Small Beef in the Attic
I was downstairs drinking my tea this afternoon when I heard a crash upstairs in the meditation room; when I got there, I discovered a candlestick knocked over, and both kittens (they're really cats now, but we still call them "the kittens") jumping and snapping at hundreds of big blowflies, which were congregated in the windows.
Now, that sort of sight is bad news. Cause you don't get hundreds of blowflies in the house, all of a sudden, unless they've been born all at the same time, and you don't get hundreds of blowflies being born at the same time unless they came out of something dead.
Which, I realized as I opened the window and started getting as many of them out of the house as I could, went far towards explaining the dreadful smell the child's room had acquired over the last few days. I'd figured he'd snuck food into his room and forgotten it, but I never could find anything.
This many blowflies, though, didn't come out of some sandwich, I figured.
So Sam interrupted his other works of stewardship at Bear's Retreat, and we commenced to think about the problem.
I discovered a hell of a lot of soot, which had fallen out of the ceiling and down one of the walls of the meditation room, and Sam, noticing that the soot was next to one of the chimneys, figured that something died in the chimney.
But no, no smell from the chimney. So Sam went up in the attic, and QUICKLY discovered the culprit, which turned out to be one of the occupants of the the Squirrel Hotel we call an attic. It was wedged down the side of the chimney; we figure that in its death throes it dislodged a bunch of soot, which then fell down the wall.
Then it lay around in the attic, which is unventilated and uninsulated and therefore probably gets up to around 130 degrees in the summer, which is what we're in, and commenced to decompose, which a) attracted blowflies, who took advantage of the situation to reproduce themselves en masse, and b) stunk to high heaven.
Well, it was quite an afternoon. Sam got a coat hanger and hauled out the dead squirrel; the kittens ran around after the flies and tried to climb in the attic; I ran around after the flies, too, though I stayed out of the attic; the child hung around at the bottom of the attic stairs, discussing Life in General and asking to see the squirrel, which he was eventually allowed to do, after it had come downstairs in a plastic bag (we figure it's important for children to see dead squirrels, and we're in agreement on this, though I don't think either of us could explain why); I think the old cat, Lila, missed all the hoohah, but she was the only one.
After that, we all had tay for the love of jaysus.*
And we desire to find no more small beef** in the attic. After we're back from our summer trips, we're closing the Squirrel Hotel.
******************************************
*Once, when I was young and visiting Dublin, one of the students who lived in the flat where I was staying, a young man from Donegal, came home after a day of standing in the rain in the financial aid line; wet, dripping, he flung open the door of the flat and yelled, "Somebody make me a pot of tay for the love of jaysus!" which I have never forgotten, and repeat when useful. Lots.
**"Small beef" is the term Gerald Durrell uses, whilst collecting animals in Africa, to describe small animals. There's "big beef," too, as well as "bery big beef," which is, I think, mostly hippos. Squirrels are "small beef," is my guess.
Now, that sort of sight is bad news. Cause you don't get hundreds of blowflies in the house, all of a sudden, unless they've been born all at the same time, and you don't get hundreds of blowflies being born at the same time unless they came out of something dead.
Which, I realized as I opened the window and started getting as many of them out of the house as I could, went far towards explaining the dreadful smell the child's room had acquired over the last few days. I'd figured he'd snuck food into his room and forgotten it, but I never could find anything.
This many blowflies, though, didn't come out of some sandwich, I figured.
So Sam interrupted his other works of stewardship at Bear's Retreat, and we commenced to think about the problem.
I discovered a hell of a lot of soot, which had fallen out of the ceiling and down one of the walls of the meditation room, and Sam, noticing that the soot was next to one of the chimneys, figured that something died in the chimney.
But no, no smell from the chimney. So Sam went up in the attic, and QUICKLY discovered the culprit, which turned out to be one of the occupants of the the Squirrel Hotel we call an attic. It was wedged down the side of the chimney; we figure that in its death throes it dislodged a bunch of soot, which then fell down the wall.
Then it lay around in the attic, which is unventilated and uninsulated and therefore probably gets up to around 130 degrees in the summer, which is what we're in, and commenced to decompose, which a) attracted blowflies, who took advantage of the situation to reproduce themselves en masse, and b) stunk to high heaven.
Well, it was quite an afternoon. Sam got a coat hanger and hauled out the dead squirrel; the kittens ran around after the flies and tried to climb in the attic; I ran around after the flies, too, though I stayed out of the attic; the child hung around at the bottom of the attic stairs, discussing Life in General and asking to see the squirrel, which he was eventually allowed to do, after it had come downstairs in a plastic bag (we figure it's important for children to see dead squirrels, and we're in agreement on this, though I don't think either of us could explain why); I think the old cat, Lila, missed all the hoohah, but she was the only one.
After that, we all had tay for the love of jaysus.*
And we desire to find no more small beef** in the attic. After we're back from our summer trips, we're closing the Squirrel Hotel.
******************************************
*Once, when I was young and visiting Dublin, one of the students who lived in the flat where I was staying, a young man from Donegal, came home after a day of standing in the rain in the financial aid line; wet, dripping, he flung open the door of the flat and yelled, "Somebody make me a pot of tay for the love of jaysus!" which I have never forgotten, and repeat when useful. Lots.
**"Small beef" is the term Gerald Durrell uses, whilst collecting animals in Africa, to describe small animals. There's "big beef," too, as well as "bery big beef," which is, I think, mostly hippos. Squirrels are "small beef," is my guess.
<< Home