A is for animals – new ABCW site!

I felt sorry for it, almost.

I noticed this spring that I was much more aware of the animals in my midst. I heard the birds more clearly, and I spotted a woodpecker, a blue jay, a cardinal, and perhaps the fattest robin, sitting on our fence, that I’ve ever seen.

The neighbor’s cat, an outside feline, seems to want to come to our house. More than once, he was sitting right at the front door, and once at the back door. We think this would engender a bad outcome, especially because our indoor male cat, Midnight, is sometimes barely pleasant to us and our girl cat, Stormy.

We made the mistake of leaving a used pitcher of maple syrup on the kitchen counter after having pancakes. The next morning, the pitcher was overrun by ants! Yuck. We hadn’t seen any before then, in months. Now that we’ve cut off the food supply, we still see a stray insect in the strangest places, such as on the ceiling. The Daughter does NOT like them.

During a severe thunderstorm on May 18, we saw something crossing our yard. But it wasn’t until a massive lightning flash that I could determine it was a skunk. I felt sorry for it, almost.

But our strangest visitor to our backyard has to be the woodchuck. We never had one before this year, but this one has come by at least a half dozen times. My wife and I decided we needed to name the creature, so we call him/her? – we had no idea! – Murray, after Bill Murray, who was involved in a popular movie about February 2.

Initially, he may have been attracted to the compost bin deep in the back of the yard. But he has ventured much farther towards the back porch, digging holes for no discernible reason, and eating the grass, likely the clover.

He/she almost got to the picnic table near the house one morning when the next-door neighbor came out and startled Murray. For a nearly round creature, he/she moved surprisingly fast.

Then a few days later, SHE came back, much thinner, and with four offspring!

So there’s our recent menagerie, wild and domesticated.

ABC Wednesday at its new home, Round 21

Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

18 thoughts on “A is for animals – new ABCW site!”

  1. Somewhat strange is it not? To be more aware of it then you were before? I wonder how that comes… but still, you see them now and I feel a little jealous.. in the regio where we live animals like that don’t show up in gardens etc

    Thank you Roger for your entry!

    Have a splendid and ♥-warming ABC-day / -week
    Melody (team abcw)
    http://melodymusic.nl/21-a/

  2. I have seen a rat (not that unusual), a pheasant (beautiful creature),lots of raccoons, and once something that looked like a sloth but I don’t think we have those here so it must have been a hairless raccoon. Ugliest thing I’ve ever seen! Also get lots of squirrels and chipmunks, especially in the fall as they go about gathering food for the winter.

    Don’t I know you? *wink*

    Leslie
    abcw team

  3. Wonderful when the little wild critters get to regard you as a friend. I have a son in the Chilcotin who is intimate with all sorts of little creatures.

  4. We Have hedgehogs meeces (Chloe is in charge of them, if she could only stay awake), and then we havw chloe’s two brothers who live next door, Pipkin and Merrie, we call him not so Merrie ‘cos he’s always moaning. We do sometimes have a passing owl from the local woods, he/she sits on on the roof surveying his kingdom, then goes back to the woods, not to be seen again but we can hear him ‘twoo wit twoo wooing over in the woods.
    We do also have foxes but I hate them because one of them murdered my pet rabbit Rocket…. so life goes on !
    Love Di xx
    New Abcw team xx

  5. It will be interesting watching the woodchuck babies, you will have to think up some more themed names. An enormous number of birds have made a more visual appearance here as they love the berberis berries which have just appeared so are flying backwards and forwards.

  6. That’s quite a menagerie! I can match your robin with one of our own and we have a pair of blackbirds who are forever demanding food at our door. We also had a bit of a badger problem, knocking holes in fences and digging holes in the lawn but we haven’t seen anything of them for a year or two. We have a few squirrels that irritate our dog, mainly because she can’t catch them, but I can’t compete with a woodchuck!

  7. That’s quite a menagerie in your yard. Woodchucks can be petty destructive creatures for sure. I agree with your daughters I HATE ANTS in the house.
    Ann

  8. One day the cat will move in (I hope so anyway) my friend had just the case, 1 year the cat remained outside, but she fed him and now slowly slowly he conquered her heart and is inside ! Lol !

  9. At my last house I had an armadillo that I named Tex. He hung around for a long time but then I guess he moved on. I don’t think we have woodchucks here.

  10. before I finished reading the line of maple, I thought of ANTS, you wrote it next. growing up in Borneo, we have horrific amt of ants. Here in NZ, I sit my sugar jar in a saucer of water.

  11. I like Animals and the ones I don’t have to take responsibility taking care of. They are Amusing to watch. Awareness of positive beings Around you must feel awesome. I am glad you are taking the time.

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