First off, woke up and looked for Carey on the deck, like I do every morning. No Carey. It's really hard to keep my hopes up when I hear the coyotes cry all night.
Then, deer, not once but twice. They savaged my super-expensive ($2.45 for only 25 seeds!) broccoli, but I didn't see that. What I did see was a doe with her spotted fawn helping themselves to our apples. Which was fine, and actually really cute. We have more apples than we know what to do with this year. There's really only so much applesauce, apple pie, apple tart, apple juice, baked, fresh, and caramel and/or candied apples a person can eat, you know. They did a nice job of picking the fallen ones first, before moving on to the ones hanging from the tree branches. How nice. Every time a car or truck went by, the doe would look annoyed and the fawn bounced around or dashed like mad for cover. They left, and then returned for more after about an hour.
Last but not least, the suicidal baby robin. I tried to save it. Really I did. The girl and I chased it around until I caught it and put it up in our big trees. It should have been able to hop and half-ass fly from branch to branch all the way back up to the nest.
But, of course, when I went back out to change the sprinkler, there it was. The Poop was stalking it. She ran for it at the same time I did. She dropped it because I yelled at her at the same time that one of the parent robins dive-bombed her. The Poop jetted for the edge of the tree's dripline while I dutifully put the stupid, spotted thing with not enough flight feathers or tail to fly back into the tree. All the cats were then banished to the house.
If it's still alive when we get home, and on the ground again, we might have a guest for a week or two while it finishes fledging out.
Wildlife. Ugh. Didn't I used to marvel at it when I was a child? Actually, I still do, and it's neat that we get to experience this up close most of the time. Sometimes, though, it makes me a little crazy.
