I made a pretty little brick garden around the tree I planted for my granddaughter. A weeping birch, mostly because I always wanted a birch tree, every since we had one at our house in Guelph as a child. I loved that thing, perhaps as a subconscious connection to my roots in northern Ontario. I always feel at peace when I’m up in the north, as though the very trees themselves and the silence of the woods and the lakes are calling to me – a restive for my mind.

Today, I’m going to cement those bricks in place, because the many species of local wildlife that live in our backyard (cats, squirrels, raccoons and a quartet of groundhogs that live under our shed), keep knocking it over to go chew on the weeds in the garden.

Or poop. I’m not sure which.

Target: 900 words
Written: 675 words, novella: The Mungk