None But the Rain – County Highway

On the Mesa

The Land With No Vehicle Inspections

A fenceless state where hummingbirds pee

The windshield is cracked

Ambrosia salad is a mix of canned pineapple, mandarin oranges, marshmallows, sour cream, and shredded coconut from a bag

By Tama Janowitz

It’s quiet out here on the mesa in southwest New Mexico. The longer I am here, the more I realize it is too quiet — for me, anyway. I like to sit on the patio and watch the hummingbirds get into fights at the feeders, squeaking, wings buzzing, as they urinate all over the place. Every time one sips, it pees — a second later — in mid-air. I love watching the hummingbirds’ peeing and beak-stabbing, but even so, this place gets too quiet for me. You can tell, usually, when you’ve been somewhere too long. Unless we win the lottery, I don’t see an escape. We had run out of hay for the horses and had to drive the truck into town so Robert could get more bales at Barwheel Feeds. Generally, I wouldn’t go in the truck. The truck is from around 1975, with a big printed label on the dashboard that reads: OPERATOR IS RESPONSIBLE FOR CHECKING OIL AND ALL OTHER FLUIDS. We can’t peel off the ominous label and it makes me nervous, until I remember I’m not the Operator. The truck was a worker’s …

When Animals Attack

Squirrel of Destiny

The Ballad of Peanut (and Fred)

Overbearing bureaucrats could ransack their sanctuary, then seize and euthanize their tiny bodies. But their truth keeps marching on.

Sic temper tyrannis

By Walter Kirn

Peanut the squirrel was a leaper. He loved to leap. In videos of his seven happy years of domesticated cohabitation with a lively American family named the Longos, seldom was he seen to creep or scurry in the manner of duller, more earthbound rodents. Antic Peanut was always catching air. Down from the bookshelf and onto his master’s shoulders, from the top of the fridge to his master’s outstretched arm, his takeoffs showed total commitment to the arc, but his landings were always sure, as if he were possessed of Velcro feet. That Peanut became a star of social media, the world’s most famous squirrel with millions of followers, is no more surprising than Nureyev’s ascent to the top of the twentieth-century ballet scene. Peanut’s artistic medium was gravity, a mysterious force invisible to humans but readable to Peanut’s brain in much the way the ocean is to surfers. Kowabunga! His early life, as is common among great artists, was troubled and insecure. In 2017, his mother was mowed …