Still a busy busy week at work and home. Luckily, being occupied with work keeps me from other thoughts. Even better, I’ve got all these animals to keep my “free” time not very free.
Bring us fresh water! More mealworms!
I love going out on breaks to care for the hens and check on the horses. Dusty always sticks his head in my hands for love.
Pet my head.
And working to keep Apache feeling good and getting Drew back into work is a great distraction. Droodles is getting lots of reminders that crazy canter is not his goal. But he’s awfully good walking on Lee’s new trails.
Ready to go, Suna.
And then the dogs. Even when I’m feeling the jitters over things I can’t control, they make me and Lee laugh.
Carlton doing his Eric Trump face.
And thanks to all of you who share your pets, birds, and kids on social media—it doesn’t remove serious concerns but it reminds me of what’s good.
Please remember that not all bloggers live in urban or suburban locations. Out here in a rural part of a very empty county in a state as big as many countries, we do see (more often hear) wild animals. We call them native wildlife.
Someone is tired from warding off wild animals.
Today’s count included 37 bird species, an unknown number of coyotes, around four pond cooters (who I thought might have dug a hole by now; it’s chilly), two very vocal squirrels, a large rat or mouse, two cottontails, and some number of swiftly moving deer.
We are usually in the bushes
It’s too cold for snakes right now, and the armadillo population is staying away from Goldie. I hope she and Alfred are also intimidated the feral hogs (I have seen little evidence lately).
I’m very far from Goldie
Neighbors report hearing cats, which could be feral house cats (usually dispensed with by raptors), bobcats (plenty of those), or the big cat that was last seen by the farrier.
As you can see, we blend in.
I often see opossums, skunks, and raccoons here, along with shrews and mice (ugh). Foxes have raised families next door at Sara’s!
This one did not spray any of our dogs.
A couple of times river otters have visited, and beavers live nearby, but I haven’t seen them. Oh, and pocket gophers, which are here, but not on the part of the property I hang out in.
This one was at a zoo, not here.
So yes. I do see wild animals. Thanks for asking. I’ll do you a favor and not list the insects and arachnids. I do have lists on the blog site, though.
The minute I saw Tarrin today for my lesson, I knew something was wrong. Sure enough, she’d just found out that a horse in our little community had passed away suddenly. The feelings that went through me right then awakened a deep truth in me.
A very brief weather event brought us comfort. Photo by Tarrin.
I realized that I feel connections with horses I know just like I do people. And I liked this horse very much. He was brave, funny, and very cool, not to mention gorgeous. And he’d had such an interesting life; he was a circus horse! He was lucky to spend his final years with a human who was devoted to him and learned so much to help him out.
Our horse and human friend.
I didn’t know him as well as Tarrin or Sara, who spent lots of time with him at shows and educational events, but I liked him, like I would a person. Yeah, I don’t know exactly why, but I cared about him a lot! I’m grieving for him and his human like I do when people I care about pass.
Don’t let anyone tell you animals are “just animals.” We can connect with them, too. The hardest part about having companion animals in our lives is knowing their lives tend to be shorter than ours. I still deeply miss my departed dogs.
My heart goes out to our community member who lost her equine friend. I sure gave all mine extra hugs today, even if they were all sweaty.
Sweaty me and sweaty Apache, with an extra cool cloud.
All our connections are meaningful. Go hug a dog, a cat, a horse, a human, or whatever living creature matters to you.
After the last book I read, I needed something a little more light-hearted to entertain me. I’d been hearing good things about Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, by Mary Roach, so I chose it from the “Books to Read” stack in my office. At least I knew I’d enjoy holding it, because the fake merit badge on the book jacket is embossed and feels cool.
I do love the book jacket.
Mary Roach is a very popular science writer, because she’s known for her humor, but this was my first book of hers to read. She just oozes folksy humor, puns, and silly digressions, and I think they could actually be irritating for some readers. I had set out to read something amusing, so I got what I asked for.
In addition to entertaining us, though, Roach educates us. I think I originally thought Fuzz would be a series of cute stories about naughty bears and coyotes, but it instead provides fascinating information about how animals and people can have deleterious effects on each other.
I learned about bears and why the eat the trash in some resort areas but not others (people follow the garbage can rules in one place better), how people cause many of the animal pest problems (boy, we made a lot of mistakes in the 1800s by bringing European animals into places like Australia and New Zealand), and how hard it is to get deer to not run into the road and just stare at oncoming cars. There really are a lot of ways humans and animals can run into conflict.
Sometimes Roach makes me laugh, just by revealing how little background knowledge she has in some areas that I seem to have picked up by living here at the Hermits’ Rest. She mentions more than once how she’s baffled that someone can be both an animal lover and a hunter, for example. We learn all about that in Master Naturalist classes.
It’s sort of like a high school band mom decides to write a science book, and is happy to share her naivete with her readers. It’s pretty charming, though you know she can’t be as naïve as she sounds, because she managed to arrange to travel all over the world and meet with specialists of all sorts in order to ask them her sort of silly questions. At least she had to be a master of logistics!
After reading this book and laughing, groaning, or grimacing at the jokes, you’ll end up knowing a lot more about the complex interrelationships between humans and all kinds of animals. I know Mary Roach hopes you’ll agree to live with a little irritation (yeah, even grackles and squirrels have their roles to play in the ecosystem) so that we can all enjoy the only world we’ve been given to live in. I’m up for it!
The Hermits' Rest 