The Neighbors
As you know, we’ve got some interesting neighbors. Not the gas station folks, or even our other neighbors (we just met one of them the other day, Sven is his name), I’m talking about our back yard neighbors. Let me introduce you to them. There’s Vinny and Boots, the goats and . . . well, we haven’t named the chickens so you’ve got the white chicken and the brown chicken.
When we look out the window from our dining room, this is often the view we have. Apparently our neighbors are a bit nosy and every time we’re hangng around the kitchen and dining area, they tend to come over to check us out.
Not without good reason I guess. You see, even though Wim, our landlord, says we don’t have to formally feed them, every morning we head on out to toss them a bit of their food from their bins (“Not too much - only a handful” in Wim’s voice [he’s right about that - a little bit goes a long way]). So every morning they’re in a little goat and chicken feeding frenzy. Sharks have nothing on goats and chickens.
And since we feed them every morning, every time we walk out into the back yard, well . . . they come a running.
And there they are, acting like they’re starving.
It’s even gotten to the point where, when we’re just hanging out in the dining area or cooking, Vinny will start baaaaaaa-ing to get us to feed him. I think he realizes that Ann has a soft-heart with a deeply ingrained guilt complex (read: sucker), who does things like buy apples and celery to give them small nibbles of each every day.
Vinny, is short for Vincent van Goat. Apparently Vincent is a common Dutch name for a goat. I don’t know if it’s for the same reason as our nick name. We shortened it to Vinny, because he acts like a mob enforcer around the food. If we’d waited a bit longer to name him, we would have called him Butt Head because that’s what he does, butts the chickens and Boots to try to hoard all the food.
That would have made Boots (below), Bevis. But alas, we call him boots cuz of his feet. Boots is younger and was very sweet, though he too is picking up some of Vinny’s traits and is starting to butt back. And that includes the chickens.
The chickens, well they don’t stand much of a chance against the goats, so they wisely hold back and jump in for any scraps they can get. Though they know to follow me (I’m not sure if it’s me, or my clucking. I think they understand me . . . ). When Ann is feeding Vinny and Boots some celery at the fence, I’ll walk over and toss a very small amount of seed, spread out over a broad area that the chickens will jump at. The goats, after they’re done with what Ann has for them, tend to come over and wonder what the chickens are picking at.
So yeah, when we come walking out, the chickens also come running over. Ok, maybe I’m a sucker too.
The chickens are not egg-laying chickens, so I have no idea why they’re here. The goats are interesting company. The chickens, well, they look good, so maybe they’re ornamentation! Then again, they talk to me, unlike the goats. Ann says they’ve taken a liking to me in particular, so maybe they just want me to hang out with them.
Anyway, they’re very attractive and have a way of wandering all around their enclosure just like the goats.
At first, we were surprised that one of them likes to hop the fence and nibble on things around the yard.
But just last week, the other one decided she didn’t like missing out on the action, so the brown one also has taken to hanging out in the back yard.
I wouldn’t call it hanging out, but more like loitering under the bird feeders looking for handouts.
Given we live in the country, our residential neighbors aren’t our only neighbors.
When spring arrived, birds started returning and we decided we should fill the feeders around the yard. And with bird feeders and new types of birds, you have photo opportunities. Hey, if Thomas Heaton can try his hand at wildlife photography . . .
. . . so can we!
They’ve become a joy to watch and identify.
Ann has an app where we identify and locate all the new birds we see, both at home and on our walks.
Plenty of them are common birds,
but when you see them close up, they’re incredibly beautiful.
Even birds that look plain from a distance seem to have interesting markings or feather patterns up-close.
Or maybe it just doesn’t take much to entertain the Terrells.
Regardless, we now have 5 different feeders up, though some are more popular than others. We’re working on figuring out why that is.
And it’s not just birds. A couple of times over the past month, I’ve seen a hare (think jackrabbit and huge, not bunny rabbit) hopping around in the back yard. So imagine our surprise as we were walking down the drive past the Shell station on the way back from our walk when we spotted not one, but two hares just outside our yard by the edge of the road. As we approached our driveway, they noticed us and hopped over the ditch into the tulip field. Then out from the bushes came a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, who all hopped over the ditch to join the others. Then a sixth, and then a seventh. They raced into the middle of the field, then started hopping around playing with each other.
Imagine that, a colony of hares in the neighborhood. Or should that be a drove of hares? A husk? Maybe a nest, or a Fluffle! Which is it? (Answer: all of the above).
Then of course there is the neighbor we have not seen. Wim tells us there is a badger in the neighborhood. It’s rarely seen and like all badgers, we were advised to stay away if we do. Still, it’s good to know one’s around. And of course, the forests across the way where we take our walks have deer, though we’ve only seen a couple.
That ’s it. Plenty of animals in the neighborhood to keep us amused.
Oh, one last thing about Vinny. He may try to act like a tough guy, but once it starts drizzling, his head dips, his shoulders rise up and he hobbles back to the shed to stay dry. He’s actually a bit of a wimp in the rain. Boots and the chickens just watch him go, until it really starts raining. Then they join him. They’re smart that way. Kinda like how they’ve figured us out.