Hello.  Hello.  It looks like it is time for another round of Quirky (True) Stories, where I regale you with a small selection of random (but true!) stories, apropos of basically nothing.

Like the last round of stories, this round has a theme, which is: Random, wild-animal stuff that has happened in my back yard.  That sounds vaguely exciting, but you will have to decide for yourself whether these stories live up to the hype.  I will warn you ahead of time that none of the animals in question weigh more than a couple pounds, if that, so, brace yourself.

(Okay, P.S., if you will be very unhappy to read about dead rabbits or the talk of dead rabbits, skip the first two of these stories and just read number 3.3.)

Story 3.1 – How I learned my brand-new backyard would definitely be hosting wildlife.

I was so excited to finally get a house.  Everyone I knew knew this was true, because my need and desire to get a house had been my main topic of conversation for a couple of years, at least.  (Okay, maybe my kids were in the conversation somewhere there, too; they were pretty new at the time, and shiny, like brand-new kids are.  …they may have been related to my desire for a house.)

One of the things I really wanted in a new house was room to have a garden.  And my husband was very down with that, because one of the things he really wanted was somewhere outdoors-like for our shiny, new kids to get to play.

And so, when we finally came across the house which was to be ours, we basically picked it because it had an amazing back yard.  Several flower beds.  Lots of trees (some climb-able).  It was spring at the time, and the pear tree was blooming its heart out.  So we got that house!  And though we had not specifically gone looking for somewhere with plenty of elbow room from the neighbors, this house with an amazing back yard also happens to sit alongside a strip of open-space, kept open for drainage, so looking out into the back yard, one can easily look past the wire fence to several more yards-worth of tiny wilderness.

We moved in in July.  I know this, because it was, in fact, the 4^th of July, and after the long, crazy moving day, my oldest and I sat on the bench in our new front garden and watched fireworks.

The next day, in my brand-new bedroom, I was gazing out the window at my wonderful, new, tree-filled view.  A view with a couple pine trees and several large cottonwoods.  And one particular cottonwood with one long limb stretched out over the backyard, well-framed by my new bedroom window.  A large branch, a perfect perch, which was happily occupied by a hawk—and its very dead lunch of a rabbit, rather elaborately, perhaps a little messily, draped over said branch.

Welcome to your new back yard!  It comes with wildlife!

Interestingly, I’ve not seen quite such a pointedly Wildlife display since, but, as we are dog-less, the yard does continue to have plenty of rabbits, and hawks (no doubt pleased about all the trees).  And sometimes I find…bits, around.  Not a lot, really, but once I think I found a kidney?

The rabbits are very cute.  But we know they are also lunch.  …And, because I keep a garden, I’m basically okay with that.

Story 3.2 – How I learned that I, too, may imagine I have a good reason for chasing a snake.

So, years ago, my daughter and I were visiting some friends in West Virginia who said we should go to the snake show.  This was a once-a-week show at one of the parks where one of the park-service folks brought out a bunch of snakes and showed them to us (and let us hold some!) and told us interesting things about snakes.  One of the things he told us was that, in his experience, a lot of the folks bitten by snakes were folks who were chasing said snakes.  So (this seems obvious), don’t chase snakes!

A couple years later, I found a large, dead snake, tangled up in some netting I’d spread in my garden to try to keep the rabbits out.  This was very distressing.  I generally like snakes.  They’re nifty (and fun to hold in a supervised environment).  I don’t want to walk up on one too close too suddenly, but I really don’t want to walk up on a dead one tangled in some garden netting, in part because clearly I was the one who had killed it, however unintentionally.

I wasn’t sure what to do with it, though.  But when I went away and came back, I found it in a slightly different position.  So…not actually a dead snake.  But definitely not a happy snake.  Now I really didn’t know what to do.

I called animal control, and a very nice lady came out, and cut the snake (a bull snake) mostly free of the netting.  There was a big wad really twisted around its head though.  But she was awesome, and she called up a local vet who happened to have previously worked in a zoo (how lucky is that?), and we put the snake in a bucket.

She had to leave, then, because she was called away for something else, so I got to walk with a bucket of snake down to the local vet.  The local vet, very kindly, got the snake free of the rest of the netting, and gave it back to me to go put back.  And so, then I walked the bucket of snake back home, and set it tipped over back outside to make its escape, with a small bowl of water set nearby.

And so that should have been that.

A couple weeks later, I found (the same?) snake tangled up in another bit of garden netting.  (And yes, again, very my fault for not immediately removing all the garden netting in my garden, but I hadn’t yet.)

This time my husband was home, and we decided to try to free the snake ourselves, even though, again, it had a bunch of netting wrapped around its head and mouth.  Turns out, snakes are really slippery.

Queue the chasing.

Now, I did remember at the time that I had been specifically warned that chasing snakes was stupid.  And it sure felt stupid.  But also, that bone-headed snake still had netting wrapped around its mouth and was definitely going to be in a bad way if we let it get away like that.

We caught the snake.  My husband, very sensibly, was wearing thick gloves (which the snake proceeded to bite).  We managed to get the snake entirely cut free of the netting.  And we let it go again.

And I took up all of the rest of the netting still in my garden.

Since then, we usually get a visit from a bull snake once a summer (at least, hanging out where we can see it, anyway).  I hear they may sometimes like to eat rabbits.

Story 3.3 – How I learned squirrels aren’t nearly as clever with deck-chair stuffing as they think they are.

So, our house came with some outdoor furniture.  This is, in part, because the house came with a large, wrap-around deck…which we really didn’t use.  Great backyard, check.  Yes please!  Large deck half-a-story off the ground that mostly just collects sticks and racoon poo and you can sit on it and get baked by the sun?  Much less of interest to us, specifically.  So, there was deck furniture, which I did not do anything whatsoever to look after.

Instead, I enjoyed watching the squirrels go nuts with it.

The squirrels want nice, soft things to build their nests with.  And lo, here is this soft, fluffy thing just sitting out.  If you rip it open, lots of soft potential-nesting material is suddenly available!  (Really, this is how squirrels operate all the time.  What happens if I dig in this spot?!  What about this spot?!  What about this spot?!)  And squirrels are at least as destructive as rabbits, but, like rabbits, they are so darned cute.  It’s hard not to enjoy watching them, sometimes even when they’re being destructive (like tearing apart your deck furniture).

Anyway, I’m not 100% clear on where squirrels usually like to build their nests.  In cartoons they’re always in holes in trees, but I don’t think it’s easy to find trees like that in Colorado.  We are not known for our hardwoods.  And pine trees just don’t usually get to be so big around that you might imagine them hiding a hole in their trunk somewhere.  What I do know is: 1) we have lots of squirrels; 2) we have lots of spruce trees (five on our property, if you don’t count the baby sixth we planted last year); 3) I sometimes find wads of fluffy deck-chair stuffing wrapped around twigs and pine cones beneath some of our spruce trees.  So, I think the standard squirrel plan around here is to find a cozy, dense section of a spruce tree and tuck a nest up in there.

Now, we do also have lots of cottonwoods (five or six on our property, and stumps for a couple others that had apparently used to be here).  Cottonwoods can kind of get holes in them, but the ones I’m familiar with are at the tops of stumps or stumped side-trunks that are open to the sky and just point up/down, like a tree pot-hole.

And yet, it would seem, that there may be something to those cartoons after all, because I once watched a squirrel try to nest in one of those (rather exposed) cottonwood tree bowls.  At least, I assume that’s why it carted loads and loads of deck-chair stuffing up there and filled up the hole with cottony fluff.  And then it sat on top of the fluff.  Like it had made a really, really comfy chair way up high.  All it could do was sit on the fluff, though.  It really was not a large hole.  And it was high-up and exposed, because it was a spot where the cottonwood was dead; there was no shielding around it…  And, before very long at all, with the squirrel unable to sit on it 24/7, the fluff blew away.  Of course.

It was very cute for a short amount of time, but, yeah.  Squirrels (or at least that squirrel) are not too bright.  And, it seems, they really will try anything, including ill-advised fluff thrones.

So see I, from the wilds of my backyard.