Friday, March 9, 2007

Unwelcome Guests???

Have you ever had guests that overstayed their welcome? I mean guests that you really like to see every once in a while? Do they show up unannounced in the middle of the night ready to stay for an extended period of time? Do they bring with them a voracious appetite? Do they let their kids desecrate your well manicured lawn and nicely trimmed hedges?

Now don’t get me wrong, I love to see this menagerie as well as anyone else. I love to watch their interactions and various cavorting as they run and jump and play. As they meander into and out of our life, as they constantly fly into and out of our space.

They do keep me hopping. Making sure there’s enough food around, trying to protect the bushes and shrubs from their onslaughts. Just who are these sometimes unwelcome guests you ask?

Well the list is long and getting longer as the word spreads about our unrestrained hospitality. Here is our guest list:
1) a dozen or so white tail deer( have you ever seen them stand on their hind legs to trim your cedar trees?)
2) a couple of coyotes (they love to lounge under the oaks on sunny days)
3) a extended family of gray squirrels (there is no such thing as a squirrel proof bird feeder)
4) A rather nasty family of red squirrels (they actually drop pine cones on you)
5) chipmunks galore
6) sharp shinned hawks (they love our smaller feathered friends)
7) skunks, ground hogs (we call them wood chucks- have you ever seen how they climb fruit trees?)
8) my favorites are the nut hatches, juncos, cardinals, chickadees, various sparrows, blue jays, three varieties of woodpeckers and the humming birds in warmer weather. Even wild turkeys love to dine under our oak trees.
Well, no matter how much I complain, I guess I’ll settle back, enjoy the activity and try not to get too upset with the lousy job of hedge trimming the deer are doing.

5 comments:

TomCat said...

TomCats love venison!! Those guests would be welcome!

Nice to see you back, curious.

Women on the Verge said...

LOL!!! Great post!!! I remember mowing at my parent's house when I was a kid and having the mourning doves dive in attack formation if I got too close to their nests in the pine trees.

I hope you've got little ones nearby to help you "enjoy" the wildlife!!

Ethel

jaybird said...

TC, thanks for the welcome back. For someone introduced to computers 50 years ago ( you know in the days of Fortran & punch card readers), I have had to learn the new skill of Blogging As you can tell by the new format). Made a few mistakes along the way!!
By the way- where I live we are only allowed to use Bow & arrow for Bambi hunting (I'm not into that) and before long that to will be banned.

WOV
Our grand kids, and even our grown daughters, still enjoy a walk in the woods or a ride in grandpop's wagon back to the sand pit.

TomCat said...

Curious, we share common roots. While I never got into mainframes, I used to knoe fortran, and my first computer cost over $7,000 and had 4k RAM.

SSC said...

Curious, Be glad you and yours have all that wildlife to enjoy! Some of us have had to move several times in order to find a niche where suburban sprall has not yet had a chance to strangle out the "better" neighbors. If more people understood that a child's sole can be nurtured more fully by some time in the woods, then by time in front of the TV/GameBoy etc, then maybe we wouldn't have so many people incabable of taking care of themselves and their society!!