Just got back from the morning walk. We saw the usual fauna (deer, turkey, squashed frog) but there seemed to be an increase in small baby animals. Those young enough to be on their own (I suppose) but too young to have much fear of humans or speeding cars. If my pockets had been bigger and my knowledge of rabies, hanta virus and other unpleasantries had been less, I would have come home today with a baby squirrel, a baby chipmunk and a baby mouse which crawled slowly over my shoe and pathetically tried to hide under a very thin blade of grass but only after I had practically chucked it under the chin. It had sleek black fur, and huge wobbly eyes and droplets of rain water speckled on its pointy head. It was exquisite. I could have caught all these critters with my bare hands. Later on there was a young, brittle-legged fawn too (no spots) but I couldn’t have gotten that home without a trail of breadcrumbs and the LF (Lucy Factor- now 2+ years old!) had devoured her snack already. Incidentally she took this all in stride. How nice to have a child who expects to see wild animals whenever she ventures out the door.
I am sitting at my desk, having finished my 1000+ words today (total count 57,413- the last stretch) and wishing there was a small, velvety mouse curled up in my pocket or a shriveled, amber-eyed toad or a couple of those burnt- orange colored salamanders with the neon spots.
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