Hoping the badgers move on from their sett

The other night, at dusk, a male deer sporting small velvet antlers grazed in my backyard, just a few feet from where I sat inside. When his antlers are fully grown in late summer or early autumn, the velvet will be gone. Science has shown that what looks like velvet is actually skin with hair, blood vessels, and nerve endings to nourish the growing antlers. Many fools around the world go to great lengths to cut off deer antlers while still covered in the velvet, then use the velvet to make ‘natural’ healing medicine. Like many such products, there is no science to prove that any claims of healing are true. So, deer must endure the indignity of it all, succumbing to our often far-fetched notions of what will make us healthier.

I’ve not seen the badgers in Bobbi’s Hollow for a while. My last sighting was of two cubs peering out, curious about my tractor rumbling and throbbing past their den (officially a sett). I hope they’ve moved on, exhausting my supply of rodents and snakes. A friend often brings his dogs to run in the hollow, but he’ll wisely keep his dogs away until the badgers are gone. Any creature sniffing around a sett is asking for trouble. Setts are like something out of Middle Earth, vast tunnels, sometimes very deep, with numerous chambers for sleeping, rearing their young, etc. I like to think that perhaps there is also a chamber with a pool table, dartboard on a wall, and maybe a chamber with a cocktail bar and comfortable leather chairs, perhaps a small stereo setup, where mom can relax after a long day, listen to Steely Dan, and enjoy a beverage.

Bushes and shrubs along the road north of my house have filled in, hiding me from civilization. There is one spot where, if you’re driving past and glance quickly, you can catch a glimpse of my house. Everything around it is green, no color of annual flowers. My wife loved her flowers in the spring, and I kept up the practice during the final couple of years of her journey, but stopped after she passed. I’m happy that planting flowers every spring brings satisfaction for so many, however, I’m much too cynical, seeing the floral industry as, well, not like you see it, probably.

Recently, I wrote about my senior cat, Pippa. This week, she is limping, her right front leg or paw causing her some pain. I need to find a vet who makes house calls, as putting my cats into carriers has become agonizing and fraught, for all of us. And, selfishly, I want the girls to outlive me.

In a few days, it will be the anniversary of my wedding, a very long time ago. I don’t recall a lot about the day, just snippets. Private. Only family in attendance. Two ministers. String quartet for the reception. Vivaldi and Handel humming along. Food gone by the time I got to it. A gorgeous, brilliant, constantly smiling woman at my side. I was never one to smile much. On more than one occasion, my mother would say to me, “We spent a lot of money on those teeth. The least you can do is smile once in a while.” That’s about all I remember about that late May day, and maybe that’s enough. There were countless more days to come that proved to be just as meaningful and beautiful. I hope you all have many such days, and I hope you will recall and appreciate them with clarity and acuity. Having said that, know that if I rise up just a little, and crane my crepey neck a bit I can see June from here, and it looks to be brilliant.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald has published a 60-page magazine of Kurt’s columns. The magazine can be purchased here.