Not having a green bin down at the house on the island, we dump our organic waste outside the house where it lasts approximately forty seconds before it is taken by one of the many critters that share the neighbourhood with us. Usually the crows get to it first, having a helicopter view of the food situation, but it can attract raccoons and our pet deer too. If the location and time of day are right.
Crows are very intelligent critters, aren’t they? Down on the island, we have a mess of crows that wake us up every morning – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw they go - from about 6.30 onwards, insistently stirring up the whole house.
Usually I burn the toast in the morning, as I forget I am using the oven grill and not a toaster. Plus it’s the morning, so I can’t handle complicated technology.
Also it’s an excuse to put burnt toast out on the deck and watch quietly to see what will come for it.
If we sit quietly for a few minutes, momma crow (that’s who we think she is anyway) usually sidles up along the wall of the house, NYPD style, and slowly sticks her head around the edge of the patio doors for a look-see.
The first hint we get is when the sharp corner of a beak appears in the bottom right hand corner of the door. The trick is not to laugh, no matter how much you want to, as she takes the hump and flies off if you do.
She checks four or five times, exposing more of her head each time. We have to stuff our fists in our mouths to stop shaking with laughter.
Then, when she thinks it’s safe, she whips her head around to signal to the others – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw – who swoop down and carry off the booty.
A sort of crow version of Heist.
Not only that, but if you nip over to the back of the house and check out the kitchen window, you can watch them dipping the toast in a puddle to moisten it.
Very intelligent critters.
We got apples for the deer, to try to get them to come up to the back of the house, and all day that day you could see the crows hauling them, one at a time, off to wherever it is they stash their food.
We see the deer at night usually: a doe and two fawns. They come out of the woods at the back of the house and walk down to the orchard to eat the rose hips growing around the pond. If you drive up to the house at night, the headlights of the car will pick out three pairs of glistening eyes.
Himself is hoping that deer will evolve soon and start to realise that looking at a light is what gets them killed. There’ll be a new breed of super-deer, all wearing designer shades. Of course, it doesn’t stop him from shining a light out the back of the house every night in search of Mr. Buck. Who’s fair game apparently. Who knows this. Who’s far too canny to come down to the house in search of rose hips.
That’s what the missus is for.
She in her turn sends the fawns out first.
They gently nuzzle each rosehip off the branch individually, legs all akimbo trying to balance eating and standing.
It’s hunting season in Nova Scotia, so we are desperately hoping that no one will shoot them by mistake (or design). Hence the apples to keep the doe and fawns coming to our yard at night when the woods are full of people trying to shoot something.
Some people, who are the epitomy of ‘the market will solve everything’ philosophy that results in so many selfish actions, and the reason why this planet is in such bad shape, put apples in piles in the woods and then sit in a tree above the apples and shoot the deer when they come out to eat them.
Those people shouldn’t be allowed to shoot deer. In fact, those people should be invited to a free party, in a big fenced off area, which has a bar under a tree, and see if they like being duped.
Last Saturday morning, Himself had driven to work and I was upstairs when I heard a ‘come quick’ hissed from the kitchen. I went down and K was gesticulating wildly in the direction of the kitchen window, which looks out up the hill behind the house into the orchard and the woods behind.
The doe was frozen to the spot in the yard, staring in the window at us. She’d never been that close before. Then I realised, the car was gone, so she must have assumed the house was empty.
Little minx. She’s been coming down to eat the rosehips when Himself is gone to work.
I get such a kick out of watching animals engage with the possibilities offered by human neighbours.
Last week we had mackerel for supper and left the heads and tails on a platter on the deck for the raccoons.
Bad idea. The raccoons came alright, but hauled the mackerel heads off the platter round to the side deck to eat them in peace. Next day there was dried blood everywhere and teeny, tiny, blood-stained raccoon footprints running over and back across the deck, down the steps and along the footpath to the brook that runs in front of the house.
They snuck them out from underneath our noses that time. During the summer, we often got to see them sneak onto the deck to grab whatever we’d left out for them. I always imagine they’re a form of guerrilla fox with their bandanas and small handlike paws.
Then there are the squirrels.
Last weekend we went walking in the woods to see if we could find the buck that must be around somewhere and sure enough after about twenty minutes of tracking prints and scraped earth and trees (it being the rutting season) we turned a corner into a glade and there he was, just about to leap into the trees and freedom. If I was one to anthropomorphise animals I would say he tossed his antlers disdainfully at us before he leaped.
We came out of the woods eventually and met a guy on the road who was going to tend to his apple pile. Himself told him all about the buck we’d seen, up back of the old road, over a piece and toward so and so’s place, just by that alder stand where the such and such happened etc etc.
Captain Golden Delicious was delighted with the news and roared off in his pick-up. We walked on.
“Why did you tell him about the buck?”
“So he’d go lookin’ for it.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Well, he won’t find it where I told him it was, now will he?”
I had to take his word for it. News of his demise has not filtered through the community yet, though, so I have to assume he’s safe.
Not that we didn’t make a desultory effort to get him.
Towards dusk Himself loaded his gun and we went back up to the woods and climbed a tree where he has an old door lashed into place as a deer stand. We sat there for over an hour but Mr. Buck didn’t show.
Of course not.
We were sitting in the wrong tree, as far as I could see, it being about two hundred yards off the deer tracks we’d found earlier. There was another tree a bit further on that would have been more suitable. But I didn’t say anything.
I think Himself doesn’t have the heart to shoot a deer in front of me. I think he just wanted us to sit in a tree and hear the music of the woods settling down for the night.
After twenty minutes it was so quiet I could hear my blood running around my body.
Then a squirrel came along. He jumped from tree to tree underneath us, taking his time. Then he landed on our tree and scurried past and on up the hill. He was headed to another tree further up the glade, where his lady friend lives. I know this because I was sitting under that tree in the sunshine by myself a couple of weeks ago and they started going at it with great gusto, right above my head.
It was nearly dark anyways, and I had to climb out of the tree, so we decided it was time to leave.
You know you’re re-connecting with your environment when you leave the squirrels to enjoy the twilight in peace, don’t you!!
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