Life in West Virginia: THE LONG WALK (of COURSE it INVOLVES ANIMALS!!)

Friday, September 11, 2009

THE LONG WALK (of COURSE it INVOLVES ANIMALS!!)

This morning, something possesed me to walk from Kim's to Mom's. It's three miles. Mom lives on top of a hill as does Kim and thankfully, it was pretty flat and no traffic on Rt 21 this AM. As always though, I have my adventures with the freakin' wildlife.

As soon as I left Kim's driveway and started meandering along the roadway, checking the sides of the road, I saw something lying against the trees lining the creek bank and realized it was a COON the size of Cleo, Kim's dog! THEN I REALIZED IT WAS STILL BREATHING AND I RUSHED TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD QUICKLY! It was a good 50 pounder.

Then, as I was walking up the hill towards Mom's a HAWK nearly landed on me and didn't realize I was there for several seconds while I looked at it awe as it spanned it's wings out round this tree trunk like it was protecting or coveting something then suddenly took off. I went over and looked but did not see anything.

Later this evening, as I am watering all the plants in my yard, trying as best as I can to save them in what can only be described as the most dry summer/fall that I can remember . . . huge cracks running thru my yard, my flower beds and fields, the water sometimes just drains into the crevices and I can only hope that my roots are somewhere in the deep rececesses of those, I am startled by what could only be some BOBWHITES that were raised by someone and released into the wild. I followed them around my flower beds for 1/2 an hour, sometimes just sitting on a rock while they pecked the ground around me. I had the most amazing experience and could only capture it on my cell phone, my crappy samsung, which cannot export photos.