I live in a relatively small town, but it isn’t rural.
The population is roughly 5,000 people. I live on a main street that has lots
of traffic during the day. So with this being said: can someone explain to me
why it’s like wild kingdom in my yard?
Seriously: it seems like lately you never know what you might see hanging
around. Granted, the backyard extends almost to the Hudson River. The
groundskeeper only mows a couple of feet past the garage, so there is a lot of
grass and assorted greenery that critters can hide in. (which is why I’m never in the back yard.)
We have lived in this particular house for just over
three years. Each year there seems to be something else to keep me inside the
house. The first year it was bats. We had two that got in through a vent in MY
bathroom. Oh, you know I had Kitty take care of that! At first, I thought it
was a bird but quickly discovered I was wrong. Technically, that should have
kept me out of the house, but I knew
there were probably more out there!
The next year a skunk wanted to sit at the end of the
driveway. I was trapped in my car while he just sat there and enjoyed the
evening breeze. I had to wait twenty minutes, until he decided to waddle on
home (wherever that was). Seriously!
Last year, a woodchuck took a liking to Kitty’s garden
and started hanging around. You know that Kitty made sure he had absolutely no
access to her vegetables. However, he continued to hope she would forget to
shut the gate door so he could go in. She never did.
Brie was sitting on the front porch one night
communing with God. She heard a noise and looked up to see a possum walking
across the front yard. She made a beeline back into the house!
This year Kitty decided to do just a potted garden and
has the pots on the front porch. This way, she figures the woodchuck won’t come
up there. Imagine our surprise when one day Brie calls her sister from the car.
“Kitty, what in the world is that sitting in our back yard??” Kitty went to
look out the back door and answered, “It’s a woodchuck.” “That’s the fattest
woodchuck I’ve ever seen!” Now I had to look out the back door and Brie was
right: the woodchuck was huge. He was sitting in the middle of the back yard
having a snack. I’m not sure what he was eating, probably dropped bird seed,
but he seemed very content with life in general. I’m hoping that if he gets
enough bird seed, he won’t come to the front to eat Kitty’s plants. After he
was finished enjoying his food, he lumbered into the tall grass beyond the
garage.
Then there was last night. Brie, who is like me, was
sitting in her car on the phone after teaching her fitness class. I was turning
into the driveway with Kitty, whom I had just picked up from work. My
headlights picked up something at the end of the driveway. “What is that: the
neighbor’s cat?” I asked Kitty. “Nope, it’s a fox.” “What????” Yes: there was a fox there at the end of the driveway.
He was chewing on something (God only knows what). We heard Brie yelling out
her window, “What the heck is that?” Kitty rolled down her window. “A fox.” “In our town?” None of us could believe it. We
watched the fox eat whatever it was eating while we waited in our cars in case
it was rabid. It didn’t appear to be, but we wouldn’t know since we’d never had
one in our yard before. When Mr. Fox was finished with his repast, he went into
the big set of bushes by our garage.
I wonder what those animals were eating back there. I
haven’t been curious enough to go back there to find out. I just hope nothing
bigger happens to come shambling out of the tall grass in the back. We’ve had enough
of wild kingdom!
