Wildlife

Today was filled with wildlife. Lots of wildlife.
(Disclaimer: This is a long post. And there are no pictures. For that I apologize. Nonetheless, I hope it is at least mildly enjoyable)

This morning Marge and I went for a walk. Around the cow pasture we went. I believe a diagram would help this story:


The brown box is my house. The green stuff is the cow pastures. The grey is my driveway. Everything else is empty corn fields. The picture is NOT to scale.

So there we were, Marge and I (represented, respectively, by the rabbit and the smiley face). Walking around the pasture, on our customary morning walk. We got some ways away from the house, when, off in a not-too-distant corn field, I see something that looks like a dog, just hanging out. I of course assume that it is a dog belonging to one of the hunters who are currently on the premises. It did seem odd that the dog would be so far from the hunters, which were no where to be seen.

Then is got up - and it was not a dog, at least not in the strictest sense of the word. It was, in fact, a fox. (represented in our diagram by the small tiger picture). This is actually the second time Marge and I have run into a fox on our walk. Had I been by myself, I do not think I would have fretted; I am confident in my ability to make myself sufficiently scary to ward off a fox. However, I do not know how foxes feel about small dogs and whether or not Marge would feel the need to meet the fox, or vice versa. So, just as we did last time - Marge and I turned around to walk quickly back to the house.

That is when the tiger...I mean, the fox...began to run. In our direction! (sort of...see diagram)



We froze. Much to my great good fortune, Marge is a lousy hunter, she was busy sniffing for worms the whole time, completely oblivious to the fox. And so once I concluded that the fox was not actually running towards, but more likely, running oblivious to us, I was able to enjoy the moment. The fox was beautiful. It was one of those moments where I wish I had remembered my camera...but at the same time he was moving too fast to get any kind of picture of him. You never really think of foxes as being elegant and graceful - but they are. I watched him run across the whole pasture and out the other side. Twas gorgeous.



My second wildlife encounter was less fun. I was building a fire in my woodstove to warm the house before settling in to a long day of work. I grabbed a piece of wood from the tub - and instantly dropped it. A spider. At least 3 inches across. And of the variety that nightmares are made out of (actually...is there any other kind??). I freaked out.

Then collected my thoughts, decided to look again. Maybe it was dead. I poked the tub with my foot. EEK.
No. not dead. very alive. I freaked out again.

Those of you who know me that I don't often "freak out". I get frightened, but freaking out is not typically in my nature. This time, however, i must confess. I freaked out - ran to the opposite end of my house (which, to my credit, is not huge - I did not run a very long ways). While contemplating what to do, and envisioning the spider slowly creeping towards me (which it actually wasn't) and seriously freaking out about the fact that the spider was between me and the only door to safety (i.e. the outdoors) there is in my house, and trying to tell my self that a spider in your house is NOT a legit reason to call your landlord for assistance, I became increasingly panicked, and was on the verge of tears (no lie. I have no idea the last time I freaked out this bad...I think it must have been in Milan 2.5 years ago.....).

But suddenly, I determined to gather my courage (whatever small courage I could find), and take care of the problem myself. I grabbed the dogs leash (without the dog - she was asleep. she is soooo helpful) and crept back to the spider infested bucket. Very gently, so as not to disturb the spider, who was not moving, but looked ready to pounce, I threaded the leash through the tub's handle. With the leash looped through the handle - I got as far away as I could, backing towards the door. I flew open the door - quickly dragged the tub, spider and all outside the house, let go of the leash so that it retracted safely away from the spider, freeing the tub, and ran back inside - closing the door with a slam! Success!

Only one problem - all my firewood was now outside. And I was not going to go near it. It was a cold, cold day at my house.



The final wildlife encounter was much more pleasant. The aforementioned hunters are goose hunters typically. Which makes sense, cause on any given day there are a lot of geese on the farm. Today, however, as the sun was setting (at a ridiculously early 4:30) I took the dog outside to stretch a bit - and there in the field were more Canada Geese than I have ever seen in one place in all my life. There must have been 200+ of them. Just sitting in the field.

Marge startled them (what a great time for her to start hunting!) and they all took off. What an amazing sight. Again, no camera. And no time for it anyway. But, the sky was orange, the pasture green, and geese amazing. Trust me. It was cool.