In an octopus's garden, in the shade

It was my Daddy's birthday the other day, and so I called him, and the Wife answered the phone and told me, "He's taking a squirrel out."

"Taking a squirrel out?" I asked. "You mean, like, on a date, or with a shovel?"

"You're so funny!"

Yes, I know, but that hardly answers the question, woman.

My father's garden is an intricate web of flowers and vegetables; fruit trees and evergreen shrubs; bird feeders and waterers and houses; golf balled terrariums; assorted planks and hubcaps; and complex irrigation systems.




There are hidden traps for some animals, sanctuaries for others, and his reasons for granting asylum to chipmunks while having no compunctions about mercilessly ending the lives of moles are perfectly logical, at least to him.

He hand-picks, then crushes, the beetles that eat his grape leaves.



But there's a mourning dove that comes when he calls, and eats out of his hand.


(If you can't see the dove, click on the picture to make it larger.)

I have witnessed my father hurl baby birds against a tree trunk, and I went rabbit hunting with him once. Just once. He can be cruel, but sometimes cruelty is necessary. Like when I shot, but only wounded, that rabbit, and he made me track it and kill it.

I wasn't sure what his position on squirrels was, so I called back half an hour later to ask, and he explained: "I set traps for them in the garden. They go into the box to get the nuts, then VAM!, the door slams behind them."

"And then you take them away somewhere?"

"Vell, yes, about two kilometres avay, there's a nice woods where they can live. They dig up my bulbs."

"Don't they have babies this time of year, though? You shouldn't take them away from their babies."

"No, no, not now, in May. Right now they're... vat do you call it; they're starting only to make babies." He laughs to himself — ho-ho! — then tells me how, exactly, they are doing this. "The female runs up and down the trees, I vatched them just this morning, and seven males are chasing her. Und she runs and runs, up and down — it's so funny to vatch. Vichever vun lasts the longest, gets to catch her."

It is in exactly this manner that, many years ago, I learned about the birds and the bees. Through squirrels, and the tetras in our fish tank.

I told my father about the racoons: "I had neighbours, when I lived in High Park, who did that with racoons, trapped them, then took them into the park to let them go. There are so many racoons in that neighbourhood, because of all the big, old, trees. I never saw the point, you might as well vacuum the beach for all the good it will do, taking them out in onesies and twosies."

"Ja, racoons are a pain in the neck. I vould just kill them."

"In Toronto, you're not allowed to do that. Did I tell you about the skunk that was living in my building last summer?"

"No..."

"It was becoming quite a nuisance. It lived in the bushes at the front of the building, and every day at dusk it would start wandering around, and people were, naturally, concerned about it, especially the people who have dogs. So our property manager called animal control, and was told that they could send someone to trap it, but we couldn't kill it, and if it was trapped, it had to be released within one kilometre."

"Nah. That's just stupid."

"Of course it is, especially when you're talking about downtown Toronto."

My father was quiet for a minute, and then he said, "Vell, the lake is within one kilometre, isn't it?"


Next, Postmodern Sass gets a phone call from her crazy neighbour, Nadine.