Home, Sweet Home

Went out to get groceries from the car and

discovered that there was a visitor knocking

at the door (not literally) but he was standing there looking at me as if explanations were in order. He and his mate had moved into the top of one of the trees down by the creek. If one looked carefully when the wind was blowing, the walls of their cozy home could be seen.

On this particular day, our visitor showed no fear, no alarm. He (or she) sat by the side of the driveway and looked at me while I stood in the driveway looking back. That was almost two years ago and the Falcon family still live here. Monday afternoon, the two of them were soaring and dipping above the tall trees across the street. Then one of their offspring joined in the fun gliding and soaring, occasionally diving groundward only to soar again.

It's nice to know that birds of prey (and other wildlife)are making a comeback in the great Mid-West. The irony is that our home is actually in a city, a small city but it is a city. That same day while the next door neighbor was off riding with Rolling Thunder (the veterans' motorcycle group), Mama Groundhog (or woodchuck as some would call her) was checking out his yard along with two of her babies. She was startled by a car passing on the street and hurriedly retreated to the side of my neighbor's house only to come back to the front lawn a couple of minutes later. Unfortunately, the camera was in the house and not nearby.

Just before dark, the neighborhood doe will be out with her yearling fawns. I have seen only those three this year . I am sure that they bed down somewhere near the creek because they stroll through the yard quite often. I worry though, they have lost their fear of cars and have already figured out that Moe and Ceasar, the dogs, though they are barking are securely in the house and pose no threat to the well being of visiting deer.

The squirrels are making pests of themselves. When I walked to the care yesterday, I kicked a chewed up green peach from the walkway. I knew squirrels loved the buckeyes, hickory nuts and walnuts that grow in the yard and I have long suspected that no tulips bloomed the last two years because some creature had eaten the bulbs. Could that be a squirrel...namely the one I caught sitting in the top of the peach tree with a green fruit in his paws? I wonder???? All I know for sure is that it wasn't the albino squirrel that at first glance I mistook for a skunk say two weeks ago when I walked the dogs early in the morning.

jmp, 5/59/09