All Creatures Great and Small

Having almost two months under our belt since our last trip back to Ohio, Mountain Man and I are relaxing and have fallen into a comfortable routine in our little cabin.  Having the time to be more mindful of our surroundings now, we are able to focus on the beauty of nature around us.  Living in the forest, you never know what you will see or hear.  The original owners of our cabin landscaped the area around the cabin beautifully.  You can tell that they loved it here by their attention to detail that they gave to the arrangement of the flowers, trees and shrubs.  Every time I walk around our property, I say a prayer of thanks for those people.  I almost wish that we could have bought our place directly from them because the gentleman that we bought from was not here very often and had obviously no interest in the upkeep of this beautiful property.  If you haven't already guessed, we have been spending a great deal of time outside raking and cleaning up years worth of leaves, pine straw and weeds.  When we first moved in, the property had been basically weed whacked down to bare dirt in the middle and was totally overgrown around the edges.  I have been working steadily, section at a time, trimming, digging and generally cleaning up.  My reward has been each little daffodil that has poked it's sweet yellow head up, each fern that is, for the first time in several years, feeling the sunshine warming its roots, and a variety of green plants just starting to gain the strength to wake up from their long naps.  With living in the mountains, I have more Mountain Laurels than I can count, several azaleas that I am excitedly waiting to see bloom, not to mention the crepe myrtles, forsythias and other assorted shrubs.  But, my favorite by far is my giant pear tree.  It is the biggest and fullest pear tree that I have ever seen.  It stands well over 30 feet tall and spreads out into a perfect egg shape that must be nearly 20 feet in diameter.  Right now, it is in full bloom and looks like a giant white egg.  When we first moved in, Mountain Man and I had a battle of the wills about this tree.  All I could see was a perfect specimen in need of nothing but love and rain.  All he could see was a chance to use his chain saw for some serious pruning.  Thankfully, we had to have some tree work done and while the gentleman was here working, I took the opportunity to inquire about the best way to maintain the beauty of the pear tree.  His words were music to my ears! "Don't do anything.  It's perfect the way it is."  Poor Mountain Man then had to put his chain saw away for another day and my tree was saved!  Other than just the general beauty of this tree, I also love it because it is home to so many little birds.  We have the pear tree on one side of the deck and at the other end is a giant cedar tree.  Between the two, they house lots of birds, squirrels and even some bats!  Down in the front of our property, in front of a whole row of Laurel, we have established a food plot for all of our critters.  We get bags of local corn and sunflower seeds and keep a pile on the ground for whatever comes through and is hungry.  We get an incredible variety of birds, from the tiniest of wrens to the huge Pileated woodpecker hanging in the trees.  We have a resident chipmunk who has now eaten so much corn that he's starting to look like a small squirrel.  I love to watch him wander out to the pile and make himself at home right in the middle of it and spend his entire afternoon eating!  When he is on the pile, all of the birds have to work around him because he never learned to share!  We have also had a variety of other critters come to dinner.  Rabbits, raccoons, opossums, squirrels and deer.  No matter the time of day or night, whenever you look over the rail down to the food pile, there is always some bird or critter having a meal.  Part of my joy of living in the forest is making a wildlife habitat that draws all of nature close to us.  You see, we have worked out a sweet deal for everyone involved, we feed their bodies and their beauty feeds our souls.