{"id":273,"date":"2013-06-28T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T13:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=273"},"modified":"2013-06-27T19:46:25","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T02:46:25","slug":"273","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2013\/06\/28\/273\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to Mother Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seattle may be a major urban area, but Mother Nature is here in spades, and Mother Nature is winning.\u00a0 Today’s newspaper reported that the City of Kirkland’s Fourth of July’s fireworks display just got moved because a pair of nesting eagles have taken up residence in a nearby park.<\/p>\n

I’m writing this on my computer on my back porch.\u00a0 Currently with the heater on overhead although the weatherman insists that summer will be here next week.\u00a0 I’ll believe THAT when I see it.<\/p>\n

And why am I working out on the porch, as I have been almost all week, instead of inside?\u00a0 Because our little garden is very much a part of the circle of life.\u00a0 I don’t need to go on an African safari to see wildlife in action.\u00a0 Hour after hour, Bella is relentlessly pursuing any and all of the remaining moles who have taken up residence in our yard.\u00a0 In the process of hunting the moles, there has been some collateral damage because she has dug up any number of plants, all of which we have patiently replanted with remarkably little success.\u00a0 By the time we drag her tail first out of the holes, she’s so thoroughly covered with bark and mud that she has to be dunked in the pool to rinse off some of the crud before she races back into the house.<\/p>\n

And then there’s the bird–the wretched heron–who is every bit as relentless about pursing our poor goldfish as Bella is about chasing the mole. Sunday evening, with the help of one of our dinner guests, I chased him away twice.\u00a0 Monday morning I was out on the porch by 6:15 and so was the heron.\u00a0 I chased him once, Bella chased him once, and Bill chased him once.\u00a0 On Tuesday he didn’t show or, if he did, we didn’t see him.\u00a0 On Wednesday, we maintained our vigil in the morning, but in the afternoon we had appointments and were gone for four hours.\u00a0 During that time, Mr. Heron showed up and decimated the front pond.\u00a0 We chased him away twice when we got home.\u00a0 As he flew overhead the second time, he let out a squawk that I believe is a heron’s very audible version of a one fingered salute.<\/p>\n

\"LegoThis morning as we sat here watching, the heron came in for a landing on the columns between the house and the pond.\u00a0 When he saw us, he squealed to a stop and applied his reverse thrusters with Bella giving him a very noisy fly for his money.\u00a0 Considering the fact that the bird is probably twice the size of the dog, I think she’s a very brave little bird.\u00a0 But then again, this is the same dog who ran off to tackle a Great Dane that happened to invade what Bella regarded as her space down at Cannon Beach.\u00a0 Brave or brainless?\u00a0 I suppose the jury’s still out on that score.<\/p>\n

As far as we can tell this morning, there are no fish left in the front pond.\u00a0 None at all.\u00a0 The lily pads and the hiding rocks we installed are there, but no fish.\u00a0 Our next skirmish with said heron will be to surround the pond with a ring of fishing line, eighteen inches off the ground.\u00a0 If that doesn’t stop him, I guess the next stop, is a motion detecting scare-crow water sprayer–the will no doubt nail me countless times–and finally, ugly as it may be, some netting.\u00a0 The problem is, I’ve seen the YouTube films on the netting.\u00a0 The herons simply walk on the netting and nail the fish anyway.<\/p>\n

Years ago I lived for a time in Pe Ell, Washington, back when logging was still in it’s heyday.\u00a0 Then times changed and logging bit the dust, felled by the EPA’s efforts to protect the spotted owl.\u00a0 A few years later, when Bill and I drove through there we saw a reader board sign outside the caf\u00e9 that said, “Special Today–Fried Spotted Owl.”\u00a0 We laughed when we saw it, but we weren’t the ones losing our livelihood.\u00a0 I don’t know this for sure, but I’m guessing the caf\u00e9 in question went out of business long ago and there’s not much left of the town, either.\u00a0 As for the spotted owls?\u00a0 I’m sure they’re all just fine!<\/p>\n

I know that herons are protected birds but still, while I’m sitting here on my porch, keeping watch, I can’t help but wonder what roasted heron tastes like.<\/p>\n

Fishy, most likely.\u00a0 Goldfishy.<\/p>\n

Oops.\u00a0 I just noticed.\u00a0 Bella is gone again.\u00a0 I’d better go find her, drag her out of the mole hole, and rinse her off.\u00a0 Again.\u00a0 No wonder I’m having a tough time paying attention to Joanna.\u00a0 There’s far too much real life drama going on right here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seattle may be a major urban area, but Mother Nature is here in spades, and Mother Nature is winning.\u00a0 Today’s newspaper reported that the City of Kirkland’s Fourth of July’s fireworks display just got moved because a pair of nesting eagles have taken up residence in a nearby park. I’m writing this on my computer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3nsBA-273","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}