My Back Yard

Iggy pulled onto the shoulder of the road. “Keep going,” he yelled at me. “I’m fixing my chain. I’ll catch up with you. You can go on to the ice cream stand, if you want.”

We were biking uphill and Iggy knows I don’t like losing my momentum. So I kept on going until the crest of the hill. I pulled over to wait. Iggy’s still mad at me for the time I left him behind on the Cape Cod Rail Trail, so I wasn’t going to do that again. Anyway, what if Great Brook Farm with its made-on-the-premises ice cream wasn’t as close as he thought or if I overshot the entrance?

The ground was uneven, so I held my bike upright, figuring Iggy would join me in minutes. And within minutes I heard a bike clattering, then stop.

I looked down the hill to see a flash of neon yellow Lycra–Iggy pulling over to tinker again. I laid my bike down and then plopped myself on a grassy spot to wait. This was going to take longer than I’d hoped. Ten minutes passed. His bike’s derailleur was shot. It was time to pass my bike to Iggy so he could ride back to the car since I couldn’t remember where it was and I’m not as fast as him.

I crossed the street so I could wait on broad shoulder where Iggy would have plenty of room to pull over safely upon his return. Plus, a waist-high stone wall offered a flat surface where I could wait in relative comfort.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” said Iggy, as he wheeled away. I hopped up on the wall and looked around. A white house sat at the end of wall with a flourish of orange day lilies nearby. Elsewhere, everything was green.

Except, what was that? Something fluttered on the bag fastened around my waist. A fiery orange and black butterfly.

It flew away, but lit on the lip of my insulated water bottle. Maybe it was thirsty. But it stayed there no longer than it had on my waist, moving quickly to the yellow-taped ends of Iggy’s handlebars close to my feet.

Its wings pulsed back and forth as if they moved with every breath. Then its wings closed tightly for several seconds. It looked as if it had disappeared, replaced by a dried out oak leaf on its edge. Then it opened and walked higher on the yellow tape. Then it twirled clockwise, reminding me of the whirling dervishes I’d seen in Turkey. It moved in tiny steps on legs the same thickness as its wiry antennae. I was fascinated.

Doing research later on the Massachusetts Audubon’s “Find a Butterfly” page, the creature most closely resembled an Eastern Comma.

Anyway, time passed much faster than I expected. Iggy also made better time on my bike, returning in just 45 minutes. He loaded the bike onto his car, and then I got my cone at Great Brook Farm after all.

A bunny grazed in broad daylight on dried corn that Iggy had scattered over our patio earlier in the day. Rabbits are supposed to be crepuscular. Most of our earlier bunny sightings have been after dusk.

The bunny was the size of two squirrels in one. Smaller than the bunny that had frozen in place when we’d driven home one evening. But a lot bigger than the baby bunny that started to dart in front of my car, but then thought better of it, earlier this week.

A squirrel chomped on the corn about two squirrel body-lengths away. It looks like bunnies and squirrels can coexist. I haven’t seen either species close to Rachel Raccoon.

Iggy likes to refer to our garden as his garden, even though I planted it. Maybe that means he’s proud of it or he likes how it looks.

Today Iggy shoveled compost out of our bin, into the wheelbarrow, and around the hostas. This will help his garden to grow stronger.

He also shlepped me out to the garden center, where I bought a couple flats of impatiens, a replacement sweet autumn clematis, epimediums, hellebores, and a couple of plants for my containers. Plus ten bags of mulch that’ll eventually go in our front garden.

I enjoyed working in Iggy’s garden today.

A brown bird, just a little bit bigger than than the young sparrows sat on the fence outside my kitchen window. The long pointy beak identified it as a cowbird.

Cowbird eggs hatch in the nests of other birds, so it seemed natural the cowbird looked at home among the sparrows.

If a healthy raccoon is out during the day, it’s probably a nursing mother.

That comment by my next-door neighbor was partly responsible for my dubbing the resident of my backyard maple tree Rachel Raccoon. Rather than Robert Raccoon.

I assume she lives in that tree because a few years ago I saw three baby raccoons peering out of its high hollow. Also, another neighbor told me “there’s been a raccoon living in that tree since I was a little boy.”

Rachel lets me see her, but she doesn’t get close. In fact, she detours away from me or Iggy. That’s good. Otherwise I’d worry she might be rabid.

Let’s welcome “Life in Squirreldom” to the blogosphere.

It features some mighty cute squirrels written and photographed by Squirrel Mama Elizabeth Kricfalusi.

We are not amused.

The most e-mailed article from yesterday’s New York Times was “Peter Rabbit Must Die,” an article about killing the animals that damage your garden.

I prefer this philosophy, also cited in the article:
“There is also the approach offered by Catherine Wachs, a gardener who runs the Right Brain Design advertising company and lives in Larchmont, N.Y.: ‘I do what the Bible says: Leave the corners of your field unharvested for the poor and strangers among you.’ “