Weekend Nature Report

greeting card image from Art.com

Another shimmering sunny day! We are finally getting our summer--the weekend was perfect. Blue skies, dry weather(only a polite gentle rain early morning Sunday) and temps in the 70's(20's*C). I am loving it!
I saw a fair amount of wildlife over the weekend, starting with late Friday night as I was driving back home from the wine...er..book club meeting.

There is this one stretch of road by the river that is bare of any houses(unusual for overcrowded RI)--and it never fails to calm me as I drive down it in the summer months. It's all tall trees on either side(some covered in vines), massive ferns just about hiding the old, crumbling stone walls(so this wasn't always woods, but cultivated land at one time) and so green and lush. Surely an oasis for the wild animals that still need a place to live, as they have become squeezed out by their human "neighbors".
As I came towards the end of this stretch of road, my headlights lit up two little fawns who had just finished crossing the road and were entering the woods on my right side(the mother must have been ahead of them. Is there nothing more ethereal, gentle and innocent than a spotted baby deer? I immediately thought that at least I didn't come across them when they were still in the middle of the road(they seemed in no hurry)--what if I had hit one of them?? I don't even want to think about that possibility too much...

Then on Saturday morning, when I took Jewel down to the soccer fields for a run, there were two groundhogs in two different spots. I got a little panicked because I had the dog off leash and I was worried about what if they were slow(they are) and Jewel got one of them. But they were both near the fence and scooted underneath just in time! Of course, Jewel went into full hunting dog mode, with her paw raised in a pointer position and kept a watch on both the places where they had gotten away. When I decided I wanted to leave, I had a terrible time trying to pull her away from there.

Saturday evening, R and I took a bike ride and we spotted three rabbits on some one's lawn and one of them was a tiny baby. So sweet! (although I had to think that they were likely to be a fox's, fisher cat's or coyote's next possible meal--we have that kind of wildlife around here, too)

And Sunday night, we sat out and watched the bats swooping overhead at twilight, as well as the glowing fireflies.

Thanks to everyone who expressed concern about my back. As uncomfortable as it felt, it seemed to get better every hour(I don't know how) and by Saturday morning it was as if nothing had happened.