Wasn’t it nice of him to invite a critter buffet
Thursday August 31st 2017, 9:47 pm
Filed under: Garden,Knitting a Gift,Life,Wildlife

1. Found an obvious mistake made right at the beginning and that could not be fixed, frogged the whole thing, and started over with a different yarn. Same old same old pattern because it’s mistake-proof and right then I just needed that.

2. Bird netting, bird spikes, and covering bags didn’t do it this time–they got my one ripe fig last night that I was going to pick in the morning when it would be sweetest. Darn.

3. The story from a few years back is there was a young male mountain lion who followed the creek beds from the mountains to the valley across downtown and into a suburban neighborhood, where a UPS driver saw him near dawn near an elementary school and reported it immediately.

And then it vanished.

A quite-elderly golden retriever saved the day that afternoon about the time school was letting out when he announced his opinion of a cat trespassing in his territory. A little one he might ignore but this one just had no business being there.

A reporter was standing under a tree filing a story update that no, the lion still hadn’t been spotted yet. (Dude. Straight. Up…)

So this morning, again around dawn, a man across town who has fruit trees and a garden that had been being raided by raccoons in the night (and has my greatest sympathies) and who is on the board of the state’s Nature Conservancy heard noise outside and went out to try to do something about it.

There were wildly swinging branches in the redwood just over the fence, and redwoods are not flimsy things–

–and a deep growl.

Holy. Cow.

And then the lion’s cub, echoing Mommy and trying to sound fierce, too.

…Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about raccoons tonight, honey…

They’re still looking for them. Our city’s hero golden retriever has gone on to that great dog park in the sky. We’ve had lions before, but never one with young. Fish and Game is on it and the cops again guarded the children going to and from school.


4 Comments so far
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We live in mountain lion and bear territory. We also have raccoons, coyotes and all manner of nasty critters. But it is still the squirrels who plague the most – picking those strawberries just hours before I was going to pick them for breakfast!

Comment by chris 09.01.17 @ 5:15 am

What a lovely colour! I pray it brings you peace.

I am amazed by this story of a mountain lion. I’m glad there are people (and dogs) watching out for them.

Comment by Suzanne in Montreal 09.01.17 @ 5:39 am

In my neck of the woods, the worst we have to watch for are the coyotes. Bad enough, especially when folks insist on letting their cats and dogs outside with no protection. But nothing near a mountain lion thank goodness!

By the way, don’t know if you’ve seen Stephanie’s blog post today? I think her blog is currently broken. I managed to get a comment in and then I couldn’t get back to it. She is in the midst of great sorrow at the sudden loss of her beloved mother. I’ve been in that neighbourhood, I’m praying for her, I know you will too.

Chris S in Canada

Comment by Chris S 09.01.17 @ 7:06 pm

Thank you, Chris, and I was so sorry to read this and her post. Her blog was broken for me, too for several hours but worked later. I like to think it was all of us trying to offer our condolences in unison, and the fact that her blog couldn’t process it all at once? There’s a poetry in that.

Comment by AlisonH 09.01.17 @ 10:38 pm



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