Saturday, April 30, 2011

Spring Chores

Had a busy but enjoyable day.  It was sunny and pleasant - on the cool side most of the day.  Brought Benni to the Dog Park this morning, then Leon and I stopped at the Coffee Cup for lunch.
Back home I spent the afternoon in quiet solitude, mixing soil for the planters and filling them and  mending the stone wall. Occasionally throwing a stick for the dog to fetch.  I can spend hours playing with dirt and rocks and plants and never feel deprived of social interaction.  

In many respects I prefer my solitary activities to the company of people.   Leon was in the house doing his thing and I was outside doing mine.  It was nice just knowing he was there.  Somehow it keeps me grounded and centered and content.
The yard is my work in progress - a section of the stone wall that I originally designed as a bench seat was too low to be a bench so I decided to re-do it to blend in with the rest of the wall.  It was was work and when I was done I was a bit sore and tired but I actually felt better than I do when I've been writing grants for hours at the computer.

In our neck of the wood there are not too many dangers in nature.  An occasional black bear or a coyote but they don't usually cause trouble.

I think we have a bobcat on our property because I saw tracks in the snow during winter and now I've been finding carcasses of opossums and birds.  The other night about 4:30 am we heard a very strange animal noise.  A cross between a screech and bark and cry - once ever 5 seconds or so for nearly an hour.  The link is to the audio of a Canada Lynx (lynx canadensis) which sounds very much like what we heard.  Supposedly there are no lynx in Connecticut but there are Bobcats (lynx rufus) in Connecticut.  They prey on small mammals and probably would leave Benni alone - I hope.

This big spider however scares me.  Doesn't it look like it's poisonous? I don't know much about spiders, so looked it up: it's a Dolomedes tenebrous, Not poisonous. But it still scares me.


Ticks are probably the most dangerous things in the woods around here - they carry Lyme disease and other nasty illnesses. And mosquitos with West Nile virus are also a creature which presents a danger out of all proportion to their size.

There are rattle snakes and copperheads out there - but they are rare and reclusive.  Walking the city streets around these parts is probably more dangerous than a walk in the woods could ever be.

Meanwhile the prickly pear are coming out of dormancy and starting to perk up.  As am I.

2 comments:

Moving with Mitchell said...

I love the stone wall. You're doing a beautiful job. Watch out for those deer ticks. One got me in Guilford in the late '80s. Enjoy the Zen of your gardening.

Cubby said...

Spiders give me such a feeling of dread and terror. My skin is crawling just looking at those pics.

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