of mice and possums

and birds and dirt and buds and sunrises and eggs!

After working all week in the city, turning a blind eye to the warmer days and the burgeoning buds, I was released into the yard.

All the flower beds need attention out at the country house and the garden and the compost pile and the area I am clearing around the peach tree next to the garden shed. I grabbed my shovel and trowel and got to work. I don’t know what it is about digging but I love it. I like moving and turning the soil, I like crumbling the clods and sifting the dirt through my hands getting the weeds out. Saturday I worked with the trowel on a flower bed in the back yard that I am cleaning out and expanding. Sunday I used the shovel and finished clearing out around the peach tree. This mostly consisted of digging up the last of the orange cannas and trees from just sprouted to 2’ tall. Then I dug all the weeds out of the compost pile. Then I started to trench around the garden plot, moving dirt from the compost pile to the garden and turning it in. This morning my body is demanding to know just what the hell I thought I was doing with all that digging yesterday.

I wasn’t the only one out working the land. The farmer who farms the fields on the other side of the road was out turning dirt too. Only he was using a tractor.

I mentioned last week that the bluejays were engaged in nest building. I guess that goes for all the birds. Saturday morning as I was headed out of the garage I happened to glance over at the bag of rags hanging on a peg and this is what I saw.

Apparently it looked like a cozy place for a nest. Haven't seen any birds working at it but I'm guessing it's a wren because it looks like the nest they built on my windowsill once and also the wrens have been very curious about our garage in the past.

I’m not usually up early enough to catch the sunrise but Sunday morning about 5 AM, the cat was frantic to get into the back half of the house which we close off at night. Marc opened the door for her and went back to sleep. I laid there til I heard the clock chime 6 and then got up. I checked to see if the cat wanted out and found her staring intently at the desk in the big room. Listening, I could hear little gnawing sounds. When I pulled the desk away from the wall, I was not surprised to see a little mouse. I say I was not surprised to see a little mouse because last weekend when we got home I stepped on a pecan in that room. I still have two grocery bags full of pecans sitting in that room from the harvest last fall. Looking around, I saw several pecans and empty shells scattered about.

Well, Emma (the cat) pounced on the mouse and before I could get the back door open for her to take her toy outside, she let it go. There ensued a rather silly chase with me yelling at the cat for being worthless, moving things about so Emma could get at the mouse and each time she caught it, she would let it go. Finally it ran into a storage closet adjacent to the big room and between the two of us I managed to get it trapped under an empty coffee can. I slipped a piece of cardboard underneath and took it outside with Emma on my heels where I let it go.

The sun was just barely starting to come up now and when I looked in the back yard about half an hour later, I did not see the cat but I did see a small possum in the middle of the yard. It was moving it's head from side to side and every now and then would snuffle in the dirt and eat something. I have always had possums living under my house in the city but this was the first one I had seen at the country house. They are quiet timid creatures if left alone but like all wild things, they will put up a fight to protect themselves. Finally, it was beginning to get light and it headed towards the fence at the corner of the house and slipped through. I slipped out of the house and followed as I wanted to see where it was going. Just on the other side of the fence there is an opening into the crawl space under the house with screen over it and the drain hose for the washer comes out there. That possum squeezed itself through a small opening next to the drain hose and under it went. Now I know what was under the house back in December.

Speaking of possums, I was relating this story to my sister Sunday afternoon and she told me she heard of a woman who will do rescues for possums and relocate them, that it seems they are becoming endangered in some states. Anyway, they had caught another possum in the trap and dispatched it as well and now they have started getting eggs again. So, not only were the possums (and dogs) attacking the hens and ducks, they were stealing all the eggs as well. I brought home two dozen fresh eggs.

Last night, the cat was being stubborn about coming in and it was 10 PM and all that exertion from the weekend was beginning to show on me and I was ready for bed. I went to the back door one last time and there sitting in the first crook of the chinese tallow tree was the possum.

*possum picture by Tom Wineman (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7941988@N07/513471113/)