Quietly whirring up my half-mile driveway this evening, feeling all pious and one with nature, a flashing blond blur popping out of a gopher hole made me jam the brakes on my Prius, slam the sucker into "Park" and quietly approach the northwest corner of my lot. Then I saw it again and realized I was looking at a miniature version of the blond lady weasel that cleaned out all the gophers and voles in my garden late last month
I almost shouted, "Cool, a weasel pup kit out hunting." but I knew if I was loud, the kit would hide for a while and I may not see it the rest of the night. So, I quietly burned a few electrons, parked the Prius in the driveway and hauled out my spotting scope. It's somewhat unusual to see on kit without its litter mate and I was afraid that one of the several raptor that hang around here had bagged one of the baby weazes. Patience paid off and within two minutes both kits were engaged in a serious game of weasel grab-ass, ranging on th edge of my fruit tree line.
When I moved down here from Silicon Valley, I openly hoped I'd see a lot of wild things. My list just keeps growing: big surly mommy possums, drop dead serious bait tank inspecting raccoons, miners cats (aka "ringtails") and now wild long tailed weasels with fractious kits. My dog buddy is somewhat cautious since he was nearly eaten by a coyote, but he's all better, even though that particular exposure to the local wildlife set me back a couple of thousand bucks.
I've reached the point in my life where things have changed radically and I'm getting more comfortable with the changes. I still miss reporting and my job producing the Demo shows, but I'm looking forward to the next phase of my life: building a cottage so my 89 year old mom can enjoy the wildlife too and we can sit in our rockers on her new covered porch and laugh at clumsy coyote pups, fractious young weasels and watch golden California sun sets over the San Diego Coast. Jim Forbes on 07/16/2007
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