Wildlife

FarmBoy and I were blessed to see a live Western Bluebird while on our walk yesterday afternoon. They are indigenous to this part of our state, but not to where we moved from, although we were only twenty miles away, so I had never seen one before. I felt honored.

We also ran into a weasel headed straight down the dirt road toward us, with--I am sorry to tell you--a dead baby rabbit in its mouth. The rabbit was about the same size as the weasel, so he had to keep stopping to rest and adjust his load, and he trotted with his tail stuck straight up in the air, which we assumed was for counter-balance. He was awfully cute, in spite of his grisly load, but I don't think he was happy to run into us. He stuck to the road for quite a while, then finally turned off into the marsh grass when we got too close.

The other day, while walking back from a visit to the local medical clinic, I had a deer walk right across the path a few yards in front of me. She just looked at me, and I walked on forward. But I hadn't realized there was a second deer, who stepped out to cross and was startled by my presence. I heard her frantically retreating, breaking branches and splashing around in the marsh water as I moved on. So sorry.

I never thought I would get to live in a place with so much wildlife about. We have also crossed paths with a coyote, on the same old road through the marsh behind our house, which was quite exciting. We have also seen beavers and opossum and raccoons around, as well as squirrels and chipmunks and little brown rabbits, and a wide variety of birds.

I feel very blessed to live here, once again.