Yes, we had sheep, chickens, a horse, and of course goats
– funny goats, but we don’t often hear about the wild animal surprises that
graced our country life. Here are a few that linger lovingly and humorously in
my memory.
One morning after the children left for school I heard an
exceptionally loud buzzing and slapping against the enclosed porch windows. On
checking I found what I thought was a large bee slamming the solar windows to
get out. A closer look revealed a terrified emerald-throated hummingbird. For a
few minutes the bird eluded my grasp. I grabbed a straw hat and carefully laid
the head space of the hat over his resting exhausted body and tried to consider
my next move. Soon the tiny bird was in my cupped hands. The truth of this
situation ran goose-bumpy through me – a hummingbird, I was holding a
hummingbird in my hands. His heart raced and yes we did make a moment of breathless
eye contact. Hoping he was not injured, I carefully took him outside and thrust
him into the air, to freedom. He flew to a tree and quickly began to clean the
human off of his beautiful feathers. In another minute he was gone.
On that same porch, before it was completed, I sat on the
steps in a moment of quiet meditation when I saw the slow creep of a long thin gardener
snake moving along the cool cement. As I watched he slowed his pace and then
stopped. He lifted two inches of his back end straight up. What the heck, I
thought. Then I saw a small wet dribble rolling away from his body on the
floor. After urinating he dropped his “tail” and continued his journey to the
edge of the unfinished wall and out into the ground around the porch
construction. We receive many surprise
gifts in our lives, but, honestly, how many times do you get to see a snake
pee?
Then there was the great brown and black wild turkey who
spotted a smaller lighter brown female foraging around the yard. This
magnificent creature became immediately excited at the presence of the
beautiful girl turkey -his withers turned bright red and the nodules on his
head turned a brilliant blue. He dropped his large wings to show the full color
spectrum. His white-tipped tail fanned out and he began a kind of Flamenco
dance around the lady. She, of course, ignored him, moving slowly toward the
woods. Without losing a step he danced across the stage of our yard following
her. I watched them disappear into the woods - him dancing, her ignoring.
One night after a school concert we pulled into our
driveway catching Vivian our cat in the headlights as she casually sauntered to
greet us. We were not the only ones watching her. Just as we walked toward our
little white and gray short haired friend, a great owl swooped out of the tree
toward her. He was so intent on his prey he had not noticed our approach.
Startled, he shot over our heads so close we could feel the rush of wind from
his broad wings.
There are so many wild life stories, we’ll have to get
together another time to share some of these. Thanks for stopping by. I hope
you get a chance to read the memoir, A
Homestead Decade How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life, for a healthy dose of
country living experiences, Amazon Kindle e-book $2.99.
Helene
No comments:
Post a Comment