September 30, 2013

The last curtain is ironed and rehung, one more room cleaned and cozied for winter. The washer and dryer are still spinning and whirring, but Mama Hare is in need of a break!

Papa Hare and I sat out on the back porch for lunch today; we could actually hear it raining leaves! Oh, it's not really raining--on the contrary, it's a stellar day, crystal blue sky, sunshine and just enough breeze to make the clothes shimmy on the line, and well... puff the dying leaves off their stems. I'm sad to see them fall. It always puts me in a schlumpadink mood somehow. Happens every year. But I get over it.

I've nothing to complain about though. It's wee Bic who has complaints today. He can't go to school; poor little guy can't even hobble at present, wrapped as he is by bandages and so sore from his deep talon wounds. Mama put mustard seed salve on them and changes the bandages often.

Papa Fivel carried his boy out onto the veranda to soak up some sun this afternoon... always a good remedy for healing wounds of body or soul. They had a little chat too. Bic is a sober little boy-mouse just now, realizing first hand the consequences of not obeying his parents. Papa was kind in his reprimands though, focusing more on how worried he and Mama were when their boy didn't come home, and how sad they'd be if anything bad happened to him. Papa talked too about responsibility--that unwritten, unspoken but very real bond that families have to one another, and how the behavior (or misbehavior!) of one can so quickly impact another. It's frightfully easy to hurt our loved ones just by behaving irresponsibly ourselves.

Bic listened and nodded in all the right places, but he wasn't quite sure what all the big words meant. He knew he had an awful fright, and that he's awfully grateful nothing bad happened to Ben despite both of them being out there in the dark. And he is unspeakably glad that his Papa found him before it was too late. Other than that, he wasn't sure about this rees-pons-sa-bullity... no, that wasn't it. What was it again, Papa?

His wee head began to nod, his eyelids drooped, and Papa tenderly carried him back into MouseHouse and laid him on his bunk, tucking the quilt gently around his bandaged legs and tummy. "Sleep well, my boy... these lessons take a life-time. I don't expect you to understand it all right now."

I stifled a yawn of my own, tipped back the recliner, and well... maybe just a short nap here in the sunshine of my back porch?