The Jay and the Figs

There I was today, early morning-like, looking from my table in the field at the fig tree, bent down with its plump purple-green figs... Suddenly, the jay who swooped over every evening, just before dinnertime, from West to East, from tree to tree across the field, whirred into the tree, which shook with his weight. Looking right at me, or so it seemed, he took a mouthful of the most luscious=looking fruit, and then another. Finally, having shown me which I should have picked yesterday, he flew off.

And he was right, doggone-it. Right around where he had left the hole were strands of the most juicy figa possible. So I put them on the table with some fromage blanc and a bit of sugar, and we had a super post-jay breakfast.

We had our neighboring dog saga, with one beach sandal and one gardening glove taken surreptitiously overnight or who knows when... All part of cabanon living. Who could live in a cabanon without a sense of humor sufficient to the tiny trials of everyday? A few slugs, a few more scorpions, major wasp nests, and the negotiating of the steep stone steps ... and then the early sun and the late sunsets, all making up for anything before.