Nature Girl

This is Morticia.

Over the summer she (he?) rehabbed a hurt wing between our house and the one next door, breaking bread with feral cats and deer while also being fed by her brethren and people alike.

While I didn’t look for roadkill, I did sprinkle the yard with Purina. Which has got to be a step up in the culinary department. Our neighbors whose porch she claimed to actually convalesce on weren’t huge fans (think smaller birds and windshields) but they did tolerate her need for shelter.

Morticia’s not been our first guest with an interesting pedigree. Over the past quarter century we’ve resided amongst fauna of all stripes.

We’ve had uninvited honey bees who, over a couple of busy years, built a pop-up factory under the roof eaves and behind the soffit (good architecture word) that made the house sound like a plane revving on the tarmac.

In our ‘live and let live’ philosophy we adapted to the noisy industry by just using our outside voices.

Until Teddy started coming over.

With the regularity of a mailman and the good natured commitment of a visiting Jehovah’s Witness he’d lumber up the porch steps in search of the good stuff. And even though I had one of The Great Moments Of My Life when the two of us locked eyes through the window and I smiled at him, it was clear that the bee issue had hit critical mass. (Not to mention the fact that somebody told us that rodents have sweet tooths (teeth?) too — and rats are my true phobia.) Something had to be done.

The cure was both stupid-expensive and very sticky. (A physical state that completely grosses me out.) There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pounds of product at our address that had to be removed.

Ick.

Beyond the whole food chain thing we had going on we, like most people, have had deer.

The difference is that we’ve had so many our dog got confused.

And we’ve had snakes with big time boundary issues. This one

did a home invasion, coming up through the basement. I discovered him while the dog was maniacally swiping under the door. When I bent to see what was going on I came face to face with all six feet of him.

That was fun.

(The heroine, obviously not me, was an unfazed teenager dispatched by a critter removal service.)

We’ve had other interesting exhibits. Like a lizard maternity ward complete with pacing relatives.

And sometimes we’ve had runaway farm animals. When those make themselves comfortable, my brain inevitably freezes in deep computation. (Is that a cow in the hydrangea?)

We’ve had interloping goats, too.

Another time, a coyote limped so piteously towards me while I was weeding, that instead of running or clapping my hands or whatever one is supposed to do, I pulled out my cell to call animal control to report somewhat hysterically that the poor thing needed a vet, immediately. There was a long silence until the guy drawled incredulously, ‘Lady, there’s a bounty on those things.’

Which was a little awkward.

Also, FYI, apparently some wily coyotes fake boo boos as a ruse.

We’ve had many other animal cohabitants, some even coming back annually to visit, next gen in tow. One time I called a baby deer over by clicking my tongue. It got so close a certain relative screamed and jumped on the hood of the car.

Which brings me, somehow, back to Morticia. I haven’t seen her since it really started to get cold. And while I choose to believe that her wing has healed enough for her to go south for the winter—if that’s what vultures do (paging the naturalist, Holden Caulfield) I still look for her every day.

And, you know, miss her.