). In Jayn Avery’s chapter on solstice ceremonies, she speaks of “Honoring the spirit in all beings, whether a bug or a bear.”

Here is a review of non-human beings of Floyd County, both real and fake. In a realm by itself is the “great, fiery red dragon” of Revelation 12, identified a few verses later as Satan. One speaker at a Rainbow Tea, otherwise high-spirited and upbeat, waved her arms and declared that this beast was flying around the sanctuary.

FAUNA.

In the living room, a dull rattle? Or a clink? I looked around in hopes that a May breeze through the open window had caused the handle of a curtain-pull to graze the sill. But the window was shut. Clink-a-clink. I stared at the wood stove as if aiming a gun. After all we had done to seal the house, a bat had let itself in by the passage that smoke gets out. Its motions sounded frisky compared to last year’s moribund shuffling, so perhaps we could get it out not only alive but uninjured.

Marjory shined a flashlight through the glass and into the dimness: “It’s a bird!” She handed me the light, which I waved around until, at the back, it revealed a thin leg or two that supported a cup-sized, beaked rotundity–no ground-hugging mammal-wings. It hopped. Relieved, we wondered how to remove a bird without hurting it or letting it fly around in a panic. “Do we have any mesh?” Soon Marjory had cut a piece of green net off a costume she had made so her husband could become leafy Autumn for the Halloween dance at Pine Tavern Pavilion. We carefully pulled it down between the barely-opened door and the prison; the bird flew into it but soon found itself wrapped and immobile. As we looked through the packaging onto its wings, what should we see but blue! Doubly pleased, we carried it to the deck, unrolled its rescue-trap, wondering if the bird would be too weak or disoriented and—off it flapped! Over the woods below it made rough circles, wings beating, until it landed somewhere in the woods.

As we hiked Penn Rd., a small, dark mound of roadkill appeared in our lane ahead. Not looking forward to encountering the sight or smell, we stared as it arose and toddled. A closer view revealed a small, curly-haired dog that wore a fuchsia collar-harness and that neither barked nor bite, just waited for us to stop tramping on its asphalt mattress. Driving on Rt. 221, I slowed for a vulture that stood just on the other side of the yellow line giving its fresh meal a proprietary stare. Instead of swooping off, it made a token dos-à-dos.

Rounding a curve on Rt. 221 N., I noticed a pasture that sloped above me—and upon it a horse that wore a red plaid carpet. Another time a pair of equestriennes materialized above the Pomponios’ house–Robin and Leah Hairston—as if on the cover of Too Classy for You–riding from their home at the end of the old road. One November day two dozen horses and riders passed the Firsts’ house on Goose Creek Run, their origin and goal known only to the riders. In town, a horse ridden by a wide-hatted gentleman exited the drive-thru at Hardee’s. As I approached one end of Canning Factory Rd., I glimpsed this scene to the right, framed by a low bridge of Rt. 221 over the creek: a stripe of snow, a yellow-brown patch of weeds, and a dozen creamy-yellow woolen shapes.

After an aria, Stinquo Bugotti takes a bow.

Pleasures: An extra degree was provided by a dozen fresh eggs bought from the gym manager: “I like having the inconsistency,” declared Marjory; “One is bigger than another.”  Surprises:

A cow chases a bear out of a field (witnessed by the Pomponios from Floyd Highway South). A deer stands on its rear legs. An empty bird’s nest turns into a tiny, long, skinny creature that leaps onto the person trying to clear it from eaves, bounces onto a screen, then crawls its furry tail back to the hiding place. One day the landing atop the porch stairs shelters a half-dozen woodchuck pups. Even domestic creatures can surprise. Why does the outdoor-loving Sheltie seem reluctant to go outside? Bang! Back inside like a shotgun blast herself. One one dog is capable of charging a bear and even standing near it–yet is “terrified by turkeys” (Kurt Grosshans).

Searching for a nickel I had dropped in the leaves the previous autumn, I was astonished to make out the bizarre shape of a xenopus! As the only Floydian to spot one, I remembered the debate about the wildcat–a species that does or does not exist (denied by the Forest Service). So I needed proof. I crouched down to take a close-up–relinquished my Samsung to a claw, fell backward, and never again saw phone or toad as the animal hopped back into the jungle. 

….

At The Stoplight, as timers clicked and calendar pages flipped, a truck passed called Lucky Dog; a dump truck bore a cartoon drawing of Odie; another bore a cartoon of a penguin between the words Hometown and Ice; one hauled a CAT; another advised the onlooker to “Keep on Cluckin'”; another bore the Dutch stencil of a chicken; another called itself Hoof Hauler; another declared “Off the leash!” One–a massive wrecker from Meadows of Dan–had white shark’s teeth painted on the front of the cab as it hauled a ramped sanitation truck. One truck pulled a recreational trailer name Cardinal. Another pulled an enclosed trailer with a stay-back warning like “This mule will kick.” How about a tractor-trailer labeled Dong Fang?

A family hiking up Buffalo Mountain–the County’s great-humped totem–found it easy to turn back at the sight of a rattlesnake strung across the path. On Annie Lane, I veered to miss a small turtle with a periscope neck as it took in the sunlight. Across Rt. 221 and up the steep hill, the morning rays of late autumn angled onto the pinto: how vividly its white and brown shapes contrasted! Down 221 toward town, a motorist can often detect the invisible skunk’s-revenge.

Outside the Post Office, I saw a patron limping toward a gigantic pickup. Calling herself an old woman, she nevertheless declined my offer to help her in, a challenge that involved opening a heavy door and climbing onto the running board. “I got out, so I can get back in.” She explained that she hauls livestock. “I only have one horse now. Was glad to the see the other eighteen rear-ends go to Oklahoma.” At the West End Market, the Great Dane barely able to poke its head out of a vehicle? A clerk foresaw drama between it and another pet, a potbellied pig.

Cleaning out the wood-stove in preparation for winter, we did come upon an unlucky bat, and we set the ebony jerky on a porch-rail for grandchildren to contemplate. By now I had given up on attracting honeybees to spring-planted clover, which didn’t flower much. One bee did zip around me momentarily as if to say, “Thanks anyway, pal, back next year.”

….

Like the skunk, some animals proclaim their existence without materializing. The great growl-moo of a steer; a screaming in a tree; the frantic collective cawing that warns of a snake or hawk; a nest, hole, grounded feather, tunnel, bones, tracks, path, things gnawed, chewed, or scratched. A dozen-plus antlers attached to a right-angle arch outside a farm on Rt. 615: they mark a bygone herd of bounders, fence-jumpers, ear-flappers, air-sniffers, garden-plant chewers. Rope-like, hairy scat implies both pooper and poopee. A narrow, threadbare stocking for a legless snake–uncovered in the August woodpile and pulled over a child’s finger. Menacing creatures indicated by the agitation of a cat, the shadow of a hawk or butterfly, stuff strewn around the yard, a bird-feeder knocked to the ground. Indicated by turned-up dirt after I buried a cantaloupe, the fruit left intact twice. By a sudden hard thump on the back as hunter decked in camouflaged calls a wild-turkey. What was the anonymous critter that knocked the Buddha head’s terra cotta curls onto sideways equanimity?

Today’s Special: Atlas Blue Cedar sneedles.

Marjory tells about the time when suspicions became verified: 

Yesterday I carefully filled my new bird feeders and put out the new suet-holder with double sides. Off we went, Randall and I, to attend a house & garden show. After enjoying a beautiful cool, sunny day, we returned to a yard to behold feeders torn off the stands, bitten up, and damaged beyond repair. Next the iron poles that held the feeders were leaning drastically or smashed flat to the ground. The Japanese beetle-collecting bag that was a third full was gone and only shreds of green plastic could be seen on the ground. I hoped that the culprit had eaten all those insects and did not just free them. Purchasing more bags, I asked the clerk at Slaughters’ Nursery if she knew what would eat the beetles: bear was a major suspect.

I surveyed the yard damage and could see turned over stones, even some quite large ones that helped to line the driveway. In the carport a garbage can filled with 50 pounds of bird seed lay open and spilled out on the concrete. I went into the house, described the destruction of poles and feeders to Randall, and said “Come take a look.” As we walked out onto the screened porch, we heard a thump-thump and saw a black bear high-tailing across the grass to the woods. It looked like a juvenile, maybe 250 pounds. We notified our neighbors as they have four children, and they reported seeing a mother black bear with two cubs raiding the bird feeder of our other neighbor.

That night my wife grabbed my hands, raised them high, and danced as she sang a bar of “Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” (For the next-morning sequel, see photograph atop of this chapter.)

                              Black bear blacksmith.

Some fauna are implied by street names. You know about Goose Creek Run, but how about Grouse Run? Eagle View Drive? Lady Bug, Hummingbird, and Running Buffalo Lanes. Turtle Rock and Hill Drives. Fox gets both a lane and a street. Hog Mountain, Bear Ridge, and Beaver Creek Roads. Deer? Crossing, Haven, Run, Valley and Park (Deer Farm with its greeting “Shanti”). The Hokiebird has a private drive on the county’s 2002 map. Elephant Curve, an arc that attaches to Rt. 8 in two places and preserves that highway’s earlier course) memorializes an overturned circus-wagon. As for Dolphin Lane, perhaps the headquarters of the Floyd Yacht Club.

Birds-a-plenty in Floyd County for those who can spot and distinguish them. Our friend Reggie, visiting from South Carolina, drew up this list after walking around our property between June 22 and June 24, 2007:

chipping sparrow, cardinal, Eastern towhee, American goldfinch, indigo bunting, American crow, turkey vulture, bluejay, Carolina chickadee, great crested flycatcher, downy woodpecker, field sparrow, common grackle, mourning dove, pileated woodpecker, Eastern phoebe, Carolina wren, purple finch.

Over the years we added hummingbird, scarlet tanager, catbird, Eastern bluebird, American robin, black-capped chickadee, black-crested titmouse, and even a crane that flew over the neighborhood. Ten years after his earlier visit, Reggie also spotted a tufted titmouse, chimney swift, Coopers hawk, and yellow-throated vireo.

As I sat typing in late February, several large birds coasted to a treetop below, just past the window on my left. The morning sunlight angled onto the broad wingspan and fuselage of the closest one, causing its blackness to gleam with a purple iridescence. I felt both amazed and privileged. “Maybe a raven.” Indeed–and have some faith here–its returning wings darkened the window, its beak pecked the glass as I shrank away, it perched there with a loud flapping, and it croaked: “Chapter on Colors!” 

    Drove owner to pharmacy.

 Bird in the “woods.”

Can you spot the cat in Charlie Brouwer’s studio?

                    Future food, itself munching.

Foal and protectors, Double Springs Rd. NE.

Mountin’ goat. Photo by Katie Wells, Gralla-Schwartz homestead

Home, home on the branch.

Mummified cat found while renovating the Jacksonville Center, early 1990s. Courtesy Ernest Bryant.

To behold a living but bizarre creature found in a woodpile: http://www.fragmentsfromfloyd.com/artsandscience/photoimage/snake-pregnant-or-great-with-egg/ 

For the account of a three-decade friendship with a spotted horse, see “My Best Friend,” by Deborah Weinischke. Floyd Folks, vol. 1. Willis, VA: Free Range Press, 2015.

Creature Stories.

Everyone in Floyd County can tell a plenty of animal stories. Ranging from serious to light-hearted, these anecdotes recount a fuzzy butt, stingers, teeth, horns, and hooves.

“Bear in the Yard!”

Jane Cundiff once once saw a giant black dog:

It turned quickly into a big fat black bear trotting across the backyard just in front of the garden and behind the bird house. I jumped to my feet to see better and to call out to Ken in a hushed, forceful voice, ‘Bear in the Yard!’ He ran out of the room, grabbing the camera on the way, to rush to the back sliding glass door where he could get a better look. By then all he could see was a big black fuzzy butt disappearing into the woods. He tiptoed onto the porch and down the stairs motioning to me to keep an eye out in case the animal should come around from the thick woods. That was the last we saw of it. Until today. Walking down our path down by the marsh we heard a loud kerplunking splash and a big black fuzzy butt disappearing into the thickness. Maybe the same one. Maybe not.

“Forgot to Zip the Hood.”

Chris and Andres Moreno, charter members of the Yacht Club, own Mountain Song Inn on Mystic Ln. NW (off Duncan’s Chapel Rd.). Chris, originally from Arkansas, a flight attendant for forty-three years, encountered some unruly Floyd fliers. She maintained two beehives, and one evening in 2012, casserole in hand, she beheld a swarm—a sign of a healthy hive, a cluster that had settled on a branch with the intention of starting a new hive with a new queen. But the hive needed to stay domesticated:

“I put on my bee suit quick and shook the branch, put the swarm in a box. Forgot to zip the hood, though, and realized that four bees had gotten into it. I climbed up the hill but was hyperventilating—just out of breath, I thought, so I breathed into a paper bag. In the car, Andy and I got halfway to the Wells house for a movie-club party and went blind. Needed help to get out of the car and up the stairs. Felt woozier and woozier.”

A group deliberation led someone to phone Dr. Joe Baum (originally from Iowa), who lived a couple of miles away. At his home he gave Chris a shot of epinephrine. Her blood pressure had gone down to 60 over 40: “Good call,” said Joe. After an hour she recovered enough to return to the gathering, but the only show that night was Chris & the Anaphylactics.

Andy reports that the bees themselves got a comeuppance:

That same year, as Hurricane Sandy was making its way up the coast, the Morenos heard a loud noise. Andy went outside and saw a bear walking along the sidewalk. “I went out to the deck,” he recalled, “and started yelling and scared it way. Chris came down and saw footprints on the upper deck and all over. Later we saw that the animal had destroyed one beehive.” This same bear hit several hives in the area, and one neighbor put an electric fence around his. The Morenos gave away their remaining one–cells, honey, larvae, and stingers.

“The Wrong Side of the Bike.”

“It was a house in our valley,” recalled Suzie (who grew up in California), “that we’d bicycled by numerous times.”

We knew of some neglected dogs. And whenever we went by they barked at us. You can’t report them to Animal Control, though, if they’re only out on the street barking. The Animal Control people were aware of the problem but you have to show the animals were being neglected.

Dennis always traveled with Halt pepper spray. The day of the the incident we had learned that the people had moved out—renters only. No sign of the dogs, so we were feeling relieved. We rode out and back, three miles each way. I got ahead of Dennis. Still relieved, I heard them come up behind me barking—a particularly ferocious one. I got off but on wrong side of the bike—without the bike between me and the animal. It was the mother, which looked totally wild. Its face was contorted by fear and anger. It didn’t want to rip me apart but lunged, bit me on the calf, and retreated. It was over.

As for the aftermath, Animal Control came right out and put the dogs in isolation for ten days. The owner came by and was persuaded to give up her rights to the dogs, both of which were put down. “Mine was totally beyond redemption–not physically beaten but no nurturing.” Upon reflection, Suzie more fully appreciated what defines the relationship between a human and a dog: trust. “The story isn’t really about the dog, it’s about the people who failed to take care it properly.”

“A Loud Knocking.” 

Laurel Pritchard grew up in Indiana and her husband in New Hampshire. “Jim and I had just moved into our new home. We had selected the house site because of the huge white oak tree, beloved for its shade on hot summer afternoons. What we did not know was how much the deer loved it too, for the delicious sweet acorns it began to shed in September, all over the bank I had planted with a thousand ground-cover plants.”

“Once the acorns began to fall, we were visited each night by greedy deer, whose sharp little hooves uprooted my tender babies. I pleaded with Jim to do something, anything! to discourage the feeding frenzy (though, tender-hearted as I am, I drew the line at actual murder). Having heard of “rat shot,” Jim visited a nearby gun store and purchased some .22 rounds filled with tiny pellets, with which he loaded an old pistol he’d inherited. He assured me that at that distance, the pellets would only sting, not actually penetrate. Late each evening and every morning at dawn, he would sneak to an upstairs window and fire off a few rounds, aiming only at their rear ends. The herd would flee but would return undeterred.

“One night about 3 a.m. we were awakened by a loud knocking, not at the door, but on the wall of our bedroom. A home invasion? Werewolves? What else could it be? Jim (my hero) peered out the window and saw an enormous buck inches away, gobbling acorns, his horns rapping on the siding. By the time Jim grabbed the pistol and opened the upstairs window, the buck had moved to the front steps and was actually knocking on the door. From this position, Jim could reach out the window and fire from a distance of about six feet. The results were extremely dramatic. The buck became airborne and landed only once or twice before he was out of sight.

“Did this deter the voracious quadruped? Nooooo. A week or so later, we saw the same buck, identifiable by a red splotch on his rear flank. Slow learner. Before next year’s acorn season, Jim built an electric fence around the area. And the ground-cover plants, unmolested, are now doing fine.”

“Home of the Buffaloes.” Will Ridge Supply, located 202 Lumber Lane NE.

Majestic. 15.1 hands high. Photo by K. Becker.

Kathleen Becker uses the fiberglass horse pictured above for her business, Häst PSC. The model has two functions: (1) to demonstrate her large-animal rescue equipment for the web page and rescue conferences; (2) to serve her work as a basis for developing new products. While it is a “thoroughbred” horse, if real, it would weigh only about 800 pounds. Typical riding horses weigh about 1000, so Majestic is a bit smaller. This size is often considered to be a “cob,” which takes slightly smaller halters and harnesses.

Giddy-up! A wooden horse with EADG reins:

    Photo by Kayla. Floyd      Country Store.

A nasomuscular team:

     Courtesy Finders Keepers. 

 

Alice and Julien with factory-pink flamingo at Grateful Bread.

Another type is the Artifact Imaginary, Non-Symbolic. This kind ranges from the fearsome to cuddly to high-art.

 Say hello, lose a toe. 

 

A Snoopy-cute welcome to Slaughters’ Nursery!

 

Hatched at Finders Keepers, its empty cranium now stores a set of hard bristles used to clean a birdbath. Called Brush-fer-brains by R.W.

A word-photo of a statuette once displayed at Over the Moon:

“Riding Bull,” about six inches wide, makes up the lid of a classical-looking pot that was apparently turned on a wheel and painted bronze-turned-green. From its top and bottom it tapers outward to the middle. The bull is ridden by a naked woman with the head of a rabbit. Like her ride, the saddle has protuberances, which she grasps, front and back, and which are capped with elf-hats over rabbit faces. The hats and the bull’s legs preserve the sculptor’s pinch-marks, so Object fuses with Process and Artist; made with making and maker.

Another type of Fauxna is the Symbolic–realistic, stylized, or invented:

Stylized animal on motor home stored next to defunct factory.

 

       Howdy, neighbor!

 

Griffin on steps of Black Water Loft: “Non-tippers, flee!”

 

Ganesh (or Ganesha). 

Photo above by Jane Cundiff. A longtime teacher-abroad, she explains that this representation of a Hindu God often appears in India at entrances. It is a deity of new beginnings and of Anything is Possible. “My husband Ken and I bought this one in the Old City of Delhi, where we lived 1996-1998. Each of the Hindu gods represents a face of the encompassing One God. A suggestion that each of our beings is just a tiny part of ‘way more than we will ever know.” In 2015 Jane published Cobras, Kids, & Pyramids: Adventures of a Teaching Couple in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Egypt, a book available through Amazon.com.

For Angoras and Babydoll Southdowns, see Chapter 54.