Well, as planned, I did weed the onion patch, and it looks fantastic. In fact, the whole garden had a jolly good going over, and, fully satisfied with the results, I came to my desk for a few quiet moments. Then the desk had a good clear-out, too. It was just one of those rare days when things just had to be put in their right place. I looked up from my labours, and turning my head to the window, imagine my surprise as I looked into two huge ebony eyes staring back at me! A deer was curiously looking in at my window. Nosey Parker! I know I gasped, but she didn't seem to care. She just dropped her head to graze awhile, then calmly walked over to the driveway, waddling her way up to the church. How lovely to live side by side with so many of these gorgeous creatures: deer, bears, raccoons, owls, squirrels, both red and grey, we had a moose once but I didn't see it. It left huge footprints all over the veggie patch! We had a weasel this winter in the rock wall. I didn't see that one, either, but Kevin and Emi saw it.
I can't imagine living in a city, devoid of such creatures. But wait, wouldn't there be mice and rats and squirrels and those beautiful pigeons, and dear little darling little sparrows?
I suppose you could find beauty anywhere, if you just took the time to look for it...
I have to tell of the traumatic event in the onion patch. As I weeded, I noticed hundreds of those busy little garden spiders rushing away from the devastation I was causing by my weeding, each carrying under her belly a neat little egg-sac. So then, having been made aware of the dilemma, I carefully checked each clump of baby crab grass before gently pulling it away from the earth and laying it in the bucket. This greatly added to the time alloted to this particular patch. Unfortunately, I found an egg-sac without a mother. I felt awful, like a murderer. These 20,000 baby spiders are now orphaned because of my carelessness. I gently picked up the egg-sac and tenderly placed it under the 2nd onion on the left-hand row, and went about the exhausting job of weeding these onions. A few minutes later, I went back to check on 'my' babies. About 12" away I saw a very distracted spider, so I very carefully put the styrofoam ball next to her. She grabbed it, popped it under her belly, and ran for cover underneath the johnny-jump-up plant I had left in the row! Phew! What a relief. All babies safe and sound, with a doting mother for each 20,000 or so babies. (These are not scientific figures, by the way, merely an imagination running amok!)
I could tell of the distracting dilemma of the rice grains here, but better to leave it for another day...! Wouldn't want to be considered totally barmy!
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3 comments:
Maman~
This is what we have in the city in Southern California: black crows, ducks, sparrows, hummingbirds, wasps and bees, cockroaches, caterpillars, house spiders and black widows, ants, racoons, white egrets, seagulls closer to the shore, and on the shore: sea lions, dolphins, seals, pelicans, crabs. There are more but I'm out of time. xo loveyou and missyou hhw
what a lovely story of the mumma and her gazillion babies--what a happy ending. Here's what we have for creatures in the city of Burlington: mischievous gray squirrels, pooping pigeons, purple finches, crows a-cawing, seagulls (the small land-locked kind), kamikaze june bugs, mosquitoes, house flies (Au Lait's favorite snack), carpenter ants (the kitties won't touch them!). We've even had a baby moose run loose in the South End. There are lots of dogs, spiders, silver fish (ick!), lots and lots and lots of sparrows, and, I'm sure I'm forgetting something... oh yeah, don't forget the kitties! xoxo
What a rural ignoramous I am!! Thank you for the metropolitan entomological and faunal education, and I will, in future, try to be a little more thoughtful before making such rash statements!
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