When the zoo has humans in the cage/house

Part of the pleasure (and occasional pain) of country living is that the neighbors have no respect for our personal space. A bear has tipped over the compost drum, dumped the trash can, and the recycling barrel, and climbed onto the deck to check those bird feeders, in the process trashing several panels on the screen porch below the deck. Once, while on that deck, said bear felt compelled to relieve him- or her-self, or perhaps it was an editorial comment on the lack of bird feeders.

red-winged blackbird and red-bellied woodpecker on feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

We put out bird feeders for the birds, even the woodpeckers that sometimes feel obligated to drum on the house. Uninvited neighbors who help themselves to those feeders, in addition to a neighborhood black bear, have been: red squirrels; gray squirrels; whitetail deer; plus the chipmunks, moles, voles and critters of similar ilk that feast on the seeds dropped by those actually feeding at the feeders. Bees and downy woodpeckers feel free to help themselves to the oriole-hummingbird feeders' nectar supply. Even ants somehow discovered the nectar feeder attached to a front window and climbed in until the sugar water was full of drowned ants.

green tree frog on front stoop rail

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we noticed a tree frog that was literally hanging out on one of our living room picture windows. Maybe catching some of those annoying little black flies that have been filling the air recently. Other frogs seem to enjoy the shade under the bird bath or, on occasion, decide to sun themselves on the deck railing.

red squirrel at bird bath

Photo by J. Harrington

Before we had new cementitious siding installed, one or more red squirrels had gnawed through the cedar shingles to gain entrance into the house. Another one sat today on a front stoop post as if it owned the place. There's a phoebe that, having had its nest repeatedly removed from over the front door, moved to nesting over the motion-sensing yard lights and then to a locale under the house eaves.

We enjoy the occasional garter, hog-nosed or bull snake that slithers through, especially since some of them may infrequently feast on one of the pocket gophers that eats the roots off of almost everything we plant. It's startling to occasionally encounter a full grown wild turkey on the deck railing or a small flock in the front yard, but we wish them well and happy hunting for the ticks lurking in the fields around the house.

If we had a choice, would we choose these creatures as neighbors? Possibly not, and we'd be the poorer for it. As a matter of fact, learning to live with a variety of diverse neighbors sort of takes us back to the Dorchester neighborhood we grew up in in Boston. Our human neighbors were quite an ethnic mix and we all tolerated, if we didn't love, our neighbors. Sometimes that's the best we can hope for. Too often these days tolerance would be a major improvement in our cultural climate.

Marching

By Jim Harrison

At dawn I heard among bird calls 

the billions of marching feet in the churn 

and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet 

still wet from the mother's amniotic fluid, 

and very old halting feet, the feet 

of the very light and very heavy, all marching 

but not together, criss-crossing at every angle 

with sincere attempts not to touch, not to bump 

into each other, walking in the doors of houses 

and out the back door forty years later, finally 

knowing that time collapses on a single 

plateau where they were all their lives, 

knowing that time stops when the heart stops 

as they walk off the earth into the night air.

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