Visitors - Country Style

Each day when I wake up I pass across the hallway from my bedroom toward the living room. I always stop at the front door and take a quick peek outside just to check for any changes which may have occurred overnight. Most mornings, things are as they were the night before when I turned off the porch light and went to bed.

Some mornings though I am surprised to see some of these changes. There have been mornings when I'd wake up to find evidence that our nutty neighbor had crept into the yard while we were sleeping. One time she put a ziploc baggie in my mailbox with a handwritten note in it. It described how she had professionals come to her home while we were sleeping and install cameras that she claimed scoped my entire front yard, recording everything my family would do during our leisure time outside. Another morning I woke up to find that she had nailed a sign to a tree in my front yard, "Beware of the Dog". Of course we took this "lady" to court and won a 1 year restraining order with an added requirement that she go to a specific facility for psychotherapy for the next year as well.

Other mornings things on the lighter side are found in my yard such as an old shoe owned by a neighbor down the road where my dog visits his Collie friend.

We find fast food bags the dogs have so kindly removed from the road as passersby carelessly litter the highway.

The first week of April I woke up to find this guy in my yard:



He appeared to be part red tick, part beagle. Although I'm not 100% sure. Over the next week or two I medicated this dog, fed this dog and loved this dog. The nutty neighbor however, saw that something new and joyful had entered our lives and called her friend up the road.

This was the friend who gave her money for her own medication, gave her food and offered to love her as I did this independent (some call them strays) dog. The nutty neighbor threatened to have this dog picked up by animal control and put to sleep. Her friend being a dog lover and owner of multiple little dogs got angry at her, called me and between the two of us, we found a very loving home for this guy. Needless to say, the nutty neighbor lost the one friend she had left who helped her through hard times.


The most recent find was these:



All total 6 have shown up in our yard this year. My Border Collie finds them in the fields and brings them home. Not all have survived the ordeal but the last one was a bit larger and no longer nursing age so we immediately got in the truck and drove 1/2 mile up the road to this beautiful cemetery to release him where hopefully my Border Collie won't find him again.

We really do enjoy all the little animals that visit us whether by their own choice or not. Country life has offered us many visits from independent dogs, cats, baby groundhogs as well as these little bunnies. We always offer them food, water, medication and love and we miss them so much when they choose to continue their journey down the road.