Tag: spring

Margerumalia – Spring Has Sprung

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 2, 2025

Yes, spring has sprung in the Midwest and the multitudes are multiplying aplenty. 

I was washing dishes at the kitchen sink when this baby bunny appeared in our front garden, calmly chewing away at the greenery and helpfully eating the head off a dandelion. He was just so darn cute that I had to pull out my iPhone and capture the moment. I love the way the sun gave him backlighting that produced a halo effect around his head and shone through his perky pink ears. 

I had a toy bunny sticking out of my Christmas stocking when I was four and he still sits on my desk shelf today. I petted him bare in a couple places over the years, and I can’t help but think how much the bunny in the garden reminds me of that treasured friend.

On the other side of the house, Rocki Raccoon is usually at our back door in the morning, peering in to see if I might bring her a nice bowl of cat kibble. The other raccoons who stop by are like pigs, literarily snorting and grunting while they use their butts to shove their siblings aside and dive their greedy forepaws into the bowl, spilling kibble all over the back deck. 

Rocki is very polite and appears to be praying at the window beside the door as if to say, like Oliver Twist, “Please, sir, may I have some more?” 

And when I bring out the food she takes the food delicately and chews for a bit before kissing my hand in thanks. Okay, she might be wiping her nose on my fingers but I like to think of it as kissing my hand.

I’ve read that dog food is better to feed a raccoon, but try telling a raccoon only to eat the dog food when you’re also putting out rich, odorous kibble for the cat. Not gonna happen!

Besides, Rocki is clearly pregnant and she’ll be needing all the nutrients she can get. I think we’ll get to greet her babies before the end of May. 

Speaking of pregnant animals, Tabitha is also pregnant. I hoped I had successfully chased off a Tomcat who was assaulting her in February, but I guess it was only a short reprieve. Considering where he was trying to poke her, I wonder if he’s even the father!

Soon we’ll be capturing kittens again, hoping to find them homes. We learned a lot about the process last year with Tabitha’s other kittens. We just never figured out how to capture Tabby herself and take her in to get spayed. She’s a wily cat who runs away at the slightest noise, but swats at our hands if we put her food bowl down too slowly. She’s a survivor.

Writing about these animals is something like creating character sketches for a novel or short story. Each of them has their unique personality traits, just like you and I. 

Enjoy the spring weather wherever you may be.

TTFN

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KITTEN UPDATE: Two days after writing the Margerumalia above, Tabitha arrived at our back door looking much slimmer than the day before. We have no idea where she goes at night but somewhere out there a litter of kittens is eagerly waiting their mama’s return. 

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Margerumalia – Five Year Anniversary

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – March 28, 2025

PHOTO: Angel wearing her festive holiday sweater on a winter walk. She’s wondering why we’re not jumping over the fallen tree limb.

Could it actually be five years from the start of the COVID epidemic? And do you know where you stashed your masks to pull them out for the upcoming Bird Flu epidemic? No? Hopefully we won’t need them.

I have a surreal and haunting memory of the spring blossoms and the budding trees from 2020. 

Angel and I continued to take our morning walks every day, keeping all of our trail buddies at a discrete distance if we stopped to say hello at all. This was before the vaccines were developed, of course, and I remember walking about fifty yards behind another hiker, smelling her shampoo and thinking, “If the virus is carried through the air and I can smell her scent, is six feet of social distancing even enough?” 

I developed a strong sense of self-preservation during that time and will admit that I consciously stood upwind of people who stopped to talk to me. The world was in lockdown, after all, and still people were dying by the hundreds, the thousands, every day. 

Then suddenly Mother Nature shook off her winter lockdown and started to run headlong into spring. My logical mind understood the natural state of things but my emotional mind couldn’t process this. We were on hold! Nature shouldn’t be breaking the the rules. No one should!

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” 

I guess I passed the test, but not before processing those opposed ideas. That required me to lean into my mixed feelings as well as the unnerving pull from two directions.

I remind myself to let my characters have such contradictory experiences as well. It makes for weighty moments in their lives, which is always a more interesting read.

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles