Where the Wild Things Are...

I had the shock of my life when I came out my back door with my dog, Foxy this afternoon...I saw something I never thought I would see in my small yard on five lanes of fast - a rather large wild turkey standing at least four feet tall! It had to be at least a 25 to 30 lbs!!

My sharpei/German shepherd mix dog which is a mid-sized dog at first dove after the bird - that is until she saw how big it was! She quickly ran behind me but the turkey had been spooked by then and took to the sky flying over the tops of our neighbors and another house as well. I never knew they could fly like that! After my close encounter with a wild turkey, I was still in awe as it disappeared.

All I could say was, wow."

Our Neighbors Both Feathery and Furry

Friday evenings are great in the summer. I sit out on the patio, and watch the birds and listen to their songs until the swallows and bats make their entrance to the early evening sky. Tonight with little humidity was a great evening for sitting and simply being. The cardinals were, "Cheer, cheer, cheering," to the sky and the contrails that crisscrossed my view gave an image much like a game of tic tac toe.

It's funny to think that our modern age and the ever-present natural life around us actually coexisting, but they do...never quite in harmony, but always on an almost equal footing in our daily life. I found out how true that was one evening a few years ago when I was finding myself deep in inner city Grand Rapids on the 3rd deck of a parking garage. Walking to my car I crossed paths with a rather large raccoon. It ambled past and I stopped to watch thinking that in this urban setting there are still the soft features of nature brushing up against our lives.

I'm awfully glad I see the critters that surround us! I can be setting in the car at a stop light and enjoy the flight of a hawk, or see rabbits both big and small in the field behind our home and remember that this is really a shared space and not exclusively our own in this modern world.