He's just six, and sits in the back seat of our car crammed with leftovers from the Christmas celebrations and the dog kennel and a very few of the many gifts he received yesterday at his mother's house. I wanted more than anything to take him home with us to our ranch, and he was eager to go despite having a cold. For his Christmas gift we gave him an outfit to wear to be "Ox-cart man" (his favorite book): tan pants, white shirt and black string tie, green vest, black hat and boots. We had made him a real ox cart out of an old canoe carrier that was too big to bring to his house, but we brought some photos. Packing the car, Quincy checks to make sure that the deer skull he received from the Meylans, being fragile, is packed correctly. It's going to be part of the museum.
Coming home we drive slowly past the barn where the ox cart is. "I have been thinking about this the whole way," says Quincy. I am looking at the incredibly stormy sky spitting droplets of the impending cold front. "And, also, I am thinking about my museum. My mind goes back and forth."
" It's so cold and raw," I observe. "Not a good day for being outside." I am envisioning a hot cup of coffee and reading the Sunday papers before the fire. "First we have to unload everything."
After many bags brought into the house, Quincy immediately puts on his jacket and boots and ox-cart man hat and sets out to investigate the ox-cart. This is light enough to haul around and when I next look out he is picking oranges and arranging them in the back of the cart. Soon he is knocking at the door with his load of fruit to sell to us. "It's for free!" he says. But my husband trades him the oranges for a fine wooden box. This goes on all day with acorns, Spanish moss, hickory nuts. All the while there is much conversation about why these products are needed, and by the minute the temperature is dropping and the wind is picking up. Quincy is not cold, but invigorated by the elements.
I finally get him to come in for lunch. (He eats to live) And then he's wanting to get a remote helicopter working. His grandpa helps with this and periodically we have a large dragonfly-like thing buzzing around the living room, dive bombing the dog, crashing into the plants while I am still trying to read the paper. But he's really interested in the ox cart. And his museum. And being outdoors.
This museum. The Quincy Museum of Natural History at Woodhills Ranch. We have been talking about the possibility of it for several months. We have a derelict cabin on our place, far from everything. We call it The Dentist Cabin. (Another blog.) Wild critters have pretty much ruined the place, crashing through the screening and soiling the floor. But I have long wished for having it restored for some purpose. Quincy is the guiding force for this and it is never far from his mind. (This is his second home and he knows just about every place on this 300 acres.) The Meylans have given me the wonderful gift of labor to make the museum happen.
Quincy loves collecting things- feathers from wild birds, and especially bones! Our dear friends, the Meylans, scientists, who are the ones who 'get it' about living on the edge of the Green Swamp, and are the principal inhabitants of our guest house, gave Quincy an incredible deer skull for a Christmas gift, and with it official tags. This skull had uneven antlers! So! The beginning of a museum has begun. In the cold windy afternoon we went out in the truck to assess the cabin where the museum will be. Quincy was clutching another bunch of bones (from an armadillo). We discuss how we can make the screening stronger, where we'll put some shelving, where we'll put the sign that says "Quincy's Museum of Natural History". And when we returned he insisted on tagging this new skull with the official tag.
Later, after supper and his bath, Quincy and I lie on his bed and read three books. By the time we have finished Knufflebunny free, Ox-Cart Man (for the hundredth time), the book Obama wrote for his kids and we have discussed how the Obama family took their dog to Hawaii, Quincy's eyes are at half mast, and I am done for the night.
In a perfect world I would have many such encounters with my other five grandchildren, but they live far away. I love them beyond imagining and think about them all the time. So, for now I feel blessed to have the day to day connection with Quincy. And I am blessed to have the community of friends who are nurturing this boy.
In a perfect world I would not have to think about the kids I know in this community who are cold tonight, maybe hungry after the Christmas blast of the holiday boxes of food are gone.. Our gigs of making food, funding jackets, providing gifts are never really enough. It humbles me.
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