Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that life goes on—and sometimes ends, among the many creatures that share the hilltop with the keeper and Phyllis. It is the way of things, and so it was not a big surprise when a red-tailed hawk flew up from the driveway as they returned from grocery shopping with, among other things, the ingredients for spaghetti and meatballs. The driveway hawk, disappearing through the trees in a flash of red tail feathers, left behind the partially consumed carcass of a grey squirrel, obviously one that has been a regular all winter at the bird feeder and was one from the trio that cavorted daily in the oak outside the bedroom windows. It has been a tough winter, and the squirrel almost made it before becoming a hawk dinner. The keeper thought about that—about the residents of the hill consuming other life forms to make it through the winter. Later when he and Phyllis sat down to their spaghetti and meatball dinner, they made red wine toasts to their own winter survival, and then they ate the pasta and part of a cow, perhaps a relative of one that once lived on the hill back when it was a cattle pasture. (See billstokesauthor.com for more Kickass and news of the novel MARGARET’S WAR)
