First of all the disclaimer. Twila and I are not… NOT outdoorsy people. We don’t hike. The only hike I like is a short one with a great place, like a waterfall, to shoot pictures at the end of it. And our idea of camping is staying in a budget hotel instead of a high-end one like on the strip in Vegas. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
However, having said all that, we do enjoy convenient wildlife in our backyard. We have been blessed in that our last three houses… our office was on the back facing the back yards. When we lived in Glasgow, our house was on the edge of town with a big pasture and some woods behind it and we had to buy a book to help identify all the various birds that visited our feeders on our deck. We saw so many we finally started keeping a log.
When we moved to our newest abode, even though we have a few trees and bushes in the back yard, I didn’t expect anything of the wildlife. It just didn’t seem like it would be convenient for them. But they surprised us in a great way.
Our second year here, we started seeing Bluebirds flying around the area catching bugs. We have both always loved Bluebirds for the beauty and fun of watching their acrobatics. After checking with our friends at the Wild Bird and Nature Store, we put up a Bluebird house and started to put out food for them. The first year they would drop by for a snack every now and then, but that was it.
The second year, while watching for the Bluebirds to return… house and feeder already in place… we looked out to see a shock… a White Squirrel. Now, again, not only are we not outdoorsy, we are not wild animal experts, so we just appointed the squirrel a “her” and named her Snowball. Very quickly we borrowed some corn on the cob from friends who were already feeding squirrels and Snowball became a regular visitor.
As if having a White Squirrel as a regular guest wasn’t enough, we looked up one day and a pair of Bluebirds was making a home in our Bluebird house. Now, they each come with their own challenges… we have lots of gray squirrels who are bullies and will chase Snowball off the feeder, so I often have to jump up, run out and chase them off. Snowball has learned to just wait in the yard until I clear out the crowd for her. We also have a pair of small Hawks in the area and I fear they might like a snack of Bluebird appetizers, so when I see their shadows pass over the patio, I run outside and encourage them to move on. They truly do not like my drones.
We have friends who love to camp. We even have a crazy friend who enjoys climbing up sheer rock faces. At least he takes his lawyer along so he can dictate a new will as he falls past him. But the Bluebirds and Snowball… that’s our extent of enjoying the outdoors. As for the “happiness” and “luck”… Twila and I have experienced plenty of both from our wild friends but we will leave you to Google to learn how it works.
