Part-2 Homesteading
The Animals
To read part one the beginning of our homestead journey click here:
Besides living out in the woods when my husband and I homesteaded, some of our favorite memories were of the animals.
I have a little yorkie and on the homestead we called him the "Lizard King". We called him that because that is how he spent 85% of his time, chasing the lizards or waiting for them to come out from their hiding places so he could chase them. I have to tell you, I am not really sure what was funnier, my yorkie chasing the lizards around or my husband chasing the lizards that ran up the trees. While I watched my husband do that was funnier than hell!!
One early morning while my husband and I were sitting outside drinking our morning coffee, we looked over and seen an amazing sight. This huge mama opossum was walking across our yard with her little babies riding on her back. Another morning while we were sitting outside, we watched this coyote running through a section of our woods, like a flash of lightening trying to get to its home before it became full daylight.
We use to put piles of seeds out for the chipmunks that hung out in our yard. It was so funny watching them pack their cheeks, than run to their home, empty the seeds and come back for more.
We use to have a lot of hummingbirds. They sat on the tree limbs and watched for when the coast was clear, than dash down get some sweetness from their feeders then zip off back to the tree limbs. These little hummingbirds were so competitive with the feeders. One of them got hurt and fell to the ground. My husband gently picked him up and we tried to nurse it back to health, but it ended up dying. It was so sad, because we watched the life force drain from this beautiful little creature. All I could do was cry when my husband buried it. That was the first time in my life I ever held a hummingbird.
At night there were these huge opossums that kept getting into our compost pile. Oh, my goodness, everything we tried to do to keep them away never worked. So my husband stacked a pile of small stones on the deck and when the opossums came back, he would throw rocks off in the distance to scare them away. Oh, it only worked a couple of times, because they kept coming back and nothing was to going to stop them.
A beautiful site we seen one morning was when this beautiful doe was walking down our driveway with her little fawn. Honest to goodness it melted my heart seeing something that beautiful.
We use to have this deck walk-way that lead from the house to a little shower room. One night while walking across this deck, my husband turned around and yelled for me to stop!! There was a little copperhead snake peeking up through the spaces between the wood on the deck. Needless to say, I felt my heart leap up to my throat. Eeekkk, it still gives me the hibbie-jibbies just writing about it. A few days later, my husband walks up behind me holding that snake so I could see what it looked like up close! That was nothing new with him~my mother-in-law warned me that when he was a small child, he use to bring all kinds of little critters home in his pocket!!!
I believe one of the most beautiful memories we have about animals on our homestead was, one night while we were lying in bed, we looked out our window and watched this deer that was right under our window. Of course not having any electricity the only sounds you really heard were Natures sounds at her best! We just laid there very quietly, enjoying watching this beautiful creature. Thank goodness it was a full moon night!
It got to the point on the homestead that seeing wildlife became an everyday thing. But neither one of us ever got tired of seeing or hearing the wildlife especially at night. We have heard bears in the near distant, my husband adopted a opossum and named him "Gimp". It was this opossum that began to show up every NIGHT! We knew it was the same opossum because it walked with a limp and it showed up almost at the same time every night.
I believe the quiet and seeing the wildlife are two of the things I miss most from our homestead. The only sounds you heard were Natures' sounds, and all you could see at night was what the moon light allowed you to see. We did have flash-lights but we tried tried to save the batteries. Besides, there is something very magical about the night-time when you live back in the woods.
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