We moved to this property 15 years ago, and the best thing we’ve done to improve it is...nothing.
We’ve left this ground alone, left it largely wild, allowed Nature to pull whatever rabbits out of her magical hat she wishes. As a result of our lack of “control,” there are several acres’ worth of mysteries outside our door. I’d like to tell you about one of them.
Several nights ago there were coyotes yipping outside my open office window. I’d guess there were maybe six of them, and they sounded so close I had the feeling I could reach out the window and touch them. The yipping was excited and animated, and I wondered whether some poor rabbit or maybe even someone's cat had met its end. I was glad we have an electric fence to keep predators away from our sheep, though no fence is a guarantee of safety.
Yesterday I was out walking around near a small wetland in a low area of our property. It’s a place where wild ducks often hang out and, in the ferns near the pond, I saw a downy feather, then another, and another. The feather in the photograph above was tiny, about the size of the tip of my little finger.
Did my neighbors the coyotes have duck for dinner the night I heard them? My guess is no. The way the feathers were scattered about -- up off the ground, on the tops of ferns -- I’m thinking that the duck might have had a brush with mortality but probably was able to take flight and escape.
That sometimes all I can do is guess what’s going on outside my window is pretty great. Life out there isn’t something I can -- or want to -- control.
