TheBanyanTree: night visitors

[Julie Anna Teague]

As I lay awake in bed very early this morning, maybe 4am, with the
windows open to the wonderfully cool sixty degree night, I heard a
barred owl making it's screeching call.  Folklore claims he says, "I
cook for me, who cooks for ya'll?"  I am thrilled by the sound echoing
through the foggy dark.  I held by breath, straining to hear him a half 
dozen more times before he was gone.

My house sits on the edge of a woods and on the edge of what once was a 
serene field of grasses which went green, gold, and brown with the 
seasons.  Families of deer nibbled there.  Quail lived in the grasses 
and we'd seen a red fox make his way through.  Now it is parceled off, 
with sewer hook-ups at half mast here and there.  It is half full of 
monstrously large houses, with their outdoor lighting and their 
contracts with Chem-lawn for perfect fairway green lawns.  Sad but 
inevitable, I suppose.  Yes, yes, I know.  Hypocritically, my own home 
sits on a corner of that same woods and field.  At least it is small 
and compact, carving out just enough space for the three of us and a 
garden with no chemicals.  We have left dead trees and thickets and 
brushpiles for wildlife.  We try to give them space, try to leave 
smaller footprints as we tromp over the earth.  It gives me some 
consolation.

We still have animals around, mostly the vastly over-populated 
ones--deer who take whatever they want from the garden, and raccoons 
who come up on the porch looking for catfood or to see if we have any 
more chickens to kill.  A mother deer left her newborn baby with us for 
one day, safely tucked in amongst some old logs and tall grass in the 
yard.  Many songbirds sing me awake in the morning from the pines and 
shrubs and the wild olive thicket.  Bats circle around when I sit on 
the porch in the evenings, and sometimes I hear the trill of a Red-Wing 
Blackbird.  Hawks and wild geese visit occasionally.  But it is a 
surprise and a joy to hear an owl calling through the night.  It is 
chilling and wonderful to hear a coyote's piercing howl from the edges 
of the woods. I like to think that these creatures are still 
comfortable enough to come around some.

Julie










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