Mary and Huckleberry
Living in the country comes with its own set of problems.
Over the past year, one of ours has been mice.
Not mice in the house, thankfully. These have been outdoor mice—the sort that apparently find the wiring in lawn mowers and vehicles particularly appealing.
We have tried all kinds of things to discourage them. Nothing has worked very well.
Then they found Jeremiah’s Toyota Tundra.
More than seven hundred dollars later, with a repaired wiring harness and a growing realization that the mice were winning, we decided it might be time to try something different.
My dear friend Tracy has a barn cat who recently had kittens.
Maybe what Old Fox Hollow needed was a couple of cats.
We chose two.
We thought they were both boys, so Lydia promptly named them Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
It seemed perfect.
Until we went to officially bring the kittens home and discovered that Tom Sawyer was, in fact, a girl.
So much for Tom.
We brought home Mary and Huckleberry instead.
They are brother and sister, born August 15.
Mary is a soft golden-yellow and white, with the faintest stripes. Huckleberry is the lightest gray, with darker gray ears, nose, and tail. Both have four little white paws that look as though they are wearing mittens.
For now, they sleep together in a basket on our front porch and drink from little copper bowls.
They have also decided that our flower beds are very large and beautifully maintained litter boxes.
Apparently our education in country cats has only begun.
Lydia has taken her responsibility for them quite seriously.
Perhaps too seriously.
She follows them. Checks on them. Holds them. Feeds them. Worries about them. Makes sure they are where they are supposed to be. By the end of the day, she is worn out from mothering two kittens who, as far as I can tell, are perfectly capable of managing quite a bit on their own.
Last night she needed a good sleep and a big hug.
She adores them.
And somewhere in the middle of all of this, I have found myself thinking again about lifelong learning.
We tend to associate learning with books, lessons, classrooms, or particular seasons of life. But some of the most useful learning happens simply because life presents us with a problem we do not yet know how to solve.
Something isn't working.
So we notice.
We ask questions.
We try something.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it costs us more than seven hundred dollars before we admit it isn't working.
And then we try something else.
There is something wonderfully ordinary about that kind of learning.
Living in the country has required plenty of it. There is always something we don't know how to grow, repair, tend, build, keep out, bring in, or care for.
We learn because the life in front of us requires it.
Perhaps that is one reason I have come to love lifelong learning so much.
It isn't merely the accumulation of knowledge.
It is remaining curious and teachable enough to meet the life we have actually been given.
And sometimes what begins as a problem to solve gives us something we weren't looking for at all.
We needed help with the mice.
Instead, we got Mary and Huckleberry.
Two little kittens sleeping in a basket on the front porch.
Four white mitten paws apiece.
A daughter who has discovered just how exhausting motherhood can be.
And another small reason to be grateful for this funny, ongoing education of ours.