Happenings

Hearing Grant’s distressed “Oh no!”, I thought one of his sunflowers had been brought down.

Sadly, it was something far worse.

He’d caught sight of a young skunk rushing by, covered in blood and when he looked in the direction from which it appeared to have come, he saw another, also bloodied, clearly rabid.

The baby skunk ran off into the woods up the hill, but Grant was able to catch up with the other and end its torment. Having heard of rabies in the area, this is what we had hoped to avoid. It is such a ghastly, damnable disease and we obviously haven’t seen the end of it.

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As I have said numerous times, getting involved with wildlife leads to heartbreak, but if you are that way inclined, so be it. Grant is at least able to take action to minimise the suffering, which is a slight comfort, but it leaves him understandably feeling low.

Luckily, this time Grant was able to dig a pit for a fire to burn the corpse. Being told by the authorities to double-bag baby raccoons and put them in the trash was hard to bear.

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The happier news is that our little friend Blackie (the squirrel) returned two days ago. He didn’t stay long and we haven’t seen him since, but at least we know that he still lives.

The same thing happened a few years ago with a squirrel I called Ghost because he was very pale grey. He disappeared for weeks, returned briefly and then vanished permanently.

Living here, I discovered that squirrels are interesting and mysterious characters.

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Our visiting turkey pals have become comfortable enough to lie around resting on the grass just beyond the patio.

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And I was thrilled the other night to see a fox near the house.

We’ve seen one a couple more times since, so perhaps they have not abandoned us.

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Coming back from Queensbury Grant declared it to be Hurl Abuse Day, growling rudely about fellow motorists. As I pointed out, they do not hear his abuse, I do. Just as well I have long been immune!

Then we had another of those unlikely occurrences…

The above car dawdled in front of us all the way to Greenwich where we lost it because we stopped to do some food shopping. Twenty minutes later we got back on the road to Cambridge and who did we get behind? It was definitely the same vehicle because it had a New Hampshire plate.

The first time this same thing happened to us we were pretty surprised.

When it occurred again, we said “No way!”

This time I said that the Universe must be trying to tell Grant something!

What could it be?

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