May 30, 2004 ~ Of Cats and Toads and Wolves

Sunday.

Badger's eyes were focused intently on a patch of grass five feet in front of him. He tensed, and his haunches started to wind up for a pounce.

I sprung in front of him and scooped the huge toad out of the grass. "Sorry Badger. You don't want to eat this guy anyway."

Badger had been so focused on his prey that he hadn't noticed my approach, and he had jumped backwards at my sudden appearance. Regaining his feline composure, he gave me a disgusted look that said, "Actually, I was quite intent on making him my dinner, and I distain your human presumptions."

The toad, meanwhile, looked up from my hand, terrified. A warm, wet sensation spread across my fingers. He'd peed on me. "Oh sweetheart, I'm sorry. But I assure you, better my hand than Badger's mouth. I'm gonna take you to the pond."

I had to walk past Mason, Watcher, and Butkus's pen to get to the pond. Three wolf faces stared at my hands intently, noses straining to figure out what I held. They all looked up at me with the begging, pleading, "Oh, please, oh please, oh please, won't you please put that into our pen please?" look on their faces. Three wolf tails started wagging when I paused to acknowledge them, and Butkus licked his muzzle. I couldn't help but laugh.

And three wolf faces looked disgusted when I continued on toward the pond. "Oh hush. We'll have chicken for you later. Much better than toad. Seriously!"

I knelt by the pond and the poor toad sat in my hand and blinked at me, too scared to move. I nudged him toward the water and watched as he swam away.

There have been so many moments, lately, that I've been too preoccupied to record here. Now, I'm looking back through and pulling them, randomly, here and there, as I try to get back into the habit of daily posting. We'll see what comes up.

For now, a few bird pictures:

brown-headed cowbird

brown thrasher

American robin

a Northern mockingbird displaying

Northern flicker

Footnotes:

odds & ends: Thank you for all the kind words, everyone! Morgan will start the new job on July 1st. He has to train his replacement at the restaurant first.
weather: Hot. Thunderstorms nearly every day.
bookmarked: I finished A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter, which both my grandmother and Doug had suggested. It was a really good book. Sucked me right in and I finished it in a day.
observation: Fire pinks are blooming everywhere.
mail bag: A postcard from Lisa, and a graduation announcement for my sister, with pictures of her. (Which were so strange to see. I left Portland when my sister was still a kid, and now she's a high school graduate. I wish I could visit more often. It's been almost five years.)
hours hiked this year: 75
hours volunteered this year: 160.5
watching: Morgan and I went to see The Day After Tomorrow, which was kind of disappointing, unrealistic, and poorly written. (And whoever designed those CG wolves had obviously never seen a real wolf before. Extremely unrealistic. And I'm sorry, but wolves would not be hunting healthy humans, who could fight back, when they had a city full of cadavers to eat. They'd be scared of the humans. Duh. Yeah, the movie pissed me off a little, can you tell?)

online journals:

"But there is something about a snowbank that just brings out the fun. A place to run and tumble and dig and pounce, without fear of cactus stickers or pointy rocks. A place to cool off toes heated by rapid runs down dirt tracks. A place to play." ~ Grouse--I can't help but smile every time I see the pictures in that entry.

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