I live in the city of Colorado Springs. But, I like to think that I am a bit of a country boy. My first memories were of living in the country outside of town. The place we lived in was near an apple orchard and had an irrigation ditch running along the front. Located North of Colorado Springs and South of Monument, the place provided plenty of room for very young kids to play. (Though, since we were preschool age, it probably wasn’t as roomy as I remember.)
When they began construction on the U.S. Air Force Academy, we had an increase in the number of rattlesnakes on the grounds. I remember my mom killing one, maybe two, near the area we regularly played. Our dog, Princess, was bitten by one once and would bark and raise a ruckus when she saw one. Not long after that, we moved into town so I and my brother could start school.
The next year we moved to the Westside of town. Behind where we lived was a big open field, where one of my brother’s friends kept horses and a donkey. They allowed us to ride them, and we spent some fun days riding the horses and trying to ride the donkey. My best friend at the time lived across the street. His family had chickens and rabbits, with the occasional goat. They taught us to milk the goat, and we drank the raw milk.
Those things and many others made it feel like we lived in the country until we moved again when I started Junior High. From that time on, we lived in town. So, I might think I am a country boy. I am a city slicker. But I still enjoy the outdoors, animals, and seeing nature. This year has brought many of these opportunities. Nancy Lewis Park,Nancy Lewis Park | Colorado Springs, near our house has a pond. Yearly ducks and Canadian Geese spend the late spring and summer there.
This year, two sets of geese raised goslings. The geese are excellent parents, keeping the goslings near them until they mature. You can often see the gosling walking, or swimming, single file between the parents. This year, one set of goslings comprised just two. One hurt its leg somehow and could hardly walk, but it seemed to grow and develop, just at a slightly slower pace. My wife was anxious about the ‘poor thing’. We don’t go over there every day; one day we went there, and the geese were all gone. I assume they flew away, but I don’t know.
Ducks parent differently. The drake has little to do with raising the ducklings. The hen watches them closely when they are young, but the ducklings get more and more adventurous as they get older. Swimming all over the surface of the pond. They are fun to watch swimming, walking across the lily pads, or walking in the grass. It is always pleasant to hear the peep-peep sound they make while they swim. This year three sets or ducklings grew up on the pond.
In town, there are a lot of fox squirrels that were imported to the area and have replaced the native gray and Ebert squirrels. Though they are an invasive species, they are fun to watch. Until we had to remove one, we had two mature trees in our front yard. I like to watch the squirrels run around and play when I sit and drink my coffee in the mornings through our front window. Bailey likes to watch them too, and they sometimes tease her by running along the fence in the backyard.
This year, though, I saw something different. Sitting on the sofa, I saw a hummingbird near the trunk of the Sycamore tree. It was dive bombing a squirrel on the tree trunk. It chased the squirrel off the tree, then flew up into the leaves. I thought it was odd and couldn’t figure it out. A couple of days later, I saw the incident repeated. Over the next few weeks, the hummingbird chased a squirrel, and on one occasion, two squirrels off the tree. One morning, it was dive bombing a squirrel in the middle of the yard. I still don’t know why it did this, but my thoughts are the hummingbird had a nest in the tree and chased the squirrels whenever they got too close to it.
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