Helping Nature

I've started umpteen numbers of posts and declined to either finish them or publish the ones I felt were as full as that moment had.  I have filled a dictation notebook with handwritten thoughts and perusings, yet still failed to do more than read them for my own pleasure or otherwise.

Getting back into blogging after such a long absence is difficult.  Lord knows I certainly have opinions on anything I am aware of and could easily form an opinion on anything I am not aware of if asked.  And my many years of steady postings proves I do enjoy sharing my thoughts.  Hmm.......  What to do?

Get back on the horse I guess would be the logical thing to do.  Damn the inanities, the boorish and self centered tendencies I carry in my character make up bag.  Just sit down and write like I am now.

So here it is, my crude rebirth as they say.  Hopefully I will follow up tomorrow or the next day with something at the least only mildly uninteresting.

BTW  - The image at the top is a Kodak Moment I caught the other night.  This fat cat or big mama is absolutely the largest Salamander I have ever seen in Maine or anywhere else for that matter.  For ten minutes this big bruiser laid stretched out in all his/her glory and did not move a muscle.  As soon as I placed a ruler next to him/her so I could document his/her imense-ness, the little bugger started moving.  Take my word for it, he was almost 12 inches long, tip to tale.  Once he got his steam up he relocated into the garage and was joined by a smaller salamander.  They retired under the fuel oil tank for several minutes.  Maybe an hour later, I saw him/her hook up with yet another even smaller salamander.  They headed over towards the work bench I use for gardening.  I can only imagine what went on among the clay pots and fertilizer.

The whole time I had left the garage door open in an effort to not interfere with the time honored traditions of nature during early spring.   Critters meet, they mate, and then go their merry ways.  So around midnight I woke up on the couch and remembered I had left the garage door open.  It is not a good thing around here to leave garage doors open.  Thieves clad in fur, some with fangs, will violate the sacred garage space and tear into trash bags and leave their scent on boxes and crates.  So I hurried down to check for damage and to close the door.  Damned if the Salamander Dance was not still in full swing.  All three Salamanders with Big Boy/Mama protecting their rear, were hot on the trail of a very small frog who had decided to tease them.  I watched as the frog allowed them to get close and then hopped away to a new spot.  Salamander patrol would inch their way close again, and hop went the frog. 

I was tired and this sort of entertainment is fine when in the mood for it, but I wanted to go to sleep.  My quandary was what to do with the door.  I could not, would not leave it open.  But I wanted the outside animals who were currently inside to be outside once thier business was concluded.  I found a rock and dropped the door on it, leaving enough room for any and hopefully all of them to find their way back outside by morning.  I could live with them in the garage, but my wife, well, she has hard and fast rules about what critters she considers inside critters.  Having closed th door, I went to sleep and in the morning, it appeared all had found the egress and returned to the wilds of the outdoors.

Later...................................................