July 27, 2004
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ANIMALS vs PETS
My wife and I are wild animal people. We have lived in several places where critters abound and greatly enjoy watching and casual encounters. As used to travel a lot, we decided early on that pets weren't for us.
Yesterday morning we had a deer in front of the camp, We have continual hummingbird presence at our window boxes. Hummers are fearless - I left the screen up once and one came in making a bee-line (no, HB-line) for a vase of flowers. He realized he didn't belong inside so flew back to the nearest window - a closed one. I caught him in my hand and chucked him out the open window. He buzzed off and I thought we'd seen the last of him; not so. He was back within a few minutes.
Here we've had friendly: otters (tried to come in the camp) mink, foxes, raccoons, chippies, red & gery squirrels, porcupines (knawed one of my boat trailer tires), moose, even a fisher (he ate the porcupines). Oh yes, we have an occasional bear and had a brace of coyotes denning up in our rocks a few years ago.
Except for the birds, we do not feed or encourage the wildlife but they seem to feel unthreatened so we see plenty. If we had a dog, we wouldn't.
I did use to feed the deer in the winter in Indiana. We had one badly crippled buck that waited for the daily handout - he bedded down right next to the feeder and to see him erupt out of the snow was something else. I never could get him to come closer than about five feet when I had the feed (cracked corn) bucket. He was around for three years so I guess he did OK, even with only three usable legs.
The deer there used to follow us around when we were working in the woods. There we also had a flock of resident wild turkeys. We did not allow hunting, which upset our Hoosier neighbors.
Comments (3)
Seeing wild animals is pretty cool : ) Where we live we have racoons, squirrels and possum - with the occasional fox and coyote thrown in for good measure. This is part of the reason why we keep our cats indoors only - we don't want any animal confrontations. My only issue is our bird - I hate seeing animals in cages. The odd thing is that she LIKES to be in her cage. She tries to get back in if you let her out. I didn't buy this bird - one of my cats caught her in the backyard. She is a little canary who likes to sing to us : ) I found a woman on craigslist who had a canary that had flown into her house - but had died after several years. She sold us her giant bird cage and accessories for $20. I have kept the bird only because I can't find a good home for her. I am a total sap for an animal that has no one to care for and that cannot fend for itself.
I was a little (lot) upset when my brother got two parakeets for his daughter. See, she wanted birds because she liked my canary - I offered it to them, but they refused. And THEN they went and bought the parakeets. The most annoying thing about it is that they can't really afford much right now, so they got the TWO birds ONE TINY CAGE. My little canary's cage is 3 times the size of their parakeets' little tiny cage. And, they keep the birds in a room under a desk (?) And, then they asked me to keep a lookout on craigslist for a bigger bird cage. I wonder if they realize that I don't spend my days looking through craigslist for random things - that I just got lucky. Oh well.
Sorry to gripe. I just think animals should be respected, or don't bother having pets. People can figure out how much freedom from responsibility they want - and animals are LOTS of responsibility. It's far too easy to get a pet - and let it reproduce like mad. I am proud to say that I have never had a cat that had kittens - and it drives me nuts when people just let their cat have litter after litter. Ugh.
Personally I'm a cat lover. I always had dog's growing up, but there's just something I love about kitty cats.
I also like wild animals, but from a distance of course. Not too many exotic, wild animals here in Ohio, just your average, everday squirrel. Rumor is there is a mountain lion loose in a city not to far from where I live.
My hubby is a bird lover. We don't keep any in the house but he loves to feed the wild ones outside and he can sit and watch them for hours always hoping to spot a new one he hasn't seen so he can get his big old bird book out to see what it is! We once had an owl that would come and sit in a tree outside of my son's bedroom window, now that was cool!
Emily
Owls are SO neat! There are several that live in the orchard near my home - sometimes at night we will be out in the hot tub and see one flying around. They look SO big!