Watering the Yard, Something was Moving in the Grass

I was watering the back yard before dusk and noticed something moving in the grass, as if trying to brush the water away. I noticed a bunch of fur in the area and hoped an animal hadn't lost its life there. Saw a little brown shape moving, thought about a big brown frog. But as I drew nearer I saw there was a burrow, a little hole under a tuft of grass and inside, a whole host of little creatures. Mice? Hamsters? Squirrels? Rabbits?

Rabbits. About 8 or so. With a thin white streak on the top of their heads. Tiny little button tails. Cute longish ears. All nestled together, piled on top of each other.

It wasn't three days ago that my husband had mown the lawn. They would have had to be there then, how they missed his feet or the lawn mower is grace. I marked the area well so we wouldn't step on them by mistake. One bad move and we could have a broken ankle and one litter of bunnies would be gone.

I've seen a bunny visit and hang out in the yard over the months, now and again. I thought I saw one jump away into the woods from our backyard, but it was just an impression. Hopefully Bunny Mum will be back visiting in the dark, until these little ones are ready to go out on their own.

PTSD in a Beagle

It's not yet 7:20 in the morning. Time to take Lady for a walk. She's still glued to her bed in the living room, the place in the world she feels safest. Sometimes she's ready and up and bouncing around, but many mornings, not. I have to bend over to slip the harness over her. (Story about the harness to come.) She's immobile.

Usually I take to dragging her up off her bed, and across the carpet - which she scores with her claws, so it ends up looking freshly vacuumed. Today I have more time, I'm checking to see what it's going to take to get her up.

I slap my thighs to create some motion and sound. I whistle. I clap my hands. She's not impressed.

Then I pull up on the leash and halter and lift her front legs up off the dogbed and lay them on the carpet in front of her. She stands. (Sometimes she doesn't. I know, I should watch more Dog Whisperer. But I do, and taking control is one of the behaviors I learned on it.)

So I'm putting a tug on the leash to see if she'll come. Hesitance. I can feel mild trembling through the leash. (Sometimes it's like holding onto an old fashioned motor she shakes so much.) I try calling her.

"Wanna go on a walk?" I say in a high and rising voice with excitement. "Car?" "Lake?"

She looks between the two sofas she has to walk through - a two foot space - to get into the hall towards the front door. If I were to read her mind, it would be saying, "I just am not sure what I'm going to find past the sofas this morning. It's too risky." She doesn't proceed, and continues to look around.

Usually I lift up on the leash pull her across the rest of the carpet, then at the edge, lift up her front legs and deposit her on the runner in the hall. For some reason, once half way onto the runner, she ups and walks towards - not to, just towards - the front door. Other times, she's still in "locked" position and won't budge.

Today, I decided to write about it. Might as well share the experience.

Now, it's time to do what it takes to get her out the front door.

Before long I'm going to get help and video her behavior, which has for the most part improved enormously since I first got her from Triangle Beagles, a rescue organization, several years ago.

Cardinal

Squirrel grooming hanging upside down

A dark black bump with a white spot

Across the neighbor's yard, the lengthy yard, under a very large and wonderful bird feeder, I see a black, clearly black bump. Could it be a new yard sculpture. A turtle, a rabbit, a rock with some precious words like "welcome to my garden"? I squint to see what it is. There is a white spot next to the black bump.

You've probably guessed it.

A cat.

I hope the birds stay away, or scare the cat away.

A good morning warning.

Squirrel Rests

Squirrels Pray

What can I say?

The Visit of the Red Tailed Hawk

The red tailed hawk visited today. He looks well fed.

My Arnie, the Pet Pad's Blue and Gold Macaw

I've known Arnie now for about five years, maybe a little longer. I used to visit him every day after work, when going home to my old tobacco packing shed alone was something I needed to postpone after a stressful day at work.

Arnie loved the attention, and overtime I learned that I could trust him, and him me. I learned that I could play with my fingers in his beak, and that he really loved me for loving him.

I don't see Arnie but one or two times a month now, but still he remembers me without a moment's hesitation. Sometimes he's edgy. He was today. There were a lot of noises in the store. There'd been a lot of changes. But still he enjoyed the head scratching and the rubbing, the gentle fingering of his new feathers to release them from their sheath. Soft, so very soft his under feathers.

There's another African Gray for sale again. And a pionus, a bird with big brown baby eyes, the kind of bird my son fell in love with 12 years ago, but we couldn't afford to get. I don't believe in selling birds, now that I understand them, they are relational, they have families and communities. There are so many that need rescuing, one might never need buy a bird again. Birds aren't meant to be in cages. They aren't meant to have humans as their mates, even if they do teach us so much, prisoners as they are in our cages.

If we understood just how relational birds are, could we tear them from their siblings, from their families?

Humanity has a lot to learn, and even when our culture understands, there will always be those who lack compassion for living beings and who mistreat them. But let's keep learning!

Plum Blossoms and a Squirrel

As my eye caught sight of this pink plum blossomed tree on the far side of the parking lot I couldn't resist going to take a few pictures. It was hard to believe it was real, when nothing else has leaves on it in the beginning of January.

The blossoms were exquisite, such a surprise. I took several photos trying to hold for moments longer what looked like a vision, an oasis of spring in the winter.

I clipped a couple of small strands of blossoms from the branches to take to the afternoon's event, the opening of a co-working studio space in Apex the town I live in.

As I walked back to the car I noticed a little animal, wet and no longer with us, on the curbside. I knew what to do. I placed the blossoms in my car, picked up some of the recycling paper in my car, lifted up the gone-by squirrel and carried its form to the base of a large tree, under some leaves, where it could return to the earth from whence it came. It's something I've done before, and will do again.

There's a peace to being able to respect life, to honor it, even in it's passing. To take a being from the asphalt and concrete of man's curbs and return it to the fluid and living earth from which life starts and to which life returns.

There I noticed some bamboo shoots, a lovely green for the plum blossom branches, and carried them to SoCo for the opening. They landed in a small vase on the entrance table with refreshments, a reminder of the spring to come and the abundance that is inherent in nature.

Squirrel Watching the Setting Sun

As the sun was setting this cold and breezy Sunday in Apex, North Carolina, a squirrel sat on a tree branch for about ten minutes, facing the orange setting sun, catching the sun's glow on its face and tail, matching the glow through the last lingering leaves on the almost barren trees.

Half a sun is left now at almost 5PM, in just moments it will be down over the horizon from my window. So wonderful to have the sun's rays come through the window for a few hours lighting up the landscape before the dark early nights of winter descend.

Squirrel Tails

My Backyard Squirrels

In my backyard there are at least three squirrels who run about the giant gum ball tree. Sometimes they spiral down and back up again chasing each other, as if there were DNA curls spiralled around the tree. I think they can see me through my office window, because they seem to be looking in my direction when I take their pictures.

Today I tried a test and waved my hand - a friendly wave - but the squirrel suddenly ran down the tree. Not a sufficient test to prove anything, but a possible sign that they indeed do see this observer.
This one, the same as the one above was breaking off twigs from different tree branches.

Handsome Fella

A sea bird on Hatteras Island, the Outer Banks, North Carolina, USA.

The Macaws in My Life

When I was a nun, yes, long story, to be told in parts in Encounters with Buddhism, I saw one of the senior nuns carrying a bird on her shoulder. Such a sight. It spoke to me so loud, as loud as meeting Paul McCartney or Joni Mitchell might feel.

It struck such a deep chord. It went something like this. Birds are very wary animals, essentially wild. Their response to people that this nun was encountering said a lot about their energy - way of being or countenance. That prospect was very intruiging to me, and my fascination began.

I am remembering the movie The Sword in the Stone, with some incredible bird scenes and relationships with humans. That probably lay part of the foundation for this new mystique with birds.

How long it was after that that I went to a store and brought home my very own bird, I don't recall. But it did happen. I brought home a Blue Crowned Conure, named Alea Toia, or "AhTo" after the names of two Mongolian girls who happened to be in the store at the time.

more to come when you ask

The Blind Sparrow

In the winding streets of Germantown Maryland, you won't see the telephone or electric wires cutting lines across the skyline; they built them underground. Walking around you'll notice something's different, something clean and pretty about the neighborhoods. Hard to put a finger on what it is. Then, someone points it out, there are no poles with one to four black lines running between them on every street.

Driving slowly, I noticed a little gray bump in the road, maybe one or two feet from the curb. Always curious, maybe concerned is more accurate, about whether there is some life in these roads our huge vehicles drive over, I slowed even more. Noticed it was a bird. A sparrow. And as I approached even closer, the bird did not take flight. Something different going on here.

I parked my lumbering old jeep on the roadside, within six feet of the little bird and very slowly began to approach. It didn't budge. I got closer. Still no fleeing on its part. Closer still. Then kneeled down. Noticed its eyes were closed shut. Never saw that before. A blind bird.

Since it wasn't scared, I put my finger down in front of its legs, something bird owners do when they want their birds to step up on their finger. (I'd had birds before, before I'd learned not to buy birds because they aren't meant to be bought and sold and to live in cages with clipped wings.)

My finger in front of the little bird's legs, I gently touched the legs and it stepped up on my finger.

Moment. That was one of those moments. The miracle of connection. Unexpected connection.

Holding wild birds is something one could experience in Europe where the pigeons are used to being fed by tourists. Saint Marco's Square in Venice. Many places in London. But not a sparrow living on the edge of the suburbs bordering the farmlands of Maryland.

The bird actually stayed on the index finger of my left hand as I walked back to my jeep, opened and closed the very heavy door; put my hands on the steering wheel; turned the jeep around and drove to my friends' house further out in the country, where they lived on acres of land.

When I got to their home, I stepped out of the car, and launched the bird with a push of my left hand.

The sparrow released its hold on my finger and took flight to the stand of trees fifty feet ahead.

How amazing is that!

The Turtle

One day, driving to work on Lake Pine, between Cary Parkway and Maynard, I noticed a bump in the road. Driving around it, I noticed it was a turtle with a cracked shell, that looked like it might have been alive. I was driving kind of fast, had to get to work. But I found I had to stop, turn around and move the turtle out of the road.

I picked him up carefully, probably had some cardboard in the trunk. He was about the size of three hamburger buns. I found a bush on the side of the road, and put him there, out of the sun. Didn't know what else to do.

In the car, my mind was racing. Rehabbers. Wildlife rescue. Animal hospitals. Why didn't I have a list in my car, where we see animals that are hurt in the road. Who could I call? At work I researched rehabbers and discovered a wildlife hospital, the Piedmont Wildlife hospital. I wished I had known about it then.

The hours of the day went by, and all of a sudden, mid-afternoon, I felt compelled to leave, go find the turtle, and deliver it to the hospital. Woman on a mission. Probably still making up for the story I told in the first post, an amend to a squirrel I once hit and left, I drove as quickly as I could while being careful. It took a little bit to find the spot, because there was nothing to distinguish where the turtle was. He was still there. I had a box. (I recycle, so I almost always have some cardboard and boxes in my trunk.) I put him in the box. He was still alive. He was moving his claws. His head pulled in. It felt like an emergency to me. Such an important mission. Is this what EMTs feel like, Emergency Medical Technicians?

Some would say, maybe many would say, "For a turtle? You did what for a turtle with a broken shell?" And all I would have to answer is yes. There's more to say about that, probably in a post in my Encounters with Buddhism blog. [Now here, written on the spot.]

We arrived at the Piedmont Wild Animal Hospital, near Durham. I carried the box in. A volunteer received it from me and took it back, then gathered information from me. They promised to call me with the news, as if this turtle had been part of my family. They reassured me that it was a good thing to bring the turtle in for help, that they indeed do suffer from their injuries.

I drove back to work, relieved, but exhausted from the intensity of my determination. An hour and a little more had passed since I impulsively left my desk to take the turtle to care.

Sometime later, maybe the next day I heard back from the hospital saying the turtle had passed on. It's injuries were too grave to repair. A heaviness fell upon me, and a sense of duty accomplished. The suffering that a driver had inadvertently caused (give them the benefit of the doubt) had now stopped.

Backyard Bunny

This may be the bunny that escaped the hawk in an earlier post. He's been visiting the back yard. The bright green grass photos were taken on one day, the darker green ones taken on another. See how vigilant he is. Alert to every sound. On the three at the bottom, he's more relaxed, taking time to groom himself.