For those of you who wonder where I am writing from, here are a few details about where I live and what I live with, and they include no livestock. Except my neighbor had a pig once, and it was very smart.1. In addition to living on an eight mile peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean, I live on a salt pond that has birdhouses floating in it. On a windy day, there are whitecaps on the pond. In the fog, I can't see the pond at all. At its narrowest this peninsula is 200 yards wide. In a big storm they close the roads.
2. Fog is extreme. On foggy days in the summer, you wear sweaters and sleep with heavy blankets. Five minutes inland, it will be warm. Wind is also extreme. Gusts of 50 miles an hour are commonplace. Occasionally a storm knocks the doors off my old shed. (Note: Must fix doors or get new shed.) Once in a very great while a famous storm comes along and knocks down houses.
4. Birds: osprey and great blue herons, night herons, great horned owls, screech owls, a billion kinds of ducks and itinerant water birds patting down the road with wet feet. No cranes, no magpies, no emu. An abundance of wild turkeys. Wildlife: Coyotes. Infinite rabbits. Fisher cats. The occasional seal. An ermine, once.
5. No baby cows with milky faces. One hound dog. One slitty-eyed cat. Chickens, once upon a time.
6. Every day the ocean is different. Some days there is sea smoke. Some days there are false cities on the horizon.
Yesterday I was at a party and as usual when people asked me what I was writing these days, I said "cowboys and bull riding." Someone said that the heart of cowboy country was Texas. Someone else said Oklahoma. Wherever it is, that's the other place I live, with the milky-faced calves and a different wild sky.
