April 12, 2013, Ponderings
I was sitting on my porch this morning when my old friend Zeke came by to see me. He loved sitting in the tomato garden. I was watching him as he sped around the yard, looking all around, checking out the new spring bugs. I hope he eats them all.
Several years back he was sitting on the woodpile on the eastside of our home. I was washing dishes and looking out the window. He was just meandering around, looking for something. I ran to get my camera, but could not capture the beauty of my road runner through the trees, so I headed outdoors. I sneaked around the corner of the house. Camera in position, he turned, he was cautious, I stepped forward, click. The roadrunner left my view finder and had flown, yes flown, to the limb in the tree. Click! Click! Gone! Found him! I then became bold and hurried to catch him this time, but as we all know, road runners can run! They can travel fast. I was running on my bum foot trying to catch him and looking through the view finder of my camera. He had flown into the neighbor’s tall grass and all I could see was his little head, and then gone! I took his blurred pictures anyway, and remember what a thrill it was for me to learn Roadrunners could fly.
We have rabbits by the hundreds, and they look like play bunnies sitting so still in the morning sun. I leave them, as they are peaceful. No one bothers them, not even my dog Marlee. We love the Easter bunny look year around at our house. Then there was the visit from the Paragon Falcon. I was typing away when I looked through the window of our living room, because out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something BIG sitting on a limb in the pecan tree. I crept to the window, sure enough, it was the biggest bird I’ve seen outside of an Eagle, but it was still, very still. You guessed it-I ran for the camera, I opened the door, and fluttering away with the largest wing span I had seen in eons, off it went with me chasing it snapping away and when I looked at my photo’s - - nothing! I did see it land on a utility pole but it was out of my range to take a wonderful picture. I took it anyway, and the picture looks like a sparrow on top of a utility pole. Drats!
Snakes! I’m not too fond of snakes except they eat mice. I do like that about them. Nearly everything has a purpose and a reason to be here, but then there are the fire ants and the mosquitoes. What purpose do they serve other than bite, and make you itch?
Chick and I have had cats, dogs, birds, a bobcat, possums, skunks, raccoons, snakes, coyotes, bunnies, butterflies, fire ants, fireflies, moths, bees, wasps, flies, spiders, rolly bugs, lady bugs, cicadas, you name it we’ve experienced it and enjoyed most everything on God’s little acre including children, especially two little boys who loved living there and pretending they were in the Wild, Wild, West, and playing “shoot ‘em up”.
Now we must make a decision as to leave this place where the surroundings are changing, forcing all the animals to leave. It is sad to leave them behind if we do decide to move. The new people are scared of wildlife, dogs, and cats, anything that isn’t a pet. Our cat was pregnant when someone dumped her. She is now our faithful Sophie. Her kitten, Tommy Boy, lives next door with the Kight family. Her kitten Sadie disappeared; We think the coyotes got her. This December a beautiful stray Malamute showed up at our door. She now has a home with a family who has 2 other Malamutes. I wanted her but she needed a fenced in yard. She was a beautiful specimen of a dog. She would shake hands with you and warmed up to us pretty quickly.
Our neighbors for a while were horses, sheep and goats. They are gone too! In life, we all learn there are changes to make, subtle ones and necessary ones. Change is difficult and not comfortable but sometimes for the best I suppose.
I have pictures of all of these friends except for the coyotes and the bobtail cat. Most of the pictures are blurred but very clear in my memory.
