Country tales

Sometimes living in the “boonies” is very inconvenient. Just going to the store has to be planned in advance with a list because if you forget anything you have to take that 5 mile drive back into town or forgo the thyme in your dinner dish. But more times then not I really enjoy living out in the country. We always have the beautiful scenery of the vineyards or an interesting visitor that just decided to drop in, like the blue heron that landed in the vineyards yesterday. My mom grabbed the camera and got a few shots of him walking around until our German Sheppard caught site of him and he flew away. And just the other day as we were hand labeling in the cellar I look over to see a large skunk scurry out of a hole and run across the pasture. But lately the largest nuisance has been the coyotes. They keep taunting our dog; Roxanne in the middle of the night, howling and whaling, encouraging her to answer back. Three nights in a row I have been woken up at all hours to their “communicating”.

Growing up in the country my sister and I had some unusual pets. Occasionally my dad would find a baby jack rabbit while walking through the vineyards and he would bring it home. Our first baby jack rabbit was named Buster and my mom bought a harness so that we could walk him around outside. One day while taking Buster for a walk my sister and I were arguing over who was going to hold the rope. Sure enough I dropped the rope and away Buster flew into the vineyard, harness and all, never to be seen again.  We also had out share of other pets including lizards, tag poles, mice, baby birds, turtles and a baby deer. Of course living in California we did encounter the occasional snake, usually the harmless Gardner snake which my mom decided should be better left outside. All in all some of our pets might have been a bit odd but that is how we do it out here in the California countryside.