Just Passing Through

This wild turkey hen and her six poults are regular visitors to our lot, passing through at least several times a day. We've watched Mama Turkey successfully raise these babies since they were the size of paddle balls with legs no bigger than toothpicks. Since May, the poults have grown to more than half of Mama's size, and by early fall, they will be indistinguishable from the adult turkeys.

Early Sunday morning I was awakened by a series of clucks and grunts beneath my window that seemed to go on and on. Dragging myself out of bed, I looked outside to find an agitated Mama Turkey strutting back and forth across the front lawn, scolding and trying to round up her errant poults who were scattered throughout the garden. Like most adolescents, the poults are moving toward independence and at the same time testing their mother's patience. She finally brought them into some semblance of order and off they strutted, Partridge Family-style, into the neighboring yard. I went back to bed.

Mama Turkey has gotten so used to me that she no longer clucks the alarm and shoos her poults to safety if I accidentally run into her in the yard--just as long as I don't get too close.

The Peanut Junkie

I ended up taking out both screens. Tony Peanut was right back in the window this morning and since it was another volunteer day, I wasn't taking any chances.

Before I left, I placed an apple outside the back door. When I returned an hour later, the half-eaten apple was perched on the deck railing with Tony sitting nearby. That apple must have made a satisfying meal, because Tony refused to budge no matter how much I tried coaxing him with a peanut. But an hour later he was back, trying to cash in his rain check on that peanut.

So far, all of my postings have been about Tony Peanut. While he is a constant presence here at A House In The Woods, he's by no means the only denizen of our rural backyard habitat (just don't tell him that). So it's time for a new introduction.

The Dutch name for raccoon is wasbeer, or "wash bear," mainly for their habit of washing food before eating it. The cute guy in the photo above is Beertje (Dutch for "little bear"), who began showing up regularly at our back door last winter, although we think we met him before that. One night last summer, Mr. Michigander and I were having dinner in the backyard when a third uninvited guest had decided to join us underneath the picnic table. That fearless raccoon cub, we think, was Bear.

If it's the same raccoon, then Bear is probably a little over a year old. With his small size and dopey (but endearing) behavior, Bear still looks and acts like a baby and obviously was the runt of the litter.

He's a pretty well-behaved little guy and seems to enjoy hanging out with us in the evenings while we putter about in the yard. Once, while I was building a moss path, Bear trundled alongside me imitating my hand gestures and patting down the dirt around each newly laid section. When Mr. Michigander moved the outer door in the studio, Bear ambled in and out of the construction site, politely sniffing and exploring Mr. Michigander's tools and equipment but not getting into things.

He even tried to help us paint the front door one evening by dipping his paw into the can of paint. The red tracks he left can still be seen on our front porch. When we sat down to take a break, Bear sat behind me and gently combed through my hair with his paws!

Bear's almost complete lack of fear and his trust of Mr. Michigander and I both intrigues and worries me. For the price of a peanut or a few stale marshmallows, he'll be anybody's best friend. I don't know how or why Bear lost his instinctive fear of people at such a young age, and I worry that his fearlessness might get him in trouble someday.

Fortunately, Bear seems content to stay close to our property, dropping by nightly for his peanut fix. Sometimes he stops by in the morning for a "nightcap" before waddling off to bed in a hollowed-out tree on the northern edge of our lot.

Home Invader

Since January, I've been volunteering at a local senior citizens' home. Today I offered to host their monthly Ice Cream Social. During the hour that I was gone, Tony Peanut decided to just pop in and help himself.

When I returned home, I found him sitting on the window seat nibbling away as if he owned the place. Discarded shells were scattered in little piles around him on the bench and across the window sill.

Tony had managed to gnaw his way through the remaining window screen while I was gone. The moment he realized I was home, he dropped the peanut and made a half-hearted attempt to leave the same way he'd come in. Then he changed his mind and went right back to his peanut!

Judging from evidence left at the crime scene, Tony had already made numerous trips back and forth to the peanut bowl in the kitchen. One by one, he'd carried peanuts back to the living room to eat. Tony might be a home invader and a thief but at least he's a fastidious one. Both rooms were left surprisingly neat, other than the piles of peanut shells. Even the hole in the screen was neat--and only just big enough for him to squeeze through (you can see it in the second photo).

I opened the back door and out Tony went--that is, once he'd had his fill of peanuts! I quickly put back the missing screen so Tony wouldn't be able to climb into the window again. Five minutes later I looked up from my computer and--surprise!--there he was, sitting on the window bench watching me. He'd managed to reach the window anyway and climb inside again!

I opened the back door and shooed Tony out (he never got near the peanut bowl this time). Then I closed and locked both windows. For now, they'll stay closed until I figure out how to keep Tony from climbing in or until he simply loses interest in them.

Moral of this story? Never underestimate a squirrel's determination to get to that peanut bowl!

A New Trick

Since Mr. Michigander has been on the road a lot lately, I've set up office at the dining room table (actually two dining rooms tables pushed together end-to-end to create a single long one, as we like to entertain). From here I can see the yard, the deck, the hummers that visit the feeder directly over the double dining room windows and Tony Peanut. From his usual spot on the deck rail, Tony can see me too.

It's been a busy week, and peanut handouts have been scarcer than usual. I tend to get hyper-focused on my work, especially when I'm on deadline, and filter out everything, sometimes for hours at a time. Tony doesn't seem to mind and usually whiles away the time between handouts sunning himself on the deck or catching a snooze.

Last week was different. On Tuesday, my concentration was interrupted by a racket just below the dining room window. Looking up, I saw a small black head pop up, then quickly disappear again. Tony had managed to climb up the basement exhaust pipe beneath the dining room window. He'd been eye-balling this pipe for weeks, and though he could easily leap the three feet between the pipe and ground, he seemed to know he'd slip right off the slippery plastic.

I looked out the window but there was no sign of Tony. Then I heard something running across the roof and looked up just in time to see a small black shape launch itself off the roof edge toward the double windows!

Tony missed--and landed with an audible thump in the yard instead. In a flash, he was back on his feet and climbing toward the roof again.

By the time I reached the door, he'd pitched himself at the windows again and missed. Before he could make a third attempt, I managed to coax him down with a peanut. Minutes later, he was back on the roof again.

Worried that my squirrel had finally gone nuts (no pun intended) and fearing he might seriously injure himself, I ran to the basement and dusted off an old exercise trampoline. If I couldn't stop Tony from pitching himself off the roof, I could at least provide a soft landing. The question was, why was he doing this?

The reason became apparent when I saw Tony perched on the exhaust pipe a few minutes later. He had climbed the pipe to reach the narrow window ledge but kept slipping off. Tony wanted to sit in the window and watch me. His squirrelly brain had reasoned that he could circumvent the pipe altogether and jump from the roof instead.

So I quickly removed one of the window screens and closed the window. Problem solved. Now Tony can climb into the window frame and watch me plinking away at my computer to his heart's content.

A Squirrel With 'Tude

Meet Tony Peanut. Tony is a fox squirrel that I've taught to take peanuts from my hand. He's sort of a character--a squirrel with 'tude, you might say.

Since I first came to know him eight months ago, Tony has become a daily fixture in my life. He arrives every morning by 7:30. If it's a weekday morning, I'm already at work on my computer at the dining room table. Tony sits patiently on the deck railing, where there's a good view of me through the dining room window, and patiently waits until I look up and notice him. Then, on cue, he scampers to the door to await his coveted peanut.

Tony isn't the only squirrel who comes to the door for a handout. But he's the only one who shows up every day, consistently on time. Other squirrels come and go. But Tony is here every day, all day--sometimes until 9 p.m.

It can't be just the peanuts. He buries most of them in the woods beyond our backyard. Sometimes Tony just ignores the proffered peanut, preferring instead to stretch out on the deck railing and watch me through the window for hours.

I often wonder why he spends so much time here. Is it possible that he enjoys my company as much as I enjoy his?