Growing up on the farm brought us a reverse safari
of animals; they came to us, wild and not-so-wild. Skunks scented the air and once peeked in at our kitchen
window. My mother woke me late at
night to see him. Luckily he was a
baby and hadn’t been to a scent seminar.
Deer wandered in the wheat fields; laid down and barely escaped going
through the combine. A few elk
plodded indiscriminately, not caring if they smashed the barley. Errant neighbor’s cattle left huge
soggy imprints in my mother’s carefully tended lawn. Horses whinnied in the pasture. Cats appeared from nowhere and the neighbors, making me the
happiest of cat aficionados. Mice
aplenty rounded out our menagerie; I remember seeing a string moving next to
the refrigerator and stepping on it I heard a squeak. My mother dispatched him with a big spoon, perhaps the same one
used to encourage us to better behavior.
When we came to live in the city I thought myself free of
bothersome critters. Not so. Cats and dogs go unmentioned, unless a
catfight interrupts my sleep or the dog next door barks at…but wait! What could he be barking at?
Any number of animals.
Perhaps a deer family. They are
merciless, rapacious predators of roses and all things tasty. I have seen one pawing at our big
dog. No longer do I admire their
swift sleekness. Another animal? Perhaps a
skunk. Why does a skunk family,
the grandchildren now as well, find on Google Maps that our yard is the best
route to the next waterhole? Next
come the raccoons. For years they
have been my husband’s personal enemies.
It does disturb us when a group of them have vocal confabs and even
fight on our roof at night. It
does disturb us that they eat the grapes the night before we plan to harvest
them. It does disturb us when the
mama crawls up to the humming bird feeder and tips it over for a delicious
snack for four, yes four, babies down below. It does disturb us when they menacingly advance though we are
four times as big as they are.
The raccoons are gone now; decimated by a plague, a
distemper epidemic.
We have had bear sightings near by, and a mountain lion was
caught six houses away. We have
seen coyotes lurking in the tall grass by the high school. Are they stalking a short freshman for
dinner?
Baby Fox visits us
Last spring our neighbor called excitedly. “Come over and see our cute fox
babies?!" We grabbed our
four-year-old granddaughter; we watched four dear fuzzy babies cavort, jump,
roll, bite, play just like kittens on the back deck. Our neighbor just couldn’t shoo them away. Would I have? I don’t know.
But knowing what I know now?
Oh my. Those little fox
kits had the nerve to become wild teenagers that stayed out late at night
decorating our yard inappropriately, smashing bushes, scattering decorative
bark, leaving their scent all over the driveway, leaving remains of squirrels
and birds and even part of a chicken on our front porch right beside our front
door, stealing garden gloves and knee pads. We almost despaired.
But it is several months later now, and the teenagers have turned into
young adults roving far and wide to fill their tummies. We see them perhaps twice a week. We
watch them disappear into their den up high in our back yard, and they love to
escape the heat by laying under our summer squash or peony shade. Mama Fox still strolls through our back
yard even in the daylight. How
long do foxes live? Are they
territorial? Where will Mama’s grandchildren be born? And perhaps even more important, who next will invade our
back yard?
Julie
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