Thank God the lion sleeps tonight

If I didn’t know any better, I would say that they built our house smack dab in the middle of a nature preserve. The amount of wild life here is fantabulous, and daily we are introduced to an array of little furry, slithery, wacky neighbors.

Meet Snakey

I had the pleasure of opening my front door and finding this rough green snake on the porch. Cory caught it, fed it a few crickets, then placed it back in the bush that it apparently lives in and we photographed it.

In the last couple of weeks, the animal tally has included:

-a coral snake
-a copperhead
-a baby ribbon snake
-a rough green snake
-numerous deer
-whistle ducks
-a baby cardinal

The baby cardinal fell out of a nest in the front yard, and I found it very early this morning huddled in the wet, cold grass. It had very few feathers and was shivering. I got Cory and Bill, and the enormous ladder, and my husband crawled up it and was able to place the tiny peeping baby into the very high nest with its siblings. (It is a myth that the mother will “smell” human scent and reject the baby….always, always try to place the bird back in the nest….if the nest is too high, create a makeshift nest, put the baby in it and place it as close to the other as possible).

We had a family of whistle ducks in our backyard a few weeks back, and had to hustle the tiny ducklings out of the yard and into the safety of the forest while both parents worked with us like herding dogs.

One night, I awoke in the middle of the night. I got up to check the kids, and as I passed the front door, peeped outside and saw a fox in the front yard.

Bobcats roam the forest land behind our house, so we have to bring Honey in at night…..not that we would ever leave her out at night. The dog is spoiled rotten and has her own spot reserved on our bed.

It is boy heaven here, no doubt.

Which brings me to the copperhead that I listed above. Yes, we had a viper in the yard as I mentioned in my previous post. It was right on the other side of the fence. I was working on the fence, and saw it slithering against the bottom, obviously curious to see what was making the scratching noise on the fence (I was scraping sand off of it). I grabbed a shovel, called for Bill and climbed the fence (all 6 feet of it).

As I stood on the top of the fence, Cory came out and climbed up too. We jumped down on the other side at a safe distance from the viper, and Cory said “What are you planning to do with that shovel mom?” My original intent was to kill the snake. But I stood there looking at it, then back to Cory and he pleaded “No mom, please don’t do that. If you kill it, there are probably 20 others watching from the forest. You can’t kill them all.”

The snake coiled up and just watched us. There was no aggression, and even when I moved to put the shovel near it, it did not strike. Cory got a long stick, and together with the shovel scooped it up and moved it a safe distance away from the fence. We were never in any danger and the snake slithered off into the forest.

After the coral snake incident, I was talking on the phone with someone, and she asked why we did not kill the snakes. When I explained to her that I didn’t think that was right, she said something like “Well, when one bites one of your kids and kills them, you may think differently”. They live in the country and frequently kill skunks, raccoons and other animals that “trespass” on the property (digging and what not). In an e-mail that I read out loud to Bill, we were told that squirrels were raiding the deer feeder and that if they could not keep them out with chicken wire, they would be prime targets for the gun, because the “corn is expensive”. Cody overheard me, and he said “What a horrible person, who wrote that?” and we told him who and he said “That makes me feel so sad”. Me too, son. Me too.

I have to ask, what is the point of living in the country if you kill all the wildlife that call it their home?

Cory is right. We have had 2 coral snakes in the front yard. If we had killed the first one, do you think that would have prevented the second one from coming into the yard? If I had killed the copperhead, do you think that it will make my yard immune to snakes?

We are firm believers in relocation when it is safe, not annihilation.

I can do my best to make my yard safe for the kids. Before they go out to play, I walk the area, and make sure there are no snakes. That is how I found the baby bird this a.m..

But I refuse to kill the animals to make our yard sterile and safe.

This neighborhood and all of the animals in it are lovely. I chose to exist with them. Not tower above the creatures, forcing my dominance on them, making my world “safe”.

The point is to leave as little of our fingerprint as possible.

My children will grow up and understand this concept, if I show it to them now.

To be true as the tide
And free as the wind-swell
Joyful and loving in letting it be.