‘When will they be ripe?’ Silky Josephine asks of the blackberries as we pass the bramble on our walk, the stickered cane already thick with little green nubs. 
     Having taken an interest in baking, Silky is anxious to try her hand at cobbler. 
  She’s collected recipes. Dozens. Sorted them into categories of most and least buttery. And then from the most buttery recipes, sorted out those that had the best combination of goo and crunch ...that would require a bowl for eating, and most appreciate a spoon of ice cream, or even two. 
    She seems to have settled on an old Irish recipe that involves not only a great deal of butter, but also brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and the use of an iron skillet for baking. 
     ‘Another two weeks,’ I tell her. 
     'I can’t wait,’ Josie says. 
     And quite honestly ...neither can I.

             

If a squirrel were to hang from a branch by its hind feet ...which, as you might know, is not an uncommon pastime among squirrels ... and stretch to its fullest, this would be approximately ...and rather suspiciously, I might add ...the length of the cords that we found remaining in the Bumblebee tree. The cords to which, only yesterday, nearly a dozen bird feeders had been attached.

rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

‘Stop it, P!’ I hear Josie say, ‘I’m trying to concentrate.’
     
     Browsing the library for her next bedtime story, Silky Josephine discovered two evenings ago, an old paperback, recently added to the newly installed shelves. 
     ‘It smells like Science,’ she said, when I removed the book for her closer examination and approval. 
     Yellow-edged and brittling, its pages did indeed give off the moist, metallic scent of an often-used laboratory, of an experiment deep in its many-beakered and burbling process.
     Moving Mountains, the book was called. And on its cover ...beneath one of Sir James Fraser’s many mesmerizing spirals ...was printed the claim that inside one would find the keys to unlock their mind’s natural telekinetic powers. 
     ‘What are telekinetic powers?’ Josie asked. 
     ‘Well,’ I say, ‘telekinesis, or telekinetic power, is the ability to move an object without touching it. With your mind. Mostly.’ 
     Silky’s eyes widen, ‘Ohhhh,’ she says, ‘This book then. Let’s read this one.’ 
      And so we do. 
     Which is why Silky Josephine has been on the floor this morning, still as a stone for nearly twenty minutes now, bright eyes intent on one of her more rollable toys, a cat-eye marble, silent, but for her occasional snip at ‘P’ ...Peter Pan ...who has only ever slept with any great display of determination, and lunges and yaps, ‘Move!’ at the marble every half minute or so. 
     ‘Breakfast?’ I suggest, and a smile spreads across Silky Josephine’s deeply concentrated face. 
     ‘I knew you were going to say that,’ she says. ‘I just knew it.’ 

Josie jumped. Peter Pan jumped. And Harley ...Well, Harley may have jumped. It’s difficult to tell with his being so very near to the ground and all, especially when you yourself have jumped almost entirely out your skin. 
     But we’ll say that the four of us jumped in unison—albeit in our varied heights—startled by a patch of Buttercups that exploded in our approach, took wing, and made for wood’s edge, where, like a fistful of golden coins, strewn and spin glimmering, end over end, the flowers vanished into the thick of underbrush and briars there. 
     I know for certain that the four of us stood then for quite some time, blinking, uncertain of what we had seen. 
     Blinking ...until bird by bird, the Goldfinches appeared at the low tips of Dogwood boughs and blackberry cane, to preen and wait our passing their sweet patch of Buttercups, spring-laden with seed.

‘Daisy has a feather!’ I hear Silky Josephine say. 
     She has raced ahead to the brooder box where we were bound with fresh feed and water for the chicks, and is looking inside. 
     ‘There not red though,’ she informs me, as I come to stand beside her, ‘or even orange.’ 
     And sure enough, through the fluff of little yellow Daisy’s wings, feathers have begun to sprout. And just as Josie has said, not a hint of red or orange. More black than anything. 
     ‘Well,’ I say, ‘Our little Comet is full of surprises, isn’t she?’ 
     Silky nods. 
     ‘What kind of chicken is she now?’ she asks. 
     ‘She’s a mutt, Josephine,' I tell her, 'like you and me and Peter Pan and Harley. A little bit of this. A little bit of that. Nothing in particular. Just a chicken.’ 
     ‘Is that a good kind of chicken to be?’ Silky asks, concerned, 'A Just-a-Chicken chicken?' 
     ‘It is,’ I tell her, ‘It’s the best kind of chicken to be.’ 

There are six dog beds ...three indoor, three out. The big bed ...mine. The cushioned Adirondack chairs, with their armrests at the perfect height for his chin. A quilt in the shop, and sometimes even the bench seat of the truck. 
     But of all the places that Harley has to sleep, with his belly up and his ears flopped, he loves most a spot beneath the old sugar maple out front, where in the morning, sunshine pours through a break in the spring-greened leaves and warms for him a bed of new and downy grass, strategically positioned, so that with only one eye opened he is keenly aware of every trunk down which a squirrel might descend, despite the unlikelihood of his ever rising to give chase.