never saw it coming

“We cannot change our past.
We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way.
We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have,
and that is our attitude.”
Charles R. Swindol

(the twins / Julie Cook / 2016

Traversing back and forth from Dad’s every other day takes me along a variety of roadways…
with the longest of stretches being two major interstates.
I merge onto one interstate that actually runs from South Carolina all the way to Texas.
My jumping-on point is considered more of a rural area in my lovely southern state,
just before the state line of Alabama.

It is an area that sees its fare share of “wild” animals crossing and being killed.
Coyotes,
possums,
armidillos
beavers
groundhogs
the poor errant dog or cat…

Many of the casualties are deer, whitetail deer which are native to Georgia.

Most animals who live near such roadways are pretty savvy when it comes to crossing and vehicles…
particularly vehicles that are zipping up and down the roadways at the speed of sound.
Yet sadly there are some poor animals that just aren’t so smart
as their naiveté sadly gets them, as well as any people involved, killed.

And of course there are those times that a deer is being chased by a predator…
Chased to a one way date with disaster…

In our area that predator is most likely a coyote.

Coyotes, when hungry enough, will run a deer to exhaustion before the final and deadly attack.

When being chased, as with the unfortunate deer living near the busy interstates,
there is not much choice but to take that precarious chance,
darting out into the line of speeding vehicles…

It’s a do or die situation….

With the results most always being sadly…death.

As the frantic deer, racing for its life, never saw it coming…
that being the car or truck that was to hit it…
just as that same car or truck never saw the deer darting our in front of them…
not until it was too late….

Just never a good thing…

We’re a lot like those deer you and I…

We’re being chased by a fierce and hungry predator…

We are being chased by a most cunning foe…
An ancient adversary who knows that we can be easily exhausted.

He works at wearing us down as his hot breath licks at our heels
All the while, we are none the wiser…
For we don’t even realize there is a chase taking place…
We’re simply running, busying ourselves with our own interests and desires.

And that’s the thing…

We never realize that our lives, nay, our very souls
hang in a precarious balance…
of life and death…
That is…not until it’s all too late…
as we never saw it coming….

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand
against the devil’s schemes.
Ephesians 6:11

Hunter or hunted

“He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.”
― Jack London

“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”
Lord Byron

(a coyote crouches in search of his breakfast / Cades Cove, Tn / The Great Smokey Mountains National Park / Julie Cook / 2015)

(wild mountain turkey / Cades Cove, Tn / The Great Smokey Mountains National Park / Julie Cook / 2015)

There is one who waits hidden…
Crouching in the high grass…
Searching
Seeking
Watching
Waiting…
All with the greatest of patience

He waits for those who will hesitate, waffle, waiver, slip and fall.
Waiting patiently to devour those he can snap up when they least expect his attack.

Yet Hope has left an escape…
For there is one who has offered to take on the role of decoy and prey.
He affords us the opportunity of time and escape.. the ability to thwart the imminent attack.

Sadly there are those who are not interested in this selfless offer,
preferring to go it alone…on their own way… or worse…
choosing to simply ignore and disregard the inevitable attack.

Stealth is not on our side.
Time is questionable.
Escape improbable..

Unless, there is a sacrificial lamb…
And thankfully…
there is…

(a sheep rests on the shoreline cliffs of Gleann Cholm Cille, County Donegal, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

“Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen,” declares the LORD, “and they will fish for them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and from the clefts of the rocks.
Jeremiah 16:16

When a predator comes calling

“He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.”
― Jack London

(red shouldered hawk / Julie Cook / 2014)

“Gather up the woman and children,
and katy bar the door. . .
there’s a new sheriff in town”

It was raining.
It was also the middle of the day.
Glancing out the window, I spot something a bit out of the ordinary.
There, in the middle of the yard, in the middle of the rain, stood a bird.
And not just any bird mind you.
I did a double take.
That’s no crow. . .
Hummm. . .

By all appearances it seemed that an apex predator was making himself at home in the middle of my back yard.
And as it is most common to spy hawks soaring over head, seeing one standing in the middle of one’s yard was a bit unsettling.
Was it hurt I pondered.
Had it seen a mouse and swooped in for the kill?

I usually see hawks overhead, on a clear blue sky kind of day, lazily circling, contently catching a thermal and often being harassed by crows and mockingbirds doing their best to send the predator flying away from unsuspecting nests and young.
Growing up in the middle of Atlanta, hawks were a common sight as they are birds which appear to adapt well to change and urban growth. What do you think keeps all those city pigeons in check? However seeing one strolling around the yard is not so common.

I grabbed the camera and began snapping away. Unfortunately I was taking pictures through the slats of the shutters as I was afraid to make any noise or noticeable movement, plus I was shooting through the rain—the resulting pictures are grainy at best.

I never did see anything that he was actually chasing nor did I note an injury. He ran around a bit, which actually had me laughing as he looked a bit silly darting about in the soggy grass in the pouring down rain.
I was thankful our cats were indoors as I have read that a hungry hawk is not deterred by small dogs or cats–hunger is hunger and a predator can’t be choosy.

Eventually my feathery friend must have tired of trotting through the wet grass as he decided to fly up to a nearby small tree, confirming that he was most likely not injured.
And whereas I enjoy such encounters with the wilds of nature, I just hoped this bird was merely visiting and had not decided to take up residence. Remember, I’m wanting to get a few backyard chickens- – – as the coop is vacant, ready and waiting—No chicken dinner here, no siree.

I fear I am party to a murder most fowl……

“Murder is always a mistake – one should never do anything one cannot talk about after dinner”
Oscar Wilde

I don’t know if I can talk about this after dinner or at anytime….I feel very badly.

Once again my cliche of a life is rolling along with “the best laid plans…” phrase, again, rearing its ugly head. Meaning that my intentions are indeed truly good and noble with me thinking that I am certainly doing a good thing.. when all of a sudden, those good intentions turn and just as suddenly, head south…..

I have several bird feeders in our front yard dangling from the oak tree. The oak tree is sick, but I don’t want to talk about that. If the oak tree is as sick as I think it may be, it may have to be removed, lest it fall. But I don’t want to talk about that. It’s been losing its leaves all summer as if we live in perpetual Fall…but they don’t turn colors, they simply turn dingy and die. I love the two twin oaks that stand sentinel in front of our house. Our house was built around the two trees…without one of them or even worse, life without both tress, would be terrible….I don’t want to talk about it…..

So these bird feeders that are dangling from the oak tree that I don’t want to talk about, draw a plethora of birds to my world. I love watching the birds. The smaller birds, the various finches and the nuthatches, barely move when I come out to fill up the feeders. The woodpeckers, the bluejays, the mocking birds, the cardinals, the visiting grosbeaks, the wrens, the blue birds, as well of a wealth of out of towners, coupled with my growing bevy of mourning doves, all keep my front yard hopping in a sea of flight and fancy.

Our sweet Peaches, our 4 pound orange fluff ball of a cat, is so docile and accepted by the birds that she can sit in the grass under the tree as the birds feed on and under the tree, giving her a no never mind as they go about the task of eating me out of house and home.

Imagine my alarm as my husband came in last evening from work with the words…
“I just witnessed a murder”
“WHAT?!”
“Yep, you are one bird less”

Once I recover my composure that he was not speaking of some horrendous human sort of crime, I immediately thought of Peaches and how she must have committed the unthinkable against one of her “friends”
“Peaches?” I ask timidly..
“No, the culprit is a hawk”
“WHAT?!”
“I told you that the hawks were eyeing an orange meatball just waiting to swoop down in order to snatch up Peaches!”

But it seems the perpetrator to this horrific crime was not one of the larger hawks, not the red tail nor broad wing which screech and circle overhead as I’m out working in the yard–eyeing both me and my cat. No, this fowl on fowl attack came from a sparrow hawk…the stealthy little dive bombing predator, the Japanese Zero or the German Messerschmitt of the bird world, small, quick, agile and deadly. The predator who is not much bigger than my larger birds in the local community of which he has obviously been eyeing.

My husband was pulling down the driveway when he saw something black quickly dart into the oak tree, the sick, sad oak tree that I don’t want to talk about… and just as suddenly the black dart drops from the tree, like a rock, with deadly speed and force onto one of my unsuspecting mourning doves. My husband reported that the little hawk was not much bigger than the poor victim.

I dash out the backdoor to the yard. There, a few feet beyond the full shadow of the tree, was a strewn pile of feathers. Lots of feathers, more so than I could capture with a single image with my camera. A terrible thing.

I am sad. I feel as if I have aided and abetted this criminal and his horrendous fowl on fowl crime. I lured the victims in with the dangling feeders, filling them up, day after day after day with only the best food my humble money could afford for my fine feathered friends…they felt safe, fed, accepted and home. I set them up. Woe to me.

I have no words.

Take the feeders down you say. But the birds, they bring me such joy. This is the first occurrence of such horrific magnitude. We have endured squirrels, mass flocks of starlings who swoop in en mass like some sort of flash mob, raccoons tearing the feeders down night after night, snakes slithering up the tree to the bird houses–yes that was a bad thing and a crazy thing to watch…a giant rat snake made its way across the driveway, through the yard, up the tree and into the bird house, all as we watched the unthinkable. Thank God, no one was at home.

And now, a usurper has come to the yard, this small unsuspecting Falco Sparverius which sounds so like some Roman Gladiator, has come in, upsetting the fine balance of tranquility and peace… in and under the sad sick oak—I don’t want to talk about it.

I hate this whole balance of nature business, the whole food chain thing, the survival of the fittest, of the quickest of the smartest….I just hate one has to die so that another lives.
It’s just the way things are my husband tells me.
That doesn’t help my feelings…..

I’m sorry birds……
I don’t want to talk about it……

Nothing is hidden

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. Luke 8:17

We have a large pasture behind our house, about 6 acres. At one point our neighbor thought it a good idea to have a few cows. She is more or less a “gentleman farmer”, or in her case, gentlewoman. When she realized the cows had no profit margin, there went the cows. The pasture is now grown up in tall grass, not having been bush-hogged (also known as cutting/mowing it), in a couple of years.

It is not unsightly as it is really quite pretty in a rugged way. There are crabapple trees, which smell heavenly when blooming, along with a smattering of dogwoods that dot the pasture with popcorn white blossoms–but there is always the tall grass. Depending on the season, the grass captures the sun’s light, rewarding anyone who notices a dazzling palette of color.

One thing I’ve noticed is that this is an area of secrets. The overgrowth provides excellent cover for prey and predator alike. Each evening, at the same time, a group, of usually no less than 5 deer, seem to emerge out of this blanket of cover, crossing into our yard to nibble on our nice green grass. We’ve started putting out some corn in order to supplement their grazing– especially in the summer months when most of the vegetation dries up due to our recurring droughts.

Our kitchen window overlooks our backyard and the pasture, providing a wonderful viewing platform to watch the deer, various birds, the occasional wild turkey, the rabbits and fox. One of our cats enjoys meandering down to the edge of our yard and the pasture, imagining herself, I suppose, as a lioness surveying the savannah. She can sit for hours mesmerized watching the swaying grass and no doubt any small creature that stirs about. Mind you, the only thing she chases are butterflies, so all small animals and birds know they are perfectly safe.

It was, however, the other evening that I became quite alarmed. My husband and I were about to sit down to dinner when he noticed something ominous appearing almost magically out of the brush. It was a lone coyote. A troublesome predator in our region.

The coyote has all but decimated the wild quail population in Georgia as well as proving devastating to the wild turkey as they are opportunistic feeders, taking the eggs or young chicks of these birds. They are also becoming quite good at taking baby fawns and the pets of local residence. Not to mention the troubling rabies issue that can accompany wild animals.

We ran out on to the deck hollering at the uninvited visitor, scaring it away– for now. Needless to say that I now watch my cat, not letting her out without me following. Often I can hear the spine tingling sound of a pack of coyotes wailing off in the surrounding woods.

This all reminds me that what is good for some animals, providing cover and protection,– also provides the top tier food chain predators with the necessary element of stealthy surprise. I don’t much like that, but unfortunately that is nature’s way. It’s just that I will do my part helping those more helpless animals to stay “safe”–as long as they are in or near my yard.

A daunting task no doubt and not the most practical, but I feel I must do my part to help the ones who are struggling to survive in numbers, hang on a bit longer, as the drama of life and death unfolds in my backyard all within a beautiful overgrown pasture. Hidden secrets indeed.