My (not so) Wild Life…

The Sturbridge police have issued an official warning on Facebook.  Yes, there is a bear hanging around our neighborhood.  They even posted pictures of this bear breaking into the henhouse of one of our neighbors to prove it.  But I haven’t seen the bear yet.

Last night, or should I say this morning, around 4:30 when it was just beginning to get light out, Olive, the pug, stood on the end of the bed and began chuffing.  The first thing that came to my mind was the bear, of course.  I did something I seldom do at that time of the day.  I put on my glasses and looked out the window.  No bear in sight.  Still, Olive was not to be put off.  She was positive that something was out to get us.  As I lay there trying to get back to sleep, I thought I heard the culprit.  Turkey gobbles.  My guess is that the turkeys that populate these parts have had their young and they are now on the prowl for food.  I haven’t seen them yet.  I’ve seen a few single males but no broods as yet.

My wild life sightings have been few this year if you don’t count the birds, bunnies and squirrels.  I did get up one very early morning about a week ago and looked out the window to see what I thought was a large cat rubbing itself on a tree trunk.  When it turned around, I realized it was a young fox.  But I haven’t seen him again although there is a hole in our yard that makes me think that a fox might just live there as Greg discovered part of a dead mouse next to it a couple days ago.

I’m not discouraged because there are two pieces of wild life that I can depend on seeing every day.  They aren’t going anywhere.  I’m talking about my two favorite trees.  Well, I shouldn’t really play favorites here because I actually have about 15 favorite trees…maybe 20.  But these two are in our yard.

One is a large European Beech tree.  It’s a tree with funny habits, not losing all of its leaves until the spring buds push them off.  Its leaves are a gorgeous color, kind of reddish yellowish on the top and sort of greenish yellowish from below with a trunk that looks like a big elephant leg.

Our lilac with the beech in the background.  Gorgeous spring color!

The other is the Red Maple in our back yard.  I love that the leaves on this tree are never really green.  Although they kind of fade to green in the fall.   I’ve taken about a gazillion and two photos of this tree, especially of it's fabulous leaves in the sun, but I never tire of looking at it.  From our upstairs windows I can watch the birds flying around inside it.  Crows seem to love it and when a cardinal lands on it, it is just a fabulous riot of reds.  It inspires me.

Okay, so I’m a tree-hugger.  What of it?  It beats getting an honest to goodness bear-hug, for goodness sake.  Ask the Sturbridge police.