The wilderness that is our yard by Nicole

I throughly enjoy looking out our windows. These days I almost always see a couple of Mourning Doves, also known as Turtle Doves. I sure love watching this couple. It brings me joy knowing that they are mated for life and the chase each other around. It usually appears as if they are playing some sort of tag or chase, and it's really cute. I was reading about these birds today and found them pretty fascinating. Both mom and dad bird sit on the eggs. The dad bird take the day shift, and the mom bird the night shift. Also, when they are ready to build their nest, the dad bird takes the mom bird to a few different sites and lets her choose which one she wants to build the nest in. Once she chooses, he flies all over gathering nest parts and brings them to the mom bird and she builds the nest. I think it's pretty romantic that the male takes the female to different sites for the nest. I do not however think its romantic that the dad bird stands on the mom birds back while she builds the nest after he has gathered the parts! I mean really, does she really need him standing on her back?!

Another thing we really enjoy through our windows are the lovely sounds and occasional site of the Western Meadowlark. They are Trent's favorite bird and their sound fills his heart with joy as it reminds him of his Grandparents who also loved those beautiful birds. Take 15 seconds to see and hear the beautiful sounds of the Western Meadowlark, here. They have become a favorite of mine as well, and strangely enough reminds me of Trent's grandparents, whom I unfortunately never got to meet.

We did say goodbye to another yard dweller the other day, this one i was not sad to see go. Another yucky, large rodent had decided to live in the dog house that was in the back corner of our yard (don't worry it is REALLY far away from the house and the van!). I had a bit of country girl blood flowing through me on Sunday and was actually excited about hunting down the rat and killing it. Trent and I had this elaborate plan, which required 2 more people, to surround the dog house and trap it and kill it. So I called up the ranch owners son and he and his friend came over. They marched right back to the dog house and killed the rat before Trent had even gotten outside. Trent felt a little silly because he could have killed it himself, but he thought it was going to make a run for it or something. The reason it was so easy to kill was that it was....bleck...nursing babies. GAH! They are also dead, as they would be grown in a few more weeks and you just can't have rats taking over your yard. I am still human though, as I do feel a twinge of sadness when I think about those baby rats dying. Then I remind myself that I am almost certain that rats came after the fall. I really doubt any of those rodents were running around the Garden of Eden. So all in all, I'm very glad to see them go. It appears that there is a male packrat somewhere around here, but probably dwelling some distance away, as these rats can be very territorial and fight each other. We'll be keeping an eye out though, because we certainly don't want another rat around here!

We also wake up to coyotes fighting in our yard sometimes. It can be a little frightening listening to them right outside the window, but they run off soon enough.

And we'll leave you with this: We started a compost pile (which of course, was about 5 feet away from the dog house, which Trent is going to burn) and we've been going back and forth trying to decide of we should have a compost pile or not. We are totally for compost because it is less wasteful and makes sense. BUT, we also feel like we are just feeding the wilderness (coyotes, rodents, gophers, and whatever else lives out there!).