WILDLIFE

Spring….

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Spring is finally here in the Foothills of the Blue Ridge.  A high of seventy-one today if the weather liars are to be believed…and a high of forty-eight tomorrow.  Thunderstorms with copious lightning and rainfall moved through the area on the last night of winter.  Three to five inches of snow is expected in the mountains above us on the first night of Spring.  Come on Mother Nature…I have a therapist I can suggest who might help you with your dysfunction.

I awoke this morning with a tremendous pressure…on my bladder.  Five a.m. and like every morning I had to go drain the lizard.  I stepped out my back door…I live in the country, if I want to relieve myself out my backdoor it’s okay and I am conserving water.

The light from my hallway displayed scraps of fog, torn and driven by the light morning breeze.  It had been almost tropical the night before, before the storms.  This morning it was just a pea soup fog being rendered by the wind.  The fog was ghostly as it slid by in the reflected light.  The specter didn’t scare me, nor did it scare the big doe staring at me from across the fence.  I must not have been too terrifying either as I hosed the ground between us.

She stood facing me as if thinking, “Son…please cover yourself.”  Slowly I did, and she still didn’t move.  “No, not very impressed, are we?”  She just stood there showing me those beautiful brown eyes and “big ole ears” standing at attention.  She was as beautiful as anything I had seen since first seeing my granddaughter.

I decided to take a step toward her and she held her ground.  She let me move within a yard before her tail stood up and she leaped into the darkness.  A deer’s tail disappearing into the darkness may be one of the most delightful sights I’ve ever seen.  How in the world can you shoot one of these animals for sport?

I walk, daily, for exercise since my knees and feet have worn out.  As soon as it was light enough I went out for my five-mile commune with nature.  There she was again, this time across the road on my walking path.  Again, she stood as if to say, “What took you so long, come on, just follow me.”  I did.  I followed her beautiful tail until it disappeared.

The doe started me thinking about Native American “spirit guides.”  I know I run a chance of being called “Pocahontas” or rather “Walking Bear” by our Name Caller in Chief, but according to family lore, Native Americans blood courses in my veins…no, I haven’t had a DNA test, but Pocahontas may be a distant relative.  My thoughts caused me to wonder.  If I rate a “spirit guide,” I think I want it to be that doe.  Somehow, we seemed to connect.  We’ll see if she returns and if she does, where she might lead me.

Happy Spring Days and Nights.

Image from https://tsfphotoscartoons.com/2016/06/07/woods-in-the-fog/

Please stop by and visit Don Miller’s writer’s page at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM  or his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cigarman501/

LITTLE BANDIT-EYED CRITTERS

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“A day late and a dollar short” seems to fit…at least for the day late part. I stood in the middle of my garden perusing my small stand of corn and decided I would wait one more day before I collected my bounty of petite bicolor ears. Waiting was a mistake. Raccoons stripped nearly every ripe ear and obviously enjoyed the bounty from my efforts. The f@#$ing little bandit-eyed critters.

I recognize some of my garden bounties are going to benefit the wildlife surrounding me. I don’t begrudge them, I even try to feed them. I have an area, well away from my garden, where I put kitchen wastes, cracked corn and even the stray mice finding their way into my traps. My five pet crows seem to love it…to the point they no longer flee when they see me coming nor do they stake out portions of my garden. They just wait for me to put out the broken off corn tops, tomato peels and rotting cucumbers. I wonder if they discuss the menu? “D@#n, no mice or meat scraps today? Man! You need to add some protein back to your diet.” My possums are not so choosy.

The deer, turkeys, and squirrels love the cracked corn. My feeding area is next to a stream and many mornings or late evenings I will watch four or five does exit the stream to graze on the emerging grass and corn snacks I have put out for them. The same with the turkeys. The squirrels…well you know squirrels.

Yesterday evening I saw a red tail hawk was sitting on a dead stick up in my yard waste pile. Eyes glued to the food scrap pile…waiting. I was waiting too but finally gave up due to boredom and my own hunger. I guess it would be different if I didn’t have the tomato sandwich waiting to be made. I hope she found supper.

Obviously, raccoons don’t like leftovers. I could salvage only a half-dozen ears. They were tasty but I won’t make the waiting mistake again…maybe.

Several years ago, my wife and I watched a large female raccoon braving our backyard and puppy dogs while attempting to figure out a way to get to my bird feeders hanging under our deck. My wife and I viewed her activities, enthralled, for fifteen or twenty minutes while using descriptors like cute, engaging, delightful, inventive and the such. She wasn’t nearly as delightful when she broke into our bedroom’s bath, opening the French doors, before trying to make off with the bucket of dry cat food we left there. My wife “engaged” her in a tug of war over the bucket before chasing her off with a snapping bathroom towel. Take that you little bandit-eyed critter!

Luckily, fresh corn is available just about everywhere in the foothills of the Blue Ridge this time of year…my colon might disagree since I’ve eaten it every day since July 1st…too much information? Like most foods homegrown, corn seems to be just a bit sweeter due to the sweat from your brow…hope the little bandit-eyed critters thought so.

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HARBINGERS OF AUTUMN

/ cigarman501 / 3 Comments

Despite the thermometer’s reading and the gallons of perspiration I am wringing from my tee-shirt after this morning’s run, FALL IS IN THE AIR. It is just a hint mind you but it is there. Could it be that the humidity is just a bit lower, or the direction of the wind a bit different? I guess it could be the fact I went to a football game this past weekend. In the South at least, fall means football even if the heat index is near one hundred and play must be stopped to dodge a thunderstorm or five. Nothing stops a Southerner’s worship at the altar of the religion known as football.

I have learned over the years that there are more subtle changes taking place. The bees and butterflies are frantically working over anything with a bloom. There seems to be a late summer “weed” that puts off a yellow flower the bees are in love with…frantically in love with. Milkweed is covered with beautiful black, orange and yellow butterflies as are any blooming purple…including cocklebur, beggar lice plants along with the sweet smelling kudzu. Linda Gail, my better half for the past thirty years, and I have different ideas as to what a backyard should look like. I coached for over forty years and believe they should look like well-manicured ball fields. She believes any plant that puts off the smallest bit of color is a flower, no matter what that flower might produce later. Linda Gail also loves morning glories and they must have something to grow up on right? This time of year with all of the activity I guess I am glad I acquiesce to her desires…plus it makes my life much easier in the long run…even if I have to clean up the mess in the winter. At least she lets me cut the kudzu regardless of their long purple blooms and sweet, almost sickly aroma.

My oaks don’t quite have the “leaves of green” they had earlier but they haven’t started to change yet but they do look different. I expect to see vast “V” formations of ducks and geese any time now… right after I walk into a painted spider’s web. The woodpeckers and red birds have returned to my bird feeders. For the past couple of months, they have been more concerned with gathering protein rich bugs for their young and I am sure food has been plentiful. Now they are looking for a handout I guess. They will get one if they can beat the squirrels to it. Poke salad has changed into Pokeweed and “my” mourning doves are anxiously awaiting the purple berries growing from magenta stalks.

As I sat on my front porch enjoying a “post run cigar” which sounds absurd but is one of MY Southern paradoxes. Let’s try again. As I sat on my front porch the bunny born this spring in a heavy patch of periwinkle made an appearance. “Bugs” is still all legs and ears but was attempting to put on some weight by eating some of Linda Gail’s potted plants…until he saw me. “Wascally wabbit!” With my puppies too old and blind to chase him off I guess I better look up what “wabbits” eat so he won’t starve when fall turns to winter. For now, I will just wait for summer to change to fall…which for me at least, is the most wonderful time of the year.

For more unique life stories by Don Miller visit his author’s page at http://goo.gl/lomuQf