Shifts & Small Surprises

“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.”
(Anton Chekhov)

It was downright chilly yesterday morning!  Even the sun seemed to have hit the snooze alarm once or twice; as I sat down to write it was already an hour past sunrise but the first rays were only just beginning to color the sky blue and reach down into the ‘hood to illuminate our little world.  Even the birds remained strangely quiet.

I’d wanted to go to the nature preserve at dawn, but between my night owl tendencies and Saturday’s housework, I just couldn’t roust my Self out of the warm bed early enough to make the trip worthwhile.   So instead I let Bob sleep in, finally heading out back to fill the feeders and feast my eyes on the dampness glistening in the backyard.

The early light soon faded to grey and the continued coolness found me spending part of the afteroon in the kitchen happily chopping and sauteeing various tasty tidbits to make a pot of Japanese-style soup.  In my humble opinion, miso is a gift from the gods and it seems like forever since I’ve partaken of its health-bringing flavor so what better time to indulge than the start of allergy season?  And to be sure, as I later enjoyed a big, steaming bowl, it was, indeed, the right thing to do.

As evening grew nigh I headed out back to feed the residents in the pre-release pens.  To my surprise and chagrin, I discovered that Mama Flyer had a second litter of babies.  And from the size of the 4 wee babes, almost 3 weeks ago! Mama, her newest ones, and her first litter are all happily squished together in one of the nest boxes, which is why it wasn’t apparent she’d given birth again.  I can now scratch away the task of putting a tiny “come & go” door on that pre-release pen (a task we had intended to do this weekend) since the flyers should be released as a group and it will be a while before the new babes are ready to follow the adults on their first forrays into the ‘hood.

My prodigal Donny showed up, too.  He’s grown thin in his first week of explorations and, in part, from being soundly chased by the other, more established fox squirrels as he pokes his furry nose where it doesn’t belong.  He was quite grateful to be given some “captive chow”, then to my surprise he headed into his empty pre-release pen and after a long drink of fresh water he crawled into his old nest box and made it perfectly clear he intended to stay put.  So I did what any good foster mother does and locked him in the pen for the night to insure he would sleep safely and undisturbed.

And sleep he did.  It must have been the healing sleep of utter exhaustion for he was still in the nest box when I filled the feeders early this morning.  I took him out a proper breakfast and after a while he finally headed off to spend the day doing whatever it is that squirrels do when they aren’t eating or playing in our backyard.

And he has a good day to do it, too.  It’s a perfect summer morning with predictions for a moderate high to be reached under bright, sunny skies.  The kind of day I wish I didn’t have to work; it begs for sitting on the back patio,  first with the camera, later with a good book.

But I’ll happily make do with open windows.