Where the Wild (and Some Tame) Things Are

Ah...the perks of being a Backroads dweller. Today the wildlife was out in full force.

As I started to town, just down the gravel road, at the second neighbor, a deer stood in the gravel road. Doe. A deer. A female deer. She looked me right in the eye, but not in a playing-chicken kind of way, then looked over her shoulder behind her. She bounded off into the woods on the right. Well. Being a country gal, I know what that look means: more deer to follow. I crept along, watching the underbrush between the gravel road and the woods on the left. There it was! A fawn scrabbled across the road mere feet in front of me. It looked neither left nor right, but was intent on a reunion with its momma. It was not a new-born fawn, all leggy and wobbly, but a sturdier one, still with white spots. My mom had seen this pair a couple weeks ago when she was sitting with me during my early convalescence. Oh! Did I mention I was in the hospital at the end of May?

I made a trip to the bank, then dropped by my mom's house to school her on her new DISH remote. The serviceman got her all hooked up to DISH, so she's packing in the cable boxes tomorrow. Not letting any grass grow under her feet, or those cable boxes. Mom doesn't count as wildlife. Yet. But when I came out of her house, I saw that T-Hoe's black hood was covered with tiny white flower petals. Mom has a flowering tree right beside the driveway, but those flowers are bigger. I looked around, but did not see where these tiny white petals were coming from. I hopped in and tried to disengage myself from conversation with Mom. As I backed up the driveway, a couple of those tiny white flower petals blew in my open window. WAIT! They were BUGS! Bugs with long oval white wings! I jammed my finger on the window-raising lever forthwith! Those buggy things on T-Hoe's hood held on for a quarter-mile on blacktop. I hope I did not bring home an infestation.

Hick reported last night, after dark, when of course I could not go look, that we had acquired 12 or 14 new chicks overnight. Uh huh. Chickens are sneaky like that. If you don't catch them when they first start sitting, and count ahead 21 days, you're never quite sure when those chicks are gonna pop out and need putting up in a special pen. Since they were already out, parading around with their two moms (not that there's anything wrong with that), Hick did not think he could catch them all. He did snap a picture this evening, though.

Next time I will demand that Hick crawl towards them on his belly like a serpent, in order to get a better photo. If you count, I think there are 13. Not sure. Some of them are doubled up with a buddy of the same hue. And Hick said some of them kept getting under the moms. They will raise a racket as they walk around cheeping.

Oh, and the biggest critter I saw was the dude with a long ZZ Top meth beard, riding his little red mini-tractor, scraping gravel off the road edges and into the road proper. AND he had an assistant, about a half-mile back, heading toward him pushing an empty wheelbarrow with only a shovel balanced in it. Sucks to have that job. That's what crazy ZZ Top Meth Beard Man used to do...fill in the individual holes with a shovel and a bucket of dirt. Now he has an assistant. I gave him the standard country wave. I actually like crazy ZZ Top Meth Beard Man, because he does this chore for the good of all who live on this sometimes gravel, sometimes hardpan road. I even stopped to thank him one day. When The Pony was with me, of course. Not so much for protection, but as a witness.

I wonder what sights I will see tomorrow. Hopefully not a man walking across my porch.