I am renting a small cabin, situated on a large property which borders two lakes, I can’t see the lakes from my cabin, but once I get out onto the property itself, I get a partial view of one of the lakes. My little cabin is plonked in the centre of a large stand of cedar and fir trees. It is rather bucolic, however, like a lot of things in life, there are two side to every coin. I like to see it as three sides to every coin, there are good, bad, and ugly, in most things. It is gorgeous, but I don’t own it and so I am at the whim of a stubborn, money hungry, land lady who, in turns can be nice, then be very not so nice to be around.

I have families of deer surrounding me, in my little cabin, I watch them graze their way around the woods, mostly I see two, or three females and two, or more offspring. They tend to have twins. The bucks show up once in a while but I mostly see the does and fawns on their own. One fine morning, as I was heading out for my nature walk along the lake side trail, I walked upon a group. They stood and watched me approach, but didn’t bound off as is their usual wont to do. They stood and let me walk into the group, I kept my eyes lowered, slowed my walk and tried to be as quiet as possible, I stopped for a second or a brief moment to absorb my situation. I was surrounded by a group of deer.

Don’t try this at home folks, they are a wild animal, they’re a whole lot stronger than I, and I am lucky I didn’t get attacked. Lucky indeed, but it was quite the exhilarating experience for us out here at The Rusty Prose.

The same goes for wild rabbits, I live in bunny central. Eastern cotton tail, these ones are called, and there are a lot of them. These are wild, not at all the store bought bunnies for Easter which then get released into the wild to fend for themselves after they’ve developed a taste for fresh lettuce and carrots. These wild ones have a different diet, so they’re not after a the farmers gardens, they tend to graze around my cabin much the same as the deer.

Birds, the birds. Many different types, although I’m sure the bird population, as a whole, isn’t what it used to be, but I am blessed with a having so many different types; I have Raptors, song birds, water fowl, mourning doves, Stellar’s Jays, woodpeckers, ravens, crows and hummingbirds. I don’t have any feeders out, they don’t seem to need any, even my hummingbirds hang around without a feeder. At night I get the eagles chittering away to themselves, I have screech owls letting their presence be known and felt, and I have barred owls flying over head, calling out as I go for walks. I have my ducks and geese to welcome me, then the ravens lead me back home. Back to my little cabin ensconced in nature.