Sherry Chandler

Game Trails

The tracing of the game trails that cross and re-cross our fields is one of our winter-time amusements. You can just see one to my right in this photograph of our alfalfa field. They’re there in every season, of course, but they’re easier to trace when the grass has died down. We like to speculate what the trails lead to and from and just which of our tenants may have made them. (Sometimes that’s easy – water, for example – but sometimes the tracks seem to just sort of meander along, sometimes they bifurcate and come back together as if two raccoons may have a different idea of the easiest way to get from A to B.)

I’ve never quite understood creationists’ anger at the thought of being part of the family of animals. I’ve always been comforted by the notion that I have such a fascinating variety of cousins and sisters on this Earth, and I am somewhat comforted by this evidence that we share our place with others who do not recognize our ownership — or even our stewardship. Goodness knows, we could use some help taking care of things.

Speaking of raccoons, Ursula is still around, though her kits thank goodness seem to have departed for greener pastures (though I fear at least one may have fallen victim to the highway). I did have some visions last year of being eye-brow deep in raccoons. Mostly, though, Ursula seems content with living in the outbuildings this year and she accepts my husband’s protection payments of odds of cat food and table scraps and for the most part stays away from the bird feeder and the trash bags. Just the occasional forays to let us know we can’t take her good will for granted.

Possibly related posts:

Ursula washes her dogfood

Kentucky’s Quilt Trails

Weather report

Ursula

Call of the wild

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.