Tommy and I lived in cities, suburbs and small towns the first ten years we were married. During that time frame we moved 16 times, often once or twice a year. It seemed there would always be three wonderful neighbors who became life long friends and one neighbor who was Satan's third cousin. Eventually we would reach the end of our patience and move. It was either make the move or kill the demon possessed neighbor. We chose to move. We liked starting over and living in new states, so the move was never anything either of us regretted.
When Tommy and I became serious about buying a house, we both agreed we wanted no neighbors within sight of our home. We set our priorities. His desire was to be able to pee anywhere he wanted to on his land without anyone spying on him. I wanted to wake up and not have a house full of other people's kids waiting for me to fix breakfast. We both wanted a home filled with our children and all sorts of animals to raise. We were up for any adventure.
We found our lifetime home in the want ads. The house was too small from the beginning. That suited us fine. We wanted to remake it according to the Carter's hopes and dreams. We also had six acres, a raggedy stable and a small pond; most of all we had no neighbors that we could see. Life was good.
We soon discovered we had neighbors, only a different variety than we were used to having...but just as pushy at times as the other neighbors had been. Gone were the drunks fighting on Saturday night. The only gunshots to fill our air came from our guns...and those shots were few and far between. However when deer season began in November, our countryside sounded like a battlefield. For the most part our life remained quiet. The police never raced down our gravel road in hot pursuit of a felon. Child abuse was non existent on our road. It took a little while to get used to the peace and quiet and to mentally slow down a notch or two.
Soon we learned that living in the country can be very noisy. A large portion of Mother Nature waits for the sun to set before they begin to play. We sat outside at night, in our double swing, and listened to nature's night shift take over. Spring leapers would begin their mating calls, whippoorwills echoed their version of "I am so Lonesome I Could Cry" while the coyotes began to howl and circle the woods. Slowly the coyotes would venture in toward the pond, peeping through the cattails silently. Soon they began to yelp and cry changing to a slow, long howl of yelps. Our dogs, and there were many dogs over the years, would chase the coyotes away. Before the dogs could make it back to the house, the coyotes would regroup and begin their greeting calls to each other with the chorus of "Shall we Gather at the Pond" thrown into the mix. I found the yelps and howls of coyotes unsettling at times but always fascinating.
Deer visited our woods and ate our garden in the moonlight while the coyotes sang their song from afar. Eventually the dogs and the coyotes chased the deer away. Then they chased each other away. It was like a revolving door...everyone came back eventually. They all had fun tearing up our gardens.
We are down to two dogs now. One is a German Shepherd named Sabella and the other is a Yellow Lab named Sandy. Sandy is the 'Granny Grunt, Queen Bee, and Grand Dame' of our home. She is fourteen years old, has chronic arthritis, very few teeth, little to no energy and sleeps all day and all night. We know she is on the downhill slide of life. Sandy has now become a house dog. She cannot tolerate the heat or the cold, nor could she fight off a coyote if she had to. Sabella keeps her company in the winter. Since the 'girls', as we call them, are in the house 90% of the time now, the coyotes have once again become brave and nosey. We saw one in our yard on Tuesday, an ugly little critter. She was doing the 'nose down, ears up slink' across a portion of our yard. It has been years since we have seen a coyote in our yard during the day. It is not uncommon to see deer and turkeys feeding in that portion of the yard however, after Tuesday it became more of risk for them to feed there than it has been in years past. As a last resort, Tommy shot the invading coyote.
Twice this week coyotes woke us up yelping and howling like a small band of angry Indians planning an attack. The girls slept through the ruckus. Tommy and I laid in bed and listened to the chorus. At 2:30 in the morning he said, "So do you really want to start raising chickens this summer?" Judging by the music we were listening to, I should have said 'no' BUT I do enjoy chickens and we will regain control of our yard once the weather gets better. After all, when a person has lived next door to Satan's third cousin, that person can just about do anything when push comes to shove.
The Girls...
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