Not Alone






Mourning doves croon through the morning fog.


Deer and turkey having breakfast in the yard, thirty feet from me on the front porch. Can't tell if the picture is blurry cause I haven't had my coffee.  Clearly, the animals are intimidated by my presence. They don't even look up when I inadvertently slam the screen door.


 Find the goldfinches!  Chasing two goldfinches on my run.  Flying only yards in front if me, they are clever enough to perch next to yellow flowers and alight in patches of sunlight so they are hard to discern.


 Can you find them?



 A red salamander crossing the road.  There is a large community in mud homes in the pond near the spring overflow.


Sunny late morning.



Storm moving in.





Wasp nest built in two days.



Whistlepigs 4, 5 and 6 relocated a couple miles from my garden.  Hoping they are not really number 1, 2 and 3 having returned.  Not real good at telling them apart.  The granddaddy of them all is still too clever to be caught. He has lived here over 16 years and is the size of a small bear.  He has eaten every tomato and squash in the garden.

Baby bat sleeping in the porch eave.  He doesn't come back every day as I tend to slam the screen door a lot. I am grateful for the bats who come out each night and eat the mosquitoes before they reach the porch.


Moth on my window at night.


Cicada.


 In addition to this guy, there is a blue-tailed salamander who lives near my porch. She just had a blue-tailed baby.  I thought a vicious grasshopper carried the baby away, but it evidently had something else in its mouth as the baby reappeared a bit later that afternoon, lifting my spirits.  I deliberately keep spider webs in the corners of my windows so that they capture wasps and other unwanted bugs, so I am aware of the carnage going on, but do not seek it out and become mildly depressed when my favorites become prey.


Turtle entering the yard.  Often help them across the road when I am running.  Beautiful shells.




Squirrels, skunks, and opossums also frequently roam the yard.  Black bear do occasionally.  Large hawks wheel across the skies, crows caw and land on the fence, barn owls and screech owls call from the woods.  Crickets, cicadas and tree frogs sing the night in.