Neighbors

Beau on the lookout

Our dog Beau alerts us to visits from neighbors in two ways. If it’s a human neighbor, he’ll bark, making a racket along with Gracie, but if it’s an animal neighbor, he’ll stand very still, staring out the window with clear intent, shaking ever so slightly. He doesn’t make a sound, perhaps because instinct tells him it will scare the creature away and he’ll have no chance whatsoever of chasing it.

Yesterday morning at about 5:30, Beau was on high alert in our bedroom, staring out the window, quivering. It was a medium-sized black bear in a patch of ferns in front of the house. Todd saw it and woke me so I wouldn’t miss it. The bear looked healthy with a dark, shiny coat. It snuffled around in the ground, finding a thing or two that appeared of interest to eat. We watched spellbound, all three of us, while Gracie snoozed away on her bed. It was when the bear started rooting in the rhododendrons that Todd objected. Merely opening the window made enough noise to get the bear moving away from the house.

They looked just like this!

That’s when we saw the little ears poke out of the ferns, and two little bear cubs tumbled out, scrambling to their feet to follow their mom. They disappeared behind the solar panels, reappeared farther down the meadow, crossed the driveway, cubs bouncing behind the sow, and went into the woods. We were enchanted.

What a wonder it is to have the White Mountain National Forest in our backyard, with wild neighbors who, from time-to-time, grace us with glimpses of their families.

Bear family at the Chapman Sanctuary just up the road ~ they need a pic-a-nic basket!

Okay, so you know we’ve had an issue with a bad fox, and there’s the matter of the not-to-be-trusted fisher (whose eerie screech is most certainly saying, “I want to eat you!”), and then there’s the woodchuck-that-shall-not-be-mentioned (according to my wise four-year-old great niece who knows that said varmint is driving her farmer-father crazy). For the most part, though, we live peaceably with our neighbors.

Where bears are concerned, it helps that we don’t store our trash outdoors or hang bird feeders stocked with black oil sunflower seeds. Apparently those particular seeds are like crack to bears. As evidence of this, my mother has several times found muddy paw prints on her window below the bird feeder.

We haven’t seen much of our white tail deer neighbors lately, but on an early evening in May, three of them appeared silently in our front meadow. We figured they were eating the tender shoots of emerging daffodils — Todd had planted them in the fall, scattering them serendipitously to surprise us in the spring.

The deer were so graceful that we watched quietly until they were startled by a noise and up went their tails.  They bounded into the woods, white flags flying, leaving Beau crestfallen. He so wanted to give chase.

Poor disappointed Beau!

We frequently see our wild turkey neighbors, pretty much year round, but only recently they’ve been out with their little ones. They’re not much to look at — at least they’re not high on the cuteness scale — but they have their charm.

Earlier we witnessed a remarkable courtship display in our side yard. A tom spread his tail feathers and swelled his chest, clearly impressed with himself, and now and then a hen scurried out into the clearing for shenanigans then scurried back. It was like Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, but with no lion chasing down a gazelle. Thank goodness.

He looked a lot like this. Studly.

For now the welcome mat’s out at the little house in the big woods. Just no foxes, please… or fishers or woodchucks. (You don’t want to be on the “bad” list.) Want to hear a fisher cat’s cry? Click here to go to someone else’s YouTube video. You probably won’t thank me.