Meet the Old Neighbors!

Yesterday, Ed and I were sitting on the porch having mid-afternoon coffee and observing the various changes in the yard that the slowly advancing spring was making. There are pasque flowers blooming, even though Easter came through quite a while ago; daffodils and tulips are making a simultaneous appearance, even though the tulips normally don't start until the daffs are finished; and lilac buds are yet tightly furled, although they usually bloom by May 1st. I’m afraid that won’t happen this year, but it’s all to the good, I suppose, since I will be gone by then.

As we talked, into the yard strolled a medium-sized deer. It was the second deer I’d seen this week, which is unusual. They’re around all the time, but I don’t usually see them: just signs of their passing. This one was about 15 feet away from us and he stopped to eat the leaves off the rose bushes. These are rugosa roses, very fragrant but not awfully showy bushes and we have rows of them, so I wasn’t too concerned about the deer’s feeding. But I was surprised to note that I had never before seen them do this nor seen any evidence of their doing it. They eat blackberries regularly and you can see where they have been lunching, but no sign on the rose bushes. We were talking and the deer was paying no particular notice to us. Then a second, smaller deer wandered in; the two touched noses communicating something about the quality of the rose leaves, maybe, because the second one did not participate in the lunch. But the two of them stood there, looking around, cocking their ears, for all the world as if they were concerned about something. But it definitely wasn’t us. Never glanced our way.

Earlier in the day, I’d been walking up the road when I came upon a 15-inch snake of the grass sort: yellow stripes and a darting red tongue. When I first saw him, he was so still I thought he was dead. I was standing right next to him and there was no sign of life in him. Then I nudged him slightly with my foot and, although he did not move his body, he did make his red tongue go in and out very fast. This seems an evolutionarily weak response. I mean, my foot was nowhere near his tongue so it’s hard to think that he was actually concerned about me standing there, enormous me.

We have raccoons around all the time, too. Here they mostly come round at night and we hear them rattling around more often than we see them. But down in Point Roberts, they are perfectly content to walk within five feet of us and never give us a glance. It almost seems rude, their failure to acknowledge our presence. Hummingbirds, too, fly in and around us desperate for sugar water but without any concern about us. These are an interesting kind of neighbor, and it is always a little strange, after years of city living, to have them around so much of the time. And to have them so uninterested in us. The bears are not like that, though. They see you, they move right off. Of course, when I see them, I’m inclined to move right off too. The cougars, I never see; but they see me, I imagine.

When I first came here, I would voice some alarm about the bears, but long-time residents would say, ‘What did you expect? You moved to a place where there are bears.’ I got the message quickly: you don’t want to live with bears, don’t move here. I’m okay with them, now, but I never expected to live with wild animals who were absolutely indifferent to my presence. Don’t they know I could be dangerous?