Small triumphs

It absolutely amazes us the way that wildlife seems to survive even in the face of our greatest efforts to obliterate it.  Perhaps we've all seen the picture that has been traversing the web for years now, showing a fawn carefully hidden by his mother on someone's deck that was littered with white blossoms?  Or the weeds that take hold the minute an ounce of soil shows through a crack in a sidewalk.  And no matter how hard we try, through pulling or even poisoning, those weeds keep coming back!  It's a sad plight that we have created for nature's wonders, and yet she continues to bless us with stolen moments.  We live in a tightly packed house farm, and the water we enjoy walking by is really a carefully laid out system of drainage ditches, yet we are treated nightly to sightings of rabbits, ducks, and a muskrat.  Sometimes we even get to see the Great Blue Heron, or a hawk, or the rare snake.  Tonight we were within a few yards of a Green Heron.  We have no idea how rare he is, but he was new to us and we spent a good 20 minutes watching him eat bugs.  Even Calvin watched him for a while, before returning to his terraforming project (read: moving grass).  It is likely to be both our most important and most difficult endeavor to teach him to love and respect this world that our kind has so mistreated.

 

A Father's Weekend Hike

Ninety degrees!  Ninety!  Without trying to tell Mother Nature what to do, can we gently remind her that it is June?  The dog days of summer don't come until August!  With weather like this it was too hot to make the 45 minute (or more) drive to any of the zoos because Calvin gets so hot in his carseat, so we took a 15 minute drive to a nature area for a shady picnic and hike instead (and by shady we mean tree covered, not suspect).  Lunch was good, the terrain was gentle, and the shade was kind.  Calvin hiked like a champ, spending most of his time urging his dad to go faster from the relaxing seat in his backpack carrier, although he did get a chance to do some of his own hiking (read: playing in the dirt).  And we played a great game of I spy when we found this waiting for us around a corner...

It's a party! Until someone gets hurt...

Party at the watering hole!  We go out for a walk after dinner every night, as weather allows, and are often treated to close encounters with ducks, and distant encounters with rabbits.  Tonight, however, was a very special treat all its own: tonight we were visited by ducks, by rabbits, by a muskrat, AND by a great blue heron... all sharing the same square footage on the pond.  We had a great time taking pictures of everyone partying on the other side of the pond and Calvin had a great time signing duck, over and over and over again.  He was so happy he didn't even mind when we started down the path heading toward home, unfortunately, that didn't last long - first he tripped over a crack in the path (yes, it is possible), and though that wasn't a problem, as he's good at catching himself, when he went to get back up one of his arms was caught in his jacket sleeve and he ended up pitching forward, mouth first, onto the asphalt.  He only cried for about 20 seconds, but he left blood all over his mother's shoulder.  Poor little boy!    So he came home from his first party at the watering hole with his very first fat lip.  But after the first bout of crying he didn't seem to even think about it again, although he kept trying to suck on his bloody lip, which made the swelling worse, but as soon as we got home we gave him his frozen teething toy and that helped a lot.  We hope it heals by his picture appointment on Monday.

In our back yard

We walk through our neighborhood daily (sometimes its just Cortney, sometimes both of us), and we want to share with you some of the wonderful wildlife sights we get to enjoy.

A Muskrat house!

Can you find the bunny?

 

Ducks on parade

 

Red-winged Black Birds sing from the cattails

Often we also get treated with a sighting of the Great White Heron, the Baltimore Oriole, lots of other beautiful birds, and...the walking carpet (that being the Scottie dog that always follows us, barking, as we walk past his fence).

No April fools

The first year we moved into this neighborhood we found ourselves really enjoying the "wild" life (seriously we did - that incident with the ducks and the broom doesn't count!), but we did witness something we had never previously been privy to - ducks on rooftops.  Who knew?  Actually, many thought us jokesters when we told them.  So, this pic is for all of you who thought we were fooling.