When it comes to nature, one can hear country sounds play out
the life-and-death opera at Linda’s Last Chance Ranch.
When it comes to nature, one can hear country sounds play out the life-and-death opera at Linda’s Last Chance Ranch.
To urban dwellers, country living is romantic, carefree and peaceful. In reality, it is anything but that.
The hooty owl gives a hoot, and seconds later the screeching rodent goes silent. A whooshing breeze bends grasses and poppies. The fox makes his getaway, and then there were four dead-end chicks remaining.
After being publicly humiliated about his inability to “hit the side of a barn,” my sharpshooter partner decided he needed to practice his aim, which proved to be useful a few days later. I got the call around 3 p.m.
“You could recognize him in a lineup,” Jim said. “He’s the bobcat with a face full of buckshot.”
What we would like to see in nature is more rodent removal. We have plenty of squirrels to eat, but, hey, chicken on the run is pretty good stuff.
However, my pioneer chicken farmer is worried about Frick, his favorite rooster – probably because it’s the only rooster we have. He now wants to make a deal with the fox and the bobcat.
“I love having the wildlife around. I just don’t want them eating the animals that I know,” he said, promising that if they leave our chickens alone he’d go to Safeway and buy them their own chickens.
“That will make them fat and lazy,” I said, pondering the idea of civilizing nature.
It isn’t easy raising free-roaming chickens in a semi-wild environment, but I try to keep a close eye on my good layers – especially Jumbo Mamma. That hen is sweet as can be. She tries to communicate and is the only one who runs up to greet me when I come home.
But with all our consideration to the dangers that lie in wait in the brush or behind a tree, reality is life and death, a daily account when the sun goes down – which ones make it home and which were dinner.
Last week another cat that we brought in from an urban setting, Alley Ann, didn’t come home. This surprised us because she was the skittish one – always looking in the brush, staring into the far background, looking at something we couldn’t see but which clearly intimidated her.
This cat didn’t trust her own shadow. We thought if any cat made it, she would. The theory around here is she became the hunted.
There is a balance in the chaos, and for all our human efforts to change the course of nature there is always the cosmic rule, an overriding consideration.
One recent morning when Spats the cat came into the house with a live sparrow between his teeth, I made it my responsibility to rescue that bird. It felt good – I saved this little bird from the jaws of death. But 10 minutes later while driving to work, a bird flew in front of my car. I couldn’t avoid it and killed it.
After telling a friend of mine how cosmic life can be when we try to avoid its natural course, she smiled and said, “Linda giveth and Linda taketh away.”
