I’ve always loved crows. Waking up to the raucous sound of crows organizing their day and the entire rest of the neighborhood doesn’t bother me. I’m pretty organized and chatty myself.

So I was delighted to find this wonderful short introduction in Fannie Flagg’s newest book, The Whole Town’s Talking.

They rise early in the country and in cities, eager to start their serious crow business. They gather in large groups or sometimes just one or two. All day long they soar high or low, calling out to the busy people below. They shout from the trees, rooftops and telephone wires….

“NOW! NOW! LIVE NOW!”

Poor old crows. They think they are talking, but the only thing people hear is…

“CAW! CAW! CAW!”

The actual plot of this amazing novel revolves not around crows, but the birth, life and death of a fictitious rural town and its residents. Only a die hard curmudgeon (and  there is one among the townspeople) will not be captivated by this American story about Elmwood Springs, Missouri, a most real, unreal place.

Newspaper book critics have heaped praise on the novel. The Newport Plain News states, “If there’s one thing Fannie Flagg can do better than anybody else, it’s tell a story, and she outdoes herself in The Whole Town’s Talking”. The Richmond Times-Dispatch calls it “a ringing affirmation of love, community and life itself “.

I won’t spoil the book by giving away any of the surprises in the plot. I simply will say that I have never read a book that has had a more satisfying and well knit together ending. It’s the perfect antidote for our current dark American age.

Thank you,Fannie Flagg, and please keep writing.

If I had unlimited wealth, flying around to see special exhibits at art museums would be high on my agenda. Right now, I would choose to be on a plane to the Netherlands to visit the Prinsenhof Museum in Delft. Their current exhibit is entitled “Forbidden Porcelain, Exclusively for the Emperor”. It’s a show of smashed up pottery which has been meticulously glued back together.

The cracked up ceramic pieces on display were deliberately destroyed  hundreds of years ago. Made for the Ming rulers from 1366 to 1644, the porcelain objects were judged to be too imperfect for the eyes  of the emperors and their courts.

The pottery was made in Jingdezhen, China, 838 miles from Beijing where the emperors held court. This area had an abundance of kaolin, the clay from which porcelain is produced. Surrounding forests provided wood to fire the kilns. Newly fired pieces taken out of the kilns received scrupulous inspections and the rejects were immediately broken and buried in the lowlands near a river. Frequent flooding covered the shards with layers of silt and soil.

Fast forward to the 1980’s when the ancient kilns at Jingdezhen were discovered when some buildings were being razed. The “seconds” were an archeological treasure trove. The mind numbing task of sorting and reassembling the royal rejects began.

The eyes of royalty have finally viewed the pieces. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands opened the show and adorned a vase with, what else, tulips.

Delft is the perfect venue for this art show. The city’s famous blue and white Delftware pottery was inspired by the blue and white porcelain made in China and brought to the Netherlands in the 17th century by the Dutch East India Company. Globalization is nothing new.

My husband and I have been watching a large McMansion being built a few miles down the road from us on the way to the city where we shop. We’ve both enjoyed seeing this large structure rise from the hill it is situated on; framed, roofed, insulated, glazed. It was nearing completion a few weeks ago andi made an imposing new landmark, like a castle situated on a hill.

Imagine my amazement when we sat down to dinner last week and my husband said, “I feel like I’m going crazy, but when I went into the city today, the new house is gone. I drove down the road twice, but it has vanished.”

Since neither of us believe in the paranormal, we both did computer searches to see if any of the local news outlets reported any large fire or unusual demolition. Not a word was found about this enormous, prominent, never-occupied house that went A.W.O.L.

We live in a rural area and my husband is the zoning administrator.  When a contractor came to our house for a building permit yesterday, he was also speculating on why a brand new house in the next township had disappeared. Understandably, this occurrence is being noticed.

We both went into overdrive to solve the mystery. I speculated that the unreported disappearance might have something to do with its location next to Whistling Straits, one of America’s most prestigious golf courses where a round of golf starts at $410. Whistling Straits is a part of The Kohler Co. Hospitality and Real Estate Group. That is the same Kohler name that appears in bathrooms world wide.

We also are starting to hear the rumors flying around our town. None are substantiated, of course. Word is, the elite golfers shouldn’t have their bucolic views of the lakeshore and faux Scottish golf greens marred by someone’s prominent new estate, and the right amount of money was offered to get the view back. Another rumor is that the house had to go as it made a great observation tower of happenings on the links.

If the gossip turns out to be true, I may be inclined to believe that old cliche that the rich really are different from the rest of us.

It’s the orgy to end all orgies. Narcisse, Manitoba, an hour north of Winnipeg, is the scene of the party. That’s 800 miles north of our house, and some year around late April or May I want to take a drive up there.

The Narcisse Snake Dens are home to the world’s largest congregation of snakes. The snakes are all red-sided garter snakes and are entirely harmless. For eight months, 50,000 of them hibernate in their underground limestone crannies. When spring finally arrives in that northern realm, the males all slither out with one thought on their minds…sex. Males vastly outnumber females; the ratio can be 10,000 to 1. The ground is a “writhing carpet of snakes”.

Next, the girls, who are considerably longer and wider than the guys, slowly glide out. The females secrete pheromones and are swarmed by dozens or even hundreds of eager suitors who rub their chins along the ladies’ backs while flicking their tongues. Once the females pick a male and mate, they go off alone and give birth in late summer. Red-sided garter snakes are ovoviviparous meaning the eggs hatch inside the female’s body and the snakes are born live. Mom, however, does not hang around and care for her kids.

The Narcisse Wildlife Management Area has a sensational web site at naturenorth.com.

Check out their snake videos and don’t be squeamish. These snakes rock……and roll in mating balls!

“Objects in motion tend to remain in motion” is a law of physics that I understand. Therefore, every morning I do exercises to get the object (me) in motion for another day.

Many of the exercises I do involve a yellow exercise ball. I enjoy using the ball as the workouts done with it seem to be more fun than those without. But sometimes I mess up an exercise and the big ball gets away from me. Several times it has rolled itself the length of the balcony and then bounced down all the stairs. And herein lies the problem.

Our black cat, Taj, is terrified of the big yellow ball. He is convinced that it is a big cat-eating monster coming to get him. He sits warily at the far end of the balcony watching me exercise. His big yellow eyes, like two mini exercise balls, never leave the ball……he is waiting to flee if it attacks. The stair incidents caused him to run and hide in fear.

Fear is a terrible emotion, often worse than the object or thing feared. I don’t want any creature to live in fear, especially one that lives in my own house. So I tried to devise a way to help Taj overcome his terror of a ball he could deflect with one good bat of his paw.

I did not teach him how to play ball. Rather, I made the ball the purveyor of all goodness….cat treats. Training a cat is a long, slow process, but Taj and I are making good progress. In a few more years, we may even be playing ball.