Animals I Have Known

That was the title of a book I read when I was a kid. I don't remember what it was about. Animals, I presume. The title stuck with me longer than the content, probably because it was a little odd.

There are animal lovers, and there are animal likers. I'm an animal liker.

I don't need to have them sitting in my lap. But I really, really like watching them. Animal interactions, animal behavior in the wild, animal behavior when wild ones encounter ME...that's all very entertaining and interesting.

And I talk to animals. Which is probably kind of strange. If I see a dog sitting in the back of somebody's pickup truck in a parking lot, I will say "Hi." Yesterday when I went out in my front yard, there was a deer standing about twenty feet from the front door. The deer looked up, and didn't move. I said "You'd better run. You can see I have predator eyes!" And the deer ran.

This human/deer conversation was based on the fact that herbivores/prey have eyes located on the sides of their heads (the better to catch a glimpse of who's hunting you while you're quietly eating) and carnivores/predators have eyes in the front of their heads (the better to keep your prey in sight while you're chasing it). So that deer knew what was good for her. Even though she was eating my flowers, I wouldn't have hunted her down. But I have been known to throw things at deer when they're caught eating a particularly prized plant. I once hit a deer square in the forehead with a bottle of shampoo. It was all I had at hand. I was as suprised as she was. I'm usually not a very good shot, and it was a long throw.

I don't like hunting. I suppose if we were starving I could learn to shoot things and eat them. I can kill a rattlesnake, but it has taken quite a long time to do it without a lot of squeamishness. And I'll only do it if it's where it could hurt my kids or my dogs. I usually find out about them when the dogs have them cornered and they're already all riled up. I still feel badly when I have to do it. I have looked into getting one of those snake sticks, with a loop at the end of a pole...but once you catch it you have to let it go again....where? And where do you keep it while you're taking it where you want to let it go? A snake carrier? There's a rattlesnake removal service in a neighboring county...they'll come and rescue the snake and/or the homeowner. I think their clients are mostly terrified flatlanders who've just moved up into the hills.

And...my final thoughts. There was a recent editorial in the paper from a resident of a gated community nearby. Fairly wealthy people from the San Francisco Bay Area frequently relocate in our rural, wilderness-y county. Some of them can't quite bring themselves to let go of their love of surburbia, and so they live in communities like Lake Wildwood or Lake of the Pines, where they can continue in their tight little neighborhoods with lots of rules about fences and vehicles and what color they can paint their houses. And they have a hard time with the notion that Just Over the Fence...there is wildness. Deer and wild turkeys congregate in their front yards and sample the goodies. And, of course, raccoons and opppossums raid the garbage. But, occasionally, scary animals like bears and mountain lions will put in an appearance, and then everyone falls apart. The animals are always there. The live and hunt right in there among the nice neighborhoods with their beautiful homes. But they're pretty good at staying hidden (they have predator eyes, after all) so we don't get to see them very often. The poor lady who wrote her newspaper article was upset that a bear has been seen in Lake Wildwood. She wants to be able to walk her dog at night without fear. She is calling a meeting of the Lake Wildwood-ites to Do Something about the scary animals. Like....what? Worry about something real, like the scary people.