"Friends and Family"

The first hungry visitor to come was Jerry. I named him that for one of my ex-husbands because that's who he reminded me of, plodding along as if on his last legs, gray and ancient in appearance. The main difference is the fat : Old Jerry had none; he looked like steel wool on legs : tough and wiry and taking no prisoners. New Jerry looks like a plump old uncle who cannot resist anything that smells of sugar...or any food smell at all, actually. Which is understandable since New Jerry is a possum. (Yes, I know : Opossum. Still, Jerry's a possum). Of course, he can do more than just toddle around looking for a handout; that possum can move when he takes a notion!

Before too long, Jerry's family arrived and they all moved in under the tent and made themselves at home. (A house trailer is the closest I've come to living in a tent. It's portable, in the sense that it can be hauled from place to place and set up wherever there's a pad for it. It's a temporary shelter I can live in while I wait for a place where I can set up a literal tent to live in. Might not happen, but you never know. Meantime, this is the best I can do) It's difficult to keep a possum and his family fed, when Jerry keeps taking my pans and bowls. I had the perfect feeding dish : a 14-inch w 6-inch deep metal bowl that held an entire meal for Jerry, and at least one of the kids, but noooo........clever Jerry had to drag it away, likely under the trailer, where I have no ideas about what he's doing. I've been told that Jerry might ought to have been named Geraldine, Gerry for short...since the kids showed up. Apparently, possums get really fat when they're pregnant females. I think there are twins, a boy and a girl. I say this because when I was still putting out food on the deck for them, one small one ran like the dickens when she saw me open the front door. Another time, a small one just backed casually over into the corner until I went back inside, then calmly moseyed on back over to finish his supper.

The next visitors who came were the deer, who left tracks and deer scat in my back yard. I had seen them once in the distance, in the field behind the tent. Recently I've been scattering corn in the yard for them, especially since a huge portion of their feeding grounds has been destroyed by the trees being "harvested" in the past month. I have a feeling that there will be more and more coming around, looking for a handout. You know, all that word really means is "a hand reaching out to help." We owe such aid to all of them, to every creature who is helpless to fight against man's insatiable desires. The largest group I've seen so far was nine. I'm hoping to see more.

My next single beggar was Garfield at first, because he ate like a pig, anything you fed him. He was a yellow rack- of-bones tabby. He came a month or so after I moved in. He looked pitiful, and he was skittish, even though he'd come right to the door and meow to let me know he was out there. After a few months, Garfield had filled out to a handsome, stocky tabby who I renamed Morris, one, because he looks like Morris the Cat who used to do TV commercials, and two, because he stopped being a desperate eater. I think maybe one of the neighbors around has sort of adopted him, too, because he will disappear for months at a time, then I'll hear him at the door, begging for a handout that he likely doesn't need! He's always fit-looking, with a healthy coat and clear eyes. He turned out to be the gentlest tomcat I've ever met. I have a neutered tom named Grayson, and a spayed lady named Sassy Mae, neither of whom was/is enthused about feeding Morris. There have been times when Grayson challenged him, but Morris always turned away with sort of a resigned look and left. He is in no way aggressive with other cats, and once he got used to me and understood that I would not harm him, he let me pet him...even insists on it sometimes! Of course, if Grayson is present, he lets me know just how much that ticks him off. Grayson is possessive of me, except when it comes to Sassy. Anything she does is okay with him, because she raised him from 5 weeks. We raised him; I did the feeding and she did the teaching. Sassy was spayed, but that did nothing to detract from her mothering instincts. Now, Morris comes once in a blue moon, never hangs around for long, just eats and runs. Such is the way of the traveling man : here today, gone tomorrow.

My third group of company came in the form of hummingbirds. We saw them before buying feeders, when Stan and I were sitting out back enjoying the scenery. Suddenly, we both heard a loud whirring noise, then a hummingbird appeared and hovered before us for a minute, then flew away. It was almost as if she was saying, "Okay, we've arrived. Feed us." We hosted only five or six for the summer, but in the latest part of Summer, I was sitting on the back deck and noticed a lot more activity around the feeders than usual. I couldn't count the birds, there were so many! Then I looked up through the hardwoods at the edge of the yard and saw hundreds of hummingbirds either perched on branches and twigs, or fluttering around throughout the intertwining branches of several trees. It was the most amazing sight! The next day, there was not one hummingbird in sight. It was as if the huge flock had settled in for an overnight pit stop, and picked up some fellow travelers before heading out on the next leg of their journey. Feeders are out and ready. We are waiting with bated breath for them to reappear. Planting morning glories, petunias, and moss rose tomorrow!

I don't count the various other birds in the area as visitors, since I don't feed them. I have cats, and it would be like baiting the birds so the cats could"have at them." I feed my cats very well. They don't need the thrilling experience of hunting down a helpless bird and tormenting it to death for fun. (Of course, here in the house, if they torment a mouse or rat to death, it's not for fun; it's serious business. Do you have any idea how nasty a mouse-infested house smells? Not pleasant).

My most recent guest was a young tom turkey, who I'm sure has displaced and separated from his family by the disappearance of the woods that used to stand around the back field. I had been seeing him out in the field, and I knew he was a tom because he spread his tail feathers a few times. A few days ago, I saw him fairly close to the tent, so when I went out that evening to put out corn for the deer, I included a few piles for the turkey. He showed up yesterday afternoon and gobbled down his meal, then walked over and stood right outside my kitchen window, making that noise that only a wild turkey makes. I figured he might be thirsty after eating all that dry corn, so I put a container of water on the ground in front of the deck. Of course, as soon as he noticed me, he squawked and took off, flying low over the blackberry bushes, and headed into the trees to the left of the field. I'm not worried. He'll be back. I put out more corn.

So far, that's the extent of my wild company. I've had a few domestic guests, and Morris wasn't exactly feral, but he was headed in that direction, so I kind of consider him wild, too. I hope for more company of the wild variety. I figure eventually the squirrels will come down from the trees after corn, too, but I can't count them as visitors since they lived here before I did, and will be here long after I've gone. Of course, if one of them ever decides to eat corn from my hand, he'll officially join the roll of visitors who only come for a handout. As long as I have a hand to reach with, and a mind to direct it, they're all welcome here. They're already part of the Family I belong to. I hope they one day decide that I am their Friend.