FoxCraft

There Goes the Neighborhood

The first new house wasn't so bad. It went in just up the road and around the curve from us. A nice enough house. Well-constructed, too, based on the illicit walk-through we did one Sunday morning after the walls were up but before the doors were hung.

Then came the second new house. It's hasn't actually been built yet, but the contractors have cut trees and dug trenches and poured the foundation. It will probably be a nice, well-built house, too. The only problem is that it's just across a driveway up the hill from our house. It's closer to us than our mailbox is. It's going to have front windows that face directly into our bedroom windows. It's going to loom. It's going to be—gasp!—visible.

We live in a neighborhood full of hills, gullies, and trees, with one-acre lots or larger. It feels more rural than urban, even though it reluctantly allowed itself to be annexed into the city limits a few years ago. There's plenty of room for deer, turkeys, and mountain lions. Most of us can't see our neighbors' homes very well, and that's the way we like it.

Except that our neighbor to the north, with his small house tucked away discreetly behind the hill, didn't consult the rest of us before he sold the front of his large lot as two separate building sites. The new houses—too close to the road, too new, and too obvious—felt like invaders. They were violating what we considered to be our space.

Then one evening this week, out for a walk, we met a young man with a wheelbarrow full of dirt. He, his wife, their baby, and two dogs are the proud new owners of the house around the bend. As we were introducing ourselves and talking about landscaping and grass seed and other such homeownerly topics, a car came by. The woman driving stopped and told us, "I just came by to see the new house my daughter and her husband are building right next door. She's so excited—she said, 'Mom, there's really going to be a house there!'"

Well, yeah, lady, there's really going to be a house there. That's what we've been so annoyed about.

But as she spoke, I could almost hear her daughter's delighted voice. It sounded a lot like my daughter's voice. Something odd happened during just those few minutes of conversation. All at once, the new houses that were such odious encroachments into our turf weren't merely houses. They were homes. Home to new neighbors.

Yes, we can't see many of our neighbors' houses in this area. But once in a while it's good to be reminded that we can, if we choose, see our neighbors.

One of these days we might have to take them some fresh cinnamon rolls.

You Can Call Me Hank--Or Not

Maybe he didn't exactly come out swinging, but Henry showed up with a major-league attitude. Of course, when you're only a few minutes old, and people are scrubbing you and weighing you and measuring you and taking pictures before you've had a chance to put any clothes on, a guy can be excused for feeling a little annoyed.

Henry Orrin made his appearance on Monday, April 16. He weighed seven pounds ten ounces and was 20 ½ inches long. (Since the powers that be subjected him to all that weighing and measuring, we might as well report the findings.) The brand-new pictures of his brand-new self showed him to be a sturdy, healthy little person and much better looking than Winston Churchill.

One of his grandfathers has already been caught on camera calling him "Hammerin' Hank." Whether the nickname sticks, or whether he and his parents will prefer the more formal Henry, remains to be seen.

Given that his parents are golfers rather than baseball fans, Hank Aaron won't necessarily be one of Henry's idols. Nor, I'm guessing, will Hank Williams. Henry VIII? Please, let's not even mention him. Henry's mom and dad are both articulate attorneys. His role models will probably be Patrick Henry and Henry Clay.

And a good thing, too. Henry also just happens to have an articulate, very bright older sister. She's probably going to treat him with that loving bossiness only big sisters can achieve. The kid is going to need all the verbal skills he can muster.

Of course, a good strong swing might sometimes come in handy, too.

Hi, Henry. Welcome to the family.

Spring Cleaning, the King, and Killer Art

"Fill a wall with a really, really big piece of killer art."

This, according to a decorating article by Mary Carol Garrity that appeared in our newspaper this week, is a way to add "lots of drama and personality to a room."

I skimmed the article over breakfast, mostly because lingering over the newspaper and my second cup of tea was a good way to avoid getting to work. I wasn't looking for decorating tips, since we already did the spring cleaning for this year. It consisted of clearing several cubic feet of stuff out of the hallway closet. I also rearranged the formal living/dining room by moving the sewing machine from one side of the big front window to the other to make room for the treadmill parallel to the wall instead of facing it.

As I read further, I realized I had inadvertently followed another tip in Ms. Garrity's article: to "add a piece of eye-catching furniture." It's possible that she wouldn't think a treadmill qualifies as "furniture," but since it's the biggest thing in the room except for the piano, it certainly catches the eye.

Just as I was about to fold up the paper and head to my office, serendipity struck. I noticed an ad in the antiques and collectibles section of the classifieds for a wall hanging made in Turkey. Since my partner has spent a lot of time in Turkey and we have Turkish carpets on several of our floors and walls, I read further.

This item wasn't a carpet, but a "close up portrait of Elvis," size two feet by three. It was only $35, surely a bargain figured by the square inch.

Suddenly, the ad and the decorating article came together in a stunning moment of decorating inspiration. What would more effectively add "drama and personality" to a room than an oversized portrait of Elvis? True, it wasn't on velvet. Even with that drawback, however, it would certainly qualify as "killer art."

It would be the perfect focal point to complement the treadmill. One could commune with The King while huffing and puffing along at 4.2 miles an hour. Listening, of course, to "You Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" or "Blue Suede Shoes."

The Secret Life of Lovebirds

The dove approached the bird feeder with hesitant dignity, gracing the common flock with its presence rather like Queen Victoria at a backyard barbecue. She—it was somehow impossible to think of the bird as anything other than female—was different from any of the other doves and pigeons that occasionally wander across the deck. This one was smaller and paler, so soft a gray as to be almost white, with one black stripe across the back of the neck.

We looked it up in The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, and there it was, number 350. Our guest looked just like the picture of the ringed turtle dove.

There was nothing in the least remarkable about this until we read the description on page 585. According to Audubon, the range of the ringed turtle dove is Los Angeles, California. To quote: "Escaped from captivity. Also established locally in southern Florida. . . . The small population in downtown Los Angeles has apparently not spread and is localized in a few parks and tree-lined streets."

Okay, then. Assuming our dainty visitor was indeed a ringed turtle dove—and no other picture in the bird book even came close to resembling it—how did it end up in western South Dakota?

True, we'd recently had a human houseguest from California who flew here in a manmade bird. The chances of a lone turtle dove stowing away in his luggage seemed remote, especially since he came from San Francisco. It's also possible the bird we saw was a local escapee, maybe one of a pair released at a wedding reception who had fled from its matrimonial obligations.

Or perhaps the truth is deeper and darker. What if there are tiny colonies of fugitive ringed turtle doves hidden all across the country? The one in Los Angeles could be the home base, showing to the public a peaceful community of harmless lovebirds, billing and cooing in the most innocent way. Behind the scenes, however, it could be the logistical center for a secret underground—er, aboveground movement of turtle doves with a goal of freeing all their relatives still held in captivity.

The one we saw could have been a scout, sent to search the middle of the country, checking every bird feeder, wedding venue, and party supplier to compile a list of captive turtle doves. Then, some dark night when we least expect it, the birds will launch Operation Winged Freedom, a massive aerial assault intended to release every enslaved lovebird.

The scout certainly wouldn't have found any captives here. We put out food so we can watch the birds, not capture them.

I just hope she doesn't know what happened to all her cousins that have disappeared in such numbers during dove season. If we're lucky, she'll never make the connection between us, my father, his shotgun, and all that dove-breast jerky that shows up at family reunions.